I have trouble reading much of the old testament

Marumorose

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I know God is righteous and just but it's just so hard for me to stomach knowing that in the later books of the Torah and books like Joshua, where it's just genocide. I get that killing those who go to war with you, and that God had given the land to Israel, but when it comes down to even killing the children, it's really hard for me to feel right in it. Or like when Achan sinned in Joshua 7, not only was he put to death, but his sons and daughters too. My only way of feeling right about that is to think, they were children old enough to know their father was doing wrong and so they were complicit in the act. But to think that God's having like, toddlers and babies stoned to death because their dad did something wrong.. it's hard. It makes God seem callous even if He's right.
I know God is righteous and just but it's just so hard for me to stomach knowing that in the later books of the Torah and books like Joshua, where it's just genocide. I get that killing those who go to war with you, and that God had given the land to Israel, but when it comes down to even killing the children, it's really hard for me to feel right in it. Or like when Achan sinned in Joshua 7, not only was he put to death, but his sons and daughters too. My only way of feeling right about that is to think, they were children old enough to know their father was doing wrong and so they were complicit in the act. But to think that God's having like, toddlers and babies stoned to death because their dad did something wrong.. it's hard. It makes God seem callous even if He's right.


Joshua 7:11-12 says "Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they were accursed: neither will I be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed from among you"

God is Good all the time. Our disobedience is the reason why we receive harsh punishments.
The children could have been killed because they knew what their father did and decided to keep quite and they were cursed.
This could be a lesson to parents to teach their children to obey God and not lead them into temptation
 
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Hank77

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I know God is righteous and just but it's just so hard for me to stomach knowing that in the later books of the Torah and books like Joshua, where it's just genocide. I get that killing those who go to war with you, and that God had given the land to Israel, but when it comes down to even killing the children, it's really hard for me to feel right in it. Or like when Achan sinned in Joshua 7, not only was he put to death, but his sons and daughters too. My only way of feeling right about that is to think, they were children old enough to know their father was doing wrong and so they were complicit in the act. But to think that God's having like, toddlers and babies stoned to death because their dad did something wrong.. it's hard. It makes God seem callous even if He's right.
Quote from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary.
As the divine law expressly forbade the children to be put to death for their father's sins (De 24:16), the conveyance of Achan's "sons and daughters" to the place of execution might be only as spectators, that they might take warning by the parental fate; or, if they shared his punishment (Jos 22:20), they had probably been accomplices in his crime, and, indeed, he could scarcely have dug a hole within his tent without his family being aware of it.

Clarke's Commentary and others...
Joshua 7 Clarke's Commentary

I find commentaries that were written by theologians, some of them such as Adam Clarke, Lightfoot and others who read the oldest texts, MSS, in the original languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, etc. to be quite helpful, especially with difficult text.
 
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I know God is righteous and just but it's just so hard for me to stomach knowing that in the later books of the Torah and books like Joshua, where it's just genocide. I get that killing those who go to war with you, and that God had given the land to Israel, but when it comes down to even killing the children, it's really hard for me to feel right in it. Or like when Achan sinned in Joshua 7, not only was he put to death, but his sons and daughters too. My only way of feeling right about that is to think, they were children old enough to know their father was doing wrong and so they were complicit in the act. But to think that God's having like, toddlers and babies stoned to death because their dad did something wrong.. it's hard. It makes God seem callous even if He's right.

Well, everybody dies at some point in their life. The question is a matter of when. If a person's life is sinful and evil, it is not wrong for GOD to take their life and to judge them. For He is GOD and they will have to answer to Him. Everyone will be resurrected bodily and give an answer to GOD. Those who are evil, will be a part of the resurrection of damnation. They will then be judged and destroyed (annihilated or erased from existence) after they had been punished fairly for their crimes in the Lake of Fire. Justice will be served. But the end of our lives is not physical death. Only the wicked will come to an end (in time).

But I know what you are saying. One of the challenges I also briefly had was GOD commanding the slaughter of children along with the adults (of God's enemies). However, after praying about it and doing a lot of research on the topic, I have come to a better understanding on it.

