Genocide in the Bible: does this trouble anyone else?

[Julius_Caesar]

Who swept what where?

You conviently leave out Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua out of your treatise.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

I haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer.

Then that’s a person problem is it?

How he stole things and the people of Israel had to suffer for it. It goes a long way towards showing that collective responsibility and punishment were a big part of the culture back then, and shows the Israelites were no different culturally.

You really don’t think Achan’s family wasn’t complicit in his sin?

 

[StudentMI]

You really don’t think Achan’s family wasn’t complicit in his sin?

I fail to see how his children were guilty of what their father did. If your dad was a drunkard are you complicit because he buys gin and guzzles it?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

fail to see how his children were guilty of what their father did.

Achan had help moving that stuff, didn’t he?

He wasn’t the only one who knew, was he?

 

[StudentMI]

I see you conveniently cut off the second part of my post. Oh well.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

I see you conveniently cut off the second part of my post.

You’ve created a false equivalency. It’s clear Achan had help from his family.

 

[StudentMI]

You’ve created a false equivalency. It’s clear Achan had help from his family.

Aren’t you interpreting at this point? In any case are we to imagine if Achan had a 5 year old kid the kid helped with the lifting and therefore needed to die?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

In any case are we to imagine if Achan had a 5 year old kid the kid helped with the lifting and therefore needed to die?

That’s assuming that kid is five years old and not 15. Or that he’s not an old man. And why would a five year old lift treasure?

 

[StudentMI]

That’s assuming that kid is five years old and not 15. Or that he’s not an old man. And why would a five year old lift treasure?

That’s my point. Why would the 5 year old need to die for the sins of his father?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Why would the 5 year old need to die for the sins of his father?

That’s assuming that kid isn’t a five year old if he can lift stuff. As I said, Achan’s family knew what he did.

 

[StudentMI]

That kid isn’t a five year old if he can lift stuff. As I said, Achan’s family knew what he did.

If you say so.

By the way why didn’t you address that Israel seems a fairly standard culture of the time, which I mentioned above?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

By the way why didn’t you address that Israel seems a fairly standard culture of the time, which I mentioned above?

Israel wasn’t a standard culture of the time. Which is the whole point of them excersizing the ban.

 

[StudentMI]

Israel wasn’t a standard culture of the time. Which is the whole point of them excersizing the ban.

But even Kenneth Kitchen notes the form of their literature took the form of then common forms.

That was a lot of uses of the word form.

 

[Gorgias]

(Edited to add: It looks like @magnanimity beat me to the punch in quoting Augustine…)

Augustine discusses different senses of scripture in the Confessions.

I think you’re responding to me. And no… I’m definitely thinking of “On Christian Doctrine”:

If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative.

charity reigns through its supremlly just laws of love to God for His own sake, and love to one’s self and one’s neighbor for God’s sake. Accordingly, in regard to figurative expressions, a rule such as the following will be observed, to carefully turn over in our minds and meditate upon what we read till an interpretation be found that tends to establish the reign of love. Now, if when taken literally it at once gives a meaning of this kind, the expression is not to be considered figurative.

Those things, again, whether only sayings or whether actual deeds, which appear to the inexperienced to be sinful, and which are ascribed to God, or to men whose holiness is put before us as an example, are wholly figurative, and the hidden kernel of meaning they contain is to be picked out as food for the nourishment of charity.

we must show the way to find out whether a phrase is literal or figurative. And the way is certainly as follows: Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative. Purity of life has reference to the love of God and one’s neighbor; soundness of doctrine to the knowledge of God and one’s neighbor.

So, Augustine is reminding us that God is, in His nature, goodness itself. And therefore, if we think that the Bible is telling us that He is not… then we need to reconsider our interpretation and be willing to be open to the possibility that it’s our interpretation – and not God’s goodness itself – that is faulty.

Gorgias:

Augustine did talk about this, in terms of the Scriptural hermeneutic he asserted.

He took it literally, something @Magnanimity sweeps under the rug.

Actually, he didn’t… which is something that both @Magnanimity have demonstrated from quotes from Augustine.

 

[Gorgias]

So in this case, if you are absolutely certain that you have refeived a command from God, then you must carry it out. And this is the situation with which I have a problem. Because it is all too easy to be convinced that God has given you a direct instruction to do something and you will comply.

