The Philistine of Gath (1Sam 27)

In chapter 27, David flees to Gath, figuring that if he goes among the Philistines, Saul will not follow. Indeed, it is noted here that Saul gives up.

While in this area, he and his men make some raids, completely wiping out the Geshurites, Gezrites and Amalekites, because these apparently were among the people that God wanted wiped out back in the days of Joshua.

Why is David fighting Amalekites if Saul wiped them out already? Well, remember for one thing that Saul didn't wipe them out. As the SAB itself says, Saul's genocide of the Amalekites was "incomplete". For another thing, it's possible that this is another case of mistaken names, with more than one nation being known as "Amalekites".

Having destroyed all these people, David decides to lie to the king of Gath, and say that he was raiding his own people. The king buys it, and concludes that David will now be forced to be an ally of the Philistines forever.

The Agagite, the Jews' enemy (1Sam 15)

Now whereas I usually feel there is an easy response to challenges of violence and intolerance (most of what has been seen in this book so far has been violence in self-defense), chapter 15 presents us with the first example of God-ordered genocide with no immediately obvious purpose. Sure, back in Joshua it was a matter of establishing the nation in the land of Canaan, both for the benefit of Israel and the punishing of evil pagan nations. Here, however, God orders Saul to take his now-sizable and experienced army and attack a foreign country for what seems to be a petty reason. Not that what Amalek did to the Israelites wasn't serious, but as the SAB points out, we're talking about an event centuries previous. In some respects, it seems something akin to me taking it upon myself as a grown man in my mid-thirties to working out and getting strong so I can go pummel a bully who took my lunch money in first grade.

Furthermore, there is no ambiguity here; God really is looking for genocide, not merely punishment, ordering the complete destruction of men, women, children, babies and even livestock. Why does God want this? There's a very subtle clue that we won't find in this chapter, but it brings up possibly another issue that the SAB does not address. After all this setup, I intend to answer this at the end of the entry.

Saul goes off to battle, but he doesn't end up completely destroying everything, saving some of the best livestock, and king Agag as a prisoner. God's not happy, and He says, "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king," leading the SAB to ask the important question, "Does God repent?" I think I addressed this before (yep, here it is), but just in case I didn't, the answer is, "Well, it depends on what you mean by 'repent'." It's understood that the nature of God is such that He, being all-knowing, never comes to be surprised by the outcome of His decisions. Since He knew all that Saul would do as king from the beginning of time, it wouldn't be theologically proper to interpret this verse as God saying, "What was I thinking when I let this joker be king?!" When God "repents", what it means is that He has let the course of history go on long enough, and He is going to now step into the picture and move things in a new direction. The people wanted a king, and God gave them Saul. Now Saul is no longer of any use to God in his position as king, and God will now take steps to remove and replace him. (Note also that in the very same chapter, we are told that God does not repent (v. 29), so clearly the writer means something unusual here, or you have to assume almost immediate self-contradiction, which seems unlikely.)

Samuel comes to Saul and asks him why he didn't obey the command of God. Saul blames the people, saying that they wanted to take some of the best sheep and bring them back as a sacrifice. This is of course, a very lame excuse for a couple reasons, only one of which is stated in the text at this point. The unstated reason is that Saul is the king, which makes him supposedly the man in charge. If things go wrong, he has to take responsibility, not say, "Well, these people didn't want to do it." Secondly, as Samuel points out, isn't it better to just do what you're told than to disobey and excuse your actions by saying, "I was going to do this other thing that I thought would be cool!"

Samuel informs Saul that since he rejected God's command, God's rejects Saul's kingship. Finally, Saul admits he screwed up, and admits both aspects of his mistake, asking Samuel to pray for his restoration, which Samuel refuses to do. However, in some manner that's hard to fully decipher in the King James English, he does something to allow Saul to save face to some degree.

Now, Samuel turns to the matter of the remaining Amalekite, King Agag. He calls for him to be brought, and Agag is nervous, pleading that surely he himself need not die. Samuel kills him, making the genocide of the Amalekites almost complete.

What's missing, and what was the point of all this bloodshed? Some have made the point that Saul's failure led to a dark day in Israel's history, centuries later. In the book of Esther, a man by the name of Haman rises to power in the Persian Empire, and uses his authority to attempt to exterminate the Jews. Who is Haman? He is identified as an "Agagite", that is, he is a descendant of King Agag, the last surviving Amalekite. The issue that this brings up for some skeptics is, if Agag was the last survivor, how is it that he seems to have had children? Two possibilities exist. Either Saul, in sparing Agag, also spared his children, or the possibility also exists that Agag had children in the time span between the destruction of Amalek and his death at the hand of Samuel. This second possibility points out how sometimes a careful reading of Scripture can make you aware of the passing of time that is not obvious on a quick surface read. In verse 12, Samuel hears, "Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place". Other translations make this clearer; what has happened is Saul has stopped on his return home to have a monument built in his own honor. This must have taken some time, perhaps even months, and the war itself wasn't instantaneous. In this time, it seems likely that Agag's children somehow escaped, and grew over time into a small nation that had, perhaps understandably, some unresolved issues with Israel. God understands the relationships between nations, and does what He must to preserve Israel against violent opposition.

And he said, Bring me up Samuel. (1&2Samuel, introduction)

The books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, in the original Hebrew Bible, were a single book. Actually, context seems to imply that that 1Samuel right through 2Kings was more or less a solid piece of historical narrative. What we're looking at here is the history of the Jewish monarchy, with 1Samuel being events leading up to the coronation of David, and 2Samuel being the story of David as King. I've often wondered why it's not called the book of David, since he figures prominently throughout both books of Samuel, while Samuel is not even named in 2Samuel.