Well, first, it needs to be said that the church is forbidden in taking life. They are commanded by God to love their enemies and to pray for them. We are to bless those that curse us. Jesus said to turn the other cheek if somebody smites you. We are not to repay evil for evil but we are to conquer evil with good. For believers today are under a New Covenant with God in Jesus Christ. Israel was a political power or nation where God was to be their King. This nation was literally supposed to be the arm of God.

The church is not a political power or nation like the Israelite Nation during the Old Testament times. Second, yes, it is true. God did command the Israelites to wipe out children. But you have to understand the context and situation, though. God did not just tell them to kill only children. No doubt many of these children were damaged by the horrible sinful ways of their parents. These children no doubt would have corrupted the Israelites with the sin that they had learned from their parents. These children also probably carried many diseases like the animals because many of them were sexually abused in horrible pagan rituals to false gods, too. So the health of the Israelites was at risk. Also, some of these tribes attacked the Israelites in a cowardly fashion from behind (Where the woman and children stayed). No doubt, the Israelites children were probably killed at times during these battles. Can you imagine if your child was killed by evil people? What if your best friend's child was killed, too? How would you feel?

For example: What if a bunch of children today had let loose a deadly virus inside a mountain and if one of them had gotten out, they would in effect put the whole world at risk in being killed. Would the nearby containment team be wrong for shutting them inside the mountain? Would the President of the United States be wrong for ordering a missile strike against that mountain if he knew that one of those children was about to get out (Thereby killing most everyone on the planet)?This is similar to what God was doing with the Israelites. Except the deadly disease was sin and infection that would lead the hearts of the Israelites away from God and put at risk the line of the Messiah which was to save all mankind by dying on the cross for man's sins.As for God taking life: Again, you have to understand that God taking life is not the same as a man taking life. They are in no way the same thing. God created all life. Man did not create all life. God owns all of creation. Man does not own all of creation. God decides who ultimately lives and who dies in this life. Man does not ultimately decide who lives and dies within this life. For even believers die. However, they go to be with God, though. Whereas the unbeliever is placed in a prison and is eventually destroyed in the Lake of Fire.

Also, babies and children who are not aware of right and wrong yet go to be with God. So their existence does not end at death. The body is just a shell, temple, or vessel.

We have to remember that this life is a test of our faith in GOD.
This life is but a stage.
 
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JAL

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I know God is righteous and just but it's just so hard for me to stomach knowing that in the later books of the Torah and books like Joshua, where it's just genocide. I get that killing those who go to war with you, and that God had given the land to Israel, but when it comes down to even killing the children, it's really hard for me to feel right in it. Or like when Achan sinned in Joshua 7, not only was he put to death, but his sons and daughters too. My only way of feeling right about that is to think, they were children old enough to know their father was doing wrong and so they were complicit in the act. But to think that God's having like, toddlers and babies stoned to death because their dad did something wrong.. it's hard. It makes God seem callous even if He's right.
The church has perennially held to a misunderstanding of Adam, corrected on this thread. No one is innocent. You were in the garden sinning even though you don't remember it. Recently you had a thread where you expressed fear of losing your identity transitioning to heaven. I felt inclined to alert you that, in God's eyes, your identity has already survived the fact that you are a reincarnation of Adam's soul (one physical section of it).
 
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Jamdoc

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The church has perennially held to a misunderstanding of Adam, corrected on this thread. No one is innocent. You were in the garden sinning even though you don't remember it. Recently you had a thread where you expressed fear of losing your identity transitioning to heaven. I felt inclined to alert you that, in God's eyes, your identity has already survived the fact that you are a reincarnation of Adam's soul (one physical section of it).

The doctrine that the catholics use of original sin is a false one, and that idea sounds a lot like Reincarnation, which I utterly reject.
 
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JAL

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The doctrine that the catholics use of original sin is a false one, and that idea sounds a lot like Reincarnation, which I utterly reject.
(1) Irrelevant whether it sounds a bit like (heathen) Reincarnation. All religions have significant degrees of similarities. What's important are not the similarities, therefore, but the differences.
(2) And you're stuck with a contradiction. Any reading of Adam other than mine leads to the logical contradiction that God is unjust. Period.
 
