Does the conquest of Canaan show that YHWH is not a universal god?

[Nathan_Wagar]

That makes God’s morality relative to the social norms of the day. It also makes God weak.If His salvation is so fragile that it can be ruined by mere mortals.

That doesn’t seem to ring true.

Perhaps an analogy would help convey what I mean. A human man is a father to his child, and yet both are products of their times. The father changes his approach to his child appropriately as his child matures, and yet the father himself is a product of a certain time and culture.

Conversely, God is outside of cultural norms, and time itself, so He is no longer a subjective factor, He is objective. Now all that remains is His unchanging morality applied as appropriate according to the maturity of His child.

 

[jcrichton]

He acknowledges other Gods, He is jealous of worship of other Gods.

Ok, Ok, Ok, you win… a non-god is really threatening (just look at all the chaos those monkeys and rats and others are doing all over the world)!

Where does He challenge us to seek other Gods?

…sorry, I thought that you have read past those few verses in the Old Testament.

Never mind!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

No, I love my children for the people they are. They are different people so I love different things - it’s not preferring one child over another. Your analogy is lost on me, sorry.

Ok, Ok, Ok, you win–perfection must be either a tremendous burden or a walk in the park!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

Ha!

Again if we are saying they are just warring tribes, then who are we to judge. We are of a different time.

But if we are to believe that they are acting on the behest of God, then war shouldn’t be a forgone conclusion. God is capable of all things - no?

Ok, Ok, Ok, you win: Yahweh God wrong you right!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Nate13]

@jonfawkes
I think your problem is your assuming the Canaanites had claim to some land. Everything belongs to God and God can therefore arbitrate as he sees fit. God decided to give their land to those who followed him best. All of humanity stemmed from Adam and Eve which therefore by default shows that God is the Universal God of all humanity.

I think another thing you are forgetting is the idea of natural law. You don’t have to know God to know murder is wrong or stealing is wrong. You can argue that the Israelite’s received more grace from God, but you can’t defend the crimes of the Canaanite’s by saying they didn’t know it was wrong.

You also appear to be struggling with the idea that God is all knowing while at the same time he has given us free will.

 

[jonfawkes]

Perhaps an analogy would help convey what I mean. A human man is a father to his child, and yet both are products of their times. The father changes his approach to his child appropriately as his child matures, and yet the father himself is a product of a certain time and culture.

Conversely, God is outside of cultural norms, and time itself, so He is no longer a subjective factor, He is objective. Now all that remains is His unchanging morality applied as appropriate according to the maturity of His child.

No this falls short. If God is outside cultural norms, then why would he be subject to them. Biologically we have the same capacity now as we did then. So what I’m hearing is God didn’t have the power to change men’s hearts. He had to wait until the culture catches up. God’s laws for us are then subjective to our capacity culturally to handle them. It is still subjective.

 

[jonfawkes]

@jonfawkes
I think your problem is your assuming the Canaanites had claim to some land. Everything belongs to God and God can therefore arbitrate as he sees fit. God decided to give their land to those who followed him best. All of humanity stemmed from Adam and Eve which therefore by default shows that God is the Universal God of all humanity.

I think another thing you are forgetting is the idea of natural law. You don’t have to know God to know murder is wrong or stealing is wrong. You can argue that the Israelite’s received more grace from God, but you can’t defend the crimes of the Canaanite’s by saying they didn’t know it was wrong.

You also appear to be struggling with the idea that God is all knowing while at the same time he has given us free will.

They were on the land. But that’s not my point - If we are all children of God, God by showing favoritism to a certain group makes Him either unjust and petty or we aren’t all His children. He is just a tribal God of the Israelites.

Natural law - that’s another can of worms.

The conquest of the Canaanites could be considered murder and perhaps Genocide. Again if it simply some men’s cruelty to other men it’s one thing. It is entirely another to say it justified by God. If it is justified then He isn’t the God of those men. They were created to be destroyed.

 

[Caldera599]

The only thing I’ve seen so far from jonfrawkes posts have been heresy and blasphemy. We should be praying for him.

 

[Zipply]

Fawkes is asking the questions that the world is asking. If we cannot answer him to his satisfaction here, then we can see why the Church and her message is not compelling to so many first world people.

The last 4 popes have called for a new evangelization of the first world. If we wish to heed them, this is precisely the work we must do. Dismissing the world as heretical and blasphemous does nothing and accomplishes nothing. This has been a sorry performance in this thread.

The OT is not easy. The responses in this thread seem mostly to be from an idiosyncratically American scriptural fundamentalist viewpoint. When Italian, Polish and German popes call for evangelization, this is not what they mean. Benedict was close to Von Balthazar and VB has a much more nuanced answer to these questions. Americans call it ‘modernist’.

This thread is, to me, just an example of the great wide gulf between American Catholicism and European Biblical scholarship. Fawkes, instead of asking these questions on internet boards, I’d do some personal reading, or ask a Roman-trained priest.

 

[DaveBj]

Fawkes is asking the questions that the world is asking. If we cannot answer him to his satisfaction here, then we can see why the Church and her message is not compelling to so many first world people.

snip

If you look at the OP, you’ll see that Fawkes has been banned and is no longer able to take part in the discussion.

And this is an old thread that was resurrected after more than three years of inactivity.

 

[sirach2v4]

But that was after the fact. The conquest was a given. The rules spread with the conquest. It wasn’t " You better get in line it I’m going to give your lands to the Hebrews." they just came in and took them. There was no option of redemption to save their lands for the vanquished.

Whatever happens in scripture, you have to accept that it is the will of God. God did not spare his own Son from abuse and torture and death, but rather that, paradoxically was for his glory.

There is the idea that there is a natural law. I think it’s hard to understand it, because it seems that people, even the Church, just makes it up when it needs something.

But anyway, natural law should tell us not to murder or steal or rape, etc. We have such scant data to base our decisions about ancient people,but the more we know about them the more intelligent they seem. There were outlaws then as there are outlaws now.

People today shoot at police officers. These are the good guys, and people shoot at them, in some perverted sense of justice. We will never understand the world, except at fallen and in need of salvation.

 

[sirach2v4]

I didn’t address the question. No, I think it’s just the opposite. The conquest of Canaan shows that YHVH is the only God.

In his recent theology book, Fr. David Vincent Meconi SJ asserts that the most precious thing to God is his own image and likeness. That is why God created man in that way, in his image and likeness (but not in his nature). So, nations that worshipped a false god got a double whammy because the people did not act in the likeness of God and they worshipped a false god.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Something to think about: Concerning the OT.

God did NOT choose a people from among the “peoples” of the earth.

God chose a person and formed a people from this person.

God created us and “knew” what we are like and in God’s Plan, God was going to become One of us and God had to make it “safe enough” for God to become One of us and to live long enough to do what God became One of us to do.

God became One of us for ALL of us.