Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
surely there would have been a significant body of writing on this subject before the modern age?

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

I suppose the really hotbutton issue that is known by everyone is that homosexuality is forbidden in the OT (and that's affirmed in Paul's writings as well as Revelation). And yet modern popular culture insists not only that it's not a sin, but that it's a positive virtue to obey your body's every fleshly desire - thus we have the spectacle of an openly gay man who preaches the virtue of his relationship, becoming elected to the office of bishop.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leprechaun:
2) I am getting dlightly annoyed at the way people are using this thread to make slightly snide and intellectually superior comments about "inerrantists" and "inerrantism" as a whole, in the full knowledge that no one who holds that view (whatever it is taken to mean by those who are so kindly writing it off) can actually respond without getting bounced all the way to the glue factory. So could you stop it please? Thanks.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

If this is in reference to me (I'm assuming that it is since I think I'm the only one who is using the word "inerrantism"), then could people equally stop telling the rest of us about "liberal rationalism" and writing off everyone who doesn't agree with them as "liberal rationalists"?

---

Actually, I'm out of this conversation; it's only going around in a circle and I'm getting annoyed at feeling that I'm not "allowed" to voice my objection to having my argument being written off as voiced by someone who doesn't really believe in God (what I understand "liberal rationalist" to mean).

--------------------
"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Seeker963:
Actually, I'm out of this conversation; it's only going around in a circle and I'm getting annoyed at feeling that I'm not "allowed" to voice my objection to having my argument being written off as voiced by someone who doesn't really believe in God (what I understand "liberal rationalist" to mean).

---

Gosh, we're all taking our bat and ball home! Seeker, I agree with you about the labelling. FWIW, I am absolutely convinced that you are not a liberal rationalist. Let's all agree to stop it.

But please no more swipes about inerrancy, because we can't answer them here!

[ 12. July 2004, 12:57: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]

Posted                      

quote:

---

As far as I can see, the only person here who's brought up the "God=Hitler" argument is you.

---

quote:

---

Let's call a spade a spade here. To refer to the complete and systematic destruction of a culture and ethnic group as anything other than genocide is sophistry. I'm sorry, but there it is.

---

Don't apoligize, after looking up that word. I feel the same way right off the top of my head. But any attempt to say God did not commit genocide that fails to reconcile it fully could fit the definition of sophistry. There are three attacks on the logic possible.

(God) One is that it wasn't God,
(committed)If it was God then he was not the one who committed it or,
(genocide) that what happened wasn't genocide.

Forgive more sophistry?:
We have three definitions of genocide proposed on this board. For the logic argument to finish falling through we have to ask under which defintition this Biblical account falls. And then question whether it is a valid, credible definition.

The word was not coined until 1944 because until then there was no need for a word that until that time was considered "unprecedented". The whole context of the word is centered on the Holocaust which was the destruction of the Jews not their preservation. Out of this context we have the United nations definition:

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

As the word has begun to be synonomous with any large massacres its definition has needed expansion to prevent this. Even when the the UN finished this they admitted it wasn't complete. But a definition can evolve with usage and go either way. This must be prevented so that what is stated by International law cannot be thrwarted by word games.

The page I sited noted many scholarly references that continue to define the concepts of groups and search for the criminal common denominator that exists in real genocide versus acts of war.

The Fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind. The allies decimated that city and its residents to rubble. Under a loose defintion one could claim we exterminated the Dresdenites. These new definitions come from men with good credentials.

If you don't mind me asking, what is the source for your defintion Wood? I can't find it in dictionaries. The only place it has turned up in almost your exact words was a Hindu site and they are not above war and mass killing as many adherants would claim. All my dictionary reference point back to the UN Definition.

I realize this is more sophistry. My real belief is that you will find peace when the entire Amalekite story is understood in its full context. As more of this struck me the phrase "Vengence is mine sayeth the Lord." This sounds wacko out of context also but It often comes to mind when I am attacked or provoked by others. It is a steady rock I lean on when I want to retaliate. I know I don't have to. There will be justice in the end and I just trust it to God. Believe it or not I don't have to attack back. Though love for my enemy is still a little further down the spiritual road I'm on my way once the fear of injustice passes. Perhaps I can even save them from their fate. Even this story can work for good, if one loves the Lord. This story will require great love unfortunately.

If we're going to judge God we should try it from the angle of how would we judge someone who we loved greatly if they had done the same thing. Perhaps a war vet comes to mind. Have you ever heard confession of men at war? Their prayers and their confusion when they are spared? How bout if it was a close family member brutally retalliating to save his own life. If saved by another would we condemn the person who wiped out the attackers and saved this loved one.

