Christians Defend Psalm 137:9

[Shyone]

No matter what time the OT is from, people had to know that it's evil to kill babies.....or anyone for that matter. Freddy

Oh, no, things were different back then...

 

You kept your own babies safe and loved them and cherished them.

 

Your enemies babies heads were for crushing.

 

Them, and Us. The Isrealites had no problems killing anyone or anything that falls into the category of "enemy." Until maybe a couple thousand years ago.

[dagnarus]

I never said that all christians are fundies. Many are, though.

 

True.

 

Your comparison with quotations in Genesis 3 (which aren't of "Satan" at all, by the way) is invalid. One could argue that the text that quotes someone is inspired while not endorsing the actual quote, and that would not be illogical in and of itself. Psalm 137's comment about happily dashing infants against rocks is NOT stated as a quotation, but IS the text itself. So, NO, when speaking of fundies, they do NOT have wiggle room here.

 

What are you talking about, they always have wiggle room. The whole concept of an inerrant bible practically requires it, Why don't fundamentalist stone people who work on Saturdays? Sure, it may not make logical sense, but they have the holy spirit so it's OK, although other fundamentalists will of course turn around and judge them as being heretical for it, but what's new.

 

You are correct, the serpent in Genesis 3 was a poor analogy, but, the fact that the psalms are people praying to God for guidance, or, to give thanks or whatever, rather than people giving divine instruction from God is obvious just from reading them. And there in lies the ambiguity, When the writer of Judges wrote about the Israelites stealth giving their daughters to the Benjaminites, was he trying to make out that this was a Good thing? or was he simply recount what the Israelites did in a fucked up time in their history? Fucked if I know? This is also doubtless a poor analogy, but yeah.

 

Gotta get to work, so I'll have to read the rest of your post later....

 

Have a good one.

[dagnarus]

Okay. But he could keep his "eloquent insights" for the theology or coliseum threads, in my opinion. It's downright evil to wish lethal harm to innocent babies--no matter whose babies they are. I think telling us on a rant thread that we need to keep the lid on is inappropriate. This is why I posted in Rants and Replies rather than in Theology. I wanted permission--and the liberty--to rant.

 

I just went back to reread the original thread you were referring too, I was under the impression that that up until the maxeo nutjob started spewing his pro-baby murder (they go straight to heaven don't you know), vitriol they were largely trying to argue that the sentiments given in the psalms don't necessarily have to be interpreted as being directly Gods sentiments. Upon rereading only harvey was arguing that, and the version of biblical interpretation he was arguing for was the Jello variety. So you were completely correct in stating that there apologetics for the verse was on the whole, comparable to the piece of vomit Craig came up with for the Canaanites, disgusting.

 

And yes, that says something about me, dagnarus. It says that I sometimes have the need to rant. It also says something about you--that you have a need to control that rant for whatever reason.

 

If I broke some rule of the Rants and Replies forums etiquette I apologize. I merely thought I was responding to the subject with my thoughts on the issue. Nothing more.

[★ Citsonga ★]

What are you talking about, they always have wiggle room. The whole concept of an inerrant bible practically requires it, Why don't fundamentalist stone people who work on Saturdays? Sure, it may not make logical sense, but they have the holy spirit so it's OK, although other fundamentalists will of course turn around and judge them as being heretical for it, but what's new.

 

OK, you've got a point there. I was looking at it from a technical standpoint. Technically there really isn't any wiggle room with the psalm in question. Wiggle attempts will inevitably be irrational. But, of course, fundies tend to be irrational.

 

the fact that the psalms are people praying to God for guidance, or, to give thanks or whatever, rather than people giving divine instruction from God is obvious just from reading them.

 

I agree completely. However, for the fundies to claim that the psalms are inspired of god, then they have to consider god the source of what is written in the psalms.

 

And there in lies the ambiguity, When the writer of Judges wrote about the Israelites stealth giving their daughters to the Benjaminites, was he trying to make out that this was a Good thing? or was he simply recount what the Israelites did in a fucked up time in their history? Fucked if I know? This is also doubtless a poor analogy, but yeah.

 

Places where things are simply recorded as having happened in history can easily be seen as not endorsing the events. The narrative could reasonably be seen as an inspired recounting of actions that are not necessarily approved of (not that belief in inspiration is reasonable, but that in the context of that belief it would be reasonable to look at the narrative that way).

