Struggling with the book of Joshua

[cap76]

These kind of responses baffle me, since we see that the Israelites were also ordered to execute or abduct women and children as well. Surely pagan children were not at fault for what a clerical elite was responsible for in promulgating evil religious practices to the rest of society, and surely mass rapes among their women could not have been just in any way.

The conquest of Canaan began with a promise to Abraham:

Genesis 12.6-7, “At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.””

Abrahams offspring were to be God’s people not anybody else’s. However, Canaan was full of idolaters and God was concerned about Israel falling into idolatry. Therefore, it was for Israel’s own protection that God not only ordered for the nations and cultures to be wiped out, but God fought for them:

*Joshua 23.6-10, “Be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them… For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations. And as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised you.”
*
Who do you think drowned the entire Egyptian army including the Pharaoh? God parted the Sea for His people’s escape, then He let it go to ensure it.

As far as the children of Canaan are concerned, their time to leave God’s earth and to enter God’s eternity had come.

Deuteronomy 32.39, ““‘See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside Me;
I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of My hand.”

People were killed, but who was abducted and raped?

I find no way to interpret these passages but symbolically. It’s just not reconcilable with a loving God. I have no objection to God allowing or even directing natural disasters, but the genocides described in Joshua is incomprehensible if taken as a historical and literal account.

Do you find the book of Deuteronomy to be symbolic as well?
Deuteronomy 20.16-17, “In the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded.”

 

[Reuben_J]

Perhaps by reading the Book of Joshua it makes us appreciate Jesus, the word made flesh and God’s only Son, much, much more. Through Jesus we have life as he is our Savior.

The consequence of sin is death. In Joshua, we literally see the consequence of sins. These happened because Jesus had not come. In any case, the command of God to kill in Joshua is a one-off happening in God’s history with man and not to be repeated again until Jesus come. Those who die in sin without repenting and rejecting the Savior will face the consequence of death, that is they will not have eternal life but eternal damnation.

 

[bogeydogg]

These kind of responses baffle me, since we see that the Israelites were also ordered to execute or abduct women and children as well. Surely pagan children were not at fault for what a clerical elite was responsible for in promulgating evil religious practices to the rest of society, and surely mass rapes among their women could not have been just in any way.

I find no way to interpret these passages but symbolically. It’s just not reconcilable with a loving God. I have no objection to God allowing or even directing natural disasters, but the genocides described in Joshua is incomprehensible if taken as a historical and literal account.

The answer to this question is that when the Israelites fell into this exact same paganism God raised up the Assyrians to strike them and kill them and their women and children with the sword. Also when the Judeans fell into that same paganism (the worship of Baal, Molech and Ashteroth) God raised the babylonians to strike them and their women and children with the edge of the sword.

The women and children were not slain for the sins of the men but rather everyone part of the nation fell under the threat of God’s judgement against that nation.

Considering the original question about how innocents could be killed, the word innocent according to Law would mean totally without sin of any sort, and no one is innocent of that.

So the notion that what the Scripture portrays is God passing judgement on Canaan to clear the way for the Israelites overlooks the identical judgement falling on the Israelites when they began to slaughter their own children.

This btw should really give us pause if we have passed laws making the killing of children legal as well.

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

I think doing evil is the worst thing that can happen, and the Israelites clearly did that. How can you condemn abortionists for killing the unborn if you don’t think there’s anything wrong with an army putting thousands of women and children to the sword for the sins of their fathers?

Yes, I acknowledge that God is the arbiter of human life. I don’t condemn Him for natural disasters or plagues or famines. But I cannot see any reconciliation with the orthodox Catholic faith that God ordered a mass killing of women and children.

I stand to be corrected by any theologian that knows better than I, or any pastoral authority that orders me retract my comments.

Firstly by proclamation of the Magisterium. Secondly by the opinions of the Church Fathers, bishops, and accredited theologians. Thirdly by context and reasoning.

Your question ignores the notion of a justified war which the Church has sanctioned since the time of Augustine. It also ignores that St Paul (Romans) tells us the State bears the sword for the punishment of the wicked. The Bible, old and new testament, makes it absolutely clear that God has empowered the State to do the will of His judgement against nations by the power of war and killing.

You may find this unjust but that is what Scripture teaches and so your problem is not really with how some interpret the Bible but the Bible itself. In which case the solution to your problem is to repent. You keep protesting that God is just, and then protesting that the killing of women and children is unjust, but it is clear from Scripture that God does not view it that way.

Remember even Jesus declared woe upon the women with nursing children when God’s judgement fell on Judea for the rejection of Messiah. He even went so far as to tell those who were weeping over Him on the Via de la Rosa to weep for themselves because His suffering was in a time of plenty and their suffering would be in a time of famine and judgement and the wrath of God for having broken the covenant. Remember Jesus declared the House of Israel was desolate and not one stone would be left standing of the Temple when the judgement of God fell on them.

Now since we confess Jesus never sinned and that He is the very substance of God made flesh then we must also confess that the killing in war which God uses to pass His judgement is just, and that we don’t see it that way is because we have skewed judgement to suit ourselves instead of surrendering to the Word of God.

I know that is a hard and terrifying answer, but that is what the Bible teaches.

God Bless

 

[EphelDuath]

Do you find the book of Deuteronomy to be symbolic as well?

I’m tired of being rebutted with this false dichotomy. Just because I think perhaps one event was not a literal and historical occurrence, does not necessitate that all of them were.