So it was with Israel. they and their seed held the only hope of our future salvation. He loved them and He loved us enough to pay any cost, even our future disloyalty. Better to be saved and disloyal than not to be saved at all. This carries a burden for us almost as great as the Cross when I imagine it and I have not seen this explanation anywhere else but it leads me to love him even more rather than less.

--------------------
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Esmeralda:
OK. Here's an attempt to get out of the circle:

---

Excellent. I think you have done it.

I especially like that this retains the holiness and truth of God's Word, because God specifically allowed the events to be described the way they were. It is not just "those maverick and deluded Bible writers."

But it does not make God the author of evil acts.

I think the key in what you said is that God brings good out of evil.

Thank you.

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind. The allies decimated that city and its residents to rubble. Under a loose defintion one could claim we exterminated the Dresdenites.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuggboat:

quote:

---

As far as I can see, the only person here who's brought up the "God=Hitler" argument is you.

---

I brought up the God=Hitler argument because I wanted to inform people that it's being used in anti-Christian circles.

---

quote:

---

Don't apologize, after looking up that word. I feel the same way right off the top of my head. But any attempt to say God did not commit genocide that fails to reconcile it fully could fit the definition of sophistry. There are three attacks on the logic possible.

---

quote:

---

(God) One is that it wasn't God,
(committed)If it was God then he was not the one who committed it or,
(genocide) that what happened wasn't genocide.

---

quote:

---

Forgive more sophistry?:
We have three definitions of genocide proposed on this board. For the logic argument to finish falling through we have to ask under which defintition this Biblical account falls. And then question whether it is a valid, credible definition.
<snip>
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

---

quote:

---

If you don't mind me asking, what is the source for your defintion Wood? I can't find it in dictionaries.

---

quote:

---

From Dictionary.com's reference for "genocide":
The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.

---

quote:

---

genocide noun [U]
the murder of a whole group of people, especially a whole nation, race or religious group:
victims of genocide

---

quote:

---

genocide noun [uncountable]
the deliberate murder of a whole group or race of people

---

quote:

---

I realize this is more sophistry. My real belief is that you will find peace when the entire Amalekite story is understood in its full context.

---

quote:

---

As more of this struck me the phrase "Vengence is mine sayeth the Lord."

---

quote:

---

There will be justice in the end and I just trust it to God.

---

quote:

---

At His name, God's enemies
Will be crushed beneath our feet

---

quote:

---

Even this story can work for good, if one loves the Lord. This story will require great love unfortunately.

---

quote:

---

If we're going to judge God...

---

quote:

---

So it was with Israel. they and their seed held the only hope of our future salvation. He loved them and He loved us enough to pay any cost, even our future disloyalty. Better to be saved and disloyal than not to be saved at all. This carries a burden for us almost as great as the Cross when I imagine it and I have not seen this explanation anywhere else but it leads me to love him even more rather than less.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
It's nice that it helps you, but I have to say it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

---

Me too.

Thanks for editing the post. I was quite confused.

Anyway, I'd love to read your thoughts on Esmerelda's solution.

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
it is a real record of a real encounter between real people and a real God. It ca n be all that without being inerrant.

---

quote:

---

This brings to mind something that was troubling LatePaul

quote:

---

my problem now is this God is so feckless a communicator that he allows such a gross distortion of his real character to stand as the authoritative revelation of who he is for hundreds of years. Even when a better, clearer revelation appears in the form of Jesus, this God apparently refuses to negate or at least modify the earlier text. Although what Jesus says appears inconsistent with Joshua, he claims to fully support it as Scripture.

---

There is, indeed, a problem if we regard Scripture as inerrant, forensic truth.

---

quote:

---

But I am not convinced this is what God's intention ever was, nor am I persuaded that Jesus, whose interpretive technique would cause much blushing amongst inerrantist Bible school professors, regarded it as such.

---

quote:

---

BTW, what is it about us westerners, that we want to oppose myth and truth, as if the former was inferior to, rather than an expression of, the latter.

---

quote:

---

I've always believed that facts tell you what, and myth tells you, or at least leads you to, why.

---

But surely the "why" is exactly the problem here? This story gives a reason for genocide that many of us find unacceptable and I suspect all find at least uncomfortable - namely God ordered it.