As usual, the SAB has some things to say in the overview of the book that I agree with heartily, although of course it will come out that I disagree with the interpretation when I address specifics. Hemorrhoids and foreskins? It's a wacky book alright, and even the person who believes in God but doesn't know the Bible really well is going to find more than a few surprises in here, many not pleasant.

Why is it that it seems God appoints kings not to keep the peace so much as wage war? As noted, Saul eventually is deposed as king essentially for his refusal to commit genocide. And against the Amalekites, which is an issue I've already had to address, but will probably need to delve into in more detail. On the other hand, God is quite pleased with David, who, as the SAB puts it rather well, "is always happy to kill for God." Really, a lot of this meshes in with the issues of the purpose of the conquest of Canaan, which was left unfinished in Joshua's day, but pretty much completed by David. It also has to do with larger issues of the nature of God and the Judeo-Christian worldview which I have opined on in general in a previous post. What God's looking for in a king is not what we look for in a king, as the Bible itself says. And I don't think we should be looking for the same thing in a king that God looks for, because we're not Israel, and not a monarchy, but that's my two cents.

This is a strange book in various ways for the fact that it introduces politics into the Bible as never before, and also in that it's one of the first books to really be clearly and openly a book edited from multiple sources. It makes for a different feel, that's for sure, but at least we're largely back to a straightforward linear story, at least for a while.

As a wandering bird cast out of the nest, so the daughters of Moab shall be (Ruth 1)

The opening of the book of Ruth jumps right in, introducing us to many of the important characters and giving us an historical backdrop for the story. A man named Elimelech ("My God is King"), from Bethlehem ("House of bread", a city that later became very famous) in the tribe of Judah decides that in the face of difficult times, he needs to leave Israel and move to nearby Moab, a land peopled by the ancestors of Lot. You may or may not remember the story of how these people came to be from Genesis 19; the name Moab means "seed of the father", and according to the story, the man Moab who was the patriarch of this nation was the child of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter. (This happened in the same chapter of Genesis with the story of the destruction of Sodom, so while we are leaving behind the horror of the final chapters of the book of Judges, there is still perhaps a hint here at the parallel story to Judges 19.)

Elimelech dies, and his two sons marry Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then the sons die, and Naomi, alone in the world with her daughters-in-law, decides to go back to Israel, as she has heard things are looking up there. The two women try and come with her, but she urges them to go their separate ways. Orpah ("deer") kisses her mother goodbye and leaves, but Ruth ("friendship") refuses to leave her, giving one of the most beautiful speeches in the Bible to her. Naomi takes Ruth back to Bethlehem with her, where she is recognized. She insists that people no longer call her Naomi ("pleasant"), but rather Mara ("bitter"), "for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me."

So if this is an allegory (and let me say again that while I believe it to be an allegory, it's also a telling of a story that actually occurred in Israel's history) what is it meant to symbolize? Naomi/Mara represents the nation of Israel. Throughout their tumultuous history, the nation of Israel has been forced many times - even in famine specifically - to leave their land and go away for a time. Rarely is that time a pleasant one, and they often return with bitterness, wondering why, if they are indeed God's "chosen people", they seem to have been "chosen" for suffering. From Pharaoh's attempt to eradicate them around the 15th century B.C. to Germany's attempt in the 20th century A.D., they just don't seem to be able to get a break, and Naomi's time in Moab follows this. Pretty much her entire family is dead, all her earthly possessions lost and no children to support her in her old age, we can understand Naomi's bitterness, and the lingering bitterness of many Jews about their own history.

But what small comfort is there for Naomi? Her gentile daughters-in-law, who clearly love her very much, although one with more dedication than the other. These young women represent gentile nations that seem to have some respect and love for Israel. It's an interesting thing to me that from the days of Abraham, God seems to make it pretty clear that one of the main purposes of the nation of Israel is to become a blessing to the nations around them and bring them into a relationship with God, but Israel has tended to isolate themselves from the world, perhaps asking, like Naomi, "why will ye go with me?" Many nations, like a wild deer, wander back their own way, but a few people will insist on friendship with God's chosen people, hoping to find a way to be a blessing to them so that they may take part in the blessings of their God.

Ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me (Judges 20)

Now, while I don't think that chapter 20 is quite as shocking in a simple sense (I mean after all, this isn't so personal; it's war, and this is just the way war is.) there is something more troubling about it from the point of view of an apologist: While God is completely absent from the previous chapter, it appears that the civil war that unfolds in response to the events of chapter 19 is undertaken with the express blessing of God. This is pretty much genocide we're about to see here, and what's more, genocide against the Israelites' own brothers.

I will, of course, offer a possible explanation of the apparent actions of God in this chapter, but I honestly have to admit that I'm grasping at straws here, and even my stretching of the interpretation of this chapter doesn't come across very pleasant at all. The easiest way out would be to say that when "the LORD said" in this chapter, it's not God, but the priests speaking falsely as though on behalf of God or some such thing. (Note that in verse 9, they say they "will go up by lot", raising the possibility that they essentially drew straws and considered the result to be the will of God.) Such an interpretation may create more problems than it solves for the apologist. I mention it only as a temptation, not as something I consider to be a reasonable response.

So here's the recap: Fighting men from all the tribes of Israel except for Benjamin (and probably Levi) gather together in Mizpeh to meet the Levite from chapter 19 and hear his story. Now the story he tells is technically true, but he leaves out the parts about his concubine being unfaithful to him and how he and his host actually gave the concubine to the crowd willingly. It's possible that the actual words of his story supply more detail than we read here, but it does sound like he's leaving out any details that paint him in bad light, which one would expect. The men of Israel vow that they will not return home until the rapists are brought to justice, and so they go to war.

The whole text of the battle that ensues is marked repeatedly by the SAB as absurd, violent and unjust. While I and any rational person would agree that this is a violent story, I don't see anything absurd about it, other than the fact that it's blown way out of proportion, which leads me to somewhat agree with the injustice label. I say "somewhat" because I suspect if this had not been an all-out war and only the men of Gibeah had been slaughtered, the label would still be there in the SAB, but I think I and many others would feel it was quite just. That being said, the fact that their fellow Benjamites are protecting them from justice may make them fair game, but that's more of a grey area in my mind.

