God did NOT command the early Hebrews to kill women and children in warfare

[Adam_D]

One more point: As Scott Hahn pointed out (and I cite him even though he is seen by some as one of the modernist scholars decried here (thought not by me) ) when the Israelites were ordered to slaughter all the inhabitants of Canaan it was upon their second approach to the region. The first time around, 40 years earlier, they were commanded to march in and take the land as their own. God made no mention of slaughter. Hahn conjectures that the Israelites, in keeping with GOd’s will for them to be a light unto all the nations, were expected to actually go in and, with God amongst them, actually evangelize the Canaanites and make them worshippers of the one true God.

But the Israelites were too chicken to go in, for the Canaanites were big and scary folk. So God made them wander in the desert for forty years. And yet, God had bound himself by covenant oath to His people that they should occcupy Canaan. And thus, whence they returned thereto it was as an allowance for their hardness of heart that God allowed them to take Canaan by warfare. He specified the killing of all, because in His wisdom He must know that it was the only way things could work.

Seeing as the Israelites would not enter on God’s terms, he had them enter on their terms, because he had bound himself by covenant to their occupying Canaan. So, following Scott Hahn, we need not necessarily believe that God desired the death of innocents, and yet need not toss out the account as inaccurate either.

 

[bengal_fan]

Adam D:

we need not necessarily believe that God desired the death of innocents, and yet need not toss out the account as inaccurate either.

we should never believe that God desires the death of innocents. but who is to say who is innocent? God alone.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

bengal_fan:

We should never believe that God desires the death of innocents. But who is to say who is innocent? God alone.

Yes. And God, speaking to Bengal fans and everyone else through the voice of his Church (*Mt * 18:17; *Lk * 10:16), defines “innocent” in the context of war to mean all non-aggressors. The teaching authority of the Church does this by citing St. Thomas Aquinas to oppose the word “aggressor” to the word “innocent” in section 2263 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. ‘The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life, and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not.’" [St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 64, 7].

Before any additional believers or unbelievers are scandalized by Biblical exegesis that blasphemously transmogrifies God into a war criminal, I respectfully and fraternally urge everyone on this thread to read the new catechism’s treatment of the fifth commandment in its entirety (sections 2258-2330).

In the light of the respectful manner in which Our Lord spoke to the centurion in an incident that we recall at every Mass (*Mt * 8:5-13), I have no problem imagining Jesus serving as a soldier in an army deployed on a mission of mercy–for example, to save Rwandans from genocide, or Somalis from starvation. On the other hand, can you picture Jesus as a soldier about to thrust his sword into a hysterically sobbing woman and her infant in Jericho (*Josh * 6)?

Keep and spread the Faith.*

 

[bengal_fan]

\Jesus as a soldier about to thrust his sword into a hysterically sobbing woman and her infant in Jericho

well, he is the final judge who will send people to an eternal death in a lake of fire so i guess i could picture this because he would have his reasons. he has never commanded me to do this though. just because people can’t reconcile what God does doesn’t mean He contradicts Himself. His ways are higher than our ways. maybe by the simple fact that the canaanites were in the land promised to the israelites made them aggressors. i am not one to say. the church has declared the scriptures inspired and inerrant and the scriptures say that God ordered the killings and therefore He did. “Rome has spoken, the issue is closed.” just because it doesn’t go along with what we think is right or wrong doesn’t have anything to do with it.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

bengal_fan:

Well, he is the final judge who will send people to an eternal death in a lake of fire, so I guess I could picture this because he would have his reasons. . . .] The Church has declared the Scriptures inspired and inerrant and the Scriptures say that God ordered the killings. And therefore he did. “Rome has spoken; the issue is closed.”

Rome has ***never ** * said that God actually ordered ancient Hebrew soldiers to kill Canaanite women, children, and other innocent civilians. In sections 2312-2314 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Magisterium is strongly implying that it accepts the contrary exegesis of the problematic Old Testament passages.

What Rome *does * teach is an understanding of Biblical inerrancy that allows us to conclude that the human authors of Scripture, contrary to what appears on the surface of the text, “truly wanted to affirm” (*CCC * 109) nothing beyond this: the early Hebrews *thought * that God had commanded this slaughter of innocents. In thinking this, however, the early Hebrews were grievously misinterpreting God’s will.

