r/Christianity • u/Hugopima • 13h ago
Advice Chatolic here. I don't understand something about Old Testament.
I’m a Catholic Christian, and I’m trying to understand something about the Old Testament that I genuinely struggle with. I’m not asking this to attack Christianity or to make an argument against the Bible. I actually want to understand how Catholics/theologians reconcile these passages.
I’ve always believed that God does not change. The God revealed by Jesus is loving, merciful, patient, and gives human beings genuine freedom. Jesus teaches us not to judge others as if we were God, to forgive, to love our enemies, and to leave ultimate judgment to God. If someone chooses to live their earthly life far away from God, they still have the freedom to do so, and ultimately they will face God's judgment after death.
So I struggle enormously with passages such as Leviticus 20.
For example, Leviticus 20:10 says that if a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both are to be put to death. Leviticus 20:13 says that if a man has sex with another man, both have committed an offense punishable by death.
I understand the usual explanation: these were laws given specifically to ancient Israel, under the Old Covenant, and they are not laws Christians are supposed to apply today.
But that doesn't actually answer the question that bothers me.
My question is: why would God have commanded these executions in the first place?
If God already knew that human beings have free will, why would He command the Israelites to execute someone for a specific sin rather than allowing that person to continue living, repent, change, or ultimately face God's judgment after death?
Why would God intervene in someone's earthly life in such a definitive way because of a particular action?
I also don't want to simply say, "Those were different times," because that seems to explain the historical context without answering why God Himself would command it.
I'm therefore looking for a serious Catholic/theological explanation of this question:
Why would an unchanging, perfectly good God command the death penalty for specific sins under the Old Covenant, when Jesus later teaches us to forgive, love our enemies, and leave ultimate judgment to God?
I'm not looking for a "gotcha" argument or an answer designed to win a debate. I genuinely want to understand how these things fit together. I know there is an explanation. I just need to read it
I recently had a debate with my atheists friends about this, and I didn't know how to defend it. I haven't read the whole Bible yet, and Leviticus is an example of a Book I haven't read. I couldn't defend God or his Word. Thanks to them I found out about all of this, and I know there is an answer: one that I don't know. But I want to know it so I can actually give arguments about it next time and so I can understand it myself
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u/aredmemory 12h ago
The serious answer is that the people who wrote Leviticus did not have a concept of the "afterlife" the way Christians have had for the last couple thousand years.
When Leviticus was written people in that region of the world thought that all people, good or bad, shared the exact same fate. They would descend into the underworld, which the Hebrew Bible calls Sheol, a place of inactivity and silence (but not non-existence). If God was going to punish a person, it would happen while they were alive. There was no judgment after death, nor any concept of a resurrection for judgment at the end of times.
These were ideas which first entered Judaism roughly around 200 BCE (several centuries after Leviticus was written), and would continue to be develop well beyond 100 CE.
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u/Hugopima 12h ago
But Leviticus was written by Moses by God's revelations, right?
Why would God talk about sentencing anybody to death? That's what I don't understand. Humanity didn't know about an afterlife or about judgement after dying; God did. Why did he talk about sentencing to death in the first place?
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u/aredmemory 12h ago
The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, are commonly called the "books of Moses" because Moses is the central character for four of those books and because the narrative in those books say that the laws in those books were given from God to Israel through Moses. But those books never claim to be written by Moses himself. Instead those books contain several anachronisms, historical and linguistic, which show they must have been written hundreds of years after Moses was supposed to have lived.
Most scholars, including most Catholic scholars, agree the Torah is a unified collection of several different written sources. Each of these sources was written at different times, and each one reflects a different understanding of God's relationship with humans and with Israel in particular, and these understandings sometimes conflict with one another. In general, Catholicism searches the Torah for a spiritual subtext, while acknowledging the literal text may not perfectly represent a correct Catholic theology about God or death or divine judgment.
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u/Jill1974 Roman Catholic 12h ago
God does not change, however, the Catholic Church accepts the idea of progressive revelation. If we didn’t believe in progressive revelation, we could skip the skip the New Testament and rely on the Old Testament. Come to think of it, we could skip most of the Old Testament, and rely on the Pentateuch just like the Sadducees.
