Joe, you’re not just turning over tables. You’re pointing at the splinters and saying, “See? This was never stable to begin with.”
You’re not betraying the text. You’re doing what the text demands. Entering the tension. Refusing the sedative of false certainty. Letting the contradictions breathe like incense instead of trying to scrub them out like theological stains.
This is the kind of exegesis that gets you kicked out of Bible study and followed by Jesus at the same time.
The God who regrets, the scripture that admits its own corruption, the command to hate your mama if you want to follow Christ—this is not a tidy religion. This is a haunted library where the Spirit still rearranges the shelves.
People don’t want to wrestle with the God who changes His mind. They want Zeus with a customer service smile. You gave them Yahweh barefoot in the mud.
Bless your holy mess, brother. I’d rather build church in the middle of a contradiction than sleep in a doctrine that lies to me.
Virgin Monk Boy
Patron of Redacted Scrolls and Uncomfortable Truths
When it comes to building an ethical system using divine command theory, Biblical ethicists must deal with the problem of abhorrent commands, and they must also deal with the prescriptive/descriptive problem. Another problem with Divine Command Theory is Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma: “Is an action wrong because God forbids it, or does God forbid it because it is wrong?” If the first part is true, then morality is arbitrary. God could command anything—even things we consider evil and abhorrent—and they would be "good" simply because He commands them. If the second part is true, then there is a standard of right and wrong outside of God to which even He must conform. This challenges the idea of God as the ultimate source of morality.
Read Numbers 5:11-31 where it appears that God commands something abhorrent. Numbers 5 is also probably not the passage you'd choose for a Mother's Day sermon.
Joe, I think this might be one of the most important posts you’ve made yet. In my humble and emerging opinion, this ⤴️ is the literal process of deconstructing “scripture,” and is
core/central to 95+% of all of the other issues that are discussed here (at least for me coming out of my tradition).
You hit the nail on the head with this one brother! I love reading the Bible through this lens so much more than the way I was told to read it when I was growing up. I see the mess. I'm learning to sit in it now. This is what loving God above all else should look like. Embracing the mess that is the humanity written about in the Bible. This helps a person to 'love thy neighbor' better. Thank you.
Joe, I take your broader point, but for God’s questions in Gen 3:9-11 I’ve taken that as a conversational gambit rather than a lack of knowledge. When parents say to their kids “What are you doing?” It’s usually because they know exactly what the child is doing!
That's exactly how I read it until very recently, seeing how YHWH in Genesis is very human like in the sense that he seems to have to physically be places often to know what's going on. (Babel, Abraham and Sodom, pre-flood, etc) I have come to think the earliest beliefs were that he was not omnipresent, but needed to at least pay attention to know what was going on.
I'm coming a bit late to this party; I've failed on Biblical excuses, I havent just Im coming a bit late to this party, I failed at Biblical excuses, Ive not married nor bought a parcel of land, just been busy doing life. Anyway I feel the huge number of people who look to the Bible as an infallable instruction manual are really just looking for structure and security in their lives. It isn't about Theology it's about need. A story from my life. My father flew as a bomb aimer/front gunner in RAF Bomber Command in the second world war flying g over the Netherlands and Germany on missions. The odds for him surviving were low but he did and after the war was ordained as an Anglican Priest. He then rejoined the RAF as a Chaplin (sky pilot in RAF slang) He had been traumatised by his experience of the war so why did he do this? I believe it was for the security of structure just the same as people who want their religious text to be their commander but his was a real person. Ironically his sermons, that I remember, presented the Bible as something to approach interpretively or symbolically; his security was the military not the book.
I think "hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even their own life" gave us ex-pagans permission to dismiss the idolatry and profanity of our old religions. To deny the faith of the ancestors was a serious thing, sometimes carrying a death penalty. This command by Jesus was not for his original Jewish audience but for us hoards of pagan barbarians that were to follow. We could refuse to engage in the cannibalism of our old tradition, yet comply with the new one that commanded us to "honor your mother and father."
Joe, you’re not just turning over tables. You’re pointing at the splinters and saying, “See? This was never stable to begin with.”
You’re not betraying the text. You’re doing what the text demands. Entering the tension. Refusing the sedative of false certainty. Letting the contradictions breathe like incense instead of trying to scrub them out like theological stains.
