It had been a while since I’d read Romans 9, but an email correspondence that I keep with a Christian caused me to read it last night. When I was a Christian, this chapter had always been difficult for me, but that’s because I was trying to fit it within my own theology. Last night, I was struck by several things I had forgotten and thought it would be worth sharing.
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls — she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
— verses 6-13
Here, Paul makes a distinction between those who belong to Israel by birth, and those who are children of Abraham by faith. In other words, just because someone is Jewish does not mean he/she is really God’s child. He then points out that even before Jacob and Esau were old enough to know right from wrong, God rejected Esau in favor of Jacob. That seems a little arbitrary, doesn’t it?
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
— verses 14-18
So is God being unjust in choosing one infant over another? Not according to Paul. Why? Because God can do what he wants.
What kind of answer is that? If Paul’s argument were true, then there would be no such thing as right and wrong. God is always right, regardless of his behavior, because whatever he does is right by default. That flies in the face of what most Christians believe today, yet that’s Paul’s position. And he anticipates an argument about it:
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory — even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
— verses 19-24
Paul’s only defense is that we can’t question God. But we’re not questioning God, Paul, we’re questioning you and the authors of the Old Testament.
And don’t miss what Paul says here. He’s saying that God creates some people to show mercy toward, and he creates others that he can use to demonstrate his power. He’s a god with an inferiority complex. Such a god does not actually care for his creation; he uses them as pawns for his own glory. And who is this god trying to impress? Obviously not humans, if he thinks so little of us. And he’s supposedly the only deity, so who’s he putting on the show for?
And what about Paul’s argument regarding the potter and the clay? On one hand, there’s a decent point there. It’s kind of like “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” If someone gives you something, don’t be overly critical of it. So if God gave us life, who are we to question him on the quality of it? The problem is Paul is saying more than that. He’s saying if God created you and finds you inadequate, you can’t put that back on God — you can’t complain “why did you make me this way?” But Paul’s wrong about that. If God’s not happy with how humanity turned out, that’s not our fault, it’s his. It would be like a child putting a model together incorrectly and then becoming angry at the model. It’s not the model’s fault that the child built it wrong, so it would be unjust to take that out on the model.
Paul’s God is fickle and arbitrary. He makes people like Pharaoh disobedient, and then punishes them for their disobedience. He picks others for glory and mercy, who have done nothing to merit such favor. The sad thing is that many Christians view this as a good thing and talk about God’s wondrous mystery and mercy. This is not a good thing. Such a God is untrustworthy. Unlimited power and a personality disorder make for a very dangerous combination.
And the description of God in this chapter is at odds with other passages that claim God is the embodiment of love and wants all men to be saved. Both versions can’t be right. In addition to its contradictory descriptions of God, the Bible is filled with all kinds of contradictory accounts, failed prophecies, immoral commandments, bad science, and faulty history. Why do so many people, even after learning about the Bible’s faults, continue to believe that it teaches anything accurate about the supernatural?
Finding Truth 
You’re giving me far to much credit – I was once called that by a lovely lady, and like you, had to run and look it up.
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Fight? We’re not fighting! Are we fighting?
You really know how to hurt a guy —
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Arch,
Hang in there on the cigarette thing. I have lost close family and friends to COPD and lung cancer, and there is nothing worse than watching helplessly as the one your care for struggles to breathe. I was able to kick that habit, and you are more disciplined they I am. You need to hang around to illuminate and humor us.
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@arketanen
in the famous words of cheech & chong, “you mean we’re smokin’ dog ****, man?”
actually, ark, my heart is filled with love (of the christian, brotherly sort) that you are finally beginning to waste your time on little ol’ me again.
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@ken
“If you’re simply looking at articles , there are probably as many articles to refute your idea as supports it. That’s the beauty of religion and religious documents. One can always find a quote to support anything one wants to believe . :-)”
you certainly are correct about that. but whether it’s you or me or anyone else, it’s important to try to see quotes, events, persons, etc. in context – and for us to call each other on it when something comes up as perhaps not quite true (or at least as simple as it might at first seem).
“I never said the jews had no concept of the afterlife. I said the concept of an afterlife came late in Judaism.”
my interpretation of what you said was that the the jews came up with a concept of the afterlife only when the babylonians started persecuting them (i took that to mean the 6th century bc). as just discussed, however, that contention is at least questionable.
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I’m in the US, but thanks to the wonderfulness of the WWW, I have a good friend in Australia – she and I were supposedly quitting together last summer. I quit, and she’s in the final stages of esophageal cancer, as we speak. Though we never met, her passing will leave a hole in my heart. I owe it to her to stick with it.