The men of Benjamin fight exceptionally well, killing somewhere around 40,000 Israelites before finally losing. A note of accuracy that does little to soften the atrocity of the moment should be inserted here in response to the notes of the SAB. Verse 44 notes "Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed..." Actually, these are the same ones. If you read the story carefully, you'll note that the Benjamites started out with 26,000 soldiers (v. 15), so killing 50,000 of them would have to be an error. It isn't though; verse 35 is a summary of the battle while the following verses are a telling of the details of that battle, and a breakdown of how and where the Benjamites were defeated. In addition to the killing of soldiers, at the beginning of the final battle, they burn down the city of Gibeah, and after the battle, they pretty much just go nuts and destroy every city in the tribe of Benjamin.

Okay, so let me get down to it: this is horrible. It's a horrific, shameful moment in the history of Israel, and in addition to that, it appears that God is actually involved this time. What can you say? There are actually a few possibilities. One, which I've already hinted at, is that God approves. That is to say--and the distinction is important--that God approves of taking justice against Benjamin for allowing such an evil thing to happen in their midst. It does not necessarily mean that God approves of the all-out genocide and large-scale destruction that ensues after the battle. I can just barely believe of God that He might want not just the men of Gibeah destroyed, but the soldiers who fought to protect them. I don't believe that God intended the entire tribe to be decimated, no matter what, and I don't think the text supports that.

Another possibility that makes perhaps a bit more sense (although doesn't make things look much better) is that God led the men of Israel to do this thing as a form of punishment on them as well as on Benjamin. It hearkens back to Egypt and how once Pharaoh decided he would not let the Israelites go no matter what, God caused him to be hardened in his heart and stick to his guns even to the point of his own ruin. The men of Israel were so dead set on exacting revenge, and were so deeply steeped in sin themselves (if the rest of the book of Judges is any indication) that God said, "Sure! Go ahead and attack! Everyone is going to get exactly what they deserve..." Some people refuse to have faith in the God of the Bible because they pray, and do not get what they ask for, but Psalm 106:15 talks of what may be at times the worst curse that God can ever give someone: "He gave them their request".

Melchizedek king of Salem (Joshua 10)

It's been a while since I've gotten to post, partially because I've been generally busy, but also partially because I've been looking up the meanings of all the names in this chapter to see if it offers any interesting insight. The only thing that seemed to be directly related to the story in this chapter was the fact that "Lachish" means "invincible", which it apparently was not, since even with outside help from the Gezerites, the Israelites managed to defeat it.

I often do look into the names of the people and places I'm reading about in the Bible, but the thing that got me looking into the names here in particular was the name in the very first verse. Adonizedec king of Jerusalem? Weird and familiar. First of all, this is the first time the name Jerusalem appears in the Bible, but as just about anyone knows, it certainly won't be the last, as this city eventually becomes the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, the divided kingdom of Judah, and eventually the modern nation of Palestine. The name will appear 643 times in the Old Testament and 83 times in the New Testament. It's the city where the Jewish Temple will be built, the city where Christ will be crucified, and supposedly the city from which God Himself will rule the world at the end of time.

But the city was referred to before by a different name, back in Genesis 14:18. At that time, the king of that city was known as "Melchizedek king of Salem", a character of some interest, as he is talked about elsewhere in the Bible. Now, Melchizedek is clearly viewed as a good person by the writers of the Bible, but this new king is an enemy. The odd thing is how similar their names are. "Melchizedek king of Salem" translates to "my king is righteous king of peace"; "Adonizedec king of Jerusalem" translates to "my lord is righteous king of teaching of peace." Although I've never heard any speculation on the matter, the similarities in the names suggests to me that this is not only the same city 500 years later, but that these names are actually some sort of kingly title that has passed down with only a slight change in the intervening time. Maybe that's interesting only to me?

Getting back to the SAB and the matter at hand, this is the chapter where the Holy War really takes off. One of the longest chapters of Joshua so far, while we've only seen two cities destroyed
in the whole of the previous nine chapters, here we see possibly as many as ten cities destroyed (the number is not 100% clear from the writing, but seems to be at least seven). Apparently, when the Israelites made a treaty with Gibeon, the other people of Canaan were upset because Gibeon was one of the major cities of the land, and had some powerful warriors. So five of the Amorite kings decide the best thing to do is to make their own alliance and attack Gibeon before the Gibeonites add their number to the Israelite armies.

Unlike the previous battles, this battle has an extra dimension of provocation to it, as the Amorites make the first move. I think that distinction is important, as my previous claims about this war were that escaping from Canaan was an option for any nation who wanted to not be destroyed, yet when the Amorite armies try to run away, God and Joshua do not allow them to escape. (The SAB actually labels this with an "Absurd" tag for reasons unknown, perhaps because of the odd method God uses of crushing the armies with huge hailstones? Once again, it's clearly a miracle.) I think it would be one thing if one of the Amorite nations said "We don't stand a chance, let's get out of here!" but this is a matter of them saying, "Oops, trying to destroy them didn't work, let's retreat!"

I would like to note for whatever it's worth (which might not be much) that I suspect the language in Joshua 10:10 is figurative. While it says that God was doing all this awful stuff to them, I think it may mean that the Israelites were doing it under the authority of God. It doesn't change much, unless that was what the SAB was labeling as "Absurd"? I think it's the same sort of thing possibly as the wording in verse 14, the SAB note there giving me a chuckle. While I obviously don't agree with Steve Wells' theological position, I do appreciate his humor.

