The Evangelical Universalist Forum

The problem of Biblical genocides

Theology Biblical Theology
#1

Nowadays an increasing number of young Evangelicals give up their faith and become very resentful atheists.

I think that the three main reasons are:

  1. they are angry on a god who will eternally torture billions of His valuable creatures

  2. they are angry on a god who ordered soldiers to kill babies and pregnant women alike

  3. they have been taught that a literal interpretation of Genesis as history is the only option and realize that this flies in the face of extremely many facts

In this post I want to go into the second reason. I responded to an email from a young atheist who made some remarks on the topic of the (alleged) Canaanite genocide.

I tried to analyze the topics at length in this blogpost.

Given the fact that proponents of eternal hell often quote such texts to show that God is also wrathful, I think that a forum discussion on this is in order.

I would also love to know what you think on my analysis.

Lovely greetings in Christ.

#2

Thanks for that interesting conversation.

Many of the people who latch onto the genocides/atrocities as a reason to reject God, just do not have any anaytical or exegetical skill - not their fault, but they do need to be educated - and that is tough with people today who have attention spans not much greater than my cat’s. :smiley:

In particular, it takes a sober kind of judgment, a mature judgment, to keep perspective.
Channing says, re: scripture:

"Its language is singularly glowing, bold, and figurative, demanding more frequent departures from the literal sense, than that of our own age and country, and consequently demanding more continual exercise of judgment. — We find, too, that the different portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer perpetually to the times when they were written, to states of society, to modes of thinking, to controversies in the church, to feelings and usages which have passed away, and without the knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of extending to all times, and places, what was of temporary and local application. — We find, too, that some of these books are strongly marked by the genius and character of their respective writers, that the Holy Spirit did not so guide the Apostles as to suspend the peculiarities of their minds, and that a knowledge of their feelings, and of the influences under which they were placed, is one of the preparations for understanding their writings. With these views of the Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually, to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known, for explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths.

#3

Why would they be angry? It makes no sense to me.

#4

Hardly useful to be angry at a god that you don’t believe exists. If you think he does exist, and dislike him, that is one thing, but if you don’t believe in him at all, how can you be mad at him?

#5

Hi Iotahrson - I recently did a thread on this at -

I do think it is possible to still believe in a god but be repelled by that god. However illogical this may be I’ve known several people (and have read about many more) who were wholly or partially in this frame of mind. Not everything in life happens according to logic - especially what goes on in the mind and hearts of human beings given the wide variety of different experiences that different human beings have in their lives. :slight_smile:

#6

That may well be true, Dave. Previous heated debates on this subject have shown how difficult it is to exegete these ‘bloodthirsty texts’, and that opinion on the ‘correct’ exegesis spans a broad spectrum.

It is one thing for a mature Christian to arrive at a way of ‘dealing with’ these texts while yet retaining their faith in a loving God. But it is quite another for a young Christian, or an agnostic, to be asked to do likewise. Throw in high profile Christian apologists like William Lane Craig attempting to defend actual, historical genocide as God’s righteous judgement - as Craig has done - and you’ve got a serious problem for evangelism, and indeed for the Body of Christ.

My way of dealing with these bloody bits of the Bible is simply to reject them as having been incorrectly attributed to God by the writers. That way they can stand either as myth or as history, without doing violence to God’s loving essence.

Cheers

Johnny

#7

“My way of dealing with these bloody bits of the Bible is simply to reject them as having been incorrectly attributed to God by the writers. That way they can stand either as myth or as history, without doing violence to God’s loving essence.”

The more I think about it, the more I appreciate that way of framing the issue… It’s kind of the way I’ve always felt about it but had never put it quite like that.

#8

Cheers Dave. And the more *I *think about it, the more I am in awe of the depth and complexity of the Bible - the whole Bible. All human life is here, as they say :smiley: .

I hope he will forgive me for mentioning this, but Steve (Stefcui) and I have talked privately about this thorny issue, and Steve has helped me to see both the thematic richness, the humanity, and the importance of these ‘bloody texts’. We do not necessarily agree on how to approach them :smiley: , but I do appreciate that they are part of the inspired canon, hence we do need to think long and hard about why they are there, and what they ‘mean’ - what they speak to us. And if they speak to another differently from how they speak to me, who am I to judge that?

J

#9

Hi Johnny –

I’d agree with you here – both in your analysis of clearly saying that the order for genocide are not compatible with God as revealed in Jesus and in thinking that these texts should not be suppressed but wrestled with instead.

As with these texts (and other texts) so with the texts about Noah’s Flood – everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve looked closely at Origen’s homily on Exodus and what it has to say about the Flood – which Stef and I sort of clashed over (sorry Stef). What is remarkable about Origen’s Homily is that the whole focus is not on the details of the flood itself – that’s part of the curse of death that mankind is under. No the important thing for Origen is the Ark itself. The Ark – which he goes into great detail about regarding the literal level – represents Christ and also the Church to him. The animals represents the whole variety of people of different levels of insight and holiness within the Ark – hence the clean and unclean animals. So with Origen the Flood is primarily a story of salvation rather than retribution. This is how he read the OT in terms of the New – every detail was important but his key for interpretation was Christ. For this reason the Canaanite massacres could have no literal meaning for him – they are purely allegorical stories of spiritual struggle. It’s good to also know how Universalist tradition has dealt with these texts.

Love

Dick

#10

Sobornost: thanks for the link! There is much stuff there and I’ll need some time to evaluate the ideas, though :slight_smile:

Johny: “It is one thing for a mature Christian to arrive at a way of ‘dealing with’ these texts while yet retaining their faith in a loving God. But it is quite another for a young Christian, or an agnostic, to be asked to do likewise. Throw in high profile Christian apologists like William Lane Craig attempting to defend actual, historical genocide as God’s righteous judgement - as Craig has done - and you’ve got a serious problem for evangelism, and indeed for the Body of Christ.”

Absolutely! This is why I took issues with Craig’s lamentable defense of genocides and eternal hell.
The real danger is that many people view him as the very best that Christianity has to offer. Therefore, when people realize all the flaws in his ideas, they often cannot resist the temptation to give up their faith. We need more intelligent Christians showing that thy disagree and that you don’t need to take his view of inerrancy in order to be faithful to Christ (to his credit he recognizes as much).

“My way of dealing with these bloody bits of the Bible is simply to reject them as having been incorrectly attributed to God by the writers. That way they can stand either as myth or as history, without doing violence to God’s loving essence.”

Yep, in the post I linked to at the beginning of the forum topic, this is exactly the approach I take. The text either stems from a mistaken theology or it was intended to mean something quite different from the historical meaning most Evangelicals attribute to them.

Sobornost: It is unlikely that the authors of Genesis had the Christian interpretation in mind :slight_smile:

But it is quite possible they did not want to write history but to convey profound message concerning their God in contrast to the Pagan deities surrounding them.

#11

Very true :laughing: Revelation is progressive and the new sheds a light which changes the old :slight_smile: