Did God tell the Jews to commit genocide?

[PuerAzaelis]

Is it not accepted that these passages need to be read in context, and from the perspective of the normative standards of the day? Human beings used to be much different. our interpretations should likewise take that into account.

 

[EndTimes]

I was taught by a Catholic theologian on this subject is that we …

It’s time one comes to realize that “Catholic theologians”
have very unfortunately come to mean beans these days

Some? Reflect God…

Some? Oppose God…

Best to get to know the Mind of Jesus - so that it becomes easy to see the Counterfeit…

_

 

[Chistian-ity]

I agree with this.

 

[Chistian-ity]

I agree with this as well.

 

[franklinstower]

What the theologian told me is accepted by the Catholic Church and so does reflect the mind of God so unless you are not Catholic I don’t know why you wrote that. If you are not Catholic let me know. I don’t want to argue with someone who is not and would just accept that we have a different take on the whole subject.

I accept the authority of the Catholic Church on this.

 

[kainosktisis]

What did He say that was non- factual?

 

[goout]

What did He say that was non- factual?

I’m not sure what your question is.
Parables are not accounts of literalist facts, they are lessons by analogy.
The accounts in Genesis are not scientific facts.

These are examples were “nons” do not undercut the truth of Scripture.

 

[Inquiry]

I do understand that motivation, and there are many times I’ve been in an internet discussion where I can see someone doing damage and wish they would step back. Sometimes because what they are saying is wrong, but more often because they are saying something that is technically true but delivering it terribly.

It’s that second one that is difficult, because as much as I’d like to sideline some things in conversations with atheists, we do ourselves no favors by sidelining them when thinking about them ourselves. Did God order a genocide? No idea, but we do know He can tell men to do things that would be sins if they did them on their own. Just because someone can willfully misinterpret that to call God hypocritical does not mean would should hide it from ourselves.

 

[kainosktisis]

Yes, that seems to be the part that people overlook or do not take into consideration.

From Leviticus 18 (BibleHub):

1 The Lord said to Moses,
2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God.
3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.
4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God.
5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

He goes on to list many sexual sins in the next verses.

24 “ ‘ Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.
25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things,
27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.
28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
29 “ ‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people.
30 Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.’ ”

After addressing other sins, we read this in Leviticus 20 (BibleHub):

22 “ ‘ Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out .
23 You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them .
24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.

26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own .

 

[kainosktisis]

From Joshua 6 (BibleHub):

https://biblehub.com/niv/joshua/6.htm

15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted a to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lordand must go into his treasury.”

20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Footnotes:

a 17 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them; also in verses 18 and 21.

V.21 in Interlinear Hebrew-Greek (BibleHub):

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/joshua/6-21.htm

Strong’s Concordance on charam (BibleHub):

https://biblehub.com/hebrew/2763.htm

1. charam ►

charam: accursed

Original Word: חָרַם
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: charam
Phonetic Spelling: (khaw-ram’)
Definition: to ban, devote, exterminate

 

[goout]

Yes, that seems to be the part that people overlook or do not take into consideration.

Nope. Not overlooked.
It’s taken in context of the whole of scripture, and in context of the whole of revelation, as it is summed up and fulfilled in Christ, who is the fullness of revelation himself.

 

[kainosktisis]

Nope. Not overlooked.

I think that most people who look at the destruction of people & look at God as ordering the act, they do not often take into account what preceded the act. I wasn’t speaking of its fulfillment.

I think that people want to see God as loving & merciful, but they can’t fathom what sin leads to - that it has consequences.

 

[goout]

goout:

Nope. Not overlooked.

I think that most people who look at the destruction of people & look at God as ordering the act, they do not often take into account what preceded the act. I wasn’t speaking of its fulfillment.

I think that people want to see God as loving & merciful, but they can’t fathom what sin leads to - that it has consequences.

Yes. As you say, God is merciful and loving.
Sometimes people kill innocent human beings, believing it’s God’s will. That’s evil.

There is a difference between how God is, or God’s nature, and that of human beings. Jesus is the fulfillment of revelation. If we want to know how God is, we look at Christ. If we want to know if our sense of Scripture is true, we look at Christ.

 

[Inquiry]

To be clear, are you saying that every time God told someone to kill in the OT it was a misunderstanding?

 

[kainosktisis]

Agreed. But He is also just. And there was something Rahab had told the spies who’d come to scope out the land before Jericho fell:

From Joshua 2 (BibleGateway):

8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof

9 and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.

10 We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea[a] for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.[b]

11 When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lordyour God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

12 “Now then, please swear to me by the Lordthat you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign

13 that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”

14 “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lordgives us the land.”

Mercy to a remnant…

 

[HarryStotle]

What the theologian told me is accepted by the Catholic Church and so does reflect the mind of God so unless you are not Catholic I don’t know why you wrote that. If you are not Catholic let me know. I don’t want to argue with someone who is not and would just accept that we have a different take on the whole subject.

I accept the authority of the Catholic Church on this.

To be clear, the Catholic Church does not have a set “accepted” position on every issue regarding all of reality. What is often deemed “acceptable” by the Church could be a range of possibilities that do not contradict revealed truth.

So when a position is claimed to be “accepted” by the Church, that does NOT automatically translate to that being the correct position. It merely implies that the position does not contain obvious error, which isn’t precisely that same thing as “correct.”

There may, in fact, be a range of possible positions that are NOT obviously errant without the implication any one of them is clearly correct given the current stage of the unfolding mystery of God’s plan.

 

[goout]

To be clear, are you saying that every time God told someone to kill in the OT it was a misunderstanding?

Not in the mind of the author, or the author would not have written it that way.
There is no factual hammered dome in the sky, but the author of Genesis says there is (firmament). That is a misunderstanding in hindsight, with current information. For the authors of Genesis, it expressed reality as they saw it, or as they sought to express it.
To simply say they misunderstood is not quite accurate.

Context is everything.

 

[franklinstower]

“To be clear, the Catholic Church does not have a set “accepted” position on every issue regarding all of reality. What is often deemed “acceptable” by the Church could be a range of possibilities that do not contradict revealed truth”.

"So when a position is claimed to be “accepted” by the Church, that does NOT automatically translate to that being the correct position. It merely implies that the position does not contain obvious error, which isn’t precisely that same thing as “correct.”

“There may, in fact, be a range of possible positions that are NOT obviously errant without the implication any one of them is clearly correct given the current stage of the unfolding mystery of God’s plan”.

This is the point I have been making all along. I have even listed the principles the church sets out for making these discernments in this thread. I see no reason to insist on an interpretation that is in this day and age being used very effectively against the faith by atheists when that interpretation is not necessary to hold. Insisting on a literal interpretation, at least publicly, is harming the faith directly.

 

[Inquiry]

My only issue with this is if we deny that God could order these things. I am open to the idea that He didn’t, but I reject the idea that He never would. Or rather, I reject the idea that He would let generations upon generations of people enshrine a bad understanding of him so deeply.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

First you say guiltless babies don’t share the eternal fate of their guilty fathers

Their fathers are sinners dying with original sin. They will absolutely suffer eternal torment. The infants and young children die with no sin but still with original sin. They get limbo of the babies or Augustine’s concept.

and then you say they may not enter Heaven by invincible ignorance never the less

The Church infallibly teaches that each suffers according to his sinfulness (guilt) and that no one with the stain of original sin may see the beatific vision.

Invincible ignorance doesn’t remove the stain of original sin. It cannot save.

Isn’t this an over-strech to attack invincible ignorance?

Not sure what you mean but mostly I was just rambling when the thought of invincible ignorance entered my “stream-of-consciusness” and became a part of my post.