compiled by John Favalessa
Richard Dawkins (an avowed militant atheist) shares this genial observation: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
No matter how you reconcile this most difficult question, we should acknowledge that in the late Bronze Age, Israel made certain assumptions about the nature of God, assumptions that now have to be abandoned in the light of Christ. It is abundantly clear from the Gospels that Jesus has closed the door on genocide, just like he has closed the book on vengeance. Once we realize that Jesus is the perfect icon of the living God, we are forever prohibited from using the Old Testament to justify the use of violence. Using Scripture as a divine license for the implementation of violence is a dangerous practice that must be abandoned as we who walk in the light of Christ.
Below are a few ideas from pastors, theologians, and around, in no particular order:
- The Canaanites were enemies of God who deserved to be punished.
Be afraid as the destruction of the Canaanites is a picture of the final judgment. - The invasion of Canaan does not meet the definition of genocide.
The claim of genocide is designed to prejudice the discussion, to put believers in God’s Word on the defensive. Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group.” What is the reason that the Canaanites would be punished by the Israelites? It was the sinful practices of the peoples who lived in Canaan, not their race or ethnic background. In fact, the Canaanites would lose the land not only on account of God’s direct judgment but because the peoples had become so wicked that even the land itself rejected them. Also, casualties in war are excluded from the definition of genocide. Therefore, God’s actions were not an example of ethnic cleansing. - The Israelites carried out mass killings but were mistaken in believing that God had commanded it – These stories in the Old Testament are a human account of the evolution of their religion rather than a divine revelation of God’s actions in history. What God says by way of appropriating the biblical text as his Word is not the same as what the human author of the text says. It follows that humans may have instigated policies such as genocide over the objections of God or in contradiction to how he really felt. Origen of Alexandria, (an early church scholar), maintain that these passages do not record historical events but offer allegorical spiritual truths. For instance, when the psalmist says, “Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock” (Psalm 137:9), he’s encouraging God’s followers to destroy our childish, sinful tendencies that cry out for satisfaction. We cannot soothe or mollify sin. We must destroy it. This view also necessitates an understanding of Scripture as the opinion of human beings rather than the true word of God or even an accurate record of historical events.
- The mass killings never actually happened, hyperbolic text – Hagiographic hyperbole is a term used by philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff to describe the kind of historical writing you see in the book of Joshua. The basic idea is that the accounts of Israel’s early battles in Canaan are narrated in a particular style, which is not intended to be literal in all of its details and contains a lot of hyperbole, formulaic language and literary expressions for rhetorical effect. The “utterly destroy” or “leave alive nothing that breathes” language is hyperbolic in Scripture’s war texts as in other ancient Near Eastern war texts. It typically stands alongside mention of many survivors—like when sports teams use the language of “totally slaughtering” their opponents. They also say: “The evidence for genocide in antiquity is circumstantial, inferential, and ambiguous, and it comes to us exclusively from the perpetrators.
- The judgement was intended to be expulsion from the land rather than genocide – There is a range of verbs used in the commands to Israel concerning how they should treat the Canaanites. Some of these clearly speak of extermination, but others speak of driving them out (see Deuteronomy 7). Deuteronomy 9:3 brings these two ideas together succinctly: “you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you”.
- What About the Innocent Canaanites? God’s Love wins.
