is this the word of god 
Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. Leviticus 19:19
Ye shall not round the corners of your heads. Leviticus 19:27
When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12
Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 2 Kings 2:23-25 NIV
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18
You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT
do you believe all the above are the words of god written through man
Yes.
Levitical Laws for Israelites:You're referencing old covenant, levitical laws for the Israelites...fabric mixing, eating of clean animals, hygiene practices, animal sacrifice for sin atonement, tithing practices, etc....not applicable today.
The early Israelites were called by God to be holy or “set apart” from the pagan nations around them and they adhered to law and practices that made that distinction more evident. Their existence was such that everything done was in order to be holy and pure representatives of God.
Folks often say, “why is it a sin to eat lobster?” It’s not that the lobster is bad or unclean in and of itself, but the Israelites were set apart and did not blur the lines in all aspects of their lives. They ate fish because fish were animals meant only for water and did not have mixed physical characteristics like shellfish/lobsters do. Lobsters can survive in and out of water and have a mix of features designed for land and water so they were temporarily deemed “unclean” for purposes of maintaining the idea of distinction while the nation of Israel developed. Man then began to include other cultural concepts that indicated distinctiveness such as cultural practices for hair and head coverings, but as Paul mentions in these passages of scripture we are to “judge for ourselves” the appropriateness of these customs.
Hand cut off:In the ancient near east or ancient Israelite culture the notion of lineage was vitally important. Especially given their covenantal status with the Almighty and his promise to increase their numbers and prosper them it was important that sex organs not be injured otherwise a line of lineage could forever be broken. Indicates the severity of committing such an act by God. You potentially end a familial line and your hand was forfeit because of it. Also grabbing a man’s genitals in public (especially one that wasn’t your husband) was considered to be a very lewd act.
Elisha:Elisha and the little children that were destroyed by bears for simply teasing Elisha. The “little children” of this passage are also translated as “youths”, “young men” and “young lads”.
This was a gang of 42 youths anywhere from ages 12-20 (based on previous readings I’ve done) that exclaimed “go up Baldy!” to Elisha. Elisha’s predecessor Elijah had just “gone up” via the flaming chariot and they wanted Elisha “gone up” too (which from my previous reading can indicate wanting him “cast out” or “to die”). This gang was organized with bad intentions and their exclamation although seemingly harmless in our culture today meant something more threatening then...it was a sign of hatred.
The KJV translation states “little children” or "boys" to which readers today immediately associate with a “happy daycare class of 42 5-year olds playfully teasing Elisha calling him ‘baldy’ . Then wicked ole Elisha cursed the blessed little ones and they were destroyed by bears.” The bears were sent to protect God’s messenger from impending harm by a organized gang of youths set on bad intentions.
Midianites:These pagan groups such as the Amalakites, Midianites, Moabites and Caananites had hundreds of years to repent and turn to God, but they persisted in their evil ways and ignored God. Sure today we have small sects of folks that may inflict harm upon a mass population (the Nazis for example), but we're talking about a massive population dedicated to evil and perverse, pagan rituals....different circumstances. We can look at the Chinese today and say the majority of this nation can't stand Christianity, but the Chinese are nothing like the Amalakites or the Midianites. They aren't engaging in the deviant perversions and human sacrifice like the pagan populations of the OT.
In fact, the Midianites not only turned from God, but during their time of denial they chose to repeatedly attack, brutalize and kill Israelite people….men, women, children and babies. The Midianites were also aligned with the Moabites and these pagan nations all typically worshipped pagan gods such as Baal and Molech. Pagan worship was anything but smiles, puppies and candy bars. It was live infant sacrifice via burning to death on white hot altars to Molech. It was self-mutilation within ceremonies of sexual perversion and the whoring of young women in demonic rituals to Baal. It was demonic rituals of witchcraft/sorcery and further ritualistic sexual perversion and whoring of women to the pagan goddess Asherah. It was carnal, it was dark, it was twisted, it was evil, it was demonic and it destroyed countless innocents. This was allowed to transpire for a time and then God pronounced judgment upon the Midianities.
God stepped in and allowed these pagan peoples to be destroyed and in turn brought the population of male children into eternity with him. Generation after generation after generation weren’t allowed to continue to pervert the younger generation before them and turn them from God which condemned them to an eternity without God when they died. God did show grace to the young, virginal women of Midian and allowed the Israelite men to take them as wives and bring them into the Israelite culture and covenant. The implication though is the Midianite women were raped and abused and tortured….absolutely false.
Slavery:The rules for slavery regarding Israel in the OT had nothing to do with the antebellum South or the slavery they were delivered from in Egypt. Two entirely different things....one was forced (ex: antebellum South and Israelites in Egypt) and the other was voluntary/customary for debt payment (ex: Israelites post-Egypt freedom). One was about inhumanity (ex: antebellum South and Israelites in Egypt) and one was about the preservation of humanity and rights of the servant/slave while working off individual or family debt (ex: Israel post-Egypt freedom). The word "slave" is always incorrecty associated with the antebellum South...just not the case for OT Israel.