Another thing labeled as both "Absurd" and "Science/History" is the miracle of God keeping the sun from setting until Joshua was done fighting. (The reason Joshua asked for this is not given, perhaps this battle happened on a Friday?) Once again, I don't understand labeling a miracle as "Absurd", but I'm also a bit confused about the other label. Is this a problem with the fact that sunset is a by-product of the earth's movement rather than the sun's? If so, that's hardly a problem, as it's a matter of relative perspective; from Joshua's point of view, the sun did not move, but we would understand that the real meaning is that the earth ceased spinning for a time. If the note means something more complicated, then it probably needs some clarification, but I'll venture another guess.

The scientific angle, even once you accept the idea of the miraculous, implies a possible historical problem. If the sun never went down, then that would be a significant event. Even moreso elsewhere rather than locally, since the earth is round. Surely on this day in history, if this truly happened, the ancient Aztecs were wondering why the sun wasn't coming up. This miracle should have had a profound effect on the entire world, yet there is no written history of the event outside of the Bible that I am aware of. Perhaps that's what the note is trying to point out? The writer of Joshua points out that the miracle was also written about in "the book of Jasher" but the identity and nature of this book is not known today, and anyway, it probably was a Hebrew text as well.

The rest of the chapter is pretty much an account of the Israelite army going and destroying all of the cities that came against them in battle one after the other. The issues raised in here by the SAB are ones I have already addressed in the last few posts. There are a few notable things here going back to the names. Once again, I do find it ironic that Lachish, the "invincible" city fell even with help from Gezer. Gezer may have not so much been an entirely separate city in itself so much as something like a suburb, since Gezer means "portion". Also, while it may be simply a matter of name confusion, the strong possibility exists of a scribal error here. I'm surprised the SAB did not call to attention the fact that the fifth king was "Debir king of Eglon", but Joshua, a short time after destroying the city of Eglon, turns to destroying a city called "Debir". Perhaps the king of Eglon came from Debir, or was named after it, or he ruled over both cities and thus the city was named after him. Or it could be just a coincidence. Or, of course, it could be an error, probably in some ancient transcription of verse 3.

Anyway, a lot more of this fighting in the next chapter and those beyond.

Stand thou still upon Gibeon (Joshua 9)

The story of the Gibeonites has always held a bit of a confusion for me, and clearly not in the same way it holds confusion for the SAB. Back in the day when I read this book for the first time, and didn't have the understanding that I have now of the book, this story always seemed strange. It still does, but in a different way.

Before I had gained my current viewpoint on the nature of Holy war, I thought it was strange that of all the people that lived in Canaan, the one group that would come to be spared would be one that found a way out through subterfuge. While I now am of the opinion that Holy war is not so complete and final as it seems on a cursory reading, it still shocks me that apparently we can add lying to the list of ways to escape the wrath of God, so long as you lie to the right people and really manage to convince them apparently.

The only thing the SAB has to say about this chapter is to claim injustice because the Gibeonites were made to become slaves. This is going to be one of those rare chapters where I completely disagree with every point the SAB makes and/or fails to make. That single accusation is something that I believe will lose its teeth when one fully unpacks the passage, and several other points that the SAB fails to make seem a tad hypocritical to me. We'll see.

Heck, let's skip right to the issue of slavery, why not? While I have addressed the concept of slavery at length before, this does seem to be a special case that doesn't fit the mold of what I discussed there. Here we do not see slavery existing as a kind of unemployment program as I argued in the case of slavery among Jews. This is slavery of citizens of another nation which, as I touched on in the final paragraph of that other post, falls under a different set of rules in a manner that is less than 100% clear. Nonetheless, I think that something is being missed here. The Hivites keep saying, as in verse 8, "We are thy servants." (Note that "servant" is King James-ese for "slave"; the actual word "slave" only appears once in the King James Old Testament, and that one time it appears, it's not the translation of any particular Hebrew word, but a word inserted for clarification.) Sometimes language like that can be used in a figurative sense, but I don't think it is the case here. These people do actually become slaves of the Israelites, and when Joshua tells them of their status, they don't protest, but say in verse 25:

"And now, behold, we are in thine hand: as it seemeth good and right unto thee to do unto us, do."

This of course saved their lives. The alternative to becoming slaves was to have their nation and their cities wiped off the face of the earth. Would you rather be a slave or be dead? That's not entirely a rhetorical question; I'm sure there are people who would answer either way.

Still, it remains a mystery to me as to why the oath the leaders of Israel swore to the Hivites were binding, seeing as they were made under false pretenses. The men of Gibeon made a rather elaborate deception (almost too elaborate, sometimes I wonder how close to verbatim Biblical dialog is recorded, as I read about these guys going, "Look, our bread is moldy! Moldy, I tell you! We live really really far from here, we swear!!!") in order to get Israel to make them a promise that they had no right to make.

Joshua records that they didn't ask God whether or not to believe the men, which is really the lesson of this story for believers. They didn't ask whether it was alright, and then when it turned out they had been deceived, it ended in trouble for everyone. The SAB doesn't call out the Hivites for this lie as it did the lie of Rahab, and this lie led to strife between Israel and God, the leaders and the people, and between the Gibeonites and their neighbors, as we will see in the next chapter. In the midst of this trouble, Joshua is essentially forced by his oath here to escalate the war as the Amorites go into offense mode.

Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled (Joshua 8)

Well, I'm finding myself with very little time this morning for posting, but then I realized I have very little to say about this chapter, so I'll probably say it at great length anyway.

Contradiction is a funny thing, because I have my own standards for what I consider to be the difference between a "minor" contradiction and a "major" contradiction. Some people like to accuse me of hypocrisy for this, and I suppose like my standards, it's just a matter of personal opinion. For instance, despite my generalization of the average Christian's lack of criticism of the Bible (my first post), just last night I was at a Bible study at which we were studying Joshua 4, and somebody in my group said, "Hey, what's the deal with the fact that the priests set foot on dry land here? I thought the point of this was that they were on dry land the whole way through?" There's another one to add to the SAB, perhaps, although hypocrite that I am, I personally chalk it up to figurative language. (Either the verse in chapter three is meant to point out that they're not wading, or the verse in chapter four is meant to point out that they were no longer standing in the river; I think it's likely to be both.)