Even if we accept that God was judging the Canaanites through the Israelites, the objection may be raised that some of the Canaanites were innocent victims since they were not involved in the detestable practices of the Canaanite religions. In particular, the thought of young children being killed is troubling. One thing we must remember is that death is not the end. In fact, the judgement faced after death (Hebrews 9:27) is much more serious than any judgement resulting in physical death because it determines the eternal destiny of the person. We can trust God to deal fairly with the innocent children who died in the invasion of Canaan, who could not be held responsible for the sin of their culture or religion. - Marcionism – Old Testament God vs. a New Testament God
As the early Christian Church began to distinguish itself from Judaism, the “Old Testament” and a portrayal of God in it as violent and unforgiving were sometimes contrasted rhetorically with certain teachings of Jesus to portray an image of God as more loving and forgiving, which was framed as a new image. Marcion of Sinope, in the early second century, developed a Christian dualist belief system that understood the god of the Old Testament was an altogether different being than the God about whom Jesus spoke. Marcion considered Jesus’ universal God of compassion and love, who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy, incompatible with Old Testament depictions of divinely ordained violence. Accordingly, he did not regard the Hebrew scriptures as part of his scriptural canon. Marcion was ultimately excommunicated by the Church. - Faith and Trust in God’s Goodness – For me, John, there is definitely hyperbole in Josusha, but this doesn’t help me with the issue. If you believe that God literally commanded the killing of innocence, (no matter what the biblically justifiable reason is, such as to protect Israel from falling into idol worship, etc.), then you have to deal with this disturbing fact. For me, I trust that God, our Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit, is love and good. I can only begin to reconcile this preserved conflict with God, (His character of love and His command to kill innocence), by recognizing that I have a finite human perspective and not the perspective of our eternal God. I trust that God’s love will provide a way, for all, to have the choice, in the end to be in His eternal Kingdom. I also leave open the possibility that the text in question is totally of human origin.
- Contextual to all 66 books – At that time in history, war/conquest was brutal. Killing everyone in a village was common place. If the justification for God commanding genocide was to protect the Israelites from evil idol worshiping cultures, then it was an absolute failure. God knew this in advance. Jesus is one with the Father. Jesus is God. God does not change. Based on Jesus life and teaching can you even imaging him commanding genocide? These books were written and redacted hundreds of years after the fact on the rivers of Babylon by men attempting to justify what happened. God/Jesus did not command genocide.
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Well it’s a pretty easy answer if you ask me. The way you reconcile God commanding Joshua to commit genocide is by realizing that God is not a good actor. And you probably shouldn’t be worshiping him come to think of it
Thank you for this post. I have to say a lot of the Old Testament troubles me, particularly the sections you address here. I don’t think the old and new testaments belong together. As Christians we are asked to spread the word to others. But the “word” includes teachings of violence and genocide, where God “commands” the Israelites to plunder the cities they conquered, and dead bodies are put on display. What??? And this is supposed to comport with the teachings of Jesus?
GOD-COMMANDED VIOLENCE?
Theodicy: Why does an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, good god allow the tremendous suffering we see in the world. This is an issue that has plagued humankind for millennia and, beginning a couple of hundred years ago, started to be used to disprove the existence of God. It has caused many to leave the faith, or not come to it in the first place. Darrin suggests that it all boils down to the ineffably or unknowability of a god who is so much greater than us; we lack the capabilities to grasp the full character of God and the ability to express it. I believe that there is so much more to be said on that issue, but I think Darrin is basically correct.
But that is not the ship that Jan launched. Why God allows suffering is an entirely different question than why the OT claims that God commanded and committed mass murders and wide-spread suffering, i.e.:
MASS KILLINGS AND GENOCIDE COMMITTED BY, OR ORDERED, BY GOD
1. The Flood (Genesis 6-8)
2. The cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19)
3. The Egyptian firstborn sons during the Passover (Exodus 11-12)
4. The Canaanites under Moses and Joshua (Numbers 21:2-3; Deuteronomy 20:17; Joshua 6:17, 21)
5. The Amalekites annihilated by Saul (1 Samuel 15)
6. God kills 70,000 Israelites because David took a census. (2 Samuel 24.1-17)
I am willing to stick with a god who, for reasons not revealed to me, allows suffering. But I’m not willing to stick with a god who inflicts (not allows) unspeakable cruelty. I respect traditional answers or justifications such as, God’s justice required (or justified) it; God knows and sees how everything ends up (contra to Boyd) and, in Renewed Creation, we’ll see the women and children of Israel, Canaan, Egypt and all of humankind (the Flood) slaughtered at the hand or word of God flourishing in the blessed and wonderful Age to Come and come to understand why God did what the OT authors say he did. How such cruelty furthered God’s purposes and plans. Like I said, I respect those beliefs, but I will never abide with such a god.