 

The same can be said for quotations, such as a huge chunk of the book of Job, which largely recounts a discussion between Job and his friends; the text could (it's not, of course) be inspired but that obviously wouldn't mean that everything the individuals said represents gawd's perspective.

 

But each of those is quite a different scenario from what we have in Psalm 137:9. It's not simply a recounting of something that supposedly happened, it's a case of the author, supposedly under the inspiration of god, expressing glee in dashing infants against the rocks. Therein lies the problem.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Anyway, (fuck it's hard talking about a fictional like he's real)

 

I hear ya! It's odd that I find this sort of stuff interesting when I don't believe it, but of course that's because I did believe christianity for so long that much of it is ingrained in my mind.

 

it's not clear when your reading the psalms whether or not your getting the sentiments of God, or the sentiments of men,

 

From what I recall, at least most of the psalms seem to be obvious sentiments of the human authors, not of gawd. Liberal christians could have an easy out on the issue because of that. However, when dealing with fundies who consider all of the bible to be divinely inspired, then the actual sentiments expressed in the psalms technically would have to be seen as coming from skyguy himself.

 

so why bother starting your argument with the psalms, their are plenty of verses which establish unambiguously that God is a baby killer, use those first and then use psalm 137. If you, however, talk to them about Genocide's, and other such definite atrocities first, you are forcing them to see how monstrous the God of the OT actually is, and as a consequence to argue against it they have to use argument like Craig's, which simply serve to show how monstrous the defense of this actually is. I wouldn't be shocked if his apologetic turned many away from Christianity.

 

I have to agree 100% with this.

[dagnarus]

the fact that the psalms are people praying to God for guidance, or, to give thanks or whatever, rather than people giving divine instruction from God is obvious just from reading them.

 

I agree completely. However, for the fundies to claim that the psalms are inspired of god, then they have to consider god the source of what is written in the psalms.

 

Do they? Do you have a dictionary definition of what, God breathed actually means? Fact is, if a person was a fundamentalist on every other part of the bible, saying that it was inerrant word of God, but that because of how they are written the psalms are basically all quotations of various different psalmists, some revealing prophetic utterances, others revealing how humans cry out to God in their affliction, or whatever, would they suddenly be a moderate? If you said that this was inconsistent with how they viewed the rest of the biblical texts, they could easily argue that the psalms are clearly written in a different way to the other biblical texts, and thus it makes sense that they might be viewed differently.

 

The fact of the matter is that in a debate with anyone you can't tell them how they have to treat doctrine, just why their doctrine is silly, and their interpretation is stupid. If somebody told you that they viewed the psalms in this somewhat different light, would you argue back that they are somehow not allowed to have that position? Again this probably isn't that relevant with fundies, as at least from the thread they seem willing to argue that killing infants is sending them straight to heaven, or that it was okay back then, because of relative morality or some such bullshit. In retrospect this probably has more to do with me working out how I feel about the doctrine of my old church, and the paradox that God's is thought of as sending the Israelites off to kill every last infant in Amalek (and I don't even think they necessarily believed in infant salvation), but verses like psalm 137:9 were considered as representing man's view and somehow being separate from God.

[R. S. Martin]

 

I just went back to reread the original thread you were referring too, I was under the impression that that up until the maxeo nutjob started spewing his pro-baby murder (they go straight to heaven don't you know), vitriol they were largely trying to argue that the sentiments given in the psalms don't necessarily have to be interpreted as being directly Gods sentiments. Upon rereading only harvey was arguing that, and the version of biblical interpretation he was arguing for was the Jello variety. So you were completely correct in stating that there apologetics for the verse was on the whole, comparable to the piece of vomit Craig came up with for the Canaanites, disgusting.

 

Thank you, dagnarus. My respect for you just went up a couple notches.

 

I also appreciate your description of "that nutjob Maxeo." He has quite a healthy opinion of his own intellectual capacity for insight; in his opinion it far supercedes that of any educated mere atheist.

[★ Citsonga ★]

However, for the fundies to claim that the psalms are inspired of god, then they have to consider god the source of what is written in the psalms.

 

Do they? Do you have a dictionary definition of what, God breathed actually means?