Apparently, this chapter of Joshua is loaded with contradictions, and I'll let you judge for yourself if they are major or minor, or indeed if they are contradictions at all. After all, it's not like I can stop anyone from having a personal opinion. As for me, I'm admittedly not certain on many of these, as they are a bit technical. I'll give a few suggestions and musings and move on.

Let me give the SAB summary of this chapter in a nutshell: Joshua leads his army against the city of Ai. Much violence and cruelty ensues, and it is claimed that the city was completely destroyed, never to be inhabited again. However, archaeology tells us that the city was already destroyed hundreds of years before Joshua got there, and other parts of the Bible say that the city was eventually inhabited. Contradiction with scientific findings, contradiction with itself, and not really a very pleasant story anyway; the Bible seems to be batting .000 here.

First, let me address the easiest point, one that will come up in Joshua again and again. Verse 28 includes the words "...for ever, even...unto this day." I have absolutely no problem with anything in the Bible that contradicts a statement like this, because supposedly this book was written by Joshua himself. If the city was reestablished after Joshua's death, then he would have had no reason to know such a thing. I think this phrase even crops up in other parts of the Bible, and I'm pretty sure we already saw it in Joshua, just not in a place worth commenting on.

I sort of wonder--although it's probably just me being a smartass and not admitting it to myself--how the SAB can say that the conquest of Ai was cruel right after they say it didn't happen? Of course, I suppose the SAB is operating under the assumption that most of this stuff never happened, so what can you say? The SAB really isn't required to be as consistent as one would expect the Bible to be, I'm reading too much into it.

So was the city of Ai already destroyed before Joshua got there? For the hundredth time, I'm no expert on science, history, or the subject where the two intersect: archaeology. There are a few things I could say about the subject, though. I don't know what techniques were used by archaeologists that dug up Ai, but it could be that Joshua destroyed another city in the same general area. Another thing that I find notable about the article the SAB links to (which I really should read, since I am fascinated by archaeology) is a passage that explains why the evidence is so damning to the Joshua account, and yet poses a new question in my mind.

The work of Kathleen Kenyon produced similar results in her excavation of the city of Jericho. Her conclusion was that the walls of Jericho were destroyed around 2300 B. C., about the same time that Ai was destroyed.(my emphasis)

Why is it that these two cities were destroyed for unknown reasons "about the same time"? All of this is speculation on my part, and will be taken as complete crap by skeptics, but is it possible that somebody is misdating either the ruins of these two cities or the date that the Israelites entered Canaan? As the article says elsewhere, "The actual truth about the battle will probably never be known."

I'm not going to delve into the issue of cruelty in any depth here, partly because war is simply cruel and violent by nature, and the meaning of this war is something I've already covered in detail. I will note that I don't think hanging the king's body from a tree is particularly cruel. I've often said that I don't much care what happens to my body once I'm gone; I'm not going to be using it anymore. As for the supposed irony of offering a "peace offering" to God in the midst of war, it should be noted that the purpose of the peace offering was to represent the peace between the Israelites and God, not the gentiles. No there would be no peace between Israel and surrounding nations for quite some time.

Thou shalt utterly destroy them (Joshua, Holy War)

Often I try to imagine what the world would be like if the Holocaust had not happened. Six million Jews slaughtered by Hitler's Third Reich, not to mention several million others including Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the disabled. It was a horrible time in modern history, but one of the things that's perhaps really disturbing about it is that it really wasn't an isolated phenomenon. While it seems to have happened with remarkable frequency and severity to the Jews, history is replete with eras in which one group decided to make a concerted effort to annihilate another. But at the risk of violating the somewhat well-known rule of debating that "The first person to mention Hitler in a debate automatically loses," I'm going to focus on the Holocaust to illustrate a point.

If the Jews had risen up in the early '30s, before the Nazis came to full power, and had killed all members of the Nazi party and any other known anti-Semites, then the Holocaust most likely would not have come to pass. However, in such a preemptive strike, who would have sympathy for the Jews? Although their actions would essentially have been in self-defense, they would probably have been seen as monsters for having killed far less people than the Nazis eventually came to kill. History judges what happened, however, not what would have happened.

The various tribes and people that lived in the land of Canaan before the Israelites eventually attained complete conquest of the land had some problems of various types that were a danger on numerous levels. Not to say that they were Nazis, but God needed to deal with them. As I said in an earlier exchange, there is probably no explanation that will convince some people who are just going to see mass killing as evil no matter what the reason is for doing it. I'll admit that it certainly strikes me as one of the more unsavory aspects of the Bible, but I do see the justification for Holy War.

Back in Genesis 15, God talks to Abram about the future of his descendants. He tells him that while He's going to give the land of Canaan to them, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." What does this mean? In some way that God has not explained, because the people of Canaan are quite evil, God intends to punish them, but He is giving them a last chance of about 500 years to clean up their act. Among several points I want to make about Holy War, the first is this: God never sends His people off to war without giving some sort of warning first.

Here in the book of Joshua, as I have already noted elsewhere, the people that the Israelites were coming in to the land to destroy knew about the plagues in Egypt. They knew about the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army. They knew about a handful of battles that were fought during the wilderness wanderings. They knew about the crossing of the Jordan River. Whatever sort of warning God may have given them 500 years previously (which I speculate about, but don't know for sure), God has been sending a clear, urgent message for the last forty years to these people: God's vengeance is coming.

