| Grapesoda |
05-07-2011 06:51 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear
(Post 18116068)
no it isn't... :disgust it is straight out of a racist scumbags mouth
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One difficulty arises out of the numerous commands from God recorded in the book for the Israelites to destroy people and animals in the land that they are occupying. This is related to the concept of cherem (set apart for God, or set under a ban) in which entire cities (such as Jericho, 6:17?19) are recorded as commanded to be devoted to destruction.
Some theologians (including many adherents of liberal theology) see this as an ethically unjustifiable order to commit genocide, which is inconsistent with the overall view in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures of God as a loving, compassionate Creator. They see it as a theological polemic, with the majority of events invented during or after the Babylonian captivity, to encourage faithfulness to the Jewish creed at a time when it was being threatened. For instance, Morton says that Joshua "should be understood as a rite of ancient peoples (Israel among them) whereby within the context of their times, they attempted to please their God (or the gods)".[29]
Others, including many conservative theologians who see the book as a historically accurate account written during or soon after the life of Joshua, explain the cruelty of the Israelites as God's way of making an example of nations that engaged in abhorrent practices. Although the book gives no explicit justification for the commands to kill, Deuteronomy 9:4 indicates that this is on account of the "wickedness of those nations". Some theologians have pointed to evidence of practices such as child sacrifice, although others argue that it may have been polemic invented at a later date in order to justify the act of extermination.[30] Hence they believe that the message of Joshua was intended not only for the surrounding nations, but for the Israelites as well (e.g. the stoning of Achan due to his transgression of the cherem).
A Christian alternative viewpoint is to cite progressive revelation in which God reveals himself partially to Joshua and the Jews, but (in due time) fully through Jesus Christ.[31] Proponents of this view argue that the description of war in the book of Joshua was culturally conditioned. For instance, Chapman suggests that the accounts of war and genocide are "the gradual process by which God works in the history of a particular people for whom war is an essential part of religion and culture".[32] The Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder suggests that the concept of cherem was unique in relation to the morality of the time not in its violence, but in ensuring that "war does not become a source of immediate enrichment through plunder",[33] and hence was the beginning of a trajectory that would lead ultimately to the teaching of nonviolence. The Mesha Stele, however, contains a statement by King Mesha of Moab that he captured the town of Nebo and killed all seven thousand people there, "for I had devoted them to destruction for (the god) Ashtar-Chemosh."[34] This suggests that the concept of herem was not unique. |