Do you deny that not you, nor me, nor the Pope knows what parts of the Old Testament were written in allegory, unless the Magisterium has pronounced upon them infallibly?

Your question ignores the notion of a justified war which the Church has sanctioned since the time of Augustine.

St. Augustine would be shocked to hear that Jus in bello can permit thousands of women and children be put to the sword.

It also ignores that St Paul (Romans) tells us the State bears the sword for the punishment of the wicked. The Bible, old and new testament, makes it absolutely clear that God has empowered the State to do the will of His judgement against nations by the power of war and killing.

No argument there. But I dare you to show me a verse where St. Paul tells us that the State may also freely execute women and children for being born in a sinful nation.

You may find this unjust but that is what Scripture teaches and so your problem is not really with how some interpret the Bible but the Bible itself. In which case the solution to your problem is to repent.

Do not presume to peer into my soul to see my reasons for disagreement. My opinion is, until otherwise shown, permissible to be held according to the Church. And I have already said that I will retract all of my comments should I be asked to be either a reputable theologian or a pastor of the Church.

Do not judge me. Judicat Deus me.

You keep protesting that God is just, and then protesting that the killing of women and children is unjust, but it is clear from Scripture that God does not view it that way.

No, that is not clear. I believe that the Canaanites and Amalekites in the Old Testament were an allegorical representation of sin and idolatry: unless utterly cleansed from the spirit, to the point of extermination, one is impeding his own salvation.

I am not asking that all think this way. Though I think it to be a paradox of the faith that God would order his chosen nation to murder women and children, I see that others find ways to reconcile this. I cannot.

But if you are going to accuse me of sin, I demand that you show me that the Church has forbidden this interpretation.

 

[bogeydogg]

I never accused you of anything, I said you may find this unjust and if you do then your problem is with Scripture itself, in which case the answer is to repent.

And then I went on to give examples of where Christ Himself displayed this very attitude toward the sins of a nation and that all in the nation are punished.

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

Also I think anyone should be careful of allegorizing Scripture because then those who do not believe the Bible would use our standard to say, “Well then the resurrection and the promise of salvation are not actual promises of eternal life but rather allegorical to the life we can have now.”

In fact that is exactly what many opponents of Scripture did and still do.

God Bless

 

[EphelDuath]

Also I think anyone should be careful of allegorizing Scripture because then those who do not believe the Bible would use our standard to say, “Well then the resurrection and the promise of salvation are not actual promises of eternal life but rather allegorical to the life we can have now.”

In fact that is exactly what many opponents of Scripture did and still do.

God Bless

That’s indeed an error of sola Scriptura, yes. Which is why we go to the Magisterium. The infallible dogma of the Church is that there was a literal bodily Resurrection of Christ. This is the foundation of our faith, and is even part of all of the creeds of the Church.

Let’s compare this to the fact that the Church has also taught that one is free to believe in biological macroevolution and interpret the first chapters of Genesis to be an allegory of spirit, so long as they do not contradict any other doctrines of the Church (such as that all things, including the human soul, are created by God and no others, ex nihilo).

Unfortunately the Magisterium has said nothing on the literalness of the genocidal acts in Joshua and 1 Samuel, so we are free within reason to think these were not historical occurrences, provided we do not contradict any doctrines of the Church.

 

[bogeydogg]

That’s indeed an error of sola Scriptura, yes. Which is why we go to the Magisterium. The infallible dogma of the Church is that there was a literal bodily Resurrection of Christ. This is the foundation of our faith, and is even part of all of the creeds of the Church.

Let’s compare this to the fact that the Church has also taught that one is free to believe in biological macroevolution and interpret the first chapters of Genesis to be an allegory of spirit, so long as they do not contradict any other doctrines of the Church (such as that all things, including the human soul, are created by God and no others, ex nihilo).

Unfortunately the Magisterium has said nothing on the literalness of the genocidal acts in Joshua and 1 Samuel, so we are free within reason to think these were not historical occurrences, provided we do not contradict any doctrines of the Church.

Yeah I still think that is special pleading based on an argument from silence at the very, very best.

But we will have to disagree.

And truly…

God Bless

 

[Frankenfurter]

ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/pope-benedict-on-the-dark-passages-of-scripture

This link may help you out a little.

I found a copy of Verbum Domini at Amazon and plan on reading it. Thanks for that.

I guess I am glad to find that the pope struggles too.

 

[Frankenfurter]

I understand your question, OP. I really do.

I hate human death with everything in me. Human death is for me a permanent faith crisis.

But given that it exists, what difference is there between being “put to the sword” and lying in a deathbed slowly becoming unable to move or breathe? The second is likely to be even more uncomfortable than the first.

In the end, we just have to accept that human death is the will of God (very hard for me) And that whatever physical circumstances accompany it are beside the point.

ICXC NIKA

Thanks for that. Difficult though it is.

I am somehow (not sure how) comforted by the fact that Jesus dies on the cross. If I didn’t have this, I am not sure what I would make of this God of the Israelites

.

 

[bogeydogg]

Thanks for that. Difficult though it is.

I am somehow (not sure how) comforted by the fact that Jesus dies on the cross. If I didn’t have this, I am not sure what I would make of this God of the Israelites

.

Well remember that this exact judgement feel on those same Israelite and on Judea when God raised up Assyria and then Babylon to conquer, brutally, that same nation of Israel when they rejected God and worshiped Baal.

In a sense the OT is a narrative of God destroying Baal worship.

God Bless