So one might ask, "What is the use of a warning like that?!" Well, compare the forty-year warning that was given to the Canaanites and went unheeded to the forty-day warning given to the people of Nineveh by Jonah: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Not the most uplifting sermon ever preached, but it had an effect on the people of Nineveh that was highly disappointing to both Jonah and the SAB, apparently:

"So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."

As a result of this act of mass repentance, there did not follow an act of mass destruction. I suggest that it should be considered a great likelihood that if any of the cities of Canaan had reacted in the manner that Nineveh did, they would have been allowed to remain in the land. It worked for Rahab, after all. The fact is that while the God of the Bible is a vengeful God, He would rather forgive the repentant than inflict suffering on the unrepentant.

Another option that I think few people consider is the possibility that God would have allowed them to simply evacuate. After all, there were a few incidents in their wandering in the desert in which they went to war against a nation that simply wouldn't get out of the way. They would politely ask if they could just pass through on the way to Canaan, and not only were they denied passage, but the nation that they had made the request to decided to fight them just because they were there.

One of the main issues in respect to turning the land of Canaan into the nation of Israel was that the Israelites needed to have the land all to themselves. If they were to take the land, but leave the inhabitants in it, then they would have to deal with the mixing of their culture, which was a new culture that God was building from the ground up. While I once again admit that I don't know so much about ancient history, I am of the understanding that when Persia defeated Babylonia, Persia became very Babylonian; when Alexander conquered Persia, he adopted much of the Persian culture and integrated it into Greek culture; when the Romans overthrew the Greeks, the Greek culture and language remained dominant despite the fact of Roman rule. The Israelites needed to conquer Canaan without becoming Canaanites in the process, and really, the only was they could guarantee that was to make sure there was not a single living Canaanite left in the land.

God repeatedly tells the Israelites that they are not to allow the customs of the people of Canaan to be an influence on their own culture. These people were sexually immoral, practiced human sacrifice, worshiped idols, and were generally violent and unkind. Because the Israelites didn't completely cleanse the land of the former inhabitants, eventually they, too, fell into these practices, which is probably the biggest shame from the point of view that considers Joshua's Holy War a good thing, because in the end they killed thousands if not millions of Canaanites and still fell into the trap that Holy War had been designed to protect them from.

Another thing that Holy War is intended to protect the Israelites from is actually much more closely related to the musings I put forth at the beginning. Case in point: Israel's first King, Saul, was ordered by God to go to war against the Amalekites and totally destroy them. He almost did it, but the notable exception was that Saul took King Agag captive. After all, what difference could one guy make? Well, a few hundred years later, when the Israelites were subject to Persia, there was a man by the name of Haman who devised a plan to wipe out the Jews. Many people compare Haman to Hitler, but Haman wasn't German, he was an "Agagite", that is to say, a descendant of the man Saul failed to kill on God's orders. As I said, history does not judge what would have happened, but I strongly suspect God knows. Yes, Holy War is at times a matter of self-defense.

Something else to be considered as almost a side note, but I think an important one, is that God is not partial. The same way God gave the Amalekites about 500 years to shape up or ship out, He gave Israel 500 years (from the coronation of Saul to the Babylonian invasion was just a tad over 500 years). Eventually, after living in the land for a few centuries and failing to be the nation He wanted them to be, he sent the Babylonians and the Persians to carry them into captivity toward the east. There are some who have done far more extensive studies into the significance of the stretches of time that Israel was in the land and out of it; you might do a Google search on the subject to find a complicated theory on how a handful of verses in the Bible map out a complicated calculation that predicts the reinstatement of Israel as a nation in 1948, but it's out of my scope here. The main point is that while God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and had them kill off the former inhabitants, it was with the understanding that they would strive to make Israel, to borrow a familiar phrase, "one nation, under God."

So yeah, Holy War is far from a beautiful thing, but my understanding is that God gave many opportunities for the people He set the Israelites on to avoid His wrath. They knew it was coming, they knew that they needed to repent, they had ample time to do it, but they freely chose instead to stand up to God and His people. God wins in the end, though. God always wins, and to refuse to accept that and put your lot in with the enemies of God is essentially suicide.

On top of all of this, something that even I myself had always missed when it comes to the book of Joshua is that the issue of Holy War has application in our own lives today, thousands of years later. The Bible makes it clear that God's wrath is still coming. God will eventually deal with all nations and all individual citizens of all nations. You have the choice to play the part of the Israelites in this scenario or play the part of the Canaanites. Are you going to clean out the sin in your life through the power of God, or are you going to go into the walled city of your pride, shut the doors and think, "When the wrath of God comes knocking, I'll just pretend I'm not here or something." Or maybe you'll be the sort who, when you hear God's people are passing by, will pick up your weapons and go out to attack them? Or maybe you'll be someone like Achan, who will march with the Israelites, but not be as devoted to the cause of righteousness as you appear to be? There are many parts to be played in this drama, a drama that gets played out daily in our modern world in a more abstract, spiritual manner. I hope you'll make the right choice.

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there (Joshua 1)

I realized over the weekend that there was good piece of advice I've given many people over the years that I'm not taking for myself. If you try to work your way through the Bible from beginning to end, you're probably going to come to one or more parts that are boring and/or difficult, and you'll find it hard to proceed. I've always told people that if you're trying to read the Bible, it's good that you eventually read the whole thing, but you shouldn't let yourself get caught up in something excruciating to read, such as the first few chapters of Leviticus, which are description after description of procedures for dealing with sacrificial animals. Likewise in the New Testament, if you read Matthew first, and then proceed to Mark, you might get the feeling that you're reading the same book twice, as the two are very, very similar. (I think I've decided that when I eventually move to the New Testament, I'll start with Luke and include comments on parallel matters in the other two synoptic Gospels. We'll see.)

Anyway, the Mosaic Law is a tough slog, and not as easy to write on as I'd hoped, but in the spirit of moving on with my blog a bit, I'm skipping forward to Joshua. I haven't thought for a long time that I'd go straight through, but it was tough to drop a book midway through it. I will go back to Exodus and finish the books of Moses, but for now, I need something fresher.

