Once again, 2Samuel chapter 24 is almost certainly not chronological; this census was probably late in David's life, but not right at the end. Who tempted David to number Israel? As I mentioned in a previous chapter, there's no contradiction here if you understand the Jewish concept of Satan being the servant of God. God had a hand in this, but Satan did the actual tempting. Has God ever tempted anyone? While I think you can dismiss "lead us not into temptation" as a technicality, it leaves us with two verses to deal with, as I'm coming down on the side of "no". I think one of the hardest things in translation is the issue of how close in meaning the words "tempt" and "test" are. I don't know how this plays out in the Hebrew and Greek, but I suspect the line is blurry, especially when here we're comparing across languages. I guess the thing I'm left with is to say that taking the KJV literally, you would have to say there is a contradiction here. Is it OK to take a census? This is one where the answer is "it depends". It's generally understood (and it seems to be the case from context) that David took a census in order to find out how many fighting men he had, even though Israel was not at war. He either intended something that God disapproved of, or perhaps he was showing a lack of faith that God would protect him. Moses's censuses were for various reasons, and commanded by God, while Solomon's census was apparently of slaves to plan out a work project.
How many valiant men drew the sword in Israel and Judah as counted by Joab? Yes, this is contradictory, and I have no idea why. It's worth noting that while the SAB says these numbers are ridiculous, this is probably not active soldiers, but rather all men in Israel who could potentially serve in a battle. I already answered whether David sinned in 2Samuel chapter 22, where the answer was "yes". How many years of famine? Yes, a straight up contradiction.
Is God merciful? Wow, this is a deep question, and unfortunately highly subjective. I think it's most problematic when a number of verses say things like, "his mercy endureth forever." I think it can clearly be said that God's mercy is limited, which would contradict a claim like that. Are the claims that God is merciful opinion? I could claim that, but unfortunately, not only are many of these claims by prophets, but a handful are from God himself! I think the best I can say is that it's subjective, and a lot of people are going to find the verses in the "no" section to be rather convincing, but I would claim that in most of those cases it's clear from context that the things God did in them came after a great deal of mercy.
Does God repent? I actually addressed this extensively in Genesis chapter six, but it's worth revisiting. There are two different ideas embodied in the term "repent" that need to be delineated. One is the idea of changing one's mind about the rightness of a thing; the other is the idea of deciding to cease an action that one has been doing. The former is definitely something God does not do, while the latter is something God has done many times in the Bible. If one understands that this distinction exists, threre is no contradiction. How much did David pay for the threshing floor? Yes, a rather striking contradiction here.
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4 comments:
I notice that you focus almost exclusively on contradictions, rather than the story itself. In this chapter, for example, God inspired David to have a census; then he kills 70,000 men (and God knows - but doesn't care - how many women and children) for taking the census. That is enough to show that the God of the Bible is cruel, irrational, and unworthy of belief. And yet you, and other apologists, focus on whether Israel had 1.1 or 0.8 million soldiers.
Contradictions are the least of the Bible's problems. That's why apologists like them so much.
Dang it, I'm not getting email notifications for comments, good thing I checked.
Well, you're right on both points. I did focus on the notes rather than the story overall, and yes, contradiction easily dwarfed by the issues of cruelty and violence. I think I tangentially touched on it by saying God's mercy is very subjective, but yeah, what is by any stretch of the imagination merciful about killing 70,000+ people for someone else's mistake? There is definitely a lot of troublesome content in this book that I honestly don't know how to explain away.
I appreciate your honesty here, Brucker. But I wonder why you feel a need to explain it all away.
If you believe that God is good, rational, and kind, why not defend him(?) by denying that he did the things that are said about him in this chapter?
Then if there is a God you can say to him(?), "I denied the awful things they said about you."
Because as a "Bible believing Christian" I don't feel I have the option of denying what the Bible says God did. All I have is to pray to God and say, "I don't understand why this happened. If it is your will, please give me understanding."
Exodus 30:12 says, "When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them." This is a commandment that David failed to fulfill, and a plague came. At least David choosing the plague was likely the least deadly of the three options given to him. It's also the only option that had a chance to affect David himself, as given that he was very rich, he probably would survive the famine, and given that he was no longer a warrior, he wouldn't be in personal danger with the second option. So is this merciful? It could have been much worse, so there is that to say, but it's certainly not much of a consolation.
Why were the people punished for David's sin? It's worth noting that verse one doesn't say "And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against David" but rather against Israel. The people have done something wrong that had offended God. Maybe it was their willingness to turn against their king twice, once with Absalom and once with Sheba? It's not made clear, but God allows David to be tempted to sin in taking a census because the people of Israel had sinned in some way. That's the understanding that I have gained from my prayer, and once again, it's not great consolation, but it's better understanding.
Interestingly, the threshing floor of Araunah was on Mount Moriah, the same place where Isaac was offered as a sacrifice, and centuries later, Jesus would be crucified.
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