I find it a
peculiar solecism and irony that many people of today will have no truck with
the so-called immoral teachings of the Old Testament. It is one of the most
abject failings of the imagination. It's true that the tribes in the Old
Testament were base and ignoble by the standards of modern Britain or America.
But what you have to realise is that they were so bad, in fact, that those
prescriptions we read about in scripture are actually quite advanced in the
context of the day. They are radical steps in the right direction that,
although startlingly under-developed by today's standards, assert moral
culpability to nations that previously lacked it in such sophisticated codified form.
Moreover, nowhere else in the world at that time saw those kinds of advancements achieved even by human influence, let alone imparted by Divine revelation. Criticising those Old Testament teachings as immoral by today's standards is as foolish as criticising Britain in the Industrial Revolution for not being as materially prosperous as the Britain of today. In both cases, comparing the alternatives around them, their achievements demonstrate significant contextual advancements.
