Did God Order Massacres in the Old Testament? [ELCA/ELCIC forum]

Sérgio Junior · Sep 17, 2019

A few weeks ago I was talking to a Lutheran friend (he defines himself as a "liberal", I also consider myself a "liberal") about the "killings" that are described in the OT, he also discussed these difficult passages with his Pastor, and he said me that your pastor said that God didn't command any "Massacre" and that OT reports about "Genocide" are only part of Israeli history and how they saw and understood God at that time. I would like to know what the members of this forum who are part of the ELCA think about these so-called "massacres" in OT, but I also accept the opinion of other mainline and "liberal" Christians.

Thoughts?

Basil the Great · Sep 17, 2019

I doubt that God ordered the Old Testament massacres, but the majority of Jews and Christians disagree with said position.

Sérgio Junior · Sep 17, 2019

Basil the Great said:
I doubt that God ordered the Old Testament massacres, but the majority of Jews and Christians disagree with said position.

I also doubt that God has ordered some kind of massacre. Actually I don't know how most Christians think about these passages, since they are little discussed, I think I can say that more conservative Christians say "that God has ordained the death of the Cananites, Amalekites and other peoples because of your ungodly behavior", but I am not convinced that God has ordained these acts, I haven't read the traditional Jewish comments on these passages, but, like you, I also believe that most of them disagree with this position!

Justified Sinner · Sep 17, 2019

Seems like He did (Deut 20:16-18; Josh 8).

n2thelight · Sep 18, 2019

Sérgio Junior said:
A few weeks ago I was talking to a Lutheran friend (he defines himself as a "liberal", I also consider myself a "liberal") about the "killings" that are described in the OT, he also discussed these difficult passages with his Pastor, and he said me that your pastor said that God didn't command any "Massacre" and that OT reports about "Genocide" are only part of Israeli history and how they saw and understood God at that time. I would like to know what the members of this forum who are part of the ELCA think about these so-called "massacres" in OT, but I also accept the opinion of other mainline and "liberal" Christians.

Thoughts?

Yes He did,the question is why.

Deuteronomy 20:17 "But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:"

Now, here is the qualification of all those instructions given above. In the Hebrew text this is what is given first, but in the English it comes at the last. The Hebrew reads from bottom to top, from right to left of the page, while the English is just the opposite. God is now identifying exactly who are to be destroyed to the last person. Men, women and children, even their animals and every thing that relates to them, even their worship idols and houses are to be destroyed completely.

God is the same yesterday as He is today, and will be forever. God is the one that is giving the command to do these things. So why these particular tribes? It is important even to our end generation because there were left over part of the second influx of the Nephilim, which is to say "fallen angels". They were Satan's own literal sons, and their offspring that came to earth at that time.

Satan and his angels will be cast out on to this earth again in the very near future, and we will face these Nephilim during the time of the sixth seal. We are in the last generation for Jesus marked our generation in Matthew 24:32 with His parable of the fig tree. The generation that witnessed the reestablishing of the new nation of the tiny "Israel", and Jews returning to Jerusalem, Jesus said would not die, or pass away until all the prophecies dealing with the end times have been fulfilled.

Sérgio Junior · Sep 18, 2019

n2thelight said:
Yes He did,the question is why.

Deuteronomy 20:17 "But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:"

Now, here is the qualification of all those instructions given above. In the Hebrew text this is what is given first, but in the English it comes at the last. The Hebrew reads from bottom to top, from right to left of the page, while the English is just the opposite. God is now identifying exactly who are to be destroyed to the last person. Men, women and children, even their animals and every thing that relates to them, even their worship idols and houses are to be destroyed completely.

I consider these accounts as exaggerated rhetoric, and I think these exaggerated forebodings as "destroyed completely" and "But thou shalt utterly destroy" are typical of that language at that time.

n2thelight said:
God is the same yesterday as He is today, and will be forever. God is the one that is giving the command to do these things.

Yes, the Lord doesn't change, what changed was the understanding that people had about God.

n2thelight · Sep 18, 2019

Sérgio Junior said:
I consider these accounts as exaggerated rhetoric, and I think these exaggerated forebodings as "destroyed completely" and "But thou shalt utterly destroy" are typical of that language at that time.

Yes, the Lord doesn't change, what changed was the understanding that people had about God.

Believe what you want,as shall I ,just planting seeds

n2thelight · Sep 18, 2019

What other reason would He have to tell them to utterly destroy women and children?I'LL WAIT!!!

Sérgio Junior · Sep 19, 2019

n2thelight said:
What other reason would He have to tell them to utterly destroy women and children?I'LL WAIT!!!

There are people who will say "that the reason God did this was to show His justice against iniquity, unbelief and because of the obnoxious things that the Amalekites and Cananites did" and there are other people like me who will say "this was a hyperbolic command and the writers used a war oratory to overstate the scale of victories, and reports of a total war, and the death of women, children, animals, etc., do not describe something that "actually happened" or was "ordered". Rather, these were hyperbolic forms commonly used to say that a decisive victory occurred or that an enemy was defeated; it was very common at that time for war peoples and conquerors from Middle Eastern to use such violent, exaggerated and highly stylized language. saying they would conquer nations, killing children, women and animals, and its also said that there is no archeological record that the Canaanites suffered any kind of massacre at the hands of the Israelites by Divine Command, but despite that I'm not saying that the Biblical writers were lying (I don't say that), but as I said, they were using hyperbolic war language and at that time, readers wouldn't be confused about the meaning of such texts.

tampasteve · Sep 19, 2019

n2thelight said:
What other reason would He have to tell them to utterly destroy women and children?I'LL WAIT!!!

