Did God really command violence?

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Our Lord’s death and resurrection are historical. Do you want to dispute these too?
 
I am honest and I do not believe that God has ever given that command; the verse you quoted was written many centuries after the facts reported and it is based on a secular oral tradition. Everybody knows that oral traditions can be easily corrupted, expecially when they are so old. From the Jesus’ teachings, we understand that God didn’t actually give that command.
 
The Gospel were written directly by some apostoles or by some apostoles’ disciples.
This is completly different from writings based on secular oral traditions.
 
I think you’ve missed the point. There is no doubt that God can make pepole die, but He doesn’t need men’s help for that.
The point is that God never contradicts Himself; Jesus taught us what God wants us to do, and every command in contrast with Jesus’ teachings does not come from God.
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From men, obviously. As I pointed out in my first post, the jews did what they did only because they WANTED to do that, and NOT because they wanted to obey God.
This is proved by the fact that they killed everybody, but they didn’t kill the cattle and the sheep, which were useful to them, and they didn’t want to kill them.
 
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False. I am making God unto Christ’s image and I accept Jesus’ teachings.
I know that the God of Jesus Christ never contradicts Himself.
 
The God of Israel never contradicts Himself either!

If you excise these hard sayings from Sacred Scripture, then you miss some of the most important lessons of the Catholic faith. No Catholic Biblical scholar will accept your hermeneutic of throwing away stuff “because it’s corrupted”.
I am making God unto Christ’s image
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If you see no glaring problem with this phrase, then you are beyond help, but here’s a book.

https://www.reasonablecatholic.com/hard-sayings-by-trent-horn/
 
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Actually, there are many verses, but ley me just quote one: Matthew 5: 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

You see no contradictions because you do not understand Jesus’ teachings.
 
Mmarco said:
I am making God unto Christ’s image
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I am going to recall this quote until you address it, and explain how, as a Catholic, you presume to mold and shape God after your own conceptions, rather than accept the Church’s teachings on His nature and Sacred Scripture.

Actually the most loving thing the Israelites could do for their enemies was to wipe them off the face of the Earth. Otherwise they would continue in their pagan, sinful ways and corrupt the Israelites along with them. So the herem warfare was an act of love, not an act of hatred.
 
Y’all are hung up on Biblical Literalism and prooftexting, and that is exactly the wrong approach in Catholic Scripture scholarship.
 
Anesti33 said:
Actually the most loving thing the Israelites could do for their enemies was to wipe them off the face of the Earth.
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It is evident that you do not undertand what love is and what is the menaing of Christ’s teachings about love. I see no reason to continue this conversation.
 
Just a couple of verses;

Luke 6 : 27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you

Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
 
What you are saying is simply absurd. We are not talking about legitimate defence; we are talking about killing children. You cannot love someone when you are killing him and his children. You are simply an hypocrite and you do not understand what love is. You say that you treat everyone as you wnat to be treated; so do you want others to kill you and your children?
 
God loves us infinitely, and He desires to lead each of us to the eternal life, a condition that exists only when we are in communion with God. But God cannot tolerate evil and sin, because they are incompatible with His good and holy nature. When a person has irreversibly and definitively chosen evil and rejected God, that person can no longer be loved, becuase evil has become an intrinsic part of himself.

You are still missing the point: Jesus taught us that to love someone means to do good to them and to do to others what you would have them do to you .
This is what God commands us to do. God never contradicts himself, therefore He never ordered to kill children, because killing children is neither “to do good to them” , nor it is what we want others to do to our children.
Of course God can take our life in every moment; but we are not God and we must keep Jesus’ commandments and love others the way Jesus taught us to love them.
 
Ah! You’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the allegory of OT battles. God commands the sons of Israel to cut sin completely out of their lives. Not by a little, not just most, but all sinfulness: God cannot tolerate the impure, right? The Israelites, as a race, must be pure and uncorrupted by the Amalekites, the Hivites, the Philistines, and so on. Every last remnant of them must be removed.

Our battle against sin is quite literally herem warfare, and we must be either purified in this life or purgatory, . . .
 
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Anesti33 said:
Ah! You’ve hit the nail on the head regarding the allegory of OT battles. God commands the sons of Israel to cut sin completely out of their lives. Not by a little, not just most, but all sinfulness: God cannot tolerate the impure, right? The Israelites, as a race, must be pure and uncorrupted by the Amalekites, the Hivites, the Philistines, and so on. Every last remnant of them must be removed.
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Exacly. There is no possible compromise between good and evil; we must reject evil and sin totally from ourselves; the Amalekites, the Hivites, the Philistines ets represent symbolically evil and sin.
Actually no catholic scholars consider those OT battles as reliable and faithful accounts of historical facts; they must be seen as allegorical battles against evil inside ourselves.
 
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I would like to point out an evident contradiction present in the book of 1 Samuel, which clearly confirms that the account of the order to kill everybody was not from God, but it was invented by men: in chapter 13 (verse 13), after a battle against the Philistines (and before the battle against the Amalekites) the prophet Samuel says to Saul that God has chosen another king because Saul has disobeyed God making an offering without Samuel.

In Chapter 15 (verse 10), the author writes that God comunicates to Samuel His decision to reject Saul during the night Saul attacked Amalekites, and that, the following morning Samuel says to Saul that God has rejected him as a king because he disobeyed not killing the cattle.

It is evident that the author refers to two contrasting oral traditions about God’s rejection of Saul as a king.
 
It’s a restraint against profligate subjugation and enslavement. As was said above, the Mosaic Law was not the moral ideal.
 
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Anesti33 said:
The Israelites, as a race, must be pure and uncorrupted by the Amalekites, the Hivites, the Philistines, and so on.
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I doubt the Holy Spirit intends a racist message, even in allegory. It’s about worship of the true God, against idolatry — the purity is the spiritual intent in seeking righteousness, not something innate about the Hebrew people.
 
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