Here’s my approach.
For these discussions, I believe there are three main kinds of truth: truth about natural claims and historical claims, and truth about moral claims are the two most important. Religious claims, I believe, are left to those in religious authority, and from my perspective are always suspect because the authority is based on a claim of authority rather than an objectively verifiable authority. It is inherited rather than demonstrated, and inherited authority is problematic.
Truth about natural claims and historical claims is, practically, wholly objective. The subjective element is based only in the limits of our perceptions – we all agree certain statements, like “I have hands” are true because for all practical purposes I see them, feel them, and the outside world will agree with me. So when making a claim about the natural world, it must be judged from the perspective of the limits of perception available at the time. Claims regarding how things occur, when examined through this lens, should be considered metaphorical when perception was limited or impossible, and credible and therefore believable until proven untrue. So, the further in the past claims are made, the less likely they are to be sophisticated or observably true. And it is often the case, therefore, that the claims are unfalsifiable as there is no method to prove them true or otherwise. So, claims about the origin of the universe, of the world, of life, of man, etc., when made without current scientific methods, are metaphorical, and reflect belief about humanity as opposed to the natural world. When we see that often religions that emerge from cultures that settle and influence the environment around them (i.e., stereotypically civilized cultures), end up with a structure where natural phenomenon are due to personifications of human traits in a human form. Greek and Roman gods were very human, and were the reason why the sun rose, the fall came, and we died. Man views himself as affecting the world. For more stereotypically tribal cultures, we find more animistic or spiritual beliefs – a holistic approach to religion, where forces interact, inanimate objects, plants and animals have influence on man (where man depends on the natural world supplying the means of survival rather than cultivating the environment), etc. So, these claims later should be taken to tell us how we used to think about ourselves, and need to be examined for whether they contain moral truth.
These are the claims in the Bible that we can most clearly link to divine inspiration – ones that are most likely “revealed” to a writer, based on the cultural understanding of nature. They explain a why and a how, and come from a more universal human need.
Truth about historical claims specifically have a more subjective element, as “history is told by the victors.” But the claims are still verifiable. When we look at claims made in sacred documents, there will be inevitably a rhetorical coloring. This is more true the more violent the world in which the culture emerges, and the world is naturally violent the less control we have over it, and often violent when we first interact with other cultures.
These are claims that are less about divine inspiration – they’re more about the psychology of the time of the writing.
Truth about moral claims contains both objective and subjective elements. Moral claims can be shown as true in an objective sense the more we know about other peoples in the world, and see to what extent they hold those truths also. These interactions also allow us cultural empathy, as truths that may be shared across cultures and therefore indicating objective truth become muddied when they involve evil contained in an “other.” As we interact, we become the “other” in these claims and therefore see the negative effects when applied to us, and are required to reexamine. Very often moral rightness as related to warfare are these very kinds of shared truths that become questionable.
But when interaction is fairly novel, or limited, or in a situation during a crisis, post-crisis or both, the result is often to reinforce your truth or militarize it further. And when knowledge and information is not quickly and generally available, claims are considered accurate more often on information that is anecdotal but perceived as objective rather than objective.
These moral truths will be based on the two truths above, and our laws come from this moral understanding.
We see this often in peoples subject to forced diaspora – refugee people, e.g. In the less global past, when a people is victimized, there is a need to reaffirm existence that is drastically reinforced by the fact that the groups end up being more insular. This is also seen in social justice movements in modern cultures – those who have been oppressed tend to force an issue when there’s sufficient power or critical mass to work against, as well as support in, the majority. The contrary reaction is often a critique of the methods the outgroup uses, generally a “Why do they have to be so vocal/in our face about it?”
So, if we look at the Hebrew people, the religious traditions emerged and consolidated from a post-exile mentality. There is a scholarly debate about the historical truth of pre-exile times, but it seems to be accepted that the writing was close to the exile. So, because (1) science was limited, and writing about time before the exile was potentially done much later and, if not, was still consolidated and disseminated during a time where the psychology of the culture was a post-exile one, we look at the claims about anything before that time in a highly critical way taking this context as central.
The Hebrew people had just escaped slavery, and were attempting to establish themselves as non-victims. Their views about the universe should reflect that. Why would they have been subject to such profound suffering? Because it was a test and they are the true worthy people of the world, as demonstrated by the fact that they were now free. How can they best recognize this? Through differentiating themselves physically and culturally from the other. The more profound this desire, the more clearly this must be demonstrated, the more insular the group, and the more important it is to reinforce this separation legally. How can this best be achieved? Military power and fear.
Law will be a result of this construction of morality. Our perceptions of moral right and wrong are what shape our laws, and are limited by the above concepts of truth. Therefore, laws themselves are not metaphors, they are in fact literal. But those writing them will be influenced by what they have been told and experienced as the history and state of the world.
Therefore, killing is morally wrong. However, as a chosen people, the Jews are already morally better than “you.” Because they were taken and enslaved, they have been expelled from their homeland. Those occupying the homeland are, therefore, agents of persecution from this perspective. They must be expelled because they, in essence, are an occupying force. Regardless of the current state, therefore, the occupation is a result of an invasion, and the Jews are morally justified in returning in force.
The 613 Mitzvot extend the notion of lawful killing to the nations that inhabited the Promised Land, commanding to exterminate them completely. Deuteronomy 20:10–18 establishes rules on killing civilians in warfare:
the population of cities outside of the Promised Land, if they surrender, should be made tributaries and left alive (20:10–11)
those cities outside of the Promised Land that resist should be besieged, and once they fall, the male population should be exterminated, but the women and children should be left alive (10:12–15)
of those cities that were within the Promised Land, however, the population should be exterminated entirely (10:16–18), specifically “the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” (10:16–18). Deuteronomy 25:19 further commands the extermination of the Amalekites.(source)
The promised land represents everything lost by the Hebrew people – and those that are there are those that took advantage of the slavery of their people. The law in Deuteronomy, therefore, is a manifestation of, in essence, cultural victimization, explained and reinforced by the best and most reasonable information they had at the time. The law is not a metaphor, it is literal. But to say it is true is to misunderstand that it is not right, although it may have been understandable that people thought it was true at the time.
The militaristic commands of god can therefore be understood in this context as, regardless of the elements of divine inspiration, the meaning is influenced by what people see around them at the time. When the culture has been demoralized, that creates a high probability of a lens and translation more bitter than clear.
So when we look back at the writings, we are to understand the people who wrote it. We are to strip away the human aspects to find the truth. Laws, in the end, come at the end, where the truth has been most distorted by the limitations of perception, historical rhetoric, and personal psychology. And when you consider the NT, the insularity and militant aspects of the Hebrew people are questioned from the spiritual perspective from a new viewpoint: in essence…“we have been fighting against everyone for so long. We have attempted to separate for so long. We consider ourselves right. And we have focused our laws on reinforcing all of this. God wants us to get to truth. Therefore, we must shift our understanding of ourselves as chosen, and therefore provided a divine right that we can only lose through failing to do what the law tells us, to being provided a divine opportunity, available because we are all man, and we are meant to seek God and determine meaning rather than assume it and obey without actual belief.”
It does say what it says. These commandments are what they are. I never, ever said that it meant anything other than what it said.
But that doesn’t mean it’s what God meant to say. It could be the only way it could have been said to those people at the time. Does that mean it should mean that we do that now? Well, no…because so much of it refers to people and things which are no longer around. And the passage gains no different meaning because you believe or not. It does become clear why it was written, however, the more critically it is examined.