My short answer to the seven stories of atrocities attributed to God is: It Never Happened. Not that those events never happened. I believe they are pretty much historical at their roots. And attributing victories to YHWH is appropriate because God promised to use Israel as the exclusive vehicle to bring about the renewal of creation and reverse the Fall. Of course he is going to champion their cause…because it is his cause. What I don’t buy is attribution of these human-generated atrocities, barbarity, wickedness and horrors to the god who is Jesus the Christ.
I have come to believe that the answer to this question (not why God allows suffering) requires an in-depth discussion but hinges upon three concepts and what you believe about those concepts:
A) Was Jesus made only in the image of God the Father and Creator (Gen 1.26 and Col 1.15) OR was and is Jesus God himself (John 10.30)?
B) Does God change? Marcion and many others believe, not only that God changes, but that the god of the OT and the god of the NT are different. Greg Boyd is a proponent of Open Theism which holds that God has made His knowledge of, and plans for, the future conditional upon our actions. Though omniscient, God does not know what we will freely do in the future. That’s why it’s called “Open Theism” or “openness theology” or “free will theology.”
C) Who wrote the bible?
A short summary of my thinking (which will never do the issue [or me] justice) is:
A) Jesus was and is God the Father and Creator. They are one and the same. I believe in the Holy Trinity and the literal fact that Jesus inescapably declared, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10.30). As Gregory of Nyssa taught, “the word and he from whom he is do not differ in nature.”
B) No. God does not change or change his mind, or the OT and NT are talking about two different gods. God is not contingent on the free will choices of humans.
If you buy my answers to A and B, then you must reckon with the necessary consequence of those beliefs, i.e. In order for the seven atrocities to be attributable to God, then you must necessarily believe that Jesus of Nazareth, long before he sacrificed his own life for all salvation, suffocated and drowned every mother and mother’s child in the world not in Noah’s family, murdered every firstborn Egyptian baby, committed ethnic genocide in the Middle East, annihilated each and every crippled, mentally-challenged, defenseless Amalekites man, woman and child and massacred 70,000 of his own chosen people out of a fit. If you really think that Jesus did all this, why are so eager to “let Jesus into your heart?”
“I Get What You’re Saying, But What About What The OT Actually Says?”
C) Each book of the bible is the inspired word of God but was written by flesh and blood authors. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3.16). The early church fathers knew this, and the idea has never been seriously challenged since. Both Islam and Mormonism believe that their scriptures were dictated by God. Not so with the Hebrew and Christian bible. The authors were human beings writing under the inspiration of God himself and each verse, chapter and book wound up being canonized under that same godly inspiration. It is all true…but the authors’ meaning must be discerned first. History and archeology have shown that the Canaanite tribes were driven into the hills of Judea as claimed in Joshua. 3000 years ago, the norm was to wage and defend many wars and those wars resulted in the mass killings of innocent women and children and enormous cruelty. Raping and blundering were in every tribe and nation’s rule book. These atrocities surprised no one and offended none. It was what was expected and accepted. And these norms were fully embraced by the ancient Hebrews. Moses, Abraham and Joshua were and are celebrated, legendary military generals and architects of battle plans (whose tactics are studied at the war colleges of West Point). [It was YHWH who jumped in and instructed Israel to start knocking off all the plundering and retribution.] These historical battles were, of course, seen through the contemporary eyes of the victorious Hebrews as victories secured by their trusting YWHW…and I agree with them. The problem comes when, not only are the victories being ascribed to God, but the normal, everyday, expected atrocities committed upon consummation of these victories get also attributed to the hand or command of God. The Middle
Eastern world a that time had many gods. Each tribe had their own god(s) and attributed everything that went well and went bad to their god(s) as a result of 1) the sheer arbitrariness or whim of a cranky deity; 2) punishment for lack of really good sacrifices; or 3) a reward for propitiation by the offering of really good sacrifices (killing one of your kids was usually a sure winner).
