Did God tell the Jews to commit genocide?

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I think we’re meant to wrestle (after all, that’s what Israel means). The flood and destruction of Sodom/Gomorrah I understand to be natural disasters. Natural disasters are not moral persons. What is especially difficult about “the ban” is that people are committing it, not forces of nature.

I think we can understand the actions of ancient Israel similar to the medieval crusades. The difference of course being that the crusades failed. I have no doubt the crusaders fervently believed it was the will of God, but I don’t believe God sanctioned all of the bloody atrocities they committed. Since God is the ultimate cause and he sustains everything in existence, we can say that all of history is his will. We know that doesn’t mean he wills sin.
 
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Sinner85 said:
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Neithan:
I think we’re meant to wrestle (after all, that’s what Israel means). The flood and destruction of Sodom/Gomorrah I understand to be natural disasters. Natural disasters are not moral persons. What is especially difficult about “the ban” is that people are committing it, not forces of nature.

I think we can understand the actions of ancient Israel similar to the medieval crusades. The difference of course being that the crusades failed. I have no doubt the crusaders fervently believed it was the will of God, but I don’t believe God sanctioned all of the bloody atrocities they committed. Since God is the ultimate cause and he sustains everything in existence, we can say that all of history is his will. We know that doesn’t mean he wills sin.
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I just don’t see a difference in God causing a natural disaster to wipe out populations vs him using his chosen people to do it.
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Human beings are unique in God’s creation:
In the lead-up to the teaching on morality the catechism addresses this:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a3.htm
God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27
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Man is clearly not just an instinctual part of God’s creation. We share in his image, and that includes free will and rationality.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm
Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil.
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Inanimate objects and natural processes cannot be evaluated morally. Human actions are.
 
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The thinking goes like this. If the Catholic Church does not require a literal interpretation of something and the literal interpretation would give ammo to atheist then it would be wrong to promote that interpretation with vigour as atheists are using these very arguments and successfully pulling many people away from Christ.

Based on this perspective I think it is scandalous to publicly promote these unnecessary positions given the present climate of losing so many to atheism and agnosticism. I say unnecessary in the sense that the Catholic Church does not require that we hold them.

So if we are not required to hold these positions at all and many are being pulled away from Christ because of them then holding them publicly is working against Christ.

I think this is a case where a person can be technically right but pastorally wrong and wrong as a witness to Christ for the world.

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franklinstower said:
I am not defending the position but just explaining it.

The thinking goes like this. If the Catholic Church does not require a literal interpretation of something and the literal interpretation would give ammo to atheist then it would be wrong to promote that interpretation with vigour.

I think there is value to this argument personally and would hold to it in cases of murder and the ordering of mass murders.
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This is the real situation.
Fundamentalist caricatures are almost universally the punching bag for atheism.
You hear these contradictions pointed out all.the.time.
“your God can’t be love because your God is violent”
“you believe the world was created in 6 days”.

Atheism would have not much to speak about if not for fundamentalists.
 
Agreed and since atheists are presently so successful it is wrong to feed them necessary.

Any idea why when I quote someone their text does NOT show up?
 
I’m Catholic. And I study the Hebrew scriptures with an Orthodox Jewish friend. Here’s what I’ve learned.

From the Orthodox point of view, God ordered cherem (the ban) only for the most evil societies. They believe that some societies had to be rooted out. The Moabites, for instance, sacrificed their children by fire to Molech. The Israelites carried out this practice while in the wilderness and in the Canaan – but only at the explicit instruction of God.
 
njlisa said:
I’m Catholic. And I study the Hebrew scriptures with an Orthodox Jewish friend. Here’s what I’ve learned.

From the Orthodox point of view, God ordered cherem (the ban) only for the most evil societies. They believe that some societies had to be rooted out. The Moabites, for instance, sacrificed their children by fire to Molech. The Israelites carried out this practice while in the wilderness and in the Canaan – but only at the explicit instruction of God.
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That is interesting but it seems to me that this does not justify genocide no matter what the reason.
 
It is however, an important point of the relationship of Man to God that we do not have the understanding or authority to decide life from death, but He does. That doesn’t mean He does so capriciously, it means if we had His point of view and understanding we would understand why it was a moral good in that specific situation.
 
That is interesting but it seems to me that this does not justify genocide no matter what the reason.
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@franklinstower: Thanks for your feedback and giving me the opportunity to clarify my previous post. I’m sorry I created confusion. I’m not trying to justify cherem/the ban. My sole purpose was to present the scriptures as understood by Orthodox Jews.