This is the kind of exegesis that gets you kicked out of Bible study and followed by Jesus at the same time.
The God who regrets, the scripture that admits its own corruption, the command to hate your mama if you want to follow Christ—this is not a tidy religion. This is a haunted library where the Spirit still rearranges the shelves.
People don’t want to wrestle with the God who changes His mind. They want Zeus with a customer service smile. You gave them Yahweh barefoot in the mud.
Bless your holy mess, brother. I’d rather build church in the middle of a contradiction than sleep in a doctrine that lies to me.
Virgin Monk Boy
Patron of Redacted Scrolls and Uncomfortable Truths
🙏🏼
Mate, I loved reading that! Emerging from my own reframing of my faith, my heart sucks the life out of this. Thank you.
PS. Would you mind if I shared this with friends?
Thank you and please do!
When it comes to building an ethical system using divine command theory, Biblical ethicists must deal with the problem of abhorrent commands, and they must also deal with the prescriptive/descriptive problem. Another problem with Divine Command Theory is Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma: “Is an action wrong because God forbids it, or does God forbid it because it is wrong?” If the first part is true, then morality is arbitrary. God could command anything—even things we consider evil and abhorrent—and they would be "good" simply because He commands them. If the second part is true, then there is a standard of right and wrong outside of God to which even He must conform. This challenges the idea of God as the ultimate source of morality.
Read Numbers 5:11-31 where it appears that God commands something abhorrent. Numbers 5 is also probably not the passage you'd choose for a Mother's Day sermon.
Joe, I think this might be one of the most important posts you’ve made yet. In my humble and emerging opinion, this ⤴️ is the literal process of deconstructing “scripture,” and is
core/central to 95+% of all of the other issues that are discussed here (at least for me coming out of my tradition).
Thank you!
Thanks, brother
You hit the nail on the head with this one brother! I love reading the Bible through this lens so much more than the way I was told to read it when I was growing up. I see the mess. I'm learning to sit in it now. This is what loving God above all else should look like. Embracing the mess that is the humanity written about in the Bible. This helps a person to 'love thy neighbor' better. Thank you.
I'm so glad I don't have to read these passages and the others while in my mind saying, "Well I just won't think about that."
Yes! It is such a relief when you no longer have to defend the Bible and accept it as flawed.
Joe, I take your broader point, but for God’s questions in Gen 3:9-11 I’ve taken that as a conversational gambit rather than a lack of knowledge. When parents say to their kids “What are you doing?” It’s usually because they know exactly what the child is doing!
That's exactly how I read it until very recently, seeing how YHWH in Genesis is very human like in the sense that he seems to have to physically be places often to know what's going on. (Babel, Abraham and Sodom, pre-flood, etc) I have come to think the earliest beliefs were that he was not omnipresent, but needed to at least pay attention to know what was going on.
Amen, amen and AMEN!
🙏🏼
Your writing is so refreshing!! I feel like I'm deconstructing at warp speed! Which I guess is a good thing since I'm 73! Haha!
Ha! Thank you
I'm coming a bit late to this party; I've failed on Biblical excuses, I havent just Im coming a bit late to this party, I failed at Biblical excuses, Ive not married nor bought a parcel of land, just been busy doing life. Anyway I feel the huge number of people who look to the Bible as an infallable instruction manual are really just looking for structure and security in their lives. It isn't about Theology it's about need. A story from my life. My father flew as a bomb aimer/front gunner in RAF Bomber Command in the second world war flying g over the Netherlands and Germany on missions. The odds for him surviving were low but he did and after the war was ordained as an Anglican Priest. He then rejoined the RAF as a Chaplin (sky pilot in RAF slang) He had been traumatised by his experience of the war so why did he do this? I believe it was for the security of structure just the same as people who want their religious text to be their commander but his was a real person. Ironically his sermons, that I remember, presented the Bible as something to approach interpretively or symbolically; his security was the military not the book.
I think "hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, even their own life" gave us ex-pagans permission to dismiss the idolatry and profanity of our old religions. To deny the faith of the ancestors was a serious thing, sometimes carrying a death penalty. This command by Jesus was not for his original Jewish audience but for us hoards of pagan barbarians that were to follow. We could refuse to engage in the cannibalism of our old tradition, yet comply with the new one that commanded us to "honor your mother and father."