God killing in the OT

[joemccarron]

I mean the first passage Luke 10:29-32 from Luke may be referring to Rome’s crushing the Jewish rebellion of around 70 AD. But the second (Luke 11:47-52) is hard to say just from reading it what sort of punishment would be involved. And of course there were many saints involved in "this generation” was there not? There was also the thief who Christ said would join him in heaven. Were they included in the condemnation the entire generation would suffer? I mean by being overly literal and not understanding that Jesus may have been engaging in some hyperbole he creates unnatural problems.

He also takes a very literal reading of this passage:
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you (Luke 10:13-14).”

He claims it is saying the entire cities are going to be punished. What is it about that passages that suggest that is not eternal punishment?

It seems to me that by refusing to allow that Jesus is using some hyperbole he then needs to simply create many explanations that are not supported by the text and seem less plausible than simply granting that Jesus was not always being super literal.

It seems he is trying to put a band aide on the gaping wounds of injustice his literal readings create. This is most obvious when he says this:

“….The Puritans were wont to view themselves in Old Testament terms and saw themselves as dispossessing a new Canaanite from the Promised Land.

Thus we have to strenuously declare that the example of warfare found in Joshua is not to be taken as any kind of normative prototype for Christian warfare.
I think too many people are afraid that if we somehow justify the conduct of Joshua it will only be a small leap to justifying like conduct by ourselves. This is a source of considerable opposition to any vindication of Joshua or Israel here. Fear not! As with many other situations in the Old Testament, we have to recognize that ancient Israel was a kind of “special case” and that we are in no way attempting to make a connection between Israel’s slaughter of the Canaanites and any type of Christian warfare.”

continued

 

[joemccarron]

How does it follow from the allegation “The Puritans were wont to view themselves in Old Testament terms and saw themselves as dispossessing a new Canaanite from the Promised Land.”
To
“Thus we have to strenuously declare that the example of warfare found in Joshua is not to be taken as any kind of normative prototype for Christian warfare.”

On his reading of the OT the puritans dealt with the idolatrous native Americans as God would command.

He claims this was a “special case” but nothing in the text suggests that it was a special case. In fact he goes on and on explaining how according to his interpretation this sort of genocidal attack is repeatedly commanded by God. He also talks about how even in the new testament people are punished for sins other people committed and they had no control over. So by his interpretations it seems clear this is not a special case at all.

His literal reading of the text talks about their evil actions justifying the genocide. So it seems perfectly reasonable we should do this against every culture that is similarly evil. He offers no support for his claim that this is somehow a special case. (or many special cases) I would suggest that the reason for his assertion these are “special cases” is indeed the same modernist squeamishness he decries.

I would suggest that his suppositions strains credibility more than simply saying the author of the text was making a point about how we need to evict evil from our lives rather than trying to give literal history of events.

I mean if these texts are indeed literal histories of how God commanded the Israelis to fight several wars in the past then what is the point? You never answered this. The only reason to interpret these literally would be to establish this is how God wants us to fight.

Is it to show God has absolute power and rights? This truth can be established even if the text is not read literally. I suggest that for any actual meritorious understanding of the point of this text can be supported even if we don’t read it literally. Accordingly, there is no reason to think the Holy Spirit intends us to read this text literally. The only reason we would have to understand this text literally is if it is indeed meant to be a model for our actions in the future.

 

[joemccarron]

But let’s move on to the objection I raised earlier. Is this God commanding us to do evil? It seems the author is taking a divine command view of morality. That is something is evil if God decides it is. Whatever he decides/commands is evil is evil and whatever he decides/commands is good is good. This issue was addressed by the Euthyphro dilemma. The problem with this view is it makes morality arbitrary and is a form of moral relativism.

