Felix wrote:btw, answering these questions by quoting the Bible is not allowed
I want your personal thoughts
haha
I'll see what I can do along those lines, Felix.
Can't promise anything.
One at a time ...
Felix wrote:First, how does one seperate the biblical "metaphors" from actual events/words of God and who decides what is to be taken as the absolute word of God?
The very short answer is that you yourself may read the book and 'take' it however you choose to.
The Bible is available to anyone, and anyone may do that.
My personal view is that it is all God's perfect Word, as He intended for us to see it.
Since that was relatively short, I'll go to your 2nd question, but you can follow that reply up if you want to.
Felix wrote:second, do you think God's ordering the execution of 3,000 people for worshiping a golden idol was a little excessive?
On the surface, and without putting the incident (or the Bible) in proper context, I could think that, yes.
I'm going to make some important points about this particular incident, and provide important context, but it's worth saying that regarding
any judgements God makes, He is God and I am not.
Please know that I am going to give a long set-up here, but it was very important, not only for this question of yours, but for all future questions.
In understanding the Bible is is fundamentally important to look at it from the perspective of God's Covenant.
Going to the beginning, man broke this Covenant (we left God's Word) and fell into bondage to satan.
Man was created to be WITH God, yet we became separated, and being as the correct object of our worship was separated from us (God), we inevitably gravitate to idol worship.
This is our nature.
But of course worshipping 'idols' is worshipping satan.
Worshipping satan is highly harmful to us.
So God promised the Christ for us (Genesis 3:15), who would free us from the bondage of satan.
But in the meantime, God paved the way for the coming Christ.
The Old Testament is all about this paving of the way.
His dealings with Israel were all for the purpose of paving the way for the Savior of the World.
Along the way, God continued to make new Covenants with man, for the purpose of reaching the FINAL covenant, which is in Jesus Christ.
In the Golden Calf incident in question, the timing of it is important.
God had
JUST brought Israel ... very miraculously, and undeniably ... out of bondage and harsh oppression in Egypt -- which they had gone into, btw, because Abraham lost hold of the Covenant.
When in Egypt, they had been deeply into idol worship.
They knew that God had brought them out, and right after doing so, God re-established his Covenant with them and gave them the 10 commandments -- #1 and #2 vitally important.
- I AM GOD
- HAVE NO IDOLS
Moses (the leader) went away (for 40 days) from the people to get instruction from God and the people started to piss down their leg, thinking somehow that Moses was fucked and that
they were going to be fucked.
So they decided to disbelieve God.
They blatantly built idols and worshipped them.
God was hot pissed and said He was going to kill 'em all, except for Moses, and just start over with him.
Moses pleaded for Israel and God relented.
Some of Israel chose to then follow Moses' leadership, when he returned from God, and many others chose to continue idol worship.
God had all of the idol worshippers killed.
I understand it and it don't view it as excessive.