Let’s not make the same mistake.

Moreover, let’s study carefully what the Catholic Church actually teaches about the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. This teaching can be found in sections 101-141 of the new catechism.

As for the damned, the Church tells us that they send themselves to hell: “This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (*CCC * 1033). Again, let’s listen to the Church. In listening to her, we are listening to Jesus (*Lk * 10:16).

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[jpusateri]

I joined this thread late and tried to read through them all. I have a question.

Is there some confusion between “hate” and “killing”? If God tells you to kill and you kill because he tells you, not because you hate the person, is this wrong? Nowadays, God isn’t appearing as a pillar of fire, leading you with someone who talks to him face to face. Not likely to happen like that now.

Is killing without hate what I see referred to as “cold blooded”? I don’t think anyone WANTS to see babies killed, but God made them and has control over their souls. Can you say God hasn’t given them joys beyond compare?

If God gives you life and he chooses to take it away, who can gainsay him?

When you stand before him, you can ask Him why. Does that take away from one’s warm-and-fuzzy feeling? Maybe we need to learn more about this God of ours to understand what’s going on here. Perhaps it’s not so black-and-white as it seems.

To HIM be the power and the Glory.

 

[Adam_D]

bengal_fan:

we should never believe that God desires the death of innocents. but who is to say who is innocent? God alone.

Bengal Fan
You’re being a bit of a stickler on my post aren’t you? Please substitute ‘innocents’ with ‘infants’ and you see more so what I mean. Like many others here, I was trying to refute Steve O’Brien’s proposition that the bible doesn’t tell the story accurately, but to do so in a way that met him on something closer to his own grounds than others seem to be doing, and by appealing to a popular authority (Scott Hahn) on the subject. I don’t think Steve has shown himself at all open to the proposition that “If it’s God’s will, then the babies had to be killed.” But maybe Hahn’s perspective is something he’s open to.

I would like for all Catholics to be able and confident to express a strong faith in the Bible’s inerrancy and I have serious problems with the idea that Steve started this post on. Personally, Bengal Fan, I can stomach your interpretation as well as Scott Hahn’s of the passages in question.

So Steve O’Brien … what did you think of Scott Hahn’s idea, in my post above? Will you accept it as a reasonable perspective on the passages that trouble you? It has the great strength of not so strongly offending our sensibilities about warfare, while still allowing one to take a firm stance on biblical inerrancy.

For anybody who cares: the Hahn reference is from his talk with Jeff Cavins in program called “Our Father’s Plan” on EWTN. It has like 12 episodes, and I forget which one I heard this one in, but on ewtn.com they have archived audio recordings of all those broadcasts.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Adam D:

I don’t think Steve has shown himself at all open to the proposition that “If it’s God’s will, then the babies had to be killed.” But maybe Hahn’s perspective is something he’s open to.

I would like for all Catholics to be able and confident to express a strong faith in the Bible’s inerrancy, and I have serious problems with the idea that Steve started this post on.

No. I’m not open to Adam’s proposition–which is hardly one that will advance the goals of the pro-life movement, or the spread of the one true Faith. It was not, and is not, God’s will that babies have to be killed by soldiers in any war. Period.

The position that Adam attributes to Scott Hahn does nothing to extricate Catholics from the theological and moral hell occupied by those who insist on turning God into a monster of cruelty and contradiction. This is *not * the God whom St. John defines as love itself. And this is *not * the God who became incarnate in Jesus.

I, too, want all Catholics to believe in the Bible’s inerrancy–in the sense in which the Church understands it (*CCC * 107, 109-114.) I want all Catholics to believe in *everything * the Church teaches–including the fact that killing non-combatants in war is always and everywhere a mortal sin (*CCC * 2261, 2312-2314).

Please allow me to suggest a reason for the Magisterium’s emphatic condemnations of the killing of non-combatants at Vatican II and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Church fears that the morally obtuse (some of whom are in danger of being made more obtuse by the atrocious example set by the Old Testament soldiers who misrepresented God’s will) may approve the willingness of godless governments to slaughter millions of innocents with nuclear weapons.

Please remember the words of Mother Teresa: “The fruit of abortion is nuclear war.”

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[porthos11]

Never forget that while God is merciful, God is also just.

