![]() ![]() The suggestion is made that Israel at the time of Joshua had a limited understanding of God and that they wrongly thought that their God, Yahweh, expected the same kind of sacrifice. For example, the 9 th Century BC Moabite Stone records King Mesha's boast that he had destroyed all the inhabitants of Ataroth as a sacrifice to his god. It was not uncommon for kings in the Near East of Old Testament times to annihilate the populations of whole cities as an offering to their gods. This argument suggests that the mass killings were a carryover from a pagan way of understanding God. The Israelites carried out mass killings but were mistaken in believing that God had commanded it This argument is advanced in one of two ways: a. One way in which biblical scholars have attempted to resolve the problem of the mass killing of the Canaanites is to suggest that God never commanded it. Did God Command the Mass Killing of the Canaanites? Even for people who are convinced that the Bible is true and represents God’s revelation of Himself these accounts can be deeply troubling, especially when one thinks about the death of innocent children. The former is supposedly angry, vindictive and ruthless, the latter loving, patient and forgiving. Furthermore, it is suggested that the God described in these Old Testament books is a different character from the God described in the New Testament. In particular, the question is asked how a God of love could allow or even command such brutality. The problem many people have with these stories of mass killings is that they do not seem to fit the popular conception of the Christian God. For this reason, this case will be the focus of this study. The mass killing of the Canaanites is the first of two cases in which the text claims that God’s people, the nation of Israel, were commanded by Him to attack other nations. The first three examples are similar in that there was no human agent involved – in each case it was God, or an angel of God, who carried out the mass killings directly. The Amalekites annihilated by Saul (1 Samuel 15) The Canaanites under Moses and Joshua (Numbers 21:2-3 Deuteronomy 20:17 Joshua 6:17, 21)ĥ. The Egyptian firstborn sons during the Passover (Exodus 11-12)Ĥ. The cities of the plain, including Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19)ģ. A number of cases of mass killings of people, apparently at God’s behest, are recorded in the Old Testament:Ģ. ![]()
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