 

LOL, well, there may not be a "dictionary definition" of "god breathed," but it HAS to mean that GOD is the ultimate source of the message being conveyed. Otherwise calling it "god breathed" makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

Fact is, if a person was a fundamentalist on every other part of the bible, saying that it was inerrant word of God, but that because of how they are written the psalms are basically all quotations of various different psalmists, some revealing prophetic utterances, others revealing how humans cry out to God in their affliction, or whatever, would they suddenly be a moderate? If you said that this was inconsistent with how they viewed the rest of the biblical texts, they could easily argue that the psalms are clearly written in a different way to the other biblical texts, and thus it makes sense that they might be viewed differently.

 

If dealing with fundies, you can corner them by asking why the hell it's in the "Holy Bible" allegedly "inspired by God" if it's just the thoughts and feelings of man. If the fundies as a whole really viewed it as you're saying, they'd most likely be having bibles printed without the psalms and then possibly having the psalms printed separately as side reference material. The fundies I know consider the WHOLE bible to be inspired by gawd.

 

The notion of a christian considering the psalms not inspired would indeed indicate to me a more liberal christian perspective.

 

The fact of the matter is that in a debate with anyone you can't tell them how they have to treat doctrine, just why their doctrine is silly, and their interpretation is stupid. If somebody told you that they viewed the psalms in this somewhat different light, would you argue back that they are somehow not allowed to have that position?

 

LOL, of course not. You can't tell someone that they CAN'T hold a particular position. But you can show them that they are being stupid and inconsistent, and that they've pretty much destroyed their standard claim that the bible is the perfect, inspired, inerrant word of god.

 

Again this probably isn't that relevant with fundies, as at least from the thread they seem willing to argue that killing infants is sending them straight to heaven, or that it was okay back then, because of relative morality or some such bullshit.

 

I agree that that's not really relevant to the standard fundies, since they are not usually prone to admitting that a single word in the bible is not inspired by gawd.

 

In retrospect this probably has more to do with me working out how I feel about the doctrine of my old church, and the paradox that God's is thought of as sending the Israelites off to kill every last infant in Amalek (and I don't even think they necessarily believed in infant salvation), but verses like psalm 137:9 were considered as representing man's view and somehow being separate from God.

 

It's good to work through stuff like this. I know (from my experience as well) that it can be difficult to think outside the box on things that one has heard presented the same way over and over for years and years. Most of us, including myself, probably unknowingly still retain misinformation we learned at church.

 

I agree that your old church's stance there doesn't seem to make much sense.

[★ Citsonga ★]

However, for the fundies to claim that the psalms are inspired of god, then they have to consider god the source of what is written in the psalms.

 

Do they? Do you have a dictionary definition of what, God breathed actually means?

 

LOL, well, there may not be a "dictionary definition" of "god breathed," but it HAS to mean that GOD is the ultimate source of the message being conveyed. Otherwise calling it "god breathed" makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

Actually, on second thought, I DO have a dictionary definition of "inspiration." I just whipped out my "Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms" (published by IVP), and here is what it says:

 

inspiration. A term used by many theologians to designate the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling the human authors of the Bible to record what God desired to have written in the Scriptures. Theories explaining how God "superintended" the process of Scripture formation vary from dictation (the human authors wrote as secretaries, recording word for word what God said) to ecstatic writing (the human authors wrote at the peak of their human creativity). Most evangelical theories of inspiration maintain that the Holy Spirit divinely guided the writing of Scripture, while at the same time allowing elements of the author's culture and historical context to come through, at least in matters of style, grammar and choice of words.

 

I would contend that the "ecstatic writing (the human authors wrote at the peak of their human creativity)" could only be considered "inspired" in about the same sense as someone who feels "inspired" when writing a song or a poem or such. It wouldn't technically be GOD-inspired, but just a sense of feeling inspired.

 

The rest of the definition would correspond to what could be considered god inspired or "god breathed."

[dagnarus]

Do they? Do you have a dictionary definition of what, God breathed actually means?

 

LOL, well, there may not be a "dictionary definition" of "god breathed," but it HAS to mean that GOD is the ultimate source of the message being conveyed. Otherwise calling it "god breathed" makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

My church had a concept that God breathed meant something mystical, I.E. that when you were reading the Bible in the proper way (the dead letter kills), you were kind breathing in God's breath, eating God/the tree of life, or whatever.