Now we may say that part of the mythical quality is that the story is about other things - God making a place for his people, being utterly against idolatry, whatever - and that the genocide-as-god's-will aspect is a distortion brought in by human telling of the tale. But it's such a distortion and the issue of genocide is so terrible, that it over-shadows, drowns out or taints those other meanings. That's why I say it makes God a feckless communicator.

I had a friend who was learning to be a preacher. I remember one of his early sermons - he used a yapping, annoying dog as a metaphor for, IIRC, habitual sin - then towards the end of the sermon he said something like "the problem with many of us is that we're content to put a collar and leash on it when what we really need to do is [dramatic pause] kill the dog!" There was an audible gasp and you knew he'd immediately lost several dog-loving members of the congregation who'd been imagining some cute little puppy. Killing a dog was so anathema to them that they couldn't see past the horror of that to whatever point my friend was trying to make.

Now we laughed about it later and teased him mercilessly but imagine if he'd used the Holocaust as a metaphor. Imagine if he'd said it in such a way that it wasn't entirely clear it was a metaphor. Imagine if his words were affirmed throughout centuries of church history as inspired by God - i.e. I can't just say that it was inappropriate and/or wrong, I need to find the sense in which it's "useful for teaching, correcting and training in righteousness"

--------------------
Now posting as LatePaul

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Esmeralda:
OK. Here's an attempt to get out of the circle:

1. God brings good out of evil. I think we can all agree that this is one meaning of the cross and resurrection. We do not believe Jesus getting crucified was per se a good thing, but we do believe God used it - or we might even say, participated in it - for our salvation. That much is confirmed by the resurrection.

---

quote:

---

2. Wiping out whole populations is, even if only partly, evil (you might argue that it's good to get rid of an irredeemably corrupt culture, but the indiscriminate nature of the slaughter can hardly be called good).

---

quote:

---

3. God gives us human beings freedom. That's why there is a choice to make in the Garden of Eden story. One of the things the story says is that we are prone to make the wrong choices.

---

quote:

---

4. In their human freedom, Joshua and his people wiped out a load of pagans, and/or later writers said they did, and attributed this to the command of God.

---

quote:

---

5. God, because God allows human freedom, allowed this to happen.

---

quote:

---

6. However, because it is in the nature of God to bring good out of evil, God used this historical evil (assuming it was historical), to accomplish the following good: that Israel was able to keep its own identity as God's holy people, at least to some extent. God also allowed Israel in exile to preserve these stories as an encouragement to keep to its own identity and religious practices.

---

quote:

---

7. Later, more good came out of this, in that successive generations took these passages as a message to them about the need to be holy and not to tolerate evil. Unfortunately, successive generations also often used these passages to justify their own genocides (dare I mention 'manifest destiny' and the slaughter of native Americans?). That's human freedom for you. God seems to think it's important.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by LatePaul:

I'd've thought it was a problem for people with a far wider range of views of Scripture than that. Anyone who believes that this passage says anything about the nature of God has got to somehow deal with the superficial meaning which says - in some circumstances God orders genocide. Even if that statement is not literally true - the fact that such a statement is made at all, given how extreme it is, needs to be explained. Such a statement has a huge impact whether we are meant to take it as literal historical fact or a myth revealing an important truth.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind. The allies decimated that city and its residents to rubble. Under a loose defintion one could claim we exterminated the Dresdenites.

---

Small grammatical tangent:

"Decimate" means to kill one in ten of the target population. Colloquially, it means to kill a large proportion of the target population. You can only decimate people (or, I suppose, animals), not inanimate objects such as cities.

End tangent.

John

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:

But my problem isn't whether they actually were commanded to by God, it's that the story says that they were. I've been working within the framework of the narrative, since, notwithstanding ex post facto rationalisations* - like Augustine's, like this one - it's all we've got to go on, and it's the narrative, not the truth of the matter, that's the sticking point.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

It's not the act that causes the problems; it's God commanding the Israelites to commit what looks very much like a sin.

---

Does it look like sin to you because of the commandment not to kill?

If so does the commandment not to kill restrict one or many from defending themselves. Or does it restrict God from commanding them to defend themselves? Does the commandment restrict God or man?

Does the command not to kill extend to animals for sacrifice food or just Humans.

If it is accidental is it as heinous as premeditated?

If it is a calculated premeditated defense rather than a calculated premeditated offense does that make any difference?

What was more important the letter or the spirit of the law?

Is there a difference between Strongs 2026 harag and 7523 ratasch which is the Hebrew word used in the commandment.