Again, I postulate that the Canaanites were NOT INNOCENT. They were guilty of idolatry (most serious), copuled with religious prostitution, child sacrifice, and other immoral acts. All these things deserved death under God’s law. why do you think God flooded the earth centuries back? Does this make God a monster? No. It makes him just. God had renewed the earth from Noah, but only the descendants of Shem kept the faith. Ham’s descendants, the Cannanites abandoned God almost immediately after Noah cursed him. No Hamites could claim ignorance of Yahweh, since Ham was witness to the Covenant made with Noah after the Flood, and they had heard years back of the approaching nation of Israel and the mighty Yahweh who had parted the Red Sea for them. That’s why they were quaking by the time Israel arrived at the Jordan.

Now how about those individuals who were indeed innocent like the children below the age of reason? God had mastery over their lives too. It was his will that they die in the conquest. Does this make God a monster? No again. If man were to do this on his own arbitrary will, it will make that man a monster. Not so with God, simply because he is God and he does whatever he wills. Anyway, back to the children. Their deaths served to further God’s plan for Israel, but moreover, it was merciful for the innocents. Why? Because their deaths prevented them from growing up and living under an anti-God and anti-life culture. Their early deaths actually meant their salvation, for God is merciful. Those idol-worshippers and child-burners had a large chance of ending up in hell (subject to conditions of course).

Citing the Catechism does no good here. The ancient Israelites were a primitive people who lived in the culture of the time, and before the fullness of truth was revealed with Christ. God took it easy with all peoples, and did not demand more than they could handle. That is why God tolerated King David’s polygamy, yet called him a man after his own heart. Today, polygamy is fully revealed as immoral. The ancient world was a more violent place and time, when winning a war meant the survival of the race or nation.

Finally, we are only creatures. We have no right to set standard by which God should operate. He revealed himself to us and we should be thankful. But we should not focus only on his being Father and Savior and Friend. God is Master of all, and WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO TELL HIM WHAT HE CAN AND CANNOT DO! God’s moral law was given for US to follow, not HIM.

 

[AnAtheist]

The Hebrews did slauter women and children, and to justify that atrocity they later said, it was commanded by their god.

 

[Adam_D]

AnAtheist:

The Hebrews did slauter women and children, and to justify that atrocity they later said, it was commanded by their god.

Atheist,

Have you never noticed how many admissions of horrific guilt the ancient Israelites make in their scriptures?! It is simply out of character for them just to pass the buck as you suggest so flippantly. It is so much more likely to be the case that they really did receive a command (from God, as we Catholics say, or from some kind of hallucinated wishful thinking as you might imagine) or they misunderstood God’s command as Steve O’Brien is arguing here. As much as I don’t like Steve’s suggestion, it’s still much more likely than yours.

The Israelites recorded their failings and sins too accurately and consistently for me, and even an intelligent atheist like yourself, to think that suddenly they just try to pass the buck to God.

 

[bob]

bengal_fan:

i’m sorry you can’t accept the word of God for what it is. the authors did believe they were transmitting what actually happened and since it is the inerrant word of God, then He did order the killing of everything (including livestock in certain places). who are we to say who is innocent ? God is the one who gets to decide that. these people were in direct opposition of God by just being in the land He had given to His people. i know this may sound harsh, but God has His reasons (see Isaiah, “His ways are higher than ours…”) and we are not here to question His motives but to simply apply these things to our own lives. if your application forces you to deny what God clearly ordered then so be it, but don’t blame the church or apologists just because you can’t reconcile your own feelings.

I agree. God’s ways are sometimes mysterious and seemingly illogical to us. BUT He is God, His reasoning is beyond us.

Look at other “seemingly strange” acts of God:

1. Why did He let His Son die a painful death on the Cross? If He is all loving and merciful He could have forgiven us with just a word.
2. Why does He allow sneaky conniving people like Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright to prevail?
3. Why did He kill the firstborns of the Egyptians? Isn’t this also harsh?
4. Why did he continue to support the murderous, adulterous King David?
5. Why? Why? Why?

I love God and I know He loves me.
I may not understand His ways
BUT I accept it as “His will be done.”