You seem to be affirming the assertion that humans understand imperfectly. I agree. What’s the problem with that? This seems to ignore a critical caveat: you’re responsible for your actions. If you do something unthinkingly, you don’t get a pass for saying “well… I thought God wanted me to do it.” So… no problem there.

Then, with barely a pause, you say that if ‘God is acting immorally, then you certainly have the ability to act on that understanding’. Which to me is directly contradicting the above. How are you able to make a decsion as to whether God is acting immoraly if you have already claimed that He cannot?

I’m saying that you’re mistaken, and you can act on that mistaken presumption, too – but you’re still held to account. In other words, if you sit there and say “God is stupid, so I’m not going to do what He asks”, then you absolutely have the right to make that choice. It doesn’t make it the right thing to do, however.

So, I’m not being contradictory: God is good; you have the ability to hear God and act according to your understanding of what He says. You’re responsible for your interpretation and your actions, though… whether or not they’re reasonable.

I fail to see how his children were guilty of what their father did.

Even our contemporary system of jurisprudence recognizes the culpability of receiving stolen property…

That’s my point. Why would the 5 year old need to die for the sins of his father?

Please demonstrate where the account says that his sons and daughters were five-year-olds. Thanks!

 

[StudentMI]

Please demonstrate where the account says that his sons and daughters were five-year-olds. Thanks!

It was a hypothetical as I made clear. The collective punishment system as shown in the Bible, as I also mentioned, points to a fairly typical Near Eastern culture of the time so I get it.

 

[Gorgias]

It was a hypothetical as I made clear.

OK. So we can treat it as hypothetically inaccurate?

The collective punishment system as shown in the Bible, as I also mentioned, points to a fairly typical Near Eastern culture of the time so I get it.

Not sure you can get away with that, in this context, though. The text itself breaks down the divisions: tribe / clan / family / individual. The guilty party will be punished. And… we see that this is what happened.

 

[StudentMI]

Not sure you can get away with that, in this context, though. The text itself breaks down the divisions: tribe / clan / family / individual. The guilty party will be punished. And… we see that this is what happened.

As I said, the collective punishment as shown in the Bible is fairly typical of such cultures of the time.

 

[stpurl]

No, babies are incapable of personal sin.

However, let me ask you this. God, who is aware of everything, sees His people in a place where they are on a trajectory to a point where the people of that area will become completely and utterly depraved and, worse, will force that depravity onto others, like ripples heading out on a pond. In fact, this had already happened once before, and brought on the Flood.

There are still good people though. And the good people pray to the Lord (or, if they are not Christian, to their gods, or just ‘wish’ that things will be better for their children, that their children will not wind up turning into thugs and murderers.

Now remember too that God creates all these people. He does not ‘owe’ them anything; their life is a free gift for however long He chooses, and in the end all people will die.

Is it not a good possibility that God heard the cry of the mothers who were anguished over their children’s futures, in despair of them ever being able to get free of the evil that surrounded them, and that God’s answer to them was to allow the children to die BEFORE they committed evil? That in this particular scenario, God saw a way to bring GOOD out of evil and to save the souls of thousands of people rather than allow them to grow and to commit evil? That in doing so He also showed these people, not as a warning of “See what will happen if you’re bad’ but rather, “Even when you are steeped in evil, I can bring the innocent to glory. Therefore, while you are free to commit evil now, don’t think that you can do so with impunity to the point that your evil will ruin the world, or bring my chosen people —and that includes us Christians now—to the point where nothing but evil will await them”.

It is a warning to the evil and a consolation to the good. There are far worse things than being ‘put to the sword’ (and I think the West is going to find this out sooner than later) if the choice is temporal death OR eternal life.

 

[StudentMI]

It is a warning to the evil and a consolation to the good. There are far worse things than being ‘put to the sword’ (and I think the West is going to find this out sooner than later) if the choice is temporal death OR eternal life.

These hinges on the belief that the Canaanites were a special kind of depraved when no evidence exists of such depravity. They seem to have been a typical culture of the time, as were the Israelites. It’s also possible the Bible simply painted them as especially evil to justify genocidal actions, whether historical or merely mythological.

Lest we forget, the initial spies said the land was full of, what was it, Anakim or something?