Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand

[steve_bank]

Why are you assuming there's meant to be a "moral"?

Why are you assuming he's assuming that there's meant to be a moral? That there's meant to be a moral is just one more thing to not understand. Add it to the fact that the thread title "Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand" can be understood to refer to stories that I don't understand or morality in those stories that I don't understand, and the stack of prior assumptions and their attendant misunderstandings attains unforetold heights.

This is the stuff of religions ...

Why did I assume that? Probably because his closing line was "I'm not sure what the moral of the story is...."

Religions assert that no understanding is required, just have faith.

For some religions perhaps. In particular to 'this' faith, i.e. Jesus or God of the bible. Understanding is required.

Continuous study is promoted. A reason for this for example - like when Daniel didn't understand his own prophecy, he was told it was for the last generations - as it will be them, who will discover what is in those prophecies, with an understanding much further gained, since the time of Daniel.

Fascinating how people today 'know' what somebody over 2000 years ago was actually thinking based on a few lines in a writing of unknown origins and authorship. All based on few lines of text.

Assuming of course the person actually existed.

Continuous study and interpretation has been the mainstay of Chrtianity for 2000 years. It is what keeps it going. Starting with the Reformation anyone could interpret scripture without going through a priest to commune with god.

I believe Buddhism is similar. An enormous volume of commentaries starting centuries before the gospels. The meaning of what an alleged Buddha taught. Organized wrtings did not appear until centuries after he died.

Buddhist have the same pro0blem as Christina and Jesus. There are anecdotal stories of who Buddha was, but no contemporaneous recordings. One story is the rich kid born to luxury who went walkabout seeking the meaning g of life.

 

[ideologyhunter]

So...Ron Wyatt didn't discover Jesus' high school yearbook??? Because I heard he did. It even had an inscription from Judas Iscariot, apologizing for some swirly incident in the boy's john.

 

[Ramaraksha]

There are probably a huge number of examples....

This is about Noah and Ham's son Canaan....

Genesis 6:8-9

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Genesis 9:20-27

Noah was a man who farmed the land. He decided to plant a field that produced grapes for making wine. When he drank some of the wine, it made him drunk. Then he lay down inside his tent without any clothes on. Ham saw his father naked. Then Ham, the father of Canaan, went outside and told his two brothers. But Shem and Japheth picked up a piece of clothing and laid it across their shoulders. Then they walked backward into the tent. They covered their father’s body. They turned their faces away because they didn’t want to see their father naked.

Then Noah woke up from his sleep that was caused by the wine. He found out what his youngest son had done to him. He said,

“May a curse be put on Canaan!
He will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers.”

Noah also said,

“May the Lord, the God of Shem, be praised.
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God add land to Japheth’s territory.
May Japheth live in the tents of Shem.
And may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”

It seems Noah wasn't punished at all... just Ham's son Canaan and his descendants.... in Deuteronomy 20:16-18 it says to wipe out all of the Canaanites (and also Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites) Shem and Japheth were blessed but no mention of Ham.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is.... don't be the son of someone who pissed off their drunken father.

There is no morality in religions that say "Good works won't get you into Heaven"
Sure they can preach but they destroy their own words when they condemn good people to hell
But there is a rational explanation to their views
God is seen as a Master - these are Master/slave religions
Ancient people living Under Kings, Dictators used them as a template for God
Hence all the - "Get down on our knees, beg, grovel, blindly obey, sing his praises & be rewarded"
No mention of works pleasing God
But Dictators main priority is keeping power - they welcome cads, evil people if they help them keep power
The likes of Putin, Kim Jong Un are surrounded by sycophants, cronies who blindly obey them
These scum have tortured, raped & killed innocent people at their behest - even children have not been spared!
.
Hence "Good works won't get you into Heaven" one must believe, support, obey blindly (Abraham ready
and willing to murder his OWN son!) for Master to be pleased and reward us

 

[NoHolyCows]

There are probably a huge number of examples....

