Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Re Abraham's intentions:

Whether what Abraham said can be construed as a lie or 
not one thing is absolutely clear and that is that his 
intention was to deceive. Deception is not necessarily 
a morally bad thing and David's pretense at being crazy 
is another example of one our ancient heroes getting 
involved in not completely honest activities.

It is not deception in itself that is such a bad thing 
it is the ulterior motive that makes deception bad. e.g. 
In proverbs we are told that Yah hates dodgy scales. 
Now the ulterior motive of dodgy scales is clear, and 
that is to defraud hard working people of their hard 
earned cash and such behaviour is clearly morally 
incorrect from a biblical standpoint. The ten 
commandments also tell us that to bear false witness 
against an innocent man is also morally bad. Again, 
in this form of deception we see the ulterior motive 
of wanting to wrongfully incriminate another person 
is clearly 'bad'.
In the case of Abraham's and David's actions it is
clear that their intentions were to deceive. But it
is also perfectly clear that they had no morally
incorrect ulterior motives behing their deception
but merely wanted to save their necks. Seems fine to
me!

All things considered, if one day I'm put in a
situation whereby a maraunding band of the latest
version of Nazis bursts into my house and demands the
secret location of my Christian and/or Jewish brethren
then you can rest assured that I will quite proudly
lyingly say I don't know where they are or provide
a false location and you can also rest assured that
I won't be losing any night's sleep over my dishonesty.o tell us that to bear 
false witness
against an innocent man is also morally bad. Again,
in this form of deception we see the ulterior motive
of wanting to wrongfully incri