Tim Ikeda wrote:
> Viewed
> within the context of the whole of Christian dogma, I do understand how
> one may view the slaughter of the Canaanite as potentially "righteous".
> If one chooses to believe that the slaughter was truly sanctioned by God
> then one will, by necessity, find ways to support this. There is no
> other way: it must be accepted as a matter of faith. Personally, I do not
> believe that the massacre was blessed by what I would characterize as
> a good and loving deity. So for me, either the deity or the story is the
> problem. If we give the deity the benefit of the doubt, that leaves the
> story. And I suspect that is about as far as we can take the discussion.
>
This is basically the heart of the issue but I think we
can cut the Bible a _little_ more slack.
The scripture can be viewed as the human race coming to
an understanding of who God is and what that God requires.
This is not something limited to the Israelites alone, but
to all of Middle eastern culture. The nature of God does
change as time progressed in the relationship and is visible
in the way that scripture unfolds chronologically.
I give three aspects to view these massacres where the
third point may address your point to some extent.
(1) A misdirected divine endorsement:
The oldest version of God is the "butt kicking" god that
appeals more to all my youthful fantasies. This is the
God who humiliates the all-powerful Pharaoh. If you
think about it a little, people who might have been there
and really experienced some version of this tale with their
own eyes, would have had a distorted view of their own place
in the world and the role of a God in helping them to establish
it. We all hear what we want to hear to some extent, and surely
tribes of that time period were the same. So part of this
issue could be attributed to over zealous reaction to the
gift of providence. If there was ever a time you might have
felt "rescued" by the Lord, this is an easy trap you can find
yourself falling into as a result. In short, it can happen to
anyone.
There are references to the excesses of the tribe of Dan in
that regard (Judges 18) for example. I don't think the
scripture depicts the Danites as being anything but jerks
in that passage. So even in the land of Canaan, it was not
a blanket declaration of annihilation for everyone.
(2) A command directed out of judgment:
Likewise consider the Assyrians. The were clearly
arrogant (even by extra biblical references),
but they made no special effort to single out
Jews as a stomping ground for their pride. Although
Nahum talks of the fall of Nineveh, it is with respect
to the cruelty to all nations of the middle east that
the Assyrians inflicted their work on. So "ethnic
cleansing" was not a general "fatua" against all
infidels, but selective.
The Assyrians did not make many friends. The Persians
did a lot better in that regard.
(3) A command issued because there were no other options:
Obviously, that wouldn't explain all of the situations since
there are references to the Amalekites, where God does
essentially say to "wipe them out". God does say "drive
them out" in the case of the Canaanites, but part of that
comes with slaughter as well. It is difficult to defend
that as a loving God (at least viewed from the loser's
frame of reference). It would be of value to learn what
extra biblical sources say on this matter (if anything).
Here I will speculate (as this is ultimately an issue
of faith and that forces me to accept that some of this
has a role in a bigger picture that I also have difficulty
understanding). I think it may have ultimately have
come down to "kill or be killed". What I am
saying is that given the time, the flow of information,
and the level of empathy and self awareness accessible to
groups of that time period, there really may have been NO
other options (even given a loving and forgiving, God).
At least in modern times, there is greater flow of
information. Some cultures have a little more empathy
and self awareness than before, or at least there is
greater capacity for reflective thinking. Free countries
at least have some place where a person can stand on a
soapbox and point out the sins of the nation and at least
_a few_ will listen. The Lord did say of Sodom a Gomorra
that "for the sake of ten [righteous people], I will not
destroy it". Surely we _can_ expect that at least some
will listen, so it would be wrong under any circumstance
today to rationalize the slaughter of innocent people (who
can be changed by those few who do listen and obey). What
happened in history in the context of a given time however,
is not as clear to me.
Not every solution is a desirable one and even an all
powerful and loving God cannot change a person's mind
unless they are willing to change. So whereas I find
much of the OT quite repugnant with regard to these
"holy wars", they are in the past, and Israel grew up
to recognize a far different God than that butt-kicking
god of their youth (and my own youth as well).
by Grace we proceed,
Wayne
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