The Israelites were no different and, at that time in history, saw things the same way. (They later on learned that YHWH didn’t operate that way; that he actually disapproved of child sacrifice [that’s what the Binding of Isaac was all about]; that he didn’t want their stinking sacrifices in any event, and they repulsed him; and that he was an entirely different type of god, one that they [and the world] could have never imagined). Throughout all subsequent history, enormous atrocities have been committed by folks attributing their actions to God. It’s hard to find a war, genocide or conquering that wasn’t committed “in the name of God.” Here, the victories and defeats of the Israelites were historic, and God stuck with his promise to make Israel his special people to bring about his special promise to set the whole world to rights. But that is a far cry from believing that God/Jesus/Holy Spirit commanded the slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, children and animals. These stories were all compiled, synthesized, edited and redacted during the Jews exile in Babylon, which contributed to a tendency to embellish in order to give hope to a captured and humiliated people. Once we start reading scripture exclusively through our own modern eyes and ignore the historical and cultural context (i.e., “my bible says it, I believe and that settles it”) we lose the word of God…and we are free to do whatever we want (in the name of God).
Does this mean we can’t trust the bible or that the bible isn’t true? Of course not. We just need to understand that the inspired word of God was filtered through his scriptural partners… flesh and blood actual men. It’s our job to draw out the meaning of the human authors so that we may receive the words so inspired. This view will not prove to be very satisfying to you if you believe either that God dictated the bible or that the authors and Jesus never used metaphors, similes, hyperbole, parables, allegories, poetics, apocalyptics, analogies, context, ironies or other well-known and effective literary and rhetorical devices…when it and he clearly did. The bible is inerrant…but not in the sense in which the evangelicals have distorted and appropriated it for its own agendas. “Inerrant” simply means without error. And there is no err in any of scripture when the meaning is properly understood. If you literally take every verse of the bible literally, you are being unserious. God created us with brains and imaginations…not recording devices.
Those are my views in short. You may not have heard similar understandings, but that’s because, while we talk about God allowing suffering, we never talk about this issue. And it makes fools of us all. We need to see two verses working in concert with each other, i.e. Luke12.13 and 2 Tim 3: “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say” AND “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” You can’t proclaim the Kingdom of God by telling believers and nonbelievers that “Our God is an awesome god…he slaughters the innocent and massacres the vulnerable!”
Blah, blah, blah….This is unending dialogue and controversy. Human opinion is just that and nothing more. Every day scientific discoveries are improving our awarenesses. I hesitate to label them understandings. Because no sooner do we get new information then further information corrects and sends us searching for more. We’re inside the never-ending story. Let’s enjoy each other. Most of all love one another. Cherish quietly what you love and appreciate. Follow a gospel of peace. Be righteous in everything. Avoid retaliation. Be wise and slow to anger. Praise the God you know and commune with. Let us not keep repeating our errors. Opinions and preferences cause so much disharmony. Let’s keep them to ourselves. Encourage and uplift!
When I search the Internet seeking an understanding of the Bible’s many conflicting messages, I read people justifying the Bible’s inconsistencies by saying, “Oh, well those were different times”, that not what the Bible really means”, “It was mistranslated, or the writer was speaking in hyperbole”, God is God and he can do whatever He wants, the rules don’t apply to Him”, Jesus changed all of that.” , “God is no longer the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament. Now, he’s the loving, caring, forgiving God of the New Testament.”
I find all that malarky confounding and intentionally or defensively misdirecting to avoid the real question. I hear people holding faithfully onto their Christian beliefs and pounding square pegs into round holes, to desperately justify a Bible that does not live up to the promise of telling us about an All-knowing, All-loving, Everywhere, All-the-time God. Rather it tells us about a very powerful, angry “Wizard” that has great powers who demands unquestioned obedience and worship.