The church has traditionally maintained that morality is not relative. It is objectively true that 2+2=4. It objectively true that 2+2 does not equal 5. It is objectively true that earth is round. It is objectively true that “A” and “not A” cannot both be true at the same time. It is objectively true that our killing babies is evil. By “objective” I mean it is not a matter of someone just “deciding” that these truths are false. Can God just decide these truths are false and then they would be false? If that is the case then it would seem there are no objective truths.
Now it may be possible that he escapes this issue. But it is complicated and unlikely. So he says it is not evil to kill babies if God commands us. Just like it may be moral for us to destroy an artists painting if the artist commands it. But I am not so sure that works. You still make the decision to destroy the painting . Now destroying a painting is not inherently evil or wrong. The natural law view of objective morality would say it is unnatural/evil for us to kill a baby. So if God commands us to kill a baby he is commanding us to do something unnatural evil. Consider whether God would command us to commit some sort of horrendous incestuous murderous act against some group. Would this be justified? Or would it be more like if God commands us to think 2+2=5.

I’m not saying this is absolutely impossible to save some sort of objective morality from his view. But I think the prospects are dim. And doing away with objective morality is kind of a big deal.

I think in light of what we know in the rest of scripture as well as church teaching interpreting these texts as literally having God commanding the killing of children is not very well supported.

 

[joemccarron]

ChunkMonk

It might be helpful to remember that the pagan cultures of that time practiced a particularily brutal form of human sacrifice where they would take children and place them in the arms of a bronze idol that had been super-heated with fire.

I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying their big sin is that they think their god commands them to burn children instead of chopping them up with swords like our God? I mean if you interpret these passages as having God literally kill these children with swords then that would seem to be your argument.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Accordingly, there is no reason to think the Holy Spirit intends us to read this text literally. The only reason we would have to understand this text literally is if it is indeed meant to be a model for our actions in the future.

Or perhaps it is a series of historical events and the Holy Spirit wants us to know the actual history of mankind and how God worked through the tribes of Israel.

I also think it could serve the purpose of eliminating the fallacious and somewhat pernicious error that God is “nice” and is bound by 20th century hippy, pacifist morals.

 

[ericc]

aying God has “righteous anger” against babies really doesn’t make sense. Do you agree?

Errr, righteous anger is just one aspect of his Divine qualities. His Divine Will can be equally as drastic as well. Do babies have a right to life that override his sovereignty to terminate live as he sees fit as part of his overall plan for the world? They have no special rights as all of us are. Lives are long/short in accordance to his Divine Plan. Divine wrath as well as divine will as well as divine love/mercy can simultaneously be at play all at once. As long as we believe in his divine justice, no one is ever short changed. Babies included. They would be saved from eternal damnation if instead they have lived and raised by a nasty tribe such as the Canaanites.

 

[FiveLinden]

There cannot be a loving God who approves genocide either in reality or metaphorically.

 

[joemccarron]

Or perhaps it is a series of historical events and the Holy Spirit wants us to know the actual history of mankind and how God worked through the tribes of Israel.

Lots of things happened in the past that are not preserved in scripture. Why would the holy spirit want us to know that God literally commanded the killing of children? All of the reasons that we think this may have been done works equally well with a non-literal interpretation except one. The only reason we would need a literal interpretation is if this was intended to be a model for our current conduct. And indeed if this is read literally you have to go through quite a few contortions to explain why this shouldn’t be a model for how we fight against evil cultures.

I also think it could serve the purpose of eliminating the fallacious and somewhat pernicious error that God is “nice” and is bound by 20th century hippy, pacifist morals

If believing that chopping up children is evil means we are hippy pacifists then St. JPII is the biggest hippy of the 20th Century. I just have to wonder if you really think that.
.

 

[joemccarron]

Errr, righteous anger is just one aspect of his Divine qualities. His Divine Will can be equally as drastic as well.

We were discussing the baby killing that you want to believe God literally commanded. I am still not sure how righteous anger fits in there. All Christians agree it is not his divine will that we kill babies even when the parents were wicked. So if it used to be his divine will that we kill the babies of wicked cultures we can wonder why his will changed. Or if in fact we are just rejecting his will due to our squeamish sentiments. I mean these are very valid questions that arise from your interpretation.

On my view of these passages God’s will does not change regarding our committing an evil act. He never condones it.

Do babies have a right to life that override his sovereignty to terminate live as he sees fit as part of his overall plan for the world? They have no special rights as all of us are. Lives are long/short in accordance to his Divine Plan. Divine wrath as well as divine will as well as divine love/mercy can simultaneously be at play all at once.