In the 10th plague, God wiped out the first born in Egypt. This too, is hard to understand. But if you think about, Egyptians willingly took part in the slaughter of Hebrew boys.
Pharaoh then commanded all his people, “Throw into the Nile every boy that is born, but you may let all the girls live." (Exodus 1:22)
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God bless you and thanks again for the feedback.
 
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Inquiry said:
It is however, an important point of the relationship of Man to God that we do not have the understanding or authority to decide life from death, but He does. That doesn’t mean He does so capriciously, it means if we had His point of view and understanding we would understand why it was a moral good in that specific situation.
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It’s really two separate issues
1 Whether God is the sole source of life and has the unique and sole determination of that’ life’s destiny…obviously yes
2 Whether a particular action that is represented in the OT is within God’s fully revealed nature to actually do.

God is represented as doing many things that it is not in God’s nature to do. God has the capability or potency to do anything. That does not mean that it’s in God’s nature to exercise that power. God has the potency to wipe human beings out of existence completely. We might ask why God does not do that, given our behavior. It’s not in God’;s nature to take back the creature he loves into existence. Instead he demonstrates real power through giving himself in Christ. God does not exercise power through human expectations. But we know God does not contradict himself in Christ. P Benedict spoke about this as the “Logos” of God. God is not arbitrary, his nature can be known.
The OT authors have their own conceptions of God that might not be complete or perfect.
You could think of quite a few things written about God by human beings that are not in God’s nature:
1 Getting angry
2 repenting
3 changing his mind
4 asking human beings to do intrinsically evil things
 
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I agree that God never asks human beings to do intrinsically evil things, but that doesn’t mean that every time he asked someone to kill it was a misunderstanding. The Binding of Isaac, for instance, is a pivotal moment that reveals a lot about the relationship between God and His people.
 
EndTimes said:
At what? Playing the atheist? All of them?
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Presently atheists are very successful at evangelizing people away from Christinaity. It is a big problem with whole generations falling away from the church. So many people losing faith, so many people walking away from God and religion.

What I am saying is that these atheists are very publicly using scriptures like we are talking about to discredit God and religion. Seeing as how difficult passages such as these are not required to be taken literally by the Church, and seeing as how these very scriptures are being used to convert people away from God it would seem like a good idea NOT to press a literal take on them in public.

That is the argument. It comes from not wanting to create unnecessary stumbling blocks for people coming to Christ.
 
I get what you’re saying, and I’ve thought about that too, but I don’t think that’s right; it feels like what the church tried to do after the 1960s: accommodate the secular culture. We should be earnestly seeking the truth rather than present some self-calculated de minimis of dogma for people to maybe consider if it doesn’t offend their personal preferences too much. That’s the route mainline Protestantism took and well, look at what happened there. They gave up the dogmas, too.
franklinstower said:
Presently atheists are very successful at evangelizing people away from Christinaity.
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Do you mean like “de-evangelize”? I’d hate to invert a beautiful word for sharing the gospel and use it to describe what atheists do when they pose skeptical arguments. Truth cannot contradict truth. I think they can “de-superstitionize” really well, and in that sense they are also doing God’s will, though unwittingly. Unfortunately the poor state of catechesis leaves so many unable to discern the difference.
 
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EndTimes said:
That dovetails with Prophecy.

Anything Else?
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Are you saying its OK to help atheists lead people away from Christ because it dovetails with prophecy? If not how about stating your position clearly rather than being so trite.
 
Neithan said:
I get what you’re saying, and I’ve thought about that too, but I don’t think that’s right; it feels like what the church tried to do after the 1960s: accommodate the secular culture. We should be earnestly seeking the truth rather than present some self-calculated de minimis of dogma for people to maybe consider if it doesn’t offend their personal preferences too much. That’s the route mainline Protestantism took and well, look at what happened there. They gave up the dogmas, too.
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I’m not sure which dogmas you are referring to in context of this thread.
It seems to me the key elements of the Church’s teaching affecting this discussion are
the nature of revelation as fulfilled in Christ
----what is Inspiration
the Church’s explicit rejection of fundamentalism
Church’s teaching on morality

Protestantism did give up some dogmatic teaching as you note, and is out of step with the Catholic Church. Fundamentalist scripture interpretation is a big part of that separation, not with all but with a good many. So the de minimis of of Church teaching you refer to can be firstly applied to fundamentalism that reads scripture out of step with the Church. And that teaching is not a matter of personal preferences, as you say, it’s a matter of listening well to the whole Tradition. And applying the lens of Christ to see things in the clearest possible light.
 
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