 

[AnAtheist]

Adam D:

Atheist,

Have you never noticed how many admissions of horrific guilt the ancient Israelites make in their scriptures?! It is simply out of character for them just to pass the buck as you suggest so flippantly. It is so much more likely to be the case that they really did receive a command (from God, as we Catholics say, or from some kind of hallucinated wishful thinking as you might imagine) or they misunderstood God’s command as Steve O’Brien is arguing here. As much as I don’t like Steve’s suggestion, it’s still much more likely than yours.

The Israelites recorded their failings and sins too accurately and consistently for me, and even an intelligent atheist like yourself, to think that suddenly they just try to pass the buck to God.

Well, my explanation works without a god (what you expect from an atheist).

I guess you like the other explanation apart from Steve’s one could offer even less: God did command those atrocities, which makes his omnibenevolence somewhat ambivalent.

 

[bob]

chrisg93:

porthos11,
Thanks for the reply but I cannot find it to be true for several reasons…

1. Your intrepretation necessitates that all Bible readers become an ancient historian. As an average Catholic, I rely on the Bible to be clear enough to sit down and read without a degree in ancient jewish history. Don’t you think that’s a fair request from me? Don’t you think that’s the way it should be?

…

Perhaps a quote from the Dei Verbum - Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation will help:

Chapter 3 verse 12.

“However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words. To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to “literary forms.” For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.”

Perhaps a contemporary explanation may be clearer.
Bob Hope once said, “When I was young, being gay meant that you were happy.”

See how drastically that meaning has changed (and within the last 20 years)? What more would the meaning change after 3000 years?

Yes, reading the bible may not be that straight forward. However do not be discouraged by it. Read it for inspiration, faith, knowing God but be careful not to get too literal with the meanings. When in doubt, ask!

Some tips:

1. Read the bible in a group - someone may know a clearer explanation to the text.
2. Get a bible with footnotes - helps with the meanings and cross references.
3. Get a good Catholic bible commentary.
4. Join a bible class.

 

[Adam_D]

AnAtheist:

Well, my explanation works without a god (what you expect from an atheist).

I guess you like the other explanation apart from Steve’s one could offer even less: God did command those atrocities, which makes his omnibenevolence somewhat ambivalent.

Respectfully, Atheist,

I think you missed the point of my post. Essentially I was trying to steer you from what was (in your first post) nothing better than a snide jab at theists in the midst of an in-house argument, onto a relevant course of discussion by providing for you how your snide jab (while trying to avoid criticizing you for it (at which I failed … sorry) ) wasn’t even necessarily a view that an intelligent atheist need hold. Let me restate it: Israelites held no apparent reservations about enshrining their sins and failings into their religious scriptures. This includes sins like murder, idolatry and sacrifice of infants to a demon. Now, whether or not you are reading the bible as a theist or atheist you must admit (or must you?) that the Israelites surely acted like they believed they were commanded by God in many things. Thus, when it comes to the matter in question, whether or not you believe there was God on the scene, it is still the most natural thing to assume that, contrary to “The Hebrews did slauter women and children, and to justify that atrocity they later said, it was commanded by their god.” the Israelites actually believed they were following God’s mandate when considering the point I made above that they had no qualms enshrining their crimes and sins and horrific acts into their holy writ. They didn’t try to cover up their misdeeds.

Now, your intent (please pardon me for my presumption) in your first post on this thread was not to offer an atheistic explanation of a difficult passage such that we had a way to reconcile ourselves to the text (and it sounds like you try to sneak such motives into your defense of your post1 in your post2) but it was just a jab. You have no need to reconcile difficulties in the text. Why even enter in on this discussion? But since you have, please accept my challenge that your post doesn’t even represent the text well in the first place. And to accept an alternbative view is not to be the less so atheist, just to believe that the Israelites were delusional.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Steve O’Brien,

Rome has ***never ***said that God actually ordered ancient Hebrew soldiers to kill Canaanite women, children, and other innocent civilians.

Has Rome ever said that God did not truly speak through the prophet Samuel to tell Saul to destroy the Amalekites? As far as I can tell, it seems this is a given in everything I’ve read concerning the utter destruction of the Amalekites.

1 Sam 15:2-3:

This is what the LORD of hosts has to say: ‘I will punish what Amalek did to Israel when he barred his way as he was coming up from Egypt. Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.’"