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Dave, as you no doubt know, many of the various empires that existed over the couple of thousand years the OT covers had voracious appetites for conquest, but one country that, though certainly sufficiently mighty, rarely engaged in conquest, was Egypt. The reasons the Egyptians didn’t go on long, drawn-out campaigns like that of Sargon, the Akkadian ruler of Mesopotamia, or Hammurabi, the Amurrite, a millennium later, was because of the complex rituals the Egyptians believed were necessary for the Egyptian soul to make it safely to the afterlife, they were impossible under battle conditions in distant lands, whereas the much-needed ingredients necessary were readily available on their home turf – they were fierce fighters close to home, but battle-wise, they didn’t get out much.
My point is, that if the Hebrews had any belief in an afterlife, it could have easily been borrowed during their many, frequent contacts with Egypt and it’s culture, just as they borrowed their flood story and Tower of Babel fable from Mesopotamia.
The “one god” thing was about the only original thing the Israelites ever came up with.
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@arch
perhaps you do, after all, have many of the same wants and needs, not to mention motivations, as the rest the species… as captain has suggested.
my prayers for you and your friend. (can i say that on this site?)
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@arch
no, i really had not considered that aspect of egyptian religion and history. so thanks for the short lesson.
as far as the afterlife, yes, that is a possibility, one which many have posited. its is also possible that the borrowing was the other way around… or maybe even that the “stories” are actually based in reality. regarding that, i am, more than likely, a minority of one on this site. i’ll brace myself.
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RE: “(can i say that on this site?)” – what kind of advocates of free thought would we be if any of us said, “No!”
I thank you for your kind thoughts, which are genuinely appreciated, but as for your prayers, I’d really rather have a hamburger, extra onions —
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can we pray before we eat?
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You don’t get it, Dave – places like this are FOR discussing things like that – you’re not going to be condemned or ganged up on for holding a contrary point of view.
Regarding reverse borrowing, I’ve done the math, and you’re free to as well, and you’ll find there is only half enough water in, on, under, or above the earth to cover this globe even as high as Mt. Ararat – say nothing of Everest, so I’ll say nothing of it – and of that, 90% of it is already below sea level and unavailable for flooding, so the Biblical flood never happened. BUT there was a flood, in Mesopotamia c.2900 BCE), about 300 years before biblical chronology would suggest “Noah” was born, that flooded an area of about the equivalent of three US counties, when the Euphrates River flooded to a depth of 15 cubits (22.5 ft) – an actual HISTORICAL king, King Ziusudra (see Sumerian Kings List), escaped the flood by boarding a merchant barge loaded with cotton, cattle and beer (oh my!): http://www.noahs-ark-flood.com/index.html
In fact, the oldest known piece of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh a fictional story involving a fictional version of Ziusudra, known as Utinapistim was tossed about for a week while his flood raged, then, as it subsided, he sent out birds, a dove came back. Once he disemb-arked, he built an altar and sacrificed to the gods, which, according to the Epic they surrounded like flies, once they “smelled the sweet savor.” Interestingly, when we look at Gen 8:21, set 300 years later, and actually written over a thousand years later, we have: “the Lord smelled the sweet savor.”
I don’t discount your beliefs, those are yours, to do with as you please, but I do think you would do well to supplement those with information.
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Both of us “can” – only one of us will.
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@Dave, “my interpretation of what you said was that the the jews came up with a concept of the afterlife only when the babylonians started persecuting them (i took that to mean the 6th century bc). as just discussed, however, that contention is at least questionable.”
If you read what I said again, ” Since it didn’t look like they were going to get their just rewards here on earth for the constant persecution they received from the Babylonians amongst others, the concept of rewards after they were dead was born.”
I didn’t say their concept of an afterlife was born through Babylonian persecution, I said their concept of receiving just rewards in the afterlife was born through their persecution at the hands of Babylonians amongst others. I think “amongst others” gives me a little
wiggle room for dating even though you are trying to pin me down to 600 BC 🙂 If we take the word of the Oxford Bible Commentary, they date the Jewish concept of a happy life after death with the Maccabean Martyrs which would be a much later date yet !
I will stand by the reference I used from the Oxford Bible Commentary, “It seems almost certain for most of the period of the Old Testament no happy life after death was envisaged. It was only with the Maccabean martyrs and the apocalypses that hopes of a resurrection appeared (cf. Dan 12:2)
Question all you like ! But you will have to question my reference I listed and the thousands of scholars and ministers who use it.
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@Dave. Like Arch said earlier, that’s what this forum is for. Questioning. It is quite OK to do so and I take no offense . I encourage everyone to question what I say. I am no scholar and I will make mistakes. Just ask unkleE ! 🙂
Anyway sounds like you are a truth seeker like most of us here. Good luck on your quest.
