Why would an all-knowing, benevolant God make such nonsensical laws (cloth of two materials, woman in period unclean etc.)?
Question:
1. Why would an all knowing benevolent God give such ridiculous laws? Not using two different types of fibers? Cutting off the hand of a woman that grabs the private parts of the man that fights her husband? Not touching a woman for seven days after the beginning of her period? What is that???? The almighty Creator gave these laws? What is even more unbelievable is that they reflect the laws of the ancient Babylonians of that time- the Hammurabi tablets. I know there are difference between the Torah the tablets but they are very similar in giving very odd laws.
2. Why would an all loving God and God of justice who desires that all men be saved give only the Jews the Torah? A tiny nomadic tribe is given the Law and the prophets that speak of future times? Before the time of Jesus that let thousands of years of paganism influence all these societies in ways that might have made believing in Jesus difficult and in some cases impossible. The world is large and all these societies that up until colonial times never would have come in contact with the Gospel and are condemned to hell and/or if Jesus does not forgive them for not having faith in him at the pearly gates are stills sent to hell? God seems to be indirectly sending people to hell because of negligence.
3. why did god gives these brutal and and dangerous laws if they were just going to to be made void by Jesus anyway?
Answer:
1. God certainly did not ever make any ridiculous laws. As for an explanation, each law on the Old Testament should be taken as an individual case. Besides, I cannot speak for God and tell you exactly why he gave a particular law to his people. However, with nearly all the Old Testament laws God gave his people there is a fairly easily discoverable "reason" for God giving his people these directions. The Jews recognized the spiritual meaning of many of these laws. Their ideas can be helpful if you want to do a little research. With regard to the law about using cloth of two different materials, I am sure God does not care about our use of two materials. Feel free to wear 80% cotton shirts if you like without fear of offending God. However, there was a spiritual message behind this law. God was telling his people about purity and about not mixing with the idolatrous practices of their neighbors. The law is in Leviticus 19:19. There is a series of laws in which God tells his people to not mix things which are inherently different. The Jews got the message. Hopefully, they did not break this law, but also understood the spiritual application.
The stricture about touching a woman who is in her period is almost certainly intended to be about being sexually intimate during this time. The fact is that a woman is particularly susceptible to a number of infectious diseases when she is experiencing her menstrual bleeding. I cannot say for sure that God gave this law to protect the health of Jewish women (God did not give a reason), but it makes sense. I will have to admit that the law about cutting off the hand of a woman who touches the private parts of another man is hard for me to understand (Deuteronomy 25:11). From my modern, Western way of thinking, this seems harsh and even a bit random. It seems that this cannot have been a common scenario. However, perhaps there is something here we are not aware of–some shameful practice back then of which we are not aware. Perhaps there was a custom of having the wife of a man who is victorious in a fight shaming the defeated man by doing this shameful act. So, before you make the big mistake of assuming God does not know what he is doing, you might want to be cautious. It is the same God who provided the apologetics about Jesus you refer to who had these words in Deuteronomy written.
If you want to claim that these laws reflect thw laws of ancient Babylon, you will need to provide evidence to support this claim. I have a feeling you are finding this information in an anti-Christian web site. It is easy to make such claims, but harder to back them up with actual facts. Did this web site provide an example of a law in Babylon about women who touch the privates of men after a fight? I really doubt it. However, even if there were a similar law, this does not mean that the laws of Moses were not given by God. If the only similarity is that both sets of laws seem odd to a modern mind, then the similarity is completely spurious.
2. Your second question is a good one. The entire Bible is the story of God choosing a faithful man to create a special "chosen" nation through whom to send the Messiah. Perhaps you or I would not have done it this way, but this is how God chose to reveal himself to humanity. God prepared the way for coming into the world through written historical prophecy of the Messiah. I want to encourage you to read my book "From Shadow to Reality." (www.ipibooks.com) In this book is a detailed description of how God used the events which happened to Israel to prepare the way for sending the Messiah. If you read Genesis 12-18 you will find why God chose Abraham as the person through whom to send the Messiah. It was because of his tremendous faith. He gave promises that ALL the world would be blessed through the seed of Abraham. All this came true through the "seed" of Abraham–Jesus Christ. God did not choose Israel because they were so much better than all other people (Deuteronomy 9:4-6, Deuteronomy 7:7-9). God chose Israel and gave them the Law to prepare the way for the Messiah. The book of Romans helps here. It describes the fact that through the law given to the Jews we became aware of our sin and our need for a perfect sacrifice. In Romans 2 God tells us that those who kept the law, even if they were not Jews, were treated by God as if they were Jews (Romans 2:25-29).
God gave us a choice. He gave us free will. God does not cause anyone to sin. God does not want anyone to be lost, but he gave us a conscience and even those who never hear the gospel are required by God to believe in him because his existence is obvious (Romams 1:15-20). He tells us that those who do not hear the message are held accountable to the conscience God gave us (Romans 2:12-16). Unfortunately, not many of us are obedient to what our conscience tells us is right to do, which is why we need Jesus. As for me, I do not feel I am in a place to question God. I do not feel I could come up with a better plan to save people in a universe in which people have free will. If you or I feel convicted that many do not hear about the gospel, we ought to get out there and bring the gospel to as many people and places as possible.
I believe (and the Bible teaches) that God is just. There are aspects of how God has worked which do not seem totally just to me (as there apparently are for you). However, God has demonstrated his justice by sending his son Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21-26), and, in the end, I choose to put my faith in God. Even when I do not completely understand God’s justice, my faith in the Bible makes up for the difference.
3. I do not believe that these laws are "brutal and dangerous" but in any case, God made it clear that the Law of Moses prepared the way for Jesus Christ. God replaced something which was good by something which was far better. This is the message of the book of Hebrews–especially Hebrews chapters 7-10. The law of Moses was great, but the gospel is amazingly better. And besides, Jesus did not make the laws God gave to Moses void (Matthew 5:17-20). Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law and provided a better way to be saved.
I hope this helps.
John Oakes, PhD