This is about Noah and Ham's son Canaan....

Genesis 6:8-9

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Genesis 9:20-27

Noah was a man who farmed the land. He decided to plant a field that produced grapes for making wine. When he drank some of the wine, it made him drunk. Then he lay down inside his tent without any clothes on. Ham saw his father naked. Then Ham, the father of Canaan, went outside and told his two brothers. But Shem and Japheth picked up a piece of clothing and laid it across their shoulders. Then they walked backward into the tent. They covered their father’s body. They turned their faces away because they didn’t want to see their father naked.

Then Noah woke up from his sleep that was caused by the wine. He found out what his youngest son had done to him. He said,

“May a curse be put on Canaan!
He will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers.”

Noah also said,

“May the Lord, the God of Shem, be praised.
May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God add land to Japheth’s territory.
May Japheth live in the tents of Shem.
And may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”

It seems Noah wasn't punished at all... just Ham's son Canaan and his descendants.... in Deuteronomy 20:16-18 it says to wipe out all of the Canaanites (and also Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites) Shem and Japheth were blessed but no mention of Ham.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is.... don't be the son of someone who pissed off their drunken father.

The story of Noah, Ham, and Canaan isn’t really about morality — it’s about power. It retroactively justifies the Israelites’ domination over the Canaanites by portraying them as cursed from the start. It protects flawed authority (Noah), punishes the exposure of that authority, and sanctifies existing social hierarchies. In short, it’s a myth designed to make inequality and conquest look like divine destiny, not human choice.

NHC

 

[Politesse]

Not all myths are morality fables. You ever read the Iliad?

 

[ideologyhunter]

I've always thought that Genesis 9:22 was censored at some point, but so far the Dead Sea Scrolls et al. haven't proven me right.
Here's 9:22 from a standard Bible: 'And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness, and told his brothers.'
Too cut and dried. Here is what I see as the implied full version, which would justify the subsequent events:
'And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness, and told his brothers, saying, Sweet Tap-Dancing Jehovah, have you guys ever seen a 600-year-old custard cannon?'

 

[lostone]

Not all myths are morality fables. You ever read the Iliad?

Ancient Greek morals were not the same as ours, albeit similar

 

[Politesse]

Not all myths are morality fables. You ever read the Iliad?

Ancient Greek morals were not the same as ours, albeit similar

But the ancient Hebrews' are?

I don't believe for a second that either people wrote out what they considered to be their history, with the explicit intent of creating easily digestible moral fables for 21st century Christians. That would be ludicrous.

 

[excreationist]

Not all myths are morality fables. You ever read the Iliad?

Ancient Greek morals were not the same as ours, albeit similar

But the ancient Hebrews' are?

I don't believe for a second that either people wrote out what they considered to be their history, with the explicit intent of creating easily digestible moral fables for 21st century Christians. That would be ludicrous.

What's interesting is that Christians would normally say whatever God does is perfectly just and moral and even perfectly loving - like commanding genocide and infanticide:
Deuteronomy 20:16-18

But what about the cities the Lord your God is giving you as your own? Kill everything that breathes in those cities. Completely destroy them. Wipe out the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. That’s what the Lord your God commanded you to do. If you don’t destroy them, they’ll teach you to do all the things the Lord hates. He hates the way they worship their gods. If you do those things, you will sin against the Lord your God.

Though verses 19-20 say:

Then don’t chop down its trees and destroy them. You can eat their fruit. So don’t cut them down. Are the trees people? So why should you attack them? But you can cut down trees that you know aren’t fruit trees.

Perhaps some Christians would agree with me that they don't fully understand the morality.

I am impressed at the tests of loyalty in the Bible - it seems to me that it turned out that the passages became a test of how far they could push believers' loyalty (so that means I think commands of genocide, etc, should remain in the Bible). But unlike the test of Abraham and Isaac, God isn't going to change his orders.