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@arch, you have done your homework concerning the “Flood Story” . As further support, I found this quote from the ETZ HAYIM, The Tora and Commentary. “Because Myths routinely reflect the anxieties of a particular culture, we conclude that the Flood story portrayed in Genesis is more likely of Mesopotamian than Palestinian origin. This Mesopotamian influence is evident not only in the Flood story but throughout the first 11 chapters of Genesis.”
John Zande mentioned this Tora and Commentary in his blog which caused me to buy one. Thanks John !
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You might find still more of interest here, KC —
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Nice link arch ~ Well done !
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Feel free to browse —
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@Ark
” If the afterlife was so great ( or even existed) someone would have figured out how to get a message across that could be understood by everyone.
I mean, are we not continually being told by the Christian brethren how shitty this life is and how they can’t wait for JC to show jhis bearded mug in a blaze of loving glory as he nukes us all to Hell – because he loves us of course. And how god’s chambermaids are busy making up the beds for us in Heaven?
”If only they would worship me, the ungrateful sods”, mused the god, God
“Tell my old boss he can go ”eff ” himself. The water’s fine, and the chicks are hot. Come on over. Regards.
Dave”
If this were true, of course, I venture there would be a massive increase in suicides.
Sadly, such hopefuls would be presented with a very different picture….”
Nice summation!
You scholarly types will do a much better job of putting this into hysterical perspective so I shall limit my comments about the afterlife to my own spiritual journey.
When I was much younger I thought the purpose of religion was to get us up to heaven to be with God. That idea seems totally absurd to me now. These days I operate under the hypothesis that the purpose of religion is to get God down here to be with us.
Here’s a poem I like. It does a better job of expressing my thoughts than this comment does.
QUITTIN’ TIME
And on receiving the usual wage
they grumbled against the landowner.
(Matthew 20, 11)
The very moment I am done
I know exactly what I’m going to do.
First thing, I’ll unravel those rusted gears and springs,
Those ragged hands and that time-worn face of the old man I used to be.
I’ll cover each component part with discarded newspapers
Yellowing, now, beyond their sell-by date
And place it, piece by piece,
Tenderly, so tenderly in a steamer trunk.
Then, I’ll book my passage for a cruise to Happy House
Where I can eat chocolate cake all day
And never get fat
Or get a belly ache, or a cavity
or ever, ever spoil my supper.
Whenever I get to wondering about you
I can keep an eye on every prank
Tuning into my digitally boosted wide-screen
And listening to my surround sound.
So easy, then, to see you do those things that used to aggravate me so
And laugh.
Just laugh.
The day will come, I know, when I’ll begin to remember
And then it will astonish me to find
The things I long to do again will be those same sad wretched things
That prompted me wish myself done,
And troubled me to dream my life away
Thinking of that glorious day
When I’d be here, so happy in the Happy House.
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UP to be with God … DOWN to be with us? Exactly where do you think God is?
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I operate under the hypothesis that the purpose of religion is to get us all to live peaceful lives of quiet desperation, give as much of our money as possible to the church, then be kind enough to die on time and make way for the next crop.
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@arch
“Regarding reverse borrowing, I’ve done the math…”
if you could imagine for a moment that there really was a global flood, it could have drastically altered the earth’s landscape (certainly even you will agree that mt. everest was not always 29,000+ ft high).
this might also explain why the majority of ancient cultures have a “flood story,” and a high percentage of those talk about a cataclysmic flood. these cultures, likely, had little to no contact with one another. though there is some dispute over which story was written first, i do think, after a bit of research, that you are correct to say that gilgamesh was written before genesis. if i am correct, though – that a global, cataclysmic flood occurred – then it’s probably not a matter of “borrowing” at all. similarities granted between gilgamesh and genesis, there are significant differences as well.
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Dave,
I think the massive ice melt that took place about 8,000 years ago is the source of all the flood stories. The sea levels increased quite rapidly and would have flooded any communities close to the coast. The area that now includes the Persian Gulf would have been mostly dry ground before this massive rise in sea levels. Perhaps this has something to do with the Biblical accounts given that where the Hebrew word “erets” is often translated as earth (which we think of as global) can also mean land or ground which is local..
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The majority of ancient cultures have a “flood story,” for the simple reason that the majority of ancient cultures have had a flood – at one point in time, or another, but not necessarily simultaneously. While it’s true that Everest is a product of continental (tectonic plate) drift, and wasn’t always the height it is now, the past 3,000 years hasn’t made any significant difference, as its rate of growth is .16 inches per year, or 480 feet over the past 3K years, and when it comes to insufficient water, 29K or 28.5K really isn’t going to make any significant difference.
You might find this interesting, Dave, from my own website:
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