You are backtracking. We already addressed and agreed that God can give and take life. But the question is whether it is objectively evil for us to kill children. This is not a trivial distinction I am sure you agree. It is an extremely unnatural act for another human to kill a child.

As long as we believe in his divine justice, no one is ever short changed. Babies included. They would be saved from eternal damnation if instead they have lived and raised by a nasty tribe such as the Canaanites.

Again you say that but I see nothing in the passages that suggest the pagan children are somehow being “saved” by the Jews. By your logic it would be best if we killed all infants as soon as they were baptized right? We would save them from the risk of becoming evil.

I am not saying a literal interpretations can not be done. But it would mean we would need to do too much fancy dancing for most reasonable people to stomach. I’m not saying those who adopt a literalist view are necessarily unreasonable but that interpretation is fraught with lots and lots of problems. I sketched a few here but there are others. It does seem to me that a non-literalist view of these passages is the much more reasonable approach in light of what we know of the rest of scripture as well as Church teaching.

 

[joemccarron]

There cannot be a loving God who approves genocide either in reality or metaphorically.

So if I say the Cubs killed the Cardinals, you can fully understand I am just using a figure a speech, yet you would still want to arrest the Cubs?

 

[ChunkMonk]

Why would the Holy Spirit want us to know the historical truth of God’s actions concering his chosen people?

If it did literally happen then that would be a reason to read it literally, and wouldn’t necessarily be a prescription for current behavior. So you’re wrong that there is ONLY one reason to read it literally. As for why we shouldn’t make war this way, that is easy: God has not commanded us to do so.

Chopping up children is generally evil, yes.

 

[ericc]

We were discussing the baby killing that you want to believe God literally commanded. I am still not sure how righteous anger fits in there. I mean these are very valid questions that arise from your interpretation.

On my view of these passages God’s will does not change regarding our committing an evil act. He never condones it.

I think you missed the thrust of my argument. The killing of the Canaanites could have multiple divine aspects. 1. The righteous anger/justice bit will apply to the adults 2. The divine plan/foreknowledge/merciful bit can apply to the infant/children.

If you want to insist that God can not do such and such a thing, I won’t stop you. God has reasons that we may not comprehend. Painting a particular type of God that can or can not do a certain thing is forcing your concept of God into a mold without first understanding why God would do such a thing first. As St Augustine said, either the translation is wrong or our understanding is faulty. Are there sufficient reasons why God would terminate the lives of young children? I listed some possibilities. If you are saying that there are no possible reasons that God can terminate the lives of children, then I think we should just agree to disagree.

Explain why Saul was punished when he was disobedient to exterminate ALL. 1 Sam 15:3 , 11,18 Did God command Saul to kill all?

It is an extremely unnatural act for another human to kill a child.

WW2 and the conflicts in the Middle East, Africa show how wrong you are.

Again you say that but I see nothing in the passages that suggest the pagan children are somehow being “saved” by the Jews.

Not saved by Jews. By God. The Jews are his instrument, his hammer.

It does seem to me that a non-literalist view of these passages is the much more reasonable approach in light of what we know of the rest of scripture as well as Church teaching.

And I have invited you to present your version. Please do present one that stays true to Scriptures. . Believe me, I’d prefer another version but I find it difficult to hold all the Scriptures consistent with one another. If one has to resort to gymnastic language to force a particular reading, then a literal reading should take precedence. Perhaps you may check with the Jews to verify how they read the Conquest of the Promised Land throughout the OT. You will find none of the succeeding OT prophets denying the literal interpretation.

And I have also asked you to present the Church teaching on the interpretation of the Conquest of the Promised Land. Is it literal or not? I hope I may have missed some important documents that the Church have published and that will require me to drop the literal reading of it. Unfortunately, unless you can support your view, I may have to tag your reading as modernist with a non-violence bias. Or perhaps you can support your interpretation with writings from the Church Fathers, Saints, Doctors? Something to help your case?

 

[joemccarron]

Why would the Holy Spirit want us to know the historical truth of God’s actions concering his chosen people?

If it did literally happen then that would be a reason to read it literally, and wouldn’t necessarily be a prescription for current behavior.

