{"id":686,"date":"2010-10-13T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T13:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/the-futility-of-biblical-morality.html"},"modified":"2010-10-13T13:18:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T13:18:00","slug":"the-futility-of-biblical-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/the-futility-of-biblical-morality.html","title":{"rendered":"The Futility Of Biblical Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
With the rash of gay teen suicides, there have been many nice religious people writing articles about how sad it is that this is happening.\u00a0 Some of the writers are dissident Catholics<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Others are ministers for a variety of Protestant denominations<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 They are all very embarrassed or even angry about how their co-religionists treat gay people.\u00a0 I must admit that it\u2019s very heartening.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
Invariably the writers cite all kinds of biblical verses about how terrible hatred is.\u00a0 The problem with this, of course, is that the homophobes do the same thing to justify their antagonism to gay rights.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
There is an exegetical battle taking place over this issue with each side claiming biblical justification for its position.\u00a0 This just underscores the problem with using the bible as a source of values.\u00a0 An ancient literary collection can no longer fill that need.\u00a0 It is simply not up to the task.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
In ancient and medieval times the scriptures were regarded as the word of God.\u00a0 Even then moral reasoning did not really depend upon the text.\u00a0 In Judaism we see this in the sharp divisions among the rabbis of the Mishna, Talmud and later commentaries.\u00a0 Each interpreted the text in a way that reinforced his (alway his) independent moral judgments.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
Today\u2019s biblical discourse is a relic of misplaced reliance on this\u00a0 out-dated source of moral wisdom.\u00a0 I appreciate the efforts of those who seek a more humane exegesis.\u00a0 Humanizing the interpretive process does not legitimize it.\u00a0 The process of searching the bible for eternal wisdom is antiquated. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
I wish that they would realize that the problem isn\u2019t with how we interpret the book.\u00a0 The problem is the book.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the rash of gay teen suicides, there have been many nice religious people writing articles about how sad it is that this is happening.\u00a0 Some of the writers are dissident Catholics.\u00a0 Others are ministers for a variety of Protestant denominations.\u00a0 They are all very embarrassed or even angry about how their co-religionists treat gay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,12,16,27],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-catholicism","tag-fundamentalist-christianity","tag-homophobia","tag-morality"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Futility Of Biblical Morality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With the rash of gay teen suicides, there have been many nice religious people writing articles about how sad it is that this is happening.\u00a0 Some of the\" \/>\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\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/the-futility-of-biblical-morality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Futility Of Biblical Morality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the rash of gay teen suicides, there have been many nice religious people writing articles about how sad it is that this is happening.\u00a0 Some of the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/the-futility-of-biblical-morality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-13T13:18:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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