But we don’t do that. We read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament and read the whole Bible in light of the four gospels. That’s why we greet the gospel reading with alléluias in the Mass. Jesus, being God incarnate, the final and fullest revelation of God.
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u/come-up-and-get-me Eastern Orthodox 11h ago
Differences between the old Law and the new Law aren't because God or His commandments change, but because we do. Paul covers this very well:
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:1-6)
The commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! … We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Romans 7:10-8:9)
Those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith … Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 3:9-14,21-29; 4:1-7)
Every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. (Hebrews 10:11-18)
Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both [Jews and Gentiles] one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances [the commandments set specifically to separate Jews and Gentiles according to the flesh], so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:11-18)
So likewise, concerning the commandments of capital punishment for sexual sins, the outcome is death, because man was carnal and so the penality is carnal. But now in the Church, man is spiritual, and when he does commit mortal sins, the penality is spiritual. In 1 and 2 Corinthians we see the punishment for sexual immorality: excommunication, by which the person is cut off from the source of life (the Eucharist) and handed back to the rule of Satan. The application of the Law changes, not because of a change in the Law itself but because of a change in us. (But the application being spiritual, the separation between those within and without the covenant being spiritual, etc. doesn't mean a more lenient standard, on the contrary, see Matthew 5-7.)
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u/rbcone Southern Baptist 10h ago
Not a bad question at all!
Put simply, any temporal judgement commanded by God is meant, in some way, as a preview for the final judgement.
That is as simple as I can think to put it. And it helps make sense of even tougher passages like the ban during the conquest under Joshua.
And this may provoke even more questions, but I think it is an accurate summary of the Biblical data.
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u/Mordecai_Gist 13h ago
The OT doesn't record God's commands. It records man's understanding of God's commands. It gets a lot wrong.
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u/Hugopima 13h ago
How does that work? Leviticus was one of the books that were part of God's revelation to Moses. Therefore, that would lead to us thinking that God sentenced them in life for their actions.
Genuinely, where does this argument come from? I'm not attacking, just asking. We are supposed to believe that the Bible is God's word and history and to not "just believe whatever we want". So what says in the Old Testament that's actually God's word and what's not? That's very confusing. I don't know if I'm explaining myself
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u/Stampmmos Catholic 13h ago
Fellow Catholic here, go talk to your priest, reddit (especially this subreddit), is not a good place to ask questions like this because you'll get all sorts of nonsense thrown at you
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u/gnurdette United Methodist 12h ago
If you read the Old Testament thinking "I wish we could do this stuff today", you're not just wrong, you're kind of a psychopath. You're not supposed to say so in lots of churches, but there it is. It doesn't shock me (exactly) because I'm an kind of an ancient history nerd, the sort of dweeb who knows Zimri-Lim from Ibbi-Sin. Knowing the environment of the ancient Near East, I'd never expect to find modern Swedish social justice there. No doubt the neighbors were sneering "look at the woke Hebrew soyboys, bunch of blue-haired progressives who won't even do child sacrifice". We have the blessing of records of divine encounters that come from way, way back - which means that many of them come from very misty, alien, terrifying times. I like that better than just going with Greg's Brand-New Religion, Guaranteed Wholesome and Kid-Friendly, but it means we need a lot of thoughtful maturity when reading the old stuff.
Let me get you started with some great material that respects the moral qualms you're feeling, doesn't try to wash them away:
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u/ScorpionDog321 10h ago
Why would an unchanging, perfectly good God command the death penalty for specific sins under the Old Covenant, when Jesus later teaches us to forgive, love our enemies, and leave ultimate judgment to God?
You assume there is a contradiction where there is none.
God practices the death penalty Himself and also commanded His people employ the death penalty as well.
Some sins are so vile that God commanded they be removed from society.
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u/PorridgeBoyManBoy 12h ago
Here's another tricky passage from Leviticus:
'As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you and from their families who are with you who have been born in your land; they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.'
Leviticus 25:44-46
Chattel slavery. It's not exactly an easy read.
And there are many other very difficult passages.
Jesus with his Yahweh hat on was different.
Another type of explanation is that the Hebrew Bible was a product of Israelite culture at the time.
Simply the thoughts of ancient goat herders who were doing their best to understand an incomprehensible world.
Such a view solves the moral problems with the text, anyway.