Again there are lots of truths that happened yet aren’t recorded in scripture. What were the precise foods that the leaders of the armies ate each day? What did their wives wear when they were at war? What color hair did Joshua have?

All of these would involve the historical truth of what happened. Why not answer these questions? What is so important about God’s command to kill the children of people from a morally corrupt culture? I mean yes if it was literally true it would convey literal truth but so would the other points. Why do you think the Holy Spirit is telling us God literally commanded this (assuming he did as you interpret the passage)?

So you’re wrong that there is ONLY one reason to read it literally. As for why we shouldn’t make war this way, that is easy: God has not commanded us to do so.

Has God personally commanded anything from you?

It seems to me we typically read the bible and if God tells/commands/instructs one person how to behave we assume it applies to us also. For example, Jesus commanded the disciples to love one another. If I were to say oh that is just a “special case” that only applied to the disciples you would probably think I was crazy. Same with the beatitudes he was just speaking to those people listening to him at the time right? He didn’t command this of me!

What you are doing with your “special case” for the Jews seems a lot like special pleading.

 

[ChunkMonk]

In my opinion it was a warning. Basically, God was telling the Jews that they were truly going to ne a separate people and that any mixing in a large scale with other cultures was going to result in them becoming corrupted. Also, it was a punishment against the wicked sinners of those lands, and they really were wicked. So it served a triple purpose to remember those events.

1. It was an extremely important historical event for Israel
2. It warned them as to how God felt about mixing with other cultures
3. It reminded them of the temporal punishments that awaited sinners who defied God or his chosen people.

Now, this wouldn’t serve as a prescription of literal behavior for us now because we live in the New Covenant, which is specifically open to all people and all races. In fact, we are commanded to “make disciples out of all nations” which is hard to do if you’ve genocided them out of existence.

But, it still serves as a warning for what awaits sinful societies and also as a metaphorical prescription for not becoming a willing member of sinful cultures. We preach to the sinner, but we don’t join him at the strip-club.

Why does it HAVE to be a literal event? It doesn’t… It just was. It has more meaning in that it was a literal event, and not just a story, but it could theoretically serve the same purpose being just a story. I mean, take it as pure allegory if you want, but the original authors and most of Catholic history disagree with you.

 

[joemccarron]

I think you missed the thrust of my argument. The killing of the Canaanites could have multiple divine aspects. 1. The righteous anger/justice bit will apply to the adults 2. The divine plan/foreknowledge/merciful bit can apply to the infant/children.

I was trying to focus on the main problem and that is killing the children. Your suggestion that killing Children is to demonstrate God’s foreknowledge or mercy is dubious. The scripture speaks nothing at all that God is being merciful to these children. You completely make up some speculation that these Canaanite Children will be saved by being killed and then say the passage is there to tell us about God’s mercy. The passage has nothing about God’s mercy your completely made up story about them being saved is no where in the scripture.

Likewise with God’s foreknowledge.

As for God’s plan well yes but that is just a truism. We could say that about any passage talking about how God acted.

If you want to insist that God can not do such and such a thing, I won’t stop you. God has reasons that we may not comprehend. Painting a particular type of God that can or can not do a certain thing is forcing your concept of God into a mold without first understanding why God would do such a thing first.

The scripture says God did it because they were evil. So if you take a literal reading of the passage its all pretty simple. Im not sure you can suddenly claim its a mystery.

As St Augustine said, either the translation is wrong or our understanding is faulty. Are there sufficient reasons why God would terminate the lives of young children? I listed some possibilities.

The question I have is why preserve this history in a literal sense unless it is indeed meant to tell us how to engage in war with evil groups? What you listed was a bunch of speculation that in no way was even hinted at in the actual scriptures.

If you are saying that there are no possible reasons that God can terminate the lives of children, then I think we should just agree to disagree.

Im not saying that. I am saying it makes no sense that the Holy Spirit would preserve this alleged literal truth of God unless it was indeed instruction on how we should act. Any other message would be conveyed by understanding the passage non-literally. So if we both agree we are not to take this passage as instruction on how we should act then I don’t see what the harm in thinking it is non-literal. Thinking it is literally true causes all sorts of problems.

Explain why Saul was punished when he was disobedient to exterminate ALL. 1 Sam 15:3 , 11,18 Did God command Saul to kill all?