Since the command was originally given to Moses then passed onto Joshua was it possible that Moses lied and just had a grudge or unfinished business that he could not bare to die with. The original command to blot out the memory of Amalek is way back in Exodus 17:8

Since Joshua heard God tell him to sin was he insane since only the insane believe God could tell him to kill?

Maybe he was just frustrated and couldn't think of another way out and never communicated with God at all.

These are many of the places my mind has to go if I put myself in your shoes.


--------------------
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction;

Posted                       

quote:

---

But my problem isn't whether they actually were commanded to by God, it's that the story says that they were. I've been working within the framework of the narrative, since, notwithstanding ex post facto rationalisations* - like Augustine's, like this one - it's all we've got to go on, and it's the narrative, not the truth of the matter, that's the sticking point.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
But my problem isn't whether they actually were commanded to by God, it's that the story says that they were. I've been working within the framework of the narrative, since, notwithstanding ex post facto rationalisations* - like Augustine's, like this one - it's all we've got to go on, and it's the narrative, not the truth of the matter, that's the sticking point.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuggboat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tuggboat:
The Fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind. The allies decimated that city and its residents to rubble. Under a loose defintion one could claim we exterminated the Dresdenites.

---

Small grammatical tangent:

"Decimate" means to kill one in ten of the target population. Colloquially, it means to kill a large proportion of the target population. You can only decimate people (or, I suppose, animals), not inanimate objects such as cities.

End tangent.

John

---

Well that fully explains why Dresden was never termed a genocide. Dresden Tangent pics It fit the definition of Holocaust though. Ritual sacrifice by fire. [/QB]

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peppone:

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
I think that may have a lot to do with the general stance of this website especially at the home site, which seems to be to undercut the authority of the OT in deciding any moral issues, and even to mock it in some ways such as the Biblical curse generator.

---

I think this thing about the curse generator is a bit of a reach. How does that tell you anything about the attitude of the SoF home page creators and editors?

As for using the OT as a guide to moral issues- to me, the OT story as a whole is steeped in grace and compassion and mercy and love, with all its admonitions to treat the alien with mercy and welcome the stranger and cancel debts...(it's your NT that raises the stakes and gets scary)...which is why the Joshua story seems to contradict the rest of it.

---

quote:

---

Hermit, are you indeed saying that you adhere to every single OT commandment? If not, how do you decide which ones you think are important and which ones are not?

---

quote:

---

Semantic point taken and I have a real problem with that. Ideas like "ethnic cleansing" come to mind.

---

quote:

---

My own tradition - British Methodism - has a 200+ year tradition of people interpreting scripture to mean that God is against genocide, murder and war. So I stand squarely inside my own tradition.

---

quote:

---

I still resist the use of the word "liberal" until that word is unpacked.

---

quote:

---

BTW, what is it about us westerners, that we want to oppose myth and truth

---

quote:

---

Incidentally, hermit's analogy with the mother telling her kid not to play with matches doesn't wash - if the analogy were accurate, it would be tantamount to the mother saying "don't play with matches - except for the ones in this box here. You can burn your fingers all you like on those".

---

But the mother CAN decide the child may light matches under supervision. And the point of forbidding them isn't to prevent small burns - after all pain is the greatest of teachers - but to prevent the house from burning down.

quote:

---

Me neither. I echo Luigi's post from earlier; I also refer back to my 1984 illustration before; what Hermit and Sanc and Lep want me to do is to see five fingers because God commands it; yet there are quite clearly and distinctly four.

Two and two make four, and even if God Himself insists they make five, they still make four.

---

quote:

---

If vengeance is God's, why does He get the Israelites to do it, when he can quite easily do it on His own (cf. Flood, Sodom)?

---

quote:

---

Whoa. How are we judging God? We're judging Scripture in the light of Scripture. As in, God tells the Israelites to do one thing, and then the opposite in a difficult context.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by hermit:
And to say that only one sentiment is to be expressed in the OT, and judgement contradicts it, is sort of like saying that if I'm usually nice, when I act judgmentally on occasion, that's a contradiction so that it must have been someone else in disguise.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi I think that you have to step outside what is basically an evangelical ‘received text’ approach to the Bible, if you are to answer this question.

