Obama Steps In Deuteronomy

     It is not surprising that President Obama would show his ignorance in public on a whole host of issues. What is surprising is his recent ridiculing of the Bible, at a prayer breakfast. The President misrepresented several Bible passages, either on purpose or through ignorance, most notably Deuteronomy.  He characterized Deuteronomy 21:18-21 as condoning the stoning of children, which it most certainly does not. I have excerpted the passage below:

          If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his
          father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not
          hearken unto them:

          Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders
          of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

          And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious,
          he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

           And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil
           away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

 

    The President misstated the passage as condoning the stoning of children for simply wandering from the faith. Anyone who actually reads the passage would understand that it says nothing at all about a child wandering from the faith. The passage talks about a child who is rebellious, stubborn, gluttonous and a drunkard. One must also have the context of history when trying to understand this and many other Bible passages. Clearly Barack Obama thinks history began with his rise to power and anything that came before is just not important. Prior to the writing of Deuteronomy 21:18-21, the killing of a child by the parents without any outside involvement was a commonly accepted practice. For the first time, this passage from Deuteronomy, required that the father and the mother bring the child to the town elders, who acted as the first legal system in civilized society. This is important because for the first time it elevated due process over even the rights of parents. President Obama most likely missed this point because due process and the rule of law are not concepts that he values. This passage also completely removed capital punishment from the realm of the parents, where it had existed prior, and placed it in the hands of the town elders.

     Deuteronomy 21:18-21 also elevated women to the same status as men when it makes clear that the rebellious child not listening to the voice of his mother is a sin on the same level as not listening to the voice of his father. Secondly, the passage clearly makes it a requirement that the child be brought to the town elders by both his father and his mother, making the mother's role as essential as the father's.

     And finally the passage makes the execution of the son the responsibility of all the men of the town, giving this law of Moses transparency and broad-based support in the community at large.

One could make the case that the President's recent policy of using drones to kill American citizens that he decides are collaborating with terrorists, is based on pre-Deuteronomy practices.

     President Obama's recent Bible misquotes are not the first time he has shown scriptural ignorance. He and others on the Left have continually justified their big government programs by using the Bible's promotion of being your brother's keeper. The problem is that the only place in the Bible where it mentions the term, "brother's keeper" is in Cain's response to God when asked about the whereabouts of his bother Abel. He asks God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" It's part of the Lefts hypocrisy, ridiculing the Bible on one hand, while misusing it to sell their big government expansion on the other. But it is our ignorance as the governed that allows President Obama to step in Deuteronomy and end up smelling like a rose.