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Jamdoc

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(1) Irrelevant whether it sounds a bit like (heathen) Reincarnation. All religions have significant degrees of similarities. What's important are not the similarities, therefore, but the differences.
(2) And you're stuck with a contradiction. Any reading of Adam other than mine leads to the logical contradiction that God is unjust. Period.
Your reading condemns God as unjust as well, what happens to every miscarriage, stillbirth, or baby born with extreme defects? God torturing them for eternity because they inherited Adam's sin itself even though they personally were incapable of sinning?
We inherit a sinful nature, we don't inherit the sin itself.
 
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JAL

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Your reading condemns God as unjust as well, what happens to every miscarriage, stillbirth, or baby born with extreme defects? God torturing them for eternity because they inherited Adam's sin itself even though they personally were incapable of sinning?
We inherit a sinful nature, we don't inherit the sin itself.
Um...Adam was an adult. They sinned in Adam as an adult. They are punished accordingly.

We inherit a sinful nature that we did not actually incur by actual sin? Sorry that's unjust.
 
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JAL

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Also it's a logical impossibility to 'inherit' a sinful nature. That makes no sense because anything given to you is not sinful. Sin is volitionally defined. In my view, you are sinful in nature because you are the Adam who volitionally sinned.
 
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JAL

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Your beliefs become more and more unbiblical by the post, sorry.
Are you referring to my theory of Adam, specifically?

J.I. Packer said that Millard J. Erickson's book Christian Theology had become the most frequently consulted systematic theology textbook in use today. It is a standard textbook in seminaries accross the world. Here's what Erickson concluded about Adam:

"We were all physically present in Adam, such that we all sinned in his act".

Erickson and I are in agreement that Adam had a material soul.
 
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Here's the basic unacceptable atrocity in your position. After Adam and Eve fell, why not just start over with Bob and Sally? Why let Adam spawn 100 billion sin-tainted descendants? How is that maximal kindness? How is such behavior beyond reproach? It just doesn't make sense. It's maximally evil leadership.

Only in my kind of system does it make sense that God would not start over. All pieces of Adam's soul were doomed - on their way to hell. But by allowing them to live a new life, each in a new human body (you and I for example), they all have a chance to come to saving faith in Christ.
 
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Jamdoc

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Still waiting for you to explain how we can inherit sin. Donald Bloesch admitted the problem of stain-transmission to be insoluble - it cannot be solved on traditional assumptions such as the assumption of an immaterial soul.
We don't inherit sin, but we inherit the DNA and biology of Adam and have a tendency to sin because of it. It's why when you get saved you're not immune from sin and temptation from that point forward because you're still in a natural body that desires things that are sin. You are not responsible for what Adam did, but because Adam did it, all his descendants will invariably commit sins of their own.

As to why God didn't just start over, it's a mystery. Why didn't God create a perfect world from the get go? Why have an imperfect world destroyed by sin? It is possible that this world is not perfect because its imperfection tempers us and shows us the consequence of sin so when in God's presence we now understand why when He tells us to do something, it's not just a whim of His it's for our own benefit more often than not. The burned hand teaches best. It may just be the best way to creation of a perfect world if God desires beings with free will that will still be perfect. Without understanding the consequences of sin would we ever truly be free of it? Sin was an inevitability in any universe with intelligent beings with free will. Angels sinned too. Until they saw the fall of Satan they probably didn't understand that acting against God's will had consequence for them.

It is also worth noting that with the exception of doing the one thing God commanded him not to do, Adam was free to do anything else, because thoughts of doing anything contrary to God's will did not even occur to him to do, and he had no knowledge of good and evil. If he happened to do something inadvertently that God would consider sin, he didn't know any better, because God never told him not to do it. While Genesis 2-3 were real events, they also contain allegory of a child's own loss of innocence, when they mature to a point of knowing right from wrong and CHOOSING to do wrong. Before the fruit, Adam didn't know right from wrong, aside from the one commandment the Lord told him, so he wasn't responsible for anything else he did. Once he knows right from wrong, he IS responsible. Similar a baby might scream and cry and do all kinds of things that a parent might not want them to do, but you don't hold a baby responsible for those actions because they don't know any better. When they are older, and do know better, you discipline them for acting the same way.
So because we inherit the knowledge of good and evil that develops in us as we grow up, we're held responsible for our sins in a way that a young child, or mentally disabled person is NOT held responsible.

So while yes, young children were killed in the Genocide of Joshua, the young children are all now in the presence of the Lord, not burning for all eternity as you would have them be.
 
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