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NASB | Exodus 20:1 Then God spoke all these words, saying, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Exodus 20:1 Then God spoke all these words: |
Bible Question:
My boyfriend was given this editorial at work by one of his co-workers. The question is why does God have conflicting commands? Letter to Editor of local newspaper: "Just imagine for a minute that the Hawaiian nation was given its sovereinty. King Kaipo Makua was chosen to rule his nation and within the Palace grounds was a cache of treasure that amounted to over 50 trillion dollars. Money was not an issue for King Makua. He had anything and everything at his disposal to thoroughly bless his people. It would be very easy to keep his nation prosperous. Continuing on this fairy tale trip, imagine the king establishing a bunch of laws. Among them he commands "thou shall not kill." Everyone agrees, this is a good law for it is better to be respectful of others and to cherish human life. Then a week or so after the king established well over 600 laws, statutes and commands, he issued another command that stated if anyone should speak evil against the king and his laws, that person shall be killed. Wait a minute, is he crazy? Is this real? Kill that person who speaks evil against the king? What kind of loving leader would issue a law like that? Isn't that what Sadaam, Mao, Hitler and Stalin all tried? With a seemingly unlimited budget to rule his people how could King Makua be doubtful that he could make everyone happy? Who in the world could, other than a robot or a puppet, endear to a leader like that? Was King Makua insane? Well, we all know how preposturous it would be for such a story to be true, yet this is exactly what the god of the Christian bible did. Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shall not kill." Deuteronomy 13:9, "but you shall surely kill him." When are the people of the real world going to realize that although some of the bible stories may be historically truthful, most of them are fairy tales that can't be taken seriously?" (end) My question is why is God contradicting Himself in Deuteronomy? How should my boyfriend explain this problem in order to share his faith? Aloha, kamschoolgrad |
Bible Answer: Dear kamschoolgrad, Your question in part, “Well, we all know how preposterous it would be for such a story to be true, yet this is exactly what the god of the Christian bible did. Deuteronomy 5:17, "Thou shall not kill." Deuteronomy 13:9, "but you shall surely kill him." When are the people of the real world going to realize that although some of the bible stories may be historically truthful, most of them are fairy tales that can't be taken seriously?" Mahalo, actually, this is one of the best reasons for donating the King James to the library of antiquities. I love the KJV, but it is a foreign language to 21st Century readers. Thou shalt (not even in my word-processing spell-check dictionary) not kill is not a good translation for 21st Century readers. Second, your question is about definitions. In Exodus 20:13, Deut 5:17 both read, "You shall not murder." NASB. The language the Old Testament was written in, Hebrew uses the same word in both verses, ratsach, which is murder. The same Hebrew word is used six times in the Old Testament, let’s look briefly at them. EXO 20:13 ¶ "You shall not murder. DEU 5:17 ¶' You shall not murder. PSA 62:3 ¶ How long will you assail a man, That you may murder him, all of you, Like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence? PSA 94:6 They slay the widow and the stranger, And murder the orphans. JER 7:9 "Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, HOS 4:2 There is swearing, deception, murder, stealing, and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed. HOS 6:9 And as raiders wait for a man, So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem; Surely they have committed crime. Regarding murder, Miriam Webster’s Online Dictionary states: “The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice or forethought.” There were six cities of Refuge, given by God to protect the person that took the life of another without intent. The example that is used is if the ax head comes off while chopping an tree and another dies. The one living could run to one of the cities of refuge until the high priest died and then go home. Numbers 13:35f . A person died, but the life of the one taking the life was saved by God’s decree because it was accidental. War as horrendous as it is, is not forbidden in the Bible. War is not murder. Accidental killing, be it by car, stupidity or accident is not murder. Murder is a drive-by shooter taking the life of a friend of mine. Murder is intentionally taking a weapon and using it until it removes the life of another. In Deuteronomy 13:9 kill means kill. The Hebrew word is harag according to my Hebrew lexicon means kill. Miriam Webster’s Online Dictionary states, “transitive verb, to deprive of life : cause the death of “ Quell is from the same etymological root. Capital punishment is not murder. Which begs to your question; If one takes the life of another, Deuteronomy 5:17 that person should be put to death Deuteronomy 13:9. [When I was a boy there was little murder because the murderer was a dead man in short order. He did not want to die, so he didn’t take the life of another. The more lenient we get on murderers the more murder occurs. The Bible never talks about prison, but it does tell us to remove the murderer from among the living.] Aloha, Rolff |