I am not that familiar with the passage, but again it would seem to read that passage literally would violate church teaching that God never causes evil directly or indirectly.

 

[ericc]

I was trying to focus on the main problem and that is killing the children. Your suggestion that killing Children is to demonstrate God’s foreknowledge or mercy is dubious.

I am trying to find plausible solutions for the killing of children. You are denying the event. If Jewish and Church authorities were to agree on the historicity of these events, and I think they will, that will leave you devastated since your concept of God would be seriously damaged. If you deny the event, then you have to substantiate how ALL these scriptures can fit into your scheme of things. I have listed several instances where God commanded others to kill. You have not provided any rebuttal to any of them.

If on the other hand they side with your position, which despite several request I am still clueless about, I am no worse off and I am happy to accept Church position because that is truly an easier position to take. You keep on repeating that God couldn’t have, so you have to filled that blank with what did God actually commanded Moses, Joshua, and Saul to do WITHOUT putting Scriptures in error.

I am not that familiar with the passage, but again it would seem to read that passage literally would violate church teaching that God never causes evil directly or indirectly.

This is important because this is how David got to be King. Your position will leave many verses in error by your logic. Perhaps instead of interpreting these verses to be wrong because they couldn’t fit into your concept of God, you should review your own understanding. Is that a cast-in-concrete position? I am piqued to understand why you are so sure you are right and I am wrong. Could it be an invested position that is too painful to reverse? Only you’d know. As for me, I just follow what the Church/Bible says. I have no particular preferences.

There is no immorality to be obedient to God. Abraham didn’t disobey and I have not heard of any rebuke of him attempting to obey God by killing his own son. Obeying a direct command would I’d say take precedence over an imputed characteristic of God.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I lifted the following extract from this website -

http://www.susancanthony.com/res/dennis/canaan.html

I don’t know much about Canaanite society as I’ve never studied it, but I’m assuming the author does know something. There’s a reference to what the Sodomites would do to strangers for example, and in the story about Lot, the “two men” (actually angels) were the target of the Sodomites for some sort of “special treatment”.

Ancent stories give hints about the evil in Sodom. Strangers and travelers who came into the city would be robbed, stripped, and held captive within the city. They would wander the streets slowly starving to death, to the great amusement of the citizenry. One account relates that visitors to Sodom were offered a bed according to the Middle Eastern laws of hospitality, but it was a bed of torture. Short people were stretched. Tall people had their legs cut off. If a traveler had no money, he would be given bricks of gold and silver with his name on them! But nobody would sell him bread and water, even for all that gold and silver, so the traveler slowly died of starvation. The Sodomites gathered around the corpse and took back the gold and silver. The people in Sodom were not just evil, they were proud of being evil. Imagine being a child in a place like that!

These stories give us a hint of how bad things had gotten in Sodom. It was probably worse than our imaginations can conceive. The Canaanites knew about the destruction of Sodom. They knew that God would judge evil. They also knew about Melchizedek and Abraham. They had access to truth. They weren’t ignorant or innocent. Egypt and other nations, despite their great sin, were not completely destroyed, so the sin of the Canaanites must have been more serious. God restricted Israel from attacking Edom, Moab and Ammon, so despite their sins, they must not have deserved such a severe judgment.

Leviticus 18 and 20 list some of the detestable religious practices of the Canaanites and says that these acts caused the land to become defiled, so that its inhabitants were “vomited out.” This comes with the warning that if the Israelites copy those practices, the land will also vomit them out. That is exactly what happened after the Israelites adopted the practices of Canaan.

Archeology gives some hints about what the Canaanites did. On one High Place, archeologists found several stone pillars and great numbers of jars containing remains of newborn babies. When a new house was built, a child would be sacrificed and its body built into the wall to bring good luck to the rest of the family. Firstborn children were often sacrificed to Molech, a giant hollow bronze image in which a fire was built. Parents placed their children in its red hot hands and the babies would roll down into the fire. The sacrifice was invalid if a parent displayed grief. Mothers were supposed to dance and sing. The Israelites later copied this practice in a valley near Jerusalem called Gehenna. Hundreds of jars containing infant bones have been found there.