 

If dealing with fundies, you can corner them by asking why the hell it's in the "Holy Bible" allegedly "inspired by God" if it's just the thoughts and feelings of man. If the fundies as a whole really viewed it as you're saying, they'd most likely be having bibles printed without the psalms and then possibly having the psalms printed separately as side reference material. The fundies I know consider the WHOLE bible to be inspired by gawd.

 

The notion of a christian considering the psalms not inspired would indeed indicate to me a more liberal christian perspective.

 

As stated above the thought was that when you were reading the bible you were not merely attempting to get doctrinal knowledge, (this would be considered going to the tree of knowledge of good and evil), but to eat God/breath God as it were. The psalms still would be considered to be good for this purpose, also if you were reading the psalms in this way, you would be being guided by the spirit of God to see that things such as psalm 137:9 weren't of the divine thought, but the human thought, this could also serve to expose you, realizing that often when you are supposedly serving God, you don't always do so with the divine thought, but the human thought, in this way having the human thought in the psalms could be thought to be beneficial. I see that the main point on which this interpretation falls down upon is that their is no holy spirit guiding anyone to interpret the bible correctly. But to realize that you pretty much have to realize that the bible is a holy human work first, anyway.

 

LOL, of course not. You can't tell someone that they CAN'T hold a particular position. But you can show them that they are being stupid and inconsistent, and that they've pretty much destroyed their standard claim that the bible is the perfect, inspired, inerrant word of god.

 

I agree that that's not really relevant to the standard fundies, since they are not usually prone to admitting that a single word in the bible is not inspired by gawd.

 

It's good to work through stuff like this. I know (from my experience as well) that it can be difficult to think outside the box on things that one has heard presented the same way over and over for years and years. Most of us, including myself, probably unknowingly still retain misinformation we learned at church.

 

I agree that your old church's stance there doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

Part of it is, that when I hear arguements such as psalm 137:9 or whatever I get the thought that if I were confronted by these arguments when I was still in the maze, I would probably come away from it with the thought that, oh, you just don't understand the true meaning of the bible, and a strengthening of the concept that my church had the best, most true interpretation of the bible and christianity, which everyone deep down really needs and wants.

[Shyone]

However, for the fundies to claim that the psalms are inspired of god, then they have to consider god the source of what is written in the psalms.

 

Do they? Do you have a dictionary definition of what, God breathed actually means?

 

LOL, well, there may not be a "dictionary definition" of "god breathed," but it HAS to mean that GOD is the ultimate source of the message being conveyed. Otherwise calling it "god breathed" makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

Actually, on second thought, I DO have a dictionary definition of "inspiration." I just whipped out my "Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms" (published by IVP), and here is what it says:

 

inspiration. A term used by many theologians to designate the work of the Holy Spirit in enabling the human authors of the Bible to record what God desired to have written in the Scriptures. Theories explaining how God "superintended" the process of Scripture formation vary from dictation (the human authors wrote as secretaries, recording word for word what God said) to ecstatic writing (the human authors wrote at the peak of their human creativity). Most evangelical theories of inspiration maintain that the Holy Spirit divinely guided the writing of Scripture, while at the same time allowing elements of the author's culture and historical context to come through, at least in matters of style, grammar and choice of words.

 

I would contend that the "ecstatic writing (the human authors wrote at the peak of their human creativity)" could only be considered "inspired" in about the same sense as someone who feels "inspired" when writing a song or a poem or such. It wouldn't technically be GOD-inspired, but just a sense of feeling inspired.

 

The rest of the definition would correspond to what could be considered god inspired or "god breathed."

Can you explain, then, why the church does not embrace the Gnostic writings?

 

Well, other than for some reason they don't think they were "inspired". How do they tell the difference? "It agrees with what I want to say?"