I believe that it is Biblical to 'go against the text'. This is part of the Jewish tradition and this is exactly what Jesus did at times. In other words we can come to the conclusion that there are parts of the Bible where what it says of God is wrong. Many OT scholars would agree with this, but for me that left the question of what the leitmotif that is the engine for the forward momentum within the OT actually is. Unless we can discover this the Bible is just a very confusing, misleading book.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Esmeralda: I want to question that statement that the story 'is all we have to go on'. You almost seem to be saying. with the fundamentalists, that 'the plain sense' is all we need. Surely we also have the insights of biblical scholars who have established (and presumably not without internal and external evidence) that Joshua was probably compiled, if not altogether written, as a justification for Josiah's reforms and centralization of worship. In this case, the assertion that God commanded the genocide of the various 'ites' (excluding Mennonites!), would be very useful to Josiah in propagating his view that sites of pagan worship should be destroyed without mercy. In other words, the book of Joshua is an early case of 'spin'.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Obviously if one has a 'flat' view of Scripture, this is problematic. I don't find it such a problem because I have a 'hierarchical' view of Scripture in which the NT severely relativises the messages of the OT.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Esmeralda:
Pace what JJ has said, I want to question that statement that the story 'is all we have to go on'. You almost seem to be saying, with the fundamentalists, that 'the plain sense' is all we need.

---

quote:

---

Surely we also have the insights of biblical scholars who have established (and presumably not without internal and external evidence) that Joshua was probably compiled, if not altogether written, as a justification for Josiah's reforms and centralization of worship.

---

quote:

---

So - even if I do not find these massacre stories admirable, I find it admirable that these ancient writers sought to involve God in every aspect of their lives and history.

---

quote:

---

Of course, everything becomes easier if you accept that the massacres did not actually happen as described, but are being 'talked up' for a political purpose. But you can't do that if you believe the OT to be a source of factual history.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
Incidentally, I seem to find myself the only person left in this discussion who hasn't reached some kind of personal resolution with it. Is this fair?

---

It depends what you mean by "personal resolution" and it also depends what you mean by "left in the discussion". I may be still here.
Really, its all got to do with the meaning of the text you have written.

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leprechaun:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
Incidentally, I seem to find myself the only person left in this discussion who hasn't reached some kind of personal resolution with it. Is this fair?

---

It depends what you mean by "personal resolution" and it also depends what you mean by "left in the discussion". I may be still here.
Really, its all got to do with the meaning of the text you have written.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
It's not about the history. It doesn't matter if it's true or not (even if it's 100% made up), because the text says that God commanded genocide.

It's not about the facts, it's about the text**, and the content of the text.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Wood - if the events did not occur historically as written, then can we not take the Canaanites to be representative of something other than people, thus circumventing the problem with the text as it is?

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Little Weed:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
It's not about the history. It doesn't matter if it's true or not (even if it's 100% made up), because the text says that God commanded genocide.

It's not about the facts, it's about the text**, and the content of the text.

---

Warning: ignorant amateur ahead.

How can you ignore the context, intention, culture, author, etc if your starting point is that the Bible is the word of God, divinely inspired (however strongly or weakly you understand that)? Surely you've already introduced an extraneous assumption?

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Wood - if the events did not occur historically as written, then can we not take the Canaanites to be representative of something other than people, thus circumventing the problem with the text as it is?

---

Nope. Because even if it's entirely fictional, it's still a narrative about divinely-ordained genocide, with all the moral implications that entails.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
I don't understand how Freddy finds genocide to be not a good thing but to stand for a good thing. This doesn't even get close to being a believable squaring of the circle.

---

Sure it does.

The Bible is very clear that God is the implacable enemy of evil. His every effort is to rid the world of evil and establish good in its place.

Calling Israel "good" and its enemies "bad", and then allowing the enemies to be destroyed "stands for" His work with the human race as a whole. The fact that Israel wasn't really good or its enemies really much much worse is beside the point. The metaphor was overwhelmingly significant.

This metaphor is at play in virtually all storytelling.

Surely you don't believe that all orcs are bad? I felt sick at heart when Aragorn and his armies nearly wiped them out. At least we weren't treated to views of his cruel raids on the orc villages, and the disgusting mistreatment of the orc women and children.

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by kiwigoldfish:
I have questions about how God spoke to people in these situations. Is the angel of the Lord thing a literary device, a way of putting it when people felt that God had guided the decision process?

---

This is an important question.

I notice that no here yet has claimed that God told him or her the solution to this thread's conundrum.

So why do we think that it makes sense that God somehow spoke to Joshua?

I think the answer is that Christianity has always assumed that God really did speak audibly to certain people in biblical times - in a way that basically no longer happens. If Bush claimed to have these conversations we could count on a democratic victory in the fall.