Not that Joshua is easier. As a matter of fact, Joshua and Judges are two of the most difficult books to deal with apologetically, in my opinion. Joshua is the story of a massive genocide of the people living in Canaan, and there's no denying it, only examining it to understand whether there might be justification. Judges, on the other hand, is a book filled with more violence and sex than any other book of the Bible, and in fact probably more than most modern mainstream books. If any part of the Bible needs critical examination and questioning, it's these two books.

Before we get into the issue of genocide, however, the first issue that comes up is a bit of confusing prophecy that the SAB points out. Immediately after Joshua takes command of the nation of Israel (as a military commander more than a prophet like Moses), God tells Joshua,

"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you."

The implication is clear; God is promising unfettered victory. Move in and crush every nation between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and it's all going to be a piece of cake, right?

Well, it turns out not to be, eventually. The SAB points out many passages where the military campaigns of Joshua failed, and for a long time afterwards, the Israelites simply were not victorious. Eventually, by the time of Solomon, they pretty much had it all, but the words here suggest an easy and pretty quick victory with virtually no setbacks, and that did not come to pass. Why? What does this say about the prophecy in these verses?

Well, there are a couple things that one could say about this, and one of them is a look into the immediate context, actually. Within the same speech, in verse seven, God says

"Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest."

I suggest that if one looks at this verse, one may see that God is actually giving Joshua and the Israelites a conditional promise. Let me deal with the second part first: God is only going to make them prosper when the people of Israel are doing their best to follow the laws of Moses. Do what God says, and you prosper. Don't do what God says, and all bets are off. We actually see this more explicitly in the second battle of the conquest of Canaan, in which they initially lose because somebody stole something that they weren't supposed to touch.

But note that God is first of all ordering Joshua and the Israelites to be "very courageous". This is actually incredibly important! It relates to the issue that is often raised of God's omnipotence or lack thereof. God is sending the Israelites into Canaan to conquer it, but while God has the ability to simply wipe these people off the face of the earth like He did with Sodom and Gomorrah, He wants the people to do the legwork on this. Once again, the promise says,

"Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you."

See my added emphasis? God is willing to give them conquest over any part of the land that they're brave enough to go to. The answer to the question of "Can God do anything?" is pretty much, "Yes, God can do anything, but there are some things God will not do for one reason or another." In the case of Joshua's military campaign, and the years of fighting after Joshua was gone, God was only willing and "able" to help those that stepped up and showed their faith in God's promises and took what God had promised to them. As far as I am aware, most Biblical scholars are of the opinion that Joshua's campaign was ultimately a failure not because God couldn't follow through, but because the people just ran out of steam and stopped trying. Jesus didn't heal people in His hometown not because He lacked the power to heal, but because unbelieving people simply didn't turn to Jesus for healing. It's a tough issue that far wiser people than I have pondered, but personal faith is an essential part of a relationship with God on many levels and in many ways.

Last note: For those of you reading this who are not fairly familiar with the story that has come before, I am a bit sad for having skipped ahead if only for the missing of the great irony in verse 17. The Israelites promising Joshua that they'd follow him just the same as they followed Moses is not really a heartening promise.

What profit is there of circumcision? (Exod 4:13-31)

After more than a bit of hemming and hawing, Moses finally agrees to his task, so long as God sends his brother Aaron to help him. After settling the matter, Moses returns to his father-in-law (whose naming inconsistencies I discussed a few posts back) and tells him he's going back to Egypt.

On his way to Egypt, God warns Moses that Pharaoh is going to be stubborn about the whole thing, and refuse to let the Israelites leave. This leads to one of the stranger issues of the Exodus story: Did God make Pharaoh's heart hard, and if so, why? The SAB points out both an apparent contradiction and an injustice here, but I think that it's the two put together that really explain what's going on. The thing is, it's actually a larger theme throughout the Bible that whatever a person wants to be, God will enable them to be that way. Pharaoh was the one who was stubborn, and since he was stubborn, God not only allowed him to stay stubborn, but gave further supernatural firmness to his resolve not to let the Israelites go. Was Pharaoh the one who hardened his heart, or did God do it? Both. Was this unfair? Maybe. It was what Pharaoh wanted anyway, so perhaps not unfair to him personally, but in the grander scheme of things, the question may still be up in the air.

Case in point, just a couple verses down we see that the end result is that Pharaoh's son will die. In fact later on, every firstborn male child of the Egyptians will die. Is this fair? Fair is a subjective thing in this world, and it makes it hard to answer the SAB's claims of injustice. (Somewhere back in the archives, I know there's a post where Steve Wells has many comments on the matter. Maybe I was thinking of this one?) A couple things come to mind in this case, however. First of all, Pharaoh is given plenty of warning that judgment is coming; probably more than any other individual in the Bible. "Hey Pharaoh, let us go or else your son will die. Just in case you think I'm kidding, here's nine plagues to help you mull it over." Second of all, remember that about eighty years back, the Egyptians had perpetrated acts of Genocide against the Israelites. Pharaoh killed all the sons of God's people, so God decides to kill a portion of their sons in retribution. Perhaps this is justice?

The last little story that needs to be addressed here is the story of verses 23-25. Frankly, it's a tough one to address. First and foremost, the SAB refers to it as absurd, and that's probably a good label for it. Moses has not circumcised his sons, for some reason this is a problem that gets him in trouble, and before you know it, foreskins are a-flyin'! What is going on here? Some scholars have suggested that Moses was unaware of the need for circumcising his kids until he met God on the mountain. After being made aware of the need for it, he didn't bother to take care of the matter, being worried that it would slow down his return to Egypt, perhaps making his sons unable to walk, or at least putting them at risk for infection. This would show a lack of faith on Moses' part, which would have to be dealt with. For some reason his wife takes care of it in the end, calling him a "bloody husband" because...?

