NU 4:8 Oh man! This must be talking about...something....maybe how to protect yourself from the Smoke Monster? Yeah. That's it!
NU 15:16 Uh-oh! Kate better watch her back! I think. I'm not sure. This may not be a good idea.
NU "23:42" Yes! This is the key! If Jack is Balaam and Ben is Balak and...Oh, who am I kidding? That's not working out.
Anyway, if I can get back to being serious-ish, when they say "Numbers" they mean it! There's a few passages where all they do is list off the numbers of things like the results of censuses detailing the number of Israelites by their clan, where they'll camp, how many Levites there are, the number of firstborn males (and how much they're worth or something), the number of Kohathites, a whole bunch of stuff about shekels, another census of the Israelites, and how many things the Israelites "obtained" from the Midianites (more on that later). Now, I'm obviously no expert on the Bible, but I can't see why this stuff is necessary to preserve. I imagine there must be some reason or it never would have stayed in, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out.
There wasn't a lot (partially due to those lists) in Numbers for me to comment on. Most of it was fairly benign. However, there were a few things that really stood out to me and I'll go over them now.
NU 5:23-28 This is, in part, what is to be done to a woman that has been simply accused of adultery. She's to drink water mixed with dust from the ground. If she didn't cheat on her husband then she'll be fine and the water will have no effect on her. But if she did cheat on her husband then she'll experience bitter pain, her womb will swell, and her thigh will fall away (whatever that means).
I don't get how someone can read that and think that it was either 1) helpful for an ancient culture to survive or 2) inspired by an Omniscient God. It sounds more like the kind of trial by ordeal that we would expect from a primitive, superstitious culture bent on justice. And yet, people actually believe this was inspired by (or directly written by) an all-knowing God. I suppose it's possible that God simply felt this was the best plan of action, but it's an awfully curious method for an Omnipotent God to prefer.
NU 8:7 I believe "shaved" is the expression.
NU 11:18-20, NU 11:31-35 The people complain that they have nothing to eat, so the Lord gives them food and then kills them when they eat it because they rejected him.
What do you think is the most logical explanation for this story?
A) A failed attempt to understand/explain food poisoning
B) A failed attempt to understand/explain refeeding syndrome.
C) God was an angry, jealous god.
D) There is no logical explanation for this story.
NU 15:32-36 I wonder if this guy was asking as he was being stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath, "Can't you just make me drink some dirt-water!?!? I'll pretend it hurts!"
NU 25 Yes, let us violently kill someone for dating the wrong kind. That's a wonderful response.
At one point the Lord is angry with the people of Midian (for reasons that I'm not entirely clear on). So he tells Moses to avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Moses gathers an army and sends them to Midian where they kill every male. However, they let the women and children live and brought them back. Which I thought was somewhat decent of them to do. Except apparently it wasn't a good thing to do. So Moses tells the men in the army to kill all the little boys and all the women that weren't virgins (in the sexual sense) but to keep all young girls that were virgins alive for themselves. Maybe, maybe, there's some noble reason for this, but on the surface it looks really really bad. If there were some noble reason, then why keep only the young virgin girls? Was Israel having a shortage of women? It seems possible if they were making them drink dirt-water after a mere accusation but it doesn't get mentioned anywhere that I saw.
That's it for Numbers. Like I said, it's mostly pretty benign.
Usually I would end here but recently I came across something that gave me a lot of pause and I felt it needed to be included in this blog.
I read comic books and in the most recent issue of The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman a true story was retold. (Before I continue, I want to make it clear that Robert Kirkman does not give the conclusion that I got from this story. The Walking Dead is not an atheist book. It's a really good book about humanity. I highly recommend it. In fact, it's so good that AMC is making it into a TV show.) Now I actually heard this story when it first appeared in the news but I had forgotten about it. I don't know if I should thank Robert Kirkman for reminding me or punch him. It's easily one of the most horrific stories I've ever heard. I won't repeat all the details of the story here. I think the following quote from the 4-year-old boy involved pretty much covers it; "My daddy ate my eyes out." If you feel the need to read the full story, you may do so here.
For whatever reason, after hearing this story a second time I found myself unable to shake it from my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about this little boy and the unimaginable horror he must live with now for the rest of his life. Even though I feel somewhat selfish for doing so, I began to relate this to the idea of God and the Problem of Evil. I'm the kind of atheist that feels the existence of evil in the world doesn't disprove God. God may have a very good reason for allowing evil, even this especially egregious example. But as I thought about what it would mean for an omnipotent God to exist alongside such a terrible event more and more, I was eventually hit by a response that I feel is the only response I can have. I'll end with it here;
I would rather spend an eternity in Hell on behalf of that little boy than love a God that would allow that happen.
-Nikko