Are you asserting that Samuel was not telling Saul the truth in that this was what the Lord said? Was Samuel a false prophet according to the Catholic Church? Perhaps you can clarify … is it your contention that the Catholic Church teaches that the Lord did not truly say what Samuel asserts? Can you please provide the evidence?

Didn’t God kill the firstborn of Egypt? Did he not destroy the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah excepting only Lot and his family? Or do you also assert that no child was killed during these events, as the Egyptians or wicked cities were childless at the time of their destruction?

I suggest you consider the following sermon from Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Wilfulness, the sin of Saul
by John Henry Newman
newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon9.html

When sent to inflict a Divine judgment upon the Amalekites, [Saul] spared those whom he was bid slay; their king Agag, the best of the sheep and cattle, and all that was good. …

A perverse will easily collects together a system of notions to justify itself in its obliquity. The real state of the case was this, that **he preferred his own way to that which God had determined. **When directed by the Divine Hand towards the mark for which he was chosen, he started aside like a broken bow. He obeyed, but with a reserve, yet distinctly professing to Samuel that he had performed the commandment of the Lord, because the sheep and cattle were reserved for a pious purpose, a sacrifice to the Lord. …

By wilful resistance to God’s will, he opened the door to those evil passions which till then, at the utmost, only served to make his character unamiable, without stamping it with guilt. …

Derangement was the consequence of disobedience. …

The trial of Abraham, when called on to kill his son, as of Saul when bid slay the Amalekites, was the duty of quitting the ordinary rules which He prescribes to our obedience, upon a positive commandment distinctly conveyed to them by revelation.

This above sermon presumes that the Bible is accurate in its portrayal that God did indeed desire the utter destruction of the Amalekites. Is this not also the presumption the Catholic Church has always made? I’ve not seen anything within Catholic tradition that contradicts such a presumption that Sacred Scripture makes quite clear. Furthermore, you haven’t provided anything thus far that indicates that the Divine will of the Amalekite’s utter destruction (1 Sam 15) was in fact not a Divine will at all according to the Catholic magisterium. Yet, you seem to want to make that claim FOR the magisterium by quoting the CCC, although that passage does not intend to address those particular Bible passages.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Furthermore, I believe the Catholic Encyclopedia (1909) article on “Amalec” and Fr. William Most’s Biblical commentary in “Basic Scripture” also presumes the utter destruction of the Amalekites was the Divine will of God. It doesn’t seem to me that your attempt to state the contrary is magisterially supported is convincing.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Steve O'Brien:

Even though they participated in the sin of idolatry, the women, old men, and cripples slaughtered by Joshua’s army were “innocent” in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands that term when she teaches the moral immunity of non-combatants in wartime. Despite original sin, even unbaptized infants in those Canaanite cities were “innocent” in the same sense. (And please note that original sin is not personal sin: *CCC *404-405). If all these human beings were not “innocent” in the sense defended by Catholic moral theology, then the doctrine which the Church emphatically sets forth in *CCC *2312-2314 would be total nonsense, and the Magisterium’s claim to guide us in the name of Jesus would be a lie…

If non-combatant immunity did not apply even to the idolatrous peoples of Canaan, then it is not a “universal principle.” Both the Church and reason (*CCC *2312) tell us that it is. I believe the Church and reason.

On non-combatant immunity and the immorality of early Hebrew extermination warfare, I recommend the treatment of Germain Grisez, an outstanding contemporary theologian noted for his fidelity to the Magisterium. Please see The Way of the Lord Jesus, Volume Two: Living a Christian Life, pages 474-479.

Keep and spread the Faith.

1. Although the wording does allow some wiggle room, my post did not intend to suggest that infants were guilty of personal sin. Their natural deaths, however, do point us to the fallenness of our nature brought about by Adam and Eve’s sin. Though possibly completely innocent of personal sin (those below the age of reason, Mary), all of us suffer the consequence of the first sin. My point was that God can call in that consequence when He sees fit.
2. With that said, I think you ignored the thinking behind my theory as to why we are no longer called upon to execute God’s judgment - Christ changed the world. While you may find it hard to believe that God could actually command such a thing, I find it hard to believe that the Bible is supposed to remain useful when every time it identifies something as the word of the Lord we can also believe that this is just a neutral presentation of some ancient’s opinion of God’s will.