Please remember that you are in the ELCA Lutheran forum, as you are not Lutheran you may only post in fellowship, not debate or teach.

Sérgio Junior said:
There are people who will say "that the reason God did this was to show His justice against iniquity, unbelief and because of the obnoxious things that the Amalekites and Cananites did" and there are other people like me who will say "this was a hyperbolic command and the writers used a war oratory to overstate the scale of victories, and reports of a total war, and the death of women, children, animals, etc., do not describe something that "actually happened" or was "ordered". Rather, these were hyperbolic forms commonly used to say that a decisive victory occurred or that an enemy was defeated; it was very common at that time for war peoples and conquerors from Middle Eastern to use such violent, exaggerated and highly stylized language. saying they would conquer nations, killing children, women and animals, and its also said that there is no archeological record that the Canaanites suffered any kind of massacre at the hands of the Israelites by Divine Command, but despite that I'm not saying that the Biblical writers were lying (I don't say that), but as I said, they were using hyperbolic war language and at that time, readers wouldn't be confused about the meaning of such texts.

This is the typical liberal explanation, and it certainly could be accurate. We really just cannot say for sure. What we can say is that the archaeological record indicates that while war did happen around that time, it does not seem to be a genocide, but rather more along the lines you are proposing as to what God meant and what happened.

Sérgio Junior · Sep 19, 2019

tampasteve said:
This is the typical liberal explanation, and it certainly could be accurate. We really just cannot say for sure. What we can say is that the archaeological record indicates that while war did happen or didn't happen around that time, it does not seem to be a genocide, but rather more along the lines you are proposing as to what God meant and what happened.

Thanks for commenting, Steve. You said right, we can't know for sure if a war of this magnitude happened as it is said in the Torah and the Book of Joshua, although historians and archaeologists say that at that time there very common to have wars (although not as violent as it is said in the writings of that time).

As I said above, I doubt that God has ordained the deaths of women and children, I think many of these things are chronics and hyperbole in the Israel's history! A lot of the things I said in my previous posts I extract from these two articles from a blog on Patheos (here and here), I think the author of blog gave a reasonable explanation.

hedrick · Sep 19, 2019

No. But I agree that there's doubt they happened. Some conservative commentators have suggested that the accounts don't mean what they seem to, and only hard-core enemies, who were attacking Israel, were involved.

I think in the OT we see a progression, with the prophets moving in the direction of seeing Israel as an example for the other nations (a light for the Gentiles). To me the OT shows a nation that God is working with, but that doesn't mean that everything that someone in the OT thinks comes from God actually did.

n2thelight · Sep 20, 2019

tampasteve said:
Please remember that you are in the ELCA Lutheran forum, as you are not Lutheran you may only post in fellowship, not debate or teach.

This is the typical liberal explanation, and it certainly could be accurate. We really just cannot say for sure. What we can say is that the archaeological record indicates that while war did happen around that time, it does not seem to be a genocide, but rather more along the lines you are proposing as to what God meant and what happened.

My apologies

tampasteve · Sep 20, 2019

n2thelight said:
My apologies

No worries, it is easy to miss where a thread is posted

Sérgio Junior · Sep 20, 2019

hedrick said:
No. But I agree that there's doubt they happened. Some conservative commentators have suggested that the accounts don't mean what they seem to, and only hard-core enemies, who were attacking Israel, were involved.

I think in the OT we see a progression, with the prophets moving in the direction of seeing Israel as an example for the other nations (a light for the Gentiles). To me the OT shows a nation that God is working with, but that doesn't mean that everything that someone in the OT thinks comes from God actually did.

Thanks so much for the comment, hedrick. I've also seen some conservatives say that the Israelites were not trying to exterminate the Canaanites and that most of these mass killings are overkill as Israel had many clashes with the Canaanites during the Old Testament.

I also see God working with them gradually in the Old Testament and many elements that are there in the OT was the way they understood God.

Sérgio Junior · Sep 24, 2019

I would also like to know the opinions of other Lutherans from ELCA and ELCIC (who access this Forum) on this OP, do you have anything to say about your experiences and knowledge of these difficult Old Testament passages?

tampasteve · Sep 25, 2019

My ideas are along the lines of yourself. Some Jewish people also believe that it is written one way, but what God intended was that the people that did not flee, or attacked Israel were to be attacked back. I do not believe God ordered massacres unless they were justified in some way. We also must remember that we only have some of the story, the entire story is missing from us. We are reading history handed down thousands of years later, we are bound to be missing parts.

Jim47 · Dec 10, 2019

If you folks have questions about the Bible and what it says, why not oper'er up and see what God says? You just may be surprised, and if you read enough then you will have answers to all your questions.

Jim47 · Dec 10, 2019

Oh, by the way, I'm not new, I've been here for over 20 years but I haven't posted much in the last 10 years and the puter lost me. :liturgy:

tampasteve · Dec 11, 2019

Jim47 said:
If you folks have questions about the Bible and what it says, why not oper'er up and see what God says? You just may be surprised, and if you read enough then you will have answers to all your questions.

I don't think the question really revolves around the text, but rather how to interpret it. So, we can read all of the text, and most of us probably have, but still question the meaning and how to live it today.

Jim47 said:
Oh, by the way, I'm not new, I've been here for over 20 years but I haven't posted much in the last 10 years and the puter lost me.

Welcome back! It is always nice to have more people around!

Did God Order Massacres in the Old Testament? [ELCA/ELCIC forum]

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