Violence and wrath in the Old Testament

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Riley259

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The violence and wrath in the OT is very off putting to me. It seems that God often condones and even endorses some very violent actions against other nations for the sake of His people, the Israelites. These incidents seem very contrary to the themes of love and forgiveness in the New Testament. Can someone help me reconcile the many OT passages that promote violence and killing with an all good and just God? Thanks in advance on this.
 
Yes, read Scott Hahn’s “A Father Who Keeps His Promises”. I read it about 4 years ago and it help settle some of the unease I had.

Take for instance, the Israelites next battle after Jericho, when they were told to kill everyone and destroy all the treasures and idols. The enemy (I don’t remember their name) were a tribe that should have known about the One True God, but had long fallen into paganism. God told Israel to rid Canaan of these people, because if allowed to stay around, the tribe would taint Israel with false idols and foreign gods. And this is exactly what happened. Falling into Idolatry causes a Spiritual death (separation from Yahweh) that is far FAR worse than any physical death could ever be.
 
JMJ / MMM 090418 Saturday
Dear Riley259 –
Your question is an important one. Consider the ongoing development of God’s creation. God Loves without limit and unconditionally all human beings ever to exist. The world was very primitive and far distant from God thousands (or more) years ago. God deals with us not as puppets but as developing images of Himself. God Loves us as we are able or unable to have relationship with Him. “The FEAR of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom.” And in our beginning milleniums we were rough and tough creatures … and we sure need some REAL TOUGH LOVE from God.

God started somewhere and He chose to start with Abraham and the Jews who would come from him. He could have chosen worshipers of Baal … but He didn’t. The psalms often tell us that the Jews were God’s lamp in a dark world … and through the Jews God’s intention was to bring His Light to ALL peoples, to ALL nations.

God does things step by step and – in our faulty understanding – VERY VERY SLOWLY.

Bottom line – It was necessary to do things often rough and tough with us very primitive and barbaric human beings, especially in the beginning. But God Loves all those destroyed peoples we read of in the Old Testament. And God is certainly not done with them or the salvation of their souls. What are His plans? I certainly do not know but I know for sure that God’s not done with them.
God’s Love pour over you and His Holy Spirit posses you.
John (JohnJFarren) Trinity5635@aol.com
 
Riley259 said:
The violence and wrath in the OT is very off putting to me. It seems that God often condones and even endorses some very violent actions against other nations for the sake of His people, the Israelites. These incidents seem very contrary to the themes of love and forgiveness in the New Testament. Can someone help me reconcile the many OT passages that promote violence and killing with an all good and just God? Thanks in advance on this.
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Great question. Not an easy one. But so important.

God inspires the authors of Scripture and yet the authors are bound to their times and culture. In the ancient world, “gods” were typically associated with military/political victory, and so, often, God’s chosen people would write about God in those terms. This doesn’t need mean that God promoted violence and killing, but rather, that the peoples of the time interpreted their experience of military victories and failures to coincide with God’s favor or punishment.
 
diggerdomer said:
Great question. Not an easy one. But so important.

God inspires the authors of Scripture and yet the authors are bound to their times and culture. In the ancient world, “gods” were typically associated with military/political victory, and so, often, God’s chosen people would write about God in those terms.
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Ok, I’m with you so far…
diggerdomer said:
This doesn’t need mean that God promoted violence and killing, but rather, that the peoples of the time interpreted their experience of military victories and failures to coincide with God’s favor or punishment.
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… But you lost me here. The inspired author writes of God instructing Joshua to destroy the enemy and why they should destroy the enemy. This is different from the customs you are describing in the first part.
 
NotWorthy said:
Ok, I’m with you so far… … But you lost me here. The inspired author writes of God instructing Joshua to destroy the enemy and why they should destroy the enemy. This is different from the customs you are describing in the first part.
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Their experience of battle (winning and losing) was reflected in light of their faith in God. In their minds/experience, the two are connected. If we won, it was because God favored us (or told us to, or was punishing other peoples, etc.). If we lost, it was because God was not favoring us (or was punishing us, or was teaching a lesson, etc.)

