Marginal Christianity

We're troubled by God's commands for Israel to wipe out entire peoples. Why we should be encouraged. Phillip Cary / July 23, 2013 Gentiles in the Hands of a Genocidal God We're troubled by God's commands for Israel to wipe out entire peoples. Why we should be encouraged. Phillip Cary / July 23, 2013 T here is genocide in the Bible. Scripture both describes the Israelites exterminating the Canaanites in cities like Jericho (Josh. 6:21), and also presents this as the command of God. This is what the Israelites are supposed to do when they enter the Promised Land and encounter its inhabitants: "devote them to complete destruction . . . and show no mercy to them" (Deut. 7:2, esv). The Hebrew word for "devoting to destruction" is herem . It is not an ordinary kind of massacre but something sacred, a way of giving things totally to the Lord. It includes property and livestock as well as men, women, and children. And it has the effe...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/04/on-creation-and-killing-canaanites-one-simple-hardly-worth-mentioning-but-i-feel-that-i-should-thought/ April 28, 2013 By peteenns 2 Comments In recent months, these two issues–creation and Canaanite extermination–have been among the more heat-producing that I have dealt with on this blog. Today, I want to make one simple point that concerns both of these issues, and others like it. Nothing creative or profound. Pretty standard stuff, actually, though when push comes to shove (literally) in controversial issues, it is often the first we lose sight of. Here it is: Ancient context matters—a lot. So, when the debate is about whether Christianity and evolution can co-exist, the conversation often turns immediately to the very interesting canonical, theological, and philosophical factors that arise for Christianity if evolution is true and there is no first couple. Of course, these factors are vitally important, mu...