3)Your argument relies heavily upon the CCC, which is commendable, but you haven’t yet (although may hold it without having stated it) brought your critique of the Israelites’ conquest of Canaan through the lens of the CCC to its logical conclusion. After all, a justified war is one that involves legitimate defense, whereas the war to claim Canaan was waged in order to acquire land. It was an aggressive war. Should we also assume, then, that God did not even order the Israelites to take their promised inheritance? Was God’s promise conditional upon the native inhabitants’ willing acceptance of Israelite rule?

PS - I really do believe in the Truth of the New Testament.

 

[AnAtheist]

Adam D:

I think you missed the point of my post.

Yes I did, sorry.

Let me restate it: Israelites held no apparent reservations about enshrining their sins and failings into their religious scriptures. …] They didn’t try to cover up their misdeeds.

Ok, now I am with you.

And to accept an alternbative view is not to be the less so atheist, just to believe that the Israelites were delusional.

Sure.
The problem with all the OT atrocities commanded by God is the following (in my opinion) are those two possibilities.

1. God did not command them: That means a) he commanded something different (Steve’s view), b) someone else commanded them (Satan e.g.) or c) nobody commanded them (my view).
   All three explanations violate the assumption of bible inerrancy b) & c) somewhat more than a), which leads to the question, how could a commandmend of an omnipotent being be misunderstood and, if that is possible, are there possibly more commandments which have been misunderstood.
2. God did command them. Now we have to decide, whether those atrocities were a) good or b) evil deeds. b) means, if God commands evil deeds, how can he be pure goodness? a) means, we can put aside the “absolute” morals set by God, when he commands us to do so. While this may be theologically sound, this stance gives those in power an excuse for any atrocity they want to commit by just claiming it is commanded by God (thus violating the God-given morals of course). Combined with 1.c this my explanantion of historical events described in the bible like the genocide among the Caananites.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

itsjustdave1988:

Are you asserting that Samuel was not telling Saul the truth in that this was what the Lord said? Was Samuel a false prophet according to the Catholic Church? Perhaps you can clarify … Is it your contention that the Catholic Church teaches that the Lord did not truly say what Samuel asserts? Can you please provide the evidence?

Didn’t God kill the first-born of Egypt? Did he not destroy the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah excepting only Lot and his family? Or do you also assert that no child was killed during these events, as the Egyptians or wicked cities were childless at the time of their destruction?

I suggest you consider the following sermon from Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman.

As eminent a Catholic as Cardinal Newman was, his interpretation of *1 Sam * 15 carries no weight in opposition to the Magisterium’s clear and emphatic condemnation of extermination warfare–a condemnation which “obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere” (*CCC * 2261), including the Holy Land in the time of Samuel and Saul.

The deaths of children in the Deluge, Sodom, and the Egypt of the Ten Plagues are not pertinent: in none of these instances did God order any human beings to kill other human beings.

To cite 1 *Sam * 15 as dispositive is to beg the question. That the human author of *1 Sam * “truly wanted to affirm” (*CCC * 109) Samuel’s attribution of the extermination command to the Lord is precisely the point that has to be proved. It must be proved because it contradicts the Church’s teaching on universal non-combatant immunity. But this attribution has not been proved, and cannot be.

The contention that God actually commanded Saul through Samuel to kill innocent civilians cannot be verified for this reason: we cannot exclude the possibility that the human author is citing Samuel’s words in this chapter without intending to affirm them in their totality. Clearly, in an explicit citation, a Biblical author may refrain from asserting the truth of something that he quotes.

“But what about *1 Sam * 15:10-11?” Here the human author seems to speak in his own name when he says: “Then the Lord spoke to Samuel: ‘I regret having made Saul king, for he has turned from me and has not kept my command’” (NAB). Actually, there is no proof that even this statement should be ascribed to God, because we cannot rule out the possibility that this is an implicit citation of Samuel’s misinterpretation of the divine will. In a decision published on February 13, 1905, the Pontifical Biblical Commission left the door open to the possibility that the human author of a Biblical book may at times be tacitly quoting another’s words in such a manner that the human author “does not approve the same nor make them his own, so that it is rightly decided that he is not speaking in his own name” (DS 3372).

And please don’t say that it’s impossible for Samuel or another true prophet to misunderstand God’s will on occasion. There’s no reason to deny this possibility.

Keep and spread the Faith.