Hey no problem on delievering some commentary to your posts :D. Your posts seem inquisitive and well thought out. These are certainly questions and thoughts that all bible readers, whether they be believers or not, have to wrestle with if their going to be honest in their quest.

First things off I should let you know a bit about my background. I am a believer. I also have a BA in Biblical Research from Puget Sound Christian College, so these are texts I've wrestled with quite a bit. The last couple of weeks I've been in the mood to 'Get back to basics', so here I am!

now (finally) to your post, there's a couple of things you should probably keep in mind while your reading these texts.

1) These passages are OLD, 3500 years old in many circumstances, and therefore they reflect the values and morals of 3500 years ago. That being said, most aren't absolutely foreign, basic values don't change. For instance, everyone wants to have a place to live, everyone wants that place to be secure, and everyone wants their children to have a future.

2) That all being said, throughout the bible there is a significant bias toward Law and Order (Que theme song now), order taking precedence over chaos. God here is seen as laying down the law in order to prevent chaos (and in this way he is loving). If your in the mood to dig a little deeper, compare and contrast the Mosaic Law to the Code of Hammurabi. In the Law of Moses (side note: Torah is the Hebrew word for the Law, however Instruction might be a better term) for every "Do this and die!" law, there's a provision for the protection of widows and orphans, you simply won't find these type of provisions within the Code of Hammurabi. Now I'm not saying you should simply emphasis the "good" and ignore the "bad", but to try to keep in mind that in contrast to other law codes of the time, the instructions from Moses are fairly progressive, darn near socialist in some cases

Take care

Dave

edit...double post ooops