Did God tell the Jews to commit genocide?

  • Thread starter Thread starter franklinstower
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Exactly - We’ll always have enemies of God’s Revelations to Man…
 
God also set a hammered metal dome in the sky with his own words.
Show me the metal dome please.
And if you can’t, are you ready to deny that passage is part of inspired scripture?

by your own words…are you then ready to “whitewash history?” Are you filtering Scripture through your own lens? Are you making God in your own image?

You are asking some pretty hard questions. How are you going to answer them?
 
Last edited:
I’ve already answered this, and I doubt you and I are that far apart on this issue either. Of course I’m going to dispute someone saying God told them to kill an innocent. I don’t reject the idea that God can and will do so if necessary, but I reject almost any explanation they could give for why He would do so now.

Also, you seem to have slipped an extra element into your question. I don’t say that God can contradict His nature, I say that His nature includes His authority to end life (though not existence) and to command others to do the same.
 
Inquiry said:
I’ve already answered this, and I doubt you and I are that far apart on this issue either. Of course I’m going to dispute someone saying God told them to kill an innocent. I don’t reject the idea that God can and will do so if necessary, but I reject almost any explanation they could give for why He would do so now.

Also, you seem to have slipped an extra element into your question. I don’t say that God can contradict His nature, I say that His nature includes His authority to end life (though not existence) and to command others to do the same.
Click to expand...
Yes we do practically agree. The only thing I would take issue with is the interpretive lens that allows God’s nature to include commands to slay innocents, which I don’t think is your take, but is common among fundamentalists, and is scandalous to the faith.
 
To clarify my position, I think He actually gave the command to slay Isaac. It fits too well as a prefigurement of the Crucifixion. I say that it is not inherently against His nature to order the death of an innocent, and even if the tale was written down differently than it actually happened the lessons in it are still applicable.

I think this also speaks to something very important about morality. There are things which are always inherently evil, there are things which are generally permissible, but there are also things which are evil for us and not for Him.
 
Inquiry said:
To clarify my position, I think He actually gave the command to slay Isaac. It fits too well as a prefigurement of the Crucifixion. I say that it is not inherently against His nature to order the death of an innocent, and even if the tale was written down differently than it actually happened the lessons in it are still applicable.

I think this also speaks to something very important about morality. There are things which are always inherently evil, there are things which are generally permissible, but there are also things which are evil for us and not for Him.
Click to expand...
We differ there.
Christ is morality embodied. He is the fulfillment of it. God is the source of good and so is the source of morality. Christ reveals this good to us. Christ reveals God’s mind (or intellect) to us. We are finite of course, and don’t fully comprehend the infinite, but what God reveals to us is intelligible and true.

And scripture is not God’s fullest revelation, taken in isolation separate from Christ. It simply is not, and I think that is the thrust of P Benedicts thoughts both in the address I referenced and in Verbum Domini. Fundamentalism takes scripture in isolation separate from Christ. (and I am not casting that on you just for clarification)
 
Last edited:
The fact that God has the unique dominion over life is well established.
At the same time, in the Incarnation we see God’s disposition towards us, and us towards each other. The two are not in conflict. And Scripture has to be read that way.
 
I’m not taking scripture in isolation. My primary reason for thinking the Binding of Isaac is true is it’s value as a prefigurement. Also there is the understanding that the Body belongs to God and not Man and that our bodies (and those of others) are not ours to do with as we choose. Deliberate self amputation, for instance, is wrong outside of medical necessity. I can’t chop my own arm off unless it is to save my life.
 
Last edited:
Inquiry said:
I’m not taking scripture in isolation.
Click to expand...
I don’t think you are necessarily. But I think the idolatry of scripture is closely bound up with this issue and is an issue that scandalizes many people out of the Church or away from it. That’s why I get wired up about trying to clarify the Church’s living teaching on this.
 
As I’ve personally seen someone (a mother) grapple with the Binding of Isaac, I can see the issue. That said, I don’t think it is a good idea to sideline the tale and the understanding that comes from it so that people aren’t scandalized.

We know the bread of life discourses drove people away from Christ. They still do. They are still important to understanding Christ.
 
franklinstower said:
I have always thought that the Jewish people just thought they were being told to kill the various groups they did in the Old Testament and not that God actually told them too. I really can’t accept a perspective that God really did tell them to kill entre groups of people. Can anyone shed light on this topic from a Catholic perspective?

I have also heard that the numbers of people the Jewish peoples killed were greatly exaggerated in some cases. Any light on that subject?
Click to expand...
Could you shed light upon what you’re speaking of?

When and Where were Jewish people told by GOD to commit Genocide?

Specifics… ?
 
Inquiry said:
As I’ve personally seen someone (a mother) grapple with the Binding of Isaac, I can see the issue. That said, I don’t think it is a good idea to sideline the tale and the understanding that comes from it so that people aren’t scandalized.

We know the bread of life discourses drove people away from Christ. They still do. They are still important to understanding Christ.
Click to expand...
Absolutely not necessary to deny the passage. It is part of inspired scripture and conveys truth for our salvation.
 
There is a difference between commands and flowery language that uses metaphors. It’s a lot easier to say hammered metal dome sky is a metaphor than “kill all of them, even the women and the children.”
[/quote]

I’m responding directly to your words here:

Direct quotes.Clearly ordered. Yet you you claim some are literal and others are not.
Can you provide reasoning as to why God’s word is actual/factual as written in one place but not another? What is your basis for accepting one and not the other?
That you personally wish to accept one and not the other is not the issue.
 
You’re willing to accept God told HIs Son to go on a mission that would result in His death but not that God commanded judgement on wicked peoples?
 
goout said:
But I think the idolatry of scripture is closely bound up with this issue and is an issue that scandalizes many people out of the Church or away from it
Click to expand...
People are scandalized because they are weak.
 
C.Longinus said:
40.png
goout:
But I think the idolatry of scripture is closely bound up with this issue and is an issue that scandalizes many people out of the Church or away from it
Click to expand...
People are scandalized because they are weak.
Click to expand...
…and people misrepresnt the faith to them in some way.
Scandal applies to someone who acts a certain way to negatively affect someone else’s faith. The Church does not blame weakness for scandal.
 
Last edited:
It doesn’t matter at this point. My question was completely and definitively answered earlier in this thread when someone posted Catholic sources allowing for a non literal commandment- literal history and nonliteral commandment – non literal history.

My concerns on this topic are fully resolved at this point.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top