Not sure if that’s getting my point across. Does it help?
 
God wiped out people. He didn’t wipe out Cain, who slew Abel. Didn’t need to, as God foreknew that it wasn’t necesary to sustain His will for Earth. God would also tell His Chosen People to wipe out some guys and 1. not take their goods 2. do take their goods. Seems like a health proscription to not bring disease in, dunno. One group God told His leaders to wipe out was spared and they came back in the Book of Esther to wipe out all the Hebrews. God knows. We don’t. Let Him do His job and remember, on this the Feast of Divine Mercy, Christ’s mercy is limitless in this era before He must, in justice, return as the Lord of Judgment.
 
diggerdomer said:
Their experience of battle (winning and losing) was reflected in light of their faith in God. In their minds/experience, the two are connected. If we won, it was because God favored us (or told us to, or was punishing other peoples, etc.). If we lost, it was because God was not favoring us (or was punishing us, or was teaching a lesson, etc.)

Not sure if that’s getting my point across. Does it help?
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Again, I agree with the above post. And this would apply to any time Israel won a battle, especially against a far larger enemy. God’s favor was with Israel.

But there are instances where God speaks to Joshua to slay all the enemy. I’m assuming you believe that God literally did speak to Joshua.
 
Riley259 said:
The violence and wrath in the OT is very off putting to me. It seems that God often condones and even endorses some very violent actions against other nations for the sake of His people, the Israelites. These incidents seem very contrary to the themes of love and forgiveness in the New Testament. Can someone help me reconcile the many OT passages that promote violence and killing with an all good and just God? Thanks in advance on this.
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God gives life. So, He owns it. He can take it.

Many Christians try to limit God to creating life, and excuse actions by God relying on death by saying that the “the not-yet-saved world, unentitled to perfection, kills mankind – not God.”

In fact, God kills actively, not passively, by His Own hand in the Bible. Read Exodus 12:29. Keep in mind that we are not talking about Egyptian soldiers, there. Instead, we are talking about first born males of all ages – including completely innocent children and babies. So, Christian fundamentalists aching to blame someone other than God can’t blame it on plague germs who were “nice guys” before the fall of Adam.

God kills.

Does that make God a “bad guy”?

No.

The truth is that God is allowed to force someone – anyone, lots of people, if He wants – to “check out.”

When the commandments say, “You shall not kill,” it its, “You shall not, by your own willful act, prematurely terminate God’s allotted time on Earth for someone without a supervening justification.”

Well, when God kills somebody, that, by definition, is the end of that person’s allotted time on Earth.

God doesn’t need to hide behind the excuse that we live in a not-yet-saved world.
 
NotWorthy said:
Again, I agree with the above post. And this would apply to any time Israel won a battle, especially against a far larger enemy. God’s favor was with Israel.

But there are instances where God speaks to Joshua to slay all the enemy. I’m assuming you believe that God literally did speak to Joshua.
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One way to look at it is that hindsight is 20/20. Just as the Apostles knew and understood better what had been going on AFTER Jesus’ passion/death/resurrection and sending of the Spirit, a similar dynamic could influence the writing of Scripture centuries earlier, too. Joshua recognized more clearly, when he was writing after the events, what God’s role was and how to express it.

Sure, God spoke to Joshua. Or, another way to say it, Joshua heard God.
 
diggerdomer said:
One way to look at it is that hindsight is 20/20. Just as the Apostles knew and understood better what had been going on AFTER Jesus’ passion/death/resurrection and sending of the Spirit, a similar dynamic could influence the writing of Scripture centuries earlier, too. Joshua recognized more clearly, when he was writing after the events, what God’s role was and how to express it.

Sure, God spoke to Joshua. Or, another way to say it, Joshua heard God.
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So, are you claiming that God instructed their deaths or not?

