Is God of the Bible Barbaric and Blood Thirsty?

Actually this question, this argument is the exact same question as “why does God support slavery in the Bible?” or  “why does God condone the killing of infidels?”.   What do they all share in common?  If you have spent anytime at all evangelizing, you will eventually come across questions like this.  They all seek to finally say, “God cannot be good, how could you trust a God like this; how can you expect me to believe a God like that?”  If you are speaking with an atheist particularly bent on discredited existence of God, then they will take a step further by saying something like “the blood thirsty God of the bible is only a construct of an inferior people in which we must shed”.   Willful sinners need to believe that God is not good in order to justify their sin.  For if God is not good, or doesn’t exist then I am ok.  I would have not fear of judgment or reason to submit to an ultimate authority.

It is important as Christians to not ignore their concerns.  If you plow ahead insisting on repentance all the while ignoring their question, then they will simply ignore you as a speaker/preacher.

Apart from experience, I also read critiques against Christianity and the Bible because I believe it helps me in my own Bible study.  Much of what people say about God or the Bible is simply taken out of it’s context in such a way to deceive their audience about what the Bible really says.  Of course the Bible will offend eventually, everyone who approaches God will eventually find something they must painfully repent over. So my purpose for saying this is not to smooth over the Bible “rough ” edges, but to defend God’s intended message of the Bible from those who would pervert it and influence others to follow suit.

Recently I’ve been reading Sam Harris’ critique on organized religion, “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror,and the Future of Reason”.  Most of what he has to say is pointed at Christianity.  I find it concerning that he can talk about extremist Islam terror and fundamental Christianity in the same breath.  In his book, he makes a point that most nominal Christians or “moderate” Christians has he puts it do not even read their own Bible, so they do not have any idea what kind of God the Almighty is really like.  I agree with him on this point.  But what I disagree with is what he does next.

He takes Deuteronomy 13:7-11 to say God instructs parents to kill their children when they come home from yoga class and advocate the worship of another deity, Kirshna.  Here is the quote from his book on page 17:

In America, religious moderation is further enforced by the fact that most Christians and Jews do not read the Bible in its entirety and consequently have no idea just how vigorously the God of Abraham wants heresy expunged.  One look at the book of Deuteronomy reveals that he has something very specific in the mind should your son o daughter return from yoga class advocating the worship of Krishna:

Following he quotes Deuteronomy 13:6-11 which I will quote for you below:

⁶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; ⁷ namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; ⁸ thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: ⁹ but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. ¹⁰ And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. ¹¹ And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

Harris’ then goes to say this how God wants human government to punish heresy. “While the stoning of children for heresy has fallen out of fashion in our country, you will not hear a moderate Christian or Jew arguing for a “symbolic” reading of the passage of this sort.”

So, is this what Deuteronomy 13 is saying?  Does God command the killing of your children when they get home from yoga class and talk about worshipping Krishna?  The only kind of person that could be convinced that this is what the Bible is saying is someone who has never read it with any kind of honest consideration.

Odds are you don’t have a desire to enter into debate with Sam Harris.  But you may likely encounter someone that will use Scriptures like this to challenge the goodness of God.  At this point in your conservation with them, this kind of obstruction can halt any further opportunity to share the Gospel.  If you choose to ignore their question, then it is very likely everything else you say will be ignored.  So how do we deal with Deuteronomy 13 specifically?

The context of Deuteronomy 13 is Israel in the infancy of their nation coming into being. Their government at this point is purely theocratic, meaning God is their king.  God has been speaking through Moses to give legislation and keep civic order.  Moses is addressing a condition, and says in effect: “If someone or another prophet rises up to convince the people to rebel against God, then they ought to be put to death.”  In modern day vernacular we could say “those that commit treason ought to be put to death.”   Therefore in Moses’ day, to usurp God’s authority by inciting people to worship other gods was to commit high treason.  Every law had come from either God’s own spoken voice at Sinai, or through the pen of the prophet.  But if suddenly God is no longer God and His authority is no longer respected, what will become of country’s laws?  What would be come of that country?

High treason in the United States is a crime punishable by death.  In the UK only recently have they changed the laws that high treason is punished by life in prison.  If one attempts to incite a rebellion to overthrow the government, then modern day law prescribes the persons responsible be put to death.  Yes, they even may be our sons and daughters, but the laws of the land transcend even the most of intimate relationships.  To make an application to put to death children coming home from yoga class it is either intentional deception or stunning ignorance.

The modern day punishments against high treason are good.  They protect our country from civil unrest and chaos.  If a person is willing to believe such laws are good and necessary, then why not believe the same laws in Deuteronomy thirteen are good and necessary?  The next logical step then is to concede that the God of the Bible is good, but in order to make such a confession, one would have admit their own sin and guilt by doing so.  And that is the true motive why people bring up questions of God’s goodness, in order to justify our way of living that a good God would condemn.