I believe that all ancient religions claimed this kind of speech with supernatural beings. Just as Joshua spoke with Jehovah, the Philistines were in contact with Dagon, the Ammonites with Chemosh, the Egyptians with members of their pantheon, etc. I don't think that we can assume that only Israel had this kind of supernatural communication. Of course Dagon, Baal, Chemosh, etc. were really demons.

So, as I have said before, the Angel of the Lord was actually an angel or spirit that appeared to Moses, Joshua, Jacob, and others, and spoke with them "on behalf of" Jehovah. They took on this role to the extent that they called themselves Jehovah.

So I don't think that it is a literary device.

--------------------
"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by kiwigoldfish:
Although Jesus did use parables without endorsing the actions portayed in the parable (such as the parable of the fraudulent manager.)

---

quote:

---

Admittedly it's a stretch from Jesus winding up a few of His listeners with an ironic parable to using a genocide myth.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
Can I just point out that people are allowed to post whatever opinions they like in Purgatory, with the following provisos:

.....

3. If a subject or tangential subject of discussion veers into the territory of our Dead Horse subjects (eg. homosexuality, creation, inerrancy, abortion), you will be expected to pursue it on the appropriate threads in Dead Horses.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
Wood's Over-Simplified and Patronising Post-Modern Literary Theory Discourse:

The theory goes like this: when a text is created, it develops an entirely independent existence of its own, separate from context, since it is impossible for any of us to read a text without projecting our own cultural assumptions onto it.*

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanc:
since i'm an apprentice here i thought that the innumerated subjects are open for discussion, and to me the bible has specific provisions for our stand regarding them. personally i won't agree that this topics are best discussed in dead horse or hell. if we are to have our GOD guided stand on this issues, they better be discussed among mature christians in a serious forum.

---

quote:

---

if genocide is the extermination of a whole group people then israel has attempted one during the years they captured canaan but failed.
GOD express command is to annihilate everyone. but they did not heed GOD's command. the paradox is, GOD held them accountable for their outright violation of this command. HE said that they are going to suffer from raids and encroachment from this heathen.

---

quote:

---

why should it be too heavy to swallow when GOD set judgement on a group of people that they be exterminated?

---

quote:

---

GOD is not bound by the commandment "thou shalt not kill" we are.

---

quote:

---

when GOD passes judgement and we are at a loss as to its plausible explanation, we should not human as we are question it fairness of justness. for then we deem ourselves as the better judge.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by adsarf:
It may be helpful to think further (some people have already posted on this) about the reasons why Joshua may have been written (yes, I know, not very Post-Modern. Sorry). Just as Corinthians was written primarily for the Corinthians (but, we may believe, also speaks truthfully to us), so Joshua was presumably written for someone other than us at a time other than ours to address issues which were important then and may no longer be so important (a Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious in a sense, but we often fail to approach the Bible in this way).

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
post-modern evangelical that I am, by placing the morality of the stories in the context of a world whose shifting shades of morality paradoxically reflect a God with an unchanging moral character

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:
But I'm saying that Joshua committed genocide, in the story at God's behest. God may have committed the act vis à vis the Flood and Sodom, but that's God's prerogative (hence no one has objected to those).

The problem is not that God did it. The problem is that God is presented as having told the Israelites to do it. It's not the act that causes the problems; it's God commanding the Israelites to commit what looks very much like a sin.

A recap:

1. The Israelites commit genocide in the Bible.
2. If the story as presented is correct, they do it at the command of God.
4. This creates more problems than God simply taking things into his own hands, because:
8. It means that God is ordering the Israelites to break the rules that He has set for them;
16. ...because if that is the case, God is inconsistent;
32. ...and since God is generally regarded as being possessed of an unchanging moral character as a divine attribute, this would mean that God is not divine, and therefore not God.
64. Theologically, this has worrying implications.
128. Therefore, we're trying to make some sense of it.

---

Posted                         

quote:

---

Originally posted by linzc:
Coming back to the main stream, I'm with Esmerelda who I think said it right in about post 3, but I recognise that that won't wash for Wood because ISTM that Wood's "what the text says dammit" approach is actually the kind of 'flat' reading of Scripture which prevents Esmerelda's interpretation.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Wood:

Which is why I found it mildly amusing when Leprechaun (I think it was) said a ways back that the Bible exists as an independent expression of God's Word, devoid of context, because that's a really, really post-modern thing to say...

---