Did God tell the Jews to commit genocide?

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MiserereMeiDei said:
The problem I see with your understanding is that you don’t seem to take God at his word,
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Nope.
We have different conceptions of what inspiration is. We have different conceptions of The Word of God.
This is what I assent to, which is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
PART ONE
THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION ONE
“I BELIEVE” - “WE BELIEVE”

CHAPTER TWO
GOD COMES TO MEET MAN

[50] By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation.1 Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
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III. CHRIST JESUS – “MEDIATOR AND FULLNESS OF ALL REVELATION” 25

God has said everything in his Word

[65] "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son."26 Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one. St. John of the Cross, among others, commented strikingly on Hebrews 1:1-2:

In giving us his Son, his only Word (for he possesses no other), he spoke everything to us at once in this sole Word - and he has no more to say. . . because what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son.
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II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE

One common source. . .

[80]) "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal."40 Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age”.41
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ARTICLE 3
SACRED SCRIPTURE

I. CHRIST - THE UNIQUE WORD OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

101 In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words: "Indeed the words of God, expressed in the words of men, are in every way like human language, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the flesh of human weakness, became like men."63

[102] Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely:64

You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.65
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[107] The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."74
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I don’t feel uncomfortable in the least. Nothing I’ve said is at any disparity with the catechism or the teachings of the Church. I’ve given you material from Sts. John Chrysostom and Thomas Aquinas.
 
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I have. You seem to have ignored them. So here are a couple additional citations from St. Augustine.

Here’s another from St. Augustine, Contra Adimantum
in the old scriptures the motivation of those who imposed punishments is passed over because very few spiritual people knew from divine revelation what they were doing. After all, the people—for whom fear was useful—were subdued by a very severe command in order that, just as they saw that their wicked enemies and the worshipers of idols were given into their hands to be killed, they themselves might also fear that they would be given into the hands of their enemies if they scorned
the commandment of the true God and fell into the worship of idols and the impieties of the nations. For when they sinned in a similar manner, they were punished in a similar manner.
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St. Augustine, Answer to Faustus, XXII, 79
The ministers of the Old Testament, who also foretold the New Testament, served God by killing sinners; the ministers of the New Testament, who also explained the Old Testament, served God by dying at the hands of sinners. Yet both served the one God, who taught during different but appropriate ages that temporal goods were to be sought from him and should be held in scorn for his sake and that temporal difficulties can be imposed by him and ought to be endured on account of him.
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I feel uncomfortable. While I appreciate that it is within the bounds of orthodoxy to interpret genocidal commands figuratively, it seems clear the church fathers and Aquinas accepted them literally.
 
I don’t see how you can say those fathers are more right than the Catholic Church itself. It sounds like you disagree with the Catholic Church.
 
That’s a fair point that we shouldn’t identify the church fathers or doctors of the church with the entire teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Each of the fathers and doctors was wrong about something. I accept that it is orthodox to hold a non-literal interpretation of biblical passages describing divine commands for the ancient Israelites to commit genocide. I personally do not believe that God explicitly commanded Samuel to command Saul to kill all the Amalekite babies. I believe the inspired authors of those passages intended to describe what happened historically, but not as eyewitness testimony. I think there is room there to separate God’s positive from his permissive will. I’m uncomfortable disagreeing with the church fathers and Aquinas on that point. Anyway, my own beliefs may be wrong.
 
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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.
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That’s a questionable way of trying to present history via saying “genocide”

and also for it leaves out, “they clearly knew.…” whom they must oppose in order to survive.

And the fact that’s it’s OT … makes a matter as well. For, life for a life finally ceases to be law…

Lastly, keep in mind that death of the body … is not the worst event which can befall someones…

Salvation is the bottom line.
 
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I cant really understand this post unfortunately.

There have been some good posts here stating clearly what the Catholic Church’s official position is in case you want to read them though.

The three positions of the Church are

LIteral relevaton, literal history.
Non literal revelation, literal history and.
Non literal revelation, non literal history.

These three are all acceptable and my notion falls under #2.
 
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franklinstower said:
I cant really understand this post unfortunately.
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It’s my way of saying that unfortunately
I didn’t understand the manner in which you presented the OP and its Header,
along with your IMO vague/unspecified commentary
and your reasonings and questions…

It comes across as Questioning Scriptures.
And from the Catholic Position - All Scriptures are Sacred… Of and From God - via His Spirit

_
 
I can understand that. Just go through and read the rest of the posts. I was trying to find a way to answer atheists who I have come across who use these arguments to question scripture.

There have been some very thorough responses in this thread.
 
franklinstower said:
I can understand that. Just go through and read the rest of the posts. I was trying to find a way to answer atheists who I have come across who use these arguments to question scripture.
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Understood… I approach those common attempts to undermine Scripture which seems to be a never-ending game for many - by suggesting that they get to know Jesus via His Teachings…
 
franklinstower said:
I can understand that. Just go through and read the rest of the posts. I was trying to find a way to answer atheists who I have come across who use these arguments to question scripture.

There have been some very thorough responses in this thread.
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The first thing is, when atheists reject the god who commands arbitrary violence their moral sensibilities are good. They ought to reject that false god.
Bp Barron speaks about this in several places. I don’t think we do Christianity any favors when we reflexively support off-color biblical interpretations that the Church herself does not support.

We should agree with atheists when they note the contradictions between Christ and fundamentalist readings of the Old Testament that mis-portray God’s disposition towards us, as fully revealed in Christ.
And then propose Christ. Christ as the fulfillment of the OT. Christ as the interpretive lens of the OT. Atheists ought to be able to move beyond fundamentalism, because it’s not authentic Christianity. Atheists ought to find objections to the real thing, not caricatures.
 
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Sinner85 said:
I believe in the literal translation in these passages where God told Israel to murder entire groups of people. It was out of love for his people that he directed them to do this. He knew that if they didn’t, they would fall. And they did fall because they didn’t listen to Him.
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I can just imagine an anti-theist (the more aggressive flavour of atheist) reading this and practically salivating with glee. There aren’t any here, though, so you won’t get a response. You’re right that they probably would not listen to our defence, but especially if it’s just rife with moral contradiction. God could not save his chosen people without telling them to murder people (who He also created)? Then He commanded them not to murder people. Then they didn’t listen to Him anyway.
 
In essence, I think what you are expressing in this post and in your prior post about being uncomfortable, is that we should not abandon traditional understandings as interpreted by fathers and doctors of the Church solely because they are old and jarring to our sensibilities. if there is a reason to deepen our understanding (i.e., more knowledge about literary types that for some reason would not have been available to the fathers/early doctors of the Church), OK, let’s develop our understanding.

By the same token, as you note below, not every utterance by church fathers/doctors is necessarily going to represent the universal and ordinary magisterium, either.
 
What I focus on about these passages is the intent of the inspired authors. They are faithfully conveying the words of Moses, the prophets, and the history of ancient Israel. God willed these to be in scripture as its primary author, but his voice is never direct, always second hand. In the gospels, Christ speaks directly. What is the meaning? I think Pope Benedict XVI put it well: revelation progressed. Ancient Israel were sinners, and remnants of a fallen world, but they were the chosen instruments of grace.
 
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True, it’s just extremely difficult (impossible for me, right now) to understand how that includes commanding people to murder babies. That is an evil thing to do. But I am interested how my fellow Catholics and other Christians (William Lane Craig for one) earnestly try to see how that can make any sense.
 
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