Many slaves/bond servants ended up staying with the very owner/family they worked for after their debts were satisfied because they chose to. Many became full-time hands on the owners land receiving a normal wage. These folks weren't "picking the cotton on Massah's plantation" and then being beaten and/or raped in the evenings.....no, no, no.
I know many have serious issues with slavery in the bible, but the "issue of slavery" doesn't carry the negative connotation often force fit onto it because of the words “slave” or ”slavery”. It’s the culture and history of the Israelites who were delivered from the forced, "work til you die" slavery in Egypt that needs to be understood. If the Israelite that held the debt did something to mistreat the bondservant working off the debt the holder of debt was punished. God that freed the Israelites didn't turn around and say, "Ok, now y'all go ahead and enslave and mistreat others in the same manner you were just freed from".
Yes, I find it morally correct that the rights of a bondservant working off an individual or family debt were upheld. That’s the progressive nature of the law that protected the bondservant (“ebed” in Hebrew) within Israel that was found nowhere else in the pagan nations of the ancient near east.
I absolutely know the perception is that these folks were kept in shackles, practically starved, beaten, maimed, raped and treated like human garbage based on the whims of the debt holder. Just not the case (this was not ancient Egypt or the antebellum south in US). Simple comparisons with other ancient near east cultures will show you that the slave (not the bondservant) was treated like human garbage in those cases. The practices utilized with bond servants in ancient Israel were leaps and bounds above the slavery of surrounding pagan nations (these were the “work you to death, starve, maim, rape and beat you” cultures). The reality is that there was virtually no comparison between the treatment of bondservants in ancient Israel versus the treatment of slaves in the surrounding pagan cultures.
The Israelites that had acquired debt (ex: through failed business, theft, failed crops, etc…) and were unable to repay entered into a contract with the debt holder to work off the debt. As was customary in ancient Israel, sometimes individuals, individual and a family member or entire families worked off the debt. If the debt was satisfied prior to 6 years of service then that was it….the bondservant was released. If 6 years of service came and went and the debt was not repaid in full the debt holder simply lost out and the bond servant was to be released regardless. Often times the released bondservant(s) was to be given compensation, life stock, grains, wine, etc…..upon their release. Sometimes the bondservants became full employees after the debt was settled and began earning a wage (if they chose to stay on board). Sometimes bondservants chose to stay with the family they worked off debt for and continue the bond servitude after the debt was satisfied because they developed such a strong relationship with the family they owed a debt to. Sometimes females bondservants became spouses of the owners or the owner's children (marriages were arranged) and as was customary the owner would pay out a bride price to the bondservants family. Within the year of jubilee many, many bondservants were released from their service regardless of time served or amount of debt repaid.
And yes sometimes the bondservants' performance or behavior was inappropriate and they were punished for it. Although, the laws for bondservants didn't condone the capricious beating of the bondservant, the laws were meant to discourage that behavior on behalf of the owner. If owner did something as vile as murder a bondservant then that owner lost their life. Everyone quotes the scripture “if the owner beats the slave and slave recovers after 3 days……then all is good”. This circumstance was simply an exception, not the norm, but the laws were meant to govern all circumstances both the good and the bad. If the bondservant was beaten to a point in which they could not work they were supposed to be freed. The debt holder/owner was engaged in a contract with the bondservant and that bondservant was deemed property, but human property for the purposes of sweat equity for debt repayment that retained rights and privileges and just treatment. The owner was outlawed from ruling over the bondservant like a tyrant….that was not permitted. Did they work some of these folks hard? Sure. Was that hard work intended to be cruel and brutal and relentless and unreasonable? LOL no….that’s a fiction inferred by ignorant readers.
God’s ultimate goal was to lead Israel away from the practice of using bondservants altogether. The Lord works within the confines of our lives drawing us closer to him and away from the adopted practices of our hardened hearts that we freely choose to engage in. Regardless, the Lord is patient and will allow our free choices and some our less than desirable customs to be honored with the intention of leading us away from those practices. The use of bondservants is not the preference of the Lord though. Bondservants were also meant to respect their owners. Remember, some of the bondservants were working off a debt based a crime they committed against the family that held their contract for debt repayment. As I’ve said time and again on this topic it is completely illogical that God would free the Israelites from the brutal, forced slavery in Egypt and then allow them to engage in that same behavior among the people of their own nation. Folks will simply say “well, that’s a biblical contradiction” LOL……sorry, no. That’s ignorance on part of the critic that has done little more than a surface reading of the scripture. When I first read the these scriptures I was SHOCKED, but then I dug in deeper and understood the culture of the Israelites, the culture of the pagan nations, learned some of the Hebrew terms and the definitely gained insight on the context…..makes all the difference.
