{"id":3885,"date":"2008-02-26T13:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T13:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/gods-battered-wife\/"},"modified":"2008-02-26T13:10:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-26T13:10:00","slug":"gods-battered-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/gods-battered-wife.html","title":{"rendered":"God’s Battered Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A student in my class on Paul\u2019s letters had a very thought-provoking reaction to the summary of Israel\u2019s experiences wandering in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians 10:6-12<\/a>. There a series of actions in violation of the Law are listed, and the punishments that resulted. For this student, the text was a description of how each time the Israelites did something displeasing to God, God got violent with them. Israel in these stories, the student suggested, seems like \u201cGod\u2019s battered wife\u201d, being smacked around whenever he found her displeasing.<\/p>\n

What do you make of this reaction? Our views about the appropriateness of violence and corporal punishment have certainly changed since the ancient world. What does it mean to take this changed context seriously when reading accounts such as this one? Is this just another instance, like the passages that claim God ordered genocide<\/a> (and assisted with its carrying out), that the simplest solution is to repudiate what the Biblical author has written<\/em>? What are the different possible ways of addressing the concerns raised by this student\u2019s reaction?<\/p>\n

We also reached that neglected verse from this letter, 1 Corinthians 8:2<\/a>: \u201cIf anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought\u201d.<\/p>\n

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A student in my class on Paul\u2019s letters had a very thought-provoking reaction to the summary of Israel\u2019s experiences wandering in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians 10:6-12. There a series of actions in violation of the Law are listed, and the punishments that resulted. For this student, the text was a description of how each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGod's Battered Wife<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A student in my class on Paul's letters had a very thought-provoking reaction to the summary of Israel's experiences wandering in the wilderness in 1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/gods-battered-wife.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God's Battered Wife\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A student in my class on Paul's letters had a very thought-provoking reaction to the summary of Israel's experiences wandering in the wilderness in 1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/02\/gods-battered-wife.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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