Okay, for the most part I've been avoiding reading other people's commentaries on these matters before making my posts, but I'll admit that I read someone else's commentary on this very matter, and I liked what he said. Whatever the heck this passage means, it's pretty much incomprehensible to us today. There is something cultural going on here which was significant for Moses and Zipporah, but probably not so important to us. Maybe it meant something to the ancient Israelites as well. Probably. I'm letting this one go and moving on.

Some have entertained angels unawares (Gen 18)

Chapter 18 is the prelude to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Chapter 19, and some elements of this story make more sense when you put the two chapters together, in my opinion. First of all, the SAB notes that "Abraham feeds God and three angels." Various religious traditions have different understandings of this story, but I'm not aware of any that have that particular understanding. If I'm not mistaken, the Jewish tradition is that God is not physically present at this meal, but only these three angels. Christian tradition states that either God is one of the three or, being a Trinity, God is all three at once. In any case, something one can see in the next chapter is that while three men come to Abraham, only two men/angels arrive at Sodom. I think the Jewish tradition might be that the third went to Gomorrah, which makes some sense, as it seems that if there's a need to send physical witnesses of some sort into the city before judging it, then both cities needed a visitation. Something odd about this story overall is that while both the cities are destroyed for their wickedness, we really don't ever hear any details about Gomorrah's issues.

While I have already addressed the question of whether or not God can be seen, something interesting to note about this story is that there seems to be little indication that Abraham realizes that these men are anything special at first. The wording of his greeting to them is different than the way he addresses God in chapter 15, but then again, he also speaks to God differently in verse 27 onward, when it seems pretty clear that he does know who he's talking to, so it's hard to say. (In the KJV, a word translated all-caps to "LORD" or "GOD" is a translation of the Hebrew name for God. At current, the SAB has the capitalization wrong for this chapter, so you can see the correct version here.) In any case, I think the real point here is a contrast in styles of hospitality between Abraham and the Sodomites. It's understood that proper etiquette in those days was that when you had a guest in your home, you would almost go so far as to act like their slave to show them proper hospitality, which may explain some of the bizarre actions of Lot in the next chapter. Abraham suggests humbly that he will get the men "a morsel of bread" and when they agree, he runs off and has a banquet prepared for them.

(Interestingly, the meal includes both meat and milk, a Jewish dietary no-no; while the dietary laws have not been handed down yet, it's fascinating to note it. Jewish tradition is that Abraham, despite living before the law, kept kosher, and many theorize that while he served meat and milk at the same meal, it was not part of the same dish, and the angels probably only ate one or the other.)

So the men ask where Sarah is. Once again, this is not a case of God failing to be omniscient, but merely a conversation-starter. While it may be possible that one of the angels asked, and he himself did not know the answer, it's not like they called her out to talk with her, they're drawing the subject to this message of her upcoming pregnancy. When Sarah overhears the message, she laughs, because she thinks it's silly since she's well past menopause, and perhaps isn't even having sex with her husband anymore. God hears Sarah's thoughts, and tells Abraham, asking "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" The SAB points out a few verses that name some things that are apparently too hard for the Lord, and while I'm tempted to simply answer the question "No," and move on, addressing those verses when I get to them, it's an important enough question to give time to here.

The three verses that are quoted on the page each have their reasons, and let me address the last one first: Yes, God cannot lie. This is not to say that God does not have the physical ability to lie; any being that has the ability to give information could conceivably give false information. However, God, by His nature, is unable to do anything but tell the truth. As for the other two verses, the answer is probably similar for both of them. In Mark 6, if you look at context, you see that the problem there is lack of faith. Some people have supposed that God is like a big engine that uses faith as a fuel, but that's not why faith is important. Note that just about everywhere else Jesus went, big crowds gathered around Him, eager for His wisdom, his forgiveness, and His miracles. Here, nobody shows up. What is likely happening is that Jesus is interested in doing miracles for people, but only for people who really want to see miracles, and are putting their full trust in Him. Jesus wasn't able to do much in that town because nobody wanted Him to, and so there was no point for it. The similarity in the Judges passage is that the people of Israel were fighting for God to take the land, but it probably was the case that when they got to whatever valley this was, they saw all the chariots and lost hope, never taking hold of God's promise that He would make them victorious. Note that it doesn't say they lost against the chariots, only that they couldn't do it.

So before they leave, God says, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do...?" God's not "worried that Abraham might stop Him", He's asking a rhetorical question; it's His way of saying, "Y'know what? I ought to let Abraham in on what's about to go down here." So He explains it. When He says He "will go down now, and see" it's not an instance of Him being unable to see from Heaven, but something else. There's a pattern that recurs in the Bible fairly often that God always takes some concrete action before judging, in order to give a last chance. In this case, it occurred to me that God might be giving these angels the final say on the matter in a way, telling them, "I've decided that there's not much worth saving in these cities, so go down there and take a look; I've given you authority to do with them as you see fit." I think a more orthodox approach would probably be that the angels coming to visit is a final test to see how the people respond. More on this next chapter, I think.

Abraham, upon hearing the news, asks, as the SAB puts it "two good questions" about the destruction of S & G. These two questions are the beginning of a series of similar questions, of the form, "Will you destroy the city if there are X righteous people there?" Most people interpret this as Abraham bargaining with God, but the concept bothers me to some extent. It seems to me personally that a possibility is Abraham is trying to understand both the nature of God's justice and how wicked the city is. "Surely you wouldn't destroy a city if it had at least thirty good people in it, right?" "That's correct, Abraham." Maybe Abraham is indeed hoping if he gets the number low, God will change his mind, but I think Abraham is possibly thinking in the end, "Man, there's not even ten righteous people living there? What's my nephew doing living in a place like that?"