I’m a tad bit confused.
 
In the OT God was single. He hadn’t yet had his son, Jesus yet.

Haven’t you noticed how men change after experiencing Fatherhood?

God was an S.O.B in the OT. Surely there were a few good people left on Earth before he wantonly destroyed ALL of humanity to start all over again. This is a sign that God was impatient (He through the baby out with the bath water). He had to LEARN patience. After he did what he did he realized His mistake by putting a rainbow in the sky.

God MAKES MISTAKES!

WOW!
 
diggerdomer said:
No I am not claiming God instructed their deaths.

God may have, but that’s not my claim.
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But you see, that’s what God says in the Book of Joshua. That’s why I was confused with your answer.

I thought it was obvious that God instructed the deaths of the enemies of Israel.
 
DavidChrist said:
In the OT God was single. He hadn’t yet had his son, Jesus yet.

Haven’t you noticed how men change after experiencing Fatherhood?

God was an S.O.B in the OT. Surely there were a few good people left on Earth before he wantonly destroyed ALL of humanity to start all over again. This is a sign that God was impatient (He through the baby out with the bath water). He had to LEARN patience. After he did what he did he realized His mistake by putting a rainbow in the sky.

God MAKES MISTAKES!

WOW!
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Ummmm, have you read the opening of John’s Gospel lately? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. (paraphrasing). St. Paul in Hebrews also says that Christ was the Rock who led Israel through the Wilderness.

I’m also wondering if you realize what you are saying in the rest of your post. It reeks of blasphemy! :eek:
 
NotWorthy said:
But you see, that’s what God says in the Book of Joshua. That’s why I was confused with your answer.

I thought it was obvious that God instructed the deaths of the enemies of Israel.
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The author wrote it that way, narrating it as God speaking to Joshua. Whether that’s because it really happened that way or because that was the way the author chose to narrate the event (or both, or some other reason) is another question.
 
diggerdomer said:
The author wrote it that way. Whether that’s because it really happened that way or because that was the way the author chose to narrate the event (or both, or some other reason) is another question.
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Not in my mind. If the author wrote that “God instructed this…” or “God instructed that…”, then there is no question.
 
In the age of the patriarchs, God was fulfilling His word

He told Abram that He would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him.

This is exactly the motivation for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m reading a commentary of Genesis, and taking my time, and I’m picking up such subtlety as this. Nothing subtle about the fire and brimstone but the story is really telling about the hard hearts of the Sodom and the “cities of the plain.”

They did not extend hospitality to strangers, like to the three angels that came to Abraham and to Lot. Even Lot was an outsider to the Sodomites, even though he had lived there and was known to them and whose daughters were betrothed to a couple young men of Sodom. So the blessing was to Abraham and even to Lot but the curse was to the cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah.

We cannot stop the justice of God and why would we want to ?
 
One ought not interpret the Old Testament literally; one must consider the psychological warfare that exists. Psychological warfare that exists to this very day. Hatred back then, as it is now, relates to Satan and the sin itself. The first task of any child of Christ, is to crush (kill) the animal soul which fuels sin.
 
Crumpy said:
In the age of the patriarchs, God was fulfilling His word

He told Abram that He would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him.

This is exactly the motivation for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m reading a commentary of Genesis, and taking my time, and I’m picking up such subtlety as this. Nothing subtle about the fire and brimstone but the story is really telling about the hard hearts of the Sodom and the “cities of the plain.”

They did not extend hospitality to strangers, like to the three angels that came to Abraham and to Lot. Even Lot was an outsider to the Sodomites, even though he had lived there and was known to them and whose daughters were betrothed to a couple young men of Sodom. So the blessing was to Abraham and even to Lot but the curse was to the cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah.

We cannot stop the justice of God and why would we want to ?
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Which Commentary are you studying? I’m taking part in the AgapeBibleStudy.Com

Thanks
 
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