 

I'm working on something regarding "chain of knowledge" in the New Testament. Witness acounts are considered valuable, but in some passages there were not witnesses. How can some be related to witness accounts and others just the mental musings of an "inspired" writer? It would seem to defeat the purpose of the witness accounts if there were obviously no witnesses. Even weird stuff, like the zombies coming out of the tombs at the resurrection said that they appeared to many witnesses. Matt. 27:53. "They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

 

As fantastic as many of the passages are (especially in Luke with the virgin conception and birth), one could perhaps describe a case where Mary told Jesus who told the disciples. But what of passages recording actions and conversations to which none of the disciples or early Christians would have been party? (e.g. Matt. 27:62-65)

 

If they can take liberties with Gnosis of such things, then why even have "testimonials" and refer to 500 witnesses to Jesus resurrection? If parts of it are "made up", then what is it that makes any of it "reliable"?

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

The notion of a christian considering the psalms not inspired would indeed indicate to me a more liberal christian perspective.

 

 

It wouldn't just be liberal Christians but if I understand it correctly, Catholics don't consider everything in the bible to be the literal word of God, either. One of my Catholic friends refers to the bible as divinely inspired fiction and she also takes the position that Psalm 137 represents the opinions of the Psalmist rather than a commandment from God. Another Psalms verse I remember that fundamentalists are contradictory about is that passage where it says spare the rod, spoil the children as a divine commandment for Christians to spank their children. Why do fundamentalists accept that passage in Psalms as a commandment but not Psalm 137?

[dagnarus]

 

 

The notion of a christian considering the psalms not inspired would indeed indicate to me a more liberal christian perspective.

 

 

It wouldn't just be liberal Christians but if I understand it correctly, Catholics don't consider everything in the bible to be the literal word of God, either. One of my Catholic friends refers to the bible as divinely inspired fiction and she also takes the position that Psalm 137 represents the opinions of the Psalmist rather than a commandment from God. Another Psalms verse I remember that fundamentalists are contradictory about is that passage where it says spare the rod, spoil the children as a divine commandment for Christians to spank their children. Why do fundamentalists accept that passage in Psalms as a commandment but not Psalm 137?

 

That's proverbs actually.

[★ Citsonga ★]

...you would be being guided by the spirit of God to see that things such as psalm 137:9 weren't of the divine thought, but the human thought....

 

In which case they were essentially reasoning right from wrong despite what the bible says, so why do they even need the bible?

 

Can you explain, then, why the church does not embrace the Gnostic writings?

 

Well, other than for some reason they don't think they were "inspired". How do they tell the difference? "It agrees with what I want to say?"

 

Because they're not part of the "Bible." Most christians these days don't think about the plethora of other early christian writings and such, and just have "faith" that the bible was put together the way gawd wanted it. Those who are familiar with writings such as the gnostics' consider them heretical; there's even a passage or two in the canonized epistles that attack gnostic thought.

 

I'm working on something regarding "chain of knowledge" in the New Testament. Witness acounts are considered valuable, but in some passages there were not witnesses. How can some be related to witness accounts and others just the mental musings of an "inspired" writer? It would seem to defeat the purpose of the witness accounts if there were obviously no witnesses. Even weird stuff, like the zombies coming out of the tombs at the resurrection said that they appeared to many witnesses. Matt. 27:53. "They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

 

That sounds interesting.

[★ Citsonga ★]

The notion of a christian considering the psalms not inspired would indeed indicate to me a more liberal christian perspective.

 

It wouldn't just be liberal Christians but if I understand it correctly, Catholics don't consider everything in the bible to be the literal word of God, either.

 

I didn't specify "liberal" christians in a technical sense, when I said "more liberal christians" it was in reference to the discussion about fundies. Moderates are more liberal than fundies, even though not technically "liberal."

[dagnarus]

...you would be being guided by the spirit of God to see that things such as psalm 137:9 weren't of the divine thought, but the human thought....

In which case they were essentially reasoning right from wrong despite what the bible says, so why do they even need the bible?

 

I'm not certain whether I should continue this, because I kind of feel like I'm arguing for something which I know long believe in. But essentially as I stated before the bible is God's breath, it is spirit and it is life. Basically the bible is not just a book which tells what is good and what is bad, (in fact they equate that sort of idea with eating from the tree of knowledge, and would say that if you just wanted to know what is good and what is bad you should study Confucianism or something like that), It's magic, It's a magic book, which when you read it, in a proper way, with a proper spirit, you are actually spiritually receiving God into you, rather than just picking up some knowledge about him. That is why you needed the bible. On a side note I think that was one of the more dangerous elements of the groups thinking, morality was somewhat divorced from reason, and became more mystical, and eerie fairy.