Pro-Life and God's Command to Saul to Attack Amalek

[faustinamary]

1 Samuel 15:3 "Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban* everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

Why would God ask Saul to kill infants then if abortion is wrong now because children are innocent?

 

[Kmon23]

We have no right to take innocent life as their lives are not our own. However, God being the creator and molder of the clay, can do as He wishes. What He has brought into creation, He can take back. That is why for own lives as well, it is up to God for when He should take our lives away.

In this case (or any of the Old Testament scenarios), there shouldn’t be any moral issues of killing others if commanded by God as God has every right to take back the lives He has breathed life into.
The moral issue is taking the lives of others of our own decision (since taking lives is not our choice to make).

 

[inocente]

1 Samuel 15:3 "Go, now, attack Amalek, and put under the ban* everything he has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

Why would God ask Saul to kill infants then if abortion is wrong now because children are innocent?

To modern eyes, 1 Sam 15 paints God as pure evil, capricious, and so much of a coward that he get humans to do his dirty work. God’s name is used to authorize genocide and terror, much as the Taliban, ISIS and others through history have done.

But this is an ancient text, and probably had a very different meaning to its original audience. Here’s a Jesuit’s interpretation of what it might have meant originally: whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/1-samuel-15-and-the-gods-approval-of-genocide/

 

[Gorgias]

But this is an ancient text, and probably had a very different meaning to its original audience. Here’s a Jesuit’s interpretation of what it might have meant originally: whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/1-samuel-15-and-the-gods-approval-of-genocide/

So, his second solution – and the one that seems more solid – rebuts the claim that this is a case of God ordering the deaths of innocents: Amalek isn’t ‘innocent’. That’s one of canonical answers, but he makes the case reasonably eloquently…

 

[ChurchSoldier]

To modern eyes, 1 Sam 15 paints God as pure evil, capricious, and so much of a coward that he get humans to do his dirty work. God’s name is used to authorize genocide and terror, much as the Taliban, ISIS and others through history have done.

But this is an ancient text, and probably had a very different meaning to its original audience. Here’s a Jesuit’s interpretation of what it might have meant originally: whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/1-samuel-15-and-the-gods-approval-of-genocide/

Thank you for the link. It has some interesting points.

I do have an issue with what the author writes in that his underlying message is that the Bible is not true and the story purely symbolic. This line of logic has been used to promulgate liberation theology and particularly the disregard in current times of sexual mores.

Thanks again for the post.

 

[Gorgias]

I do have an issue with what the author writes in that his underlying message is that the Bible is not true and the story purely symbolic.

Well, I think that this claim you make isn’t quite what the author of the essay is saying – and I think that this claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny in general.

Are you saying that things that are ‘symbolic’ are not true? That doesn’t make sense; they’re true even if they aren’t historical!

I might disagree with the author over which passages of the Bible are historic and which provide us with symbols and metaphors, but the hermeneutic is solid – after all, if you disagree that there aren’t narratives that are meant to be metaphorical, then you’re arguing for strict fundamentalism… and that isn’t at all what the Church teaches…!

This line of logic has been used to promulgate liberation theology and particularly the disregard in current times of sexual mores.

I would nuance this a bit: this line of logic is reasonable, but… it has been misused and improperly applied by some in order to support heterodox theologies. The problem isn’t with the assertion that there exist Scriptural passages that are metaphorical, just in the discernment of which passages aren’t meant to be taken as literal historical narrative!

 

[Karen107]

This is how I’ve seen it… People need to look at the bible as a whole. God never changes and the bible is God ‘inspired’ so we aren’t going to get the exact historical story moment for moment as in a history Book especially in the OT but what we need to know to increase our trust in God… Jesus got mad in the temple that wasn’t used as a holy place of worship but rather a marketplace so turned tables over. This is an example of Gods righteous anger just like the story in the OT. You might even say that WWII was an example of Gods righteous anger. No one ever wants war but sometimes war is inevitable. The old testament is filled with blessings and curses that we are supposed to learn from, and in all these moments of Gods wrath beforehand people were ‘warned’ of impending doom which speaks to Gods love for us, even those who don’t know God are warned but people don’t listen and continue to trust in their own ways not in the Lords ways. And here we have so many warning the people of ISIS that what they are doing is wrong, and now we are fighting them. And the reader must consider that the people of the OT did not understand the mercy of God as we know it to be so they saw God as either bringing blessings or wrath upon them, there was no eternal life in heaven as we know it. That is no different than life today but today because of Jesus revealing the Father to us, we understand the mercy of God better and that God is nothing to be feared but further embraced for our protection and blessings… God warns us before things happen so it’s up to us to listen and obey the Word of the Lord and that’s the moral of the story and how I see it to be…