christian@topaz.UUCP (04/05/87)
Hi! This is my first posting [moderator permitting] to this newsgroup,
but I've been following it for several weeks now with interest. I wonder
if any of you could provide some insights about a Bible passage which has
proven troublesome for me.
In a recent discussion with some Christian friends, someone brought up in
passing the story of Joshua at Jericho. A brief recap: Joshua beseiges the
city, eventually captures it, and then kills everyone inside: men, women, and
children. Chapters 7 through 11 of the book of Joshua describe how the
Israelites go on to attack the other cities in Canaan and the surrounding
countryside, eventually putting everyone in the region to death. (There are a
few exceptions: Rahab and her kin are spared, as are the Gibeonites, who are
enslaved rather than slaughtered.)
The person who brought up the story explained that God commanded this doom
because if the Canaanites had been spared, the Israelites would have been
assimilated into their society, marrying the Canaanites and turning away from
Jehovah toward the idol-worship of the Canaanites.
I can't fathom the morality behind this. I don't see how the loving God of
Christianity (or pre-Christianity) could order what I have to call genocide.
Does anyone on the net have any thoughts or explanations? I eagerly anticipate
anyone's ideas, whatever your views are on this passsage.
John Ockerbloom
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From cmcl2!psuvax!wisdom.bitnet!eitans Wed Apr 1 13:59:27 1987
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From: Eitan Shternbaum <cmcl2!eitans%wisdom.BITNET>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 87 20:47:15 -0200
To: christian@topaz.rutgers.edu, talk-religion-misc@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: (the) Late gender in religion
Status: RO
This is a reply to an article discussing the gender in religion.
The topic is an old one and i apologize for not responding in time.
"Most feminists I know (myself included) don't care at all about "the
way the Hebrew language names God". We care about the way the English
language names God. Now it's all well and good to say that "one must
be percise [sic] on [sic] translating Religious [sic] terms", but what
exactly do you mean by "percise [sic]"? Do you mean that one should be
faithful to the syntax of the original phrasing, or to the semantics?"
If one assumes that the word of god are sanctified than one must assume that
there is a certain importance to the way in which those words were presented.
Thus both semantics & syntax must be carefully translated.
"you seem to imply that the the original Hebrew was
intended to convey the notion of a parental relationship between god
and humans. Yet God is referred to as "Father" and not as "Parent".
Your explanation of word genders seems to imply that "Father" was
chosen over "Parent" not for any semantic reason, but simply because
the original Hebrew words were masculine. So, in the case of god, you
seem to be more interested in carrying over the syntax of the language
(the gender) than you are in the retaining the semantics. Yet you
don't translate "Herev" as "swordess" (female sword), so in this case
you seem to be perfectly willing to drop the syntactic gender in favor
of the meaning. You're not being consistent."
There are two points in the former article.
- Explaining why does god has been referred as male by the OT (syntax).
- God is named in a certain form since the human brain needs a model in order
to understand the human-god relations (The Best example is christianity's
trinitheism). Since The model of human-god relations imitates the model of a
patriarch family and since the immediate association in our mind to this
kind of relations is the relations between a father and son we apply it
on the human-god relations. Weather it's good or bad association i'm not
to judge. The idea of a model is that it is COMMON ( it would be understood
by all thus i think this model is quite satisfying.)
(in other words feminists should aim their enthusiasm into more important
problems than this. It seems to me that this "crusade" is more likely to be
an ego trip ...)
I believe that this posting has answered all the question marks and
misunderstandings exposed by the writer of the former letter.christian@topaz.UUCP (04/15/87)
In article <10739@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>, John Ockerbloom (ockerbloom-john@yale.uucp) expresses his unease with the story of the conquest of Jericho and the other Canaanite cities. Troubled by the slaughter of men, women, and children, John writes: > I can't fathom the morality behind this. I don't see how the loving God of > Christianity (or pre-Christianity) could order what I have to call genocide. > Does anyone on the net have any thoughts or explanations? I eagerly > anticipate anyone's ideas, whatever your views are on this passsage. The doom pronounced on the Canaanites was not something sudden. At the time of Abraham, God had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. More than 500 years later, despite the stark testimony of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaanites were engaged in almost every detestable practice known to man, including worship of Molech. Infants were sacrificed to this brazen god by placing them on the upturned palms of the idol. A fire inside heated the metal to searing temperatures, while priests chanted to drown out the infant's piteous wails. There is great confusion today about just who God is and what His relationship is to man. The description of God in the Bible (Old Testament as well as New Testament) shows us a God who loves greatly but who is absolutely holy -- unable to countenance sin in any form. To bridge the gap between Himself and sinful man, He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die for our sins. If we accept this provision of God, He will count us as righteous, because our richly-deserved punishment was borne by Christ. But if we refuse to accept God's pronouncement that we are sinners in need of a Savior, we cut ourselves off from His forgiveness. The destruction of the Canaanites was a manifestation of God's temporal judgement. (By "temporal judgement," I mean a judgement that is carried out here on Earth, as opposed to eternal judgement.) That the temporal judgement of God is still active can be clearly seen in the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) and in Paul's charge to the Corinthians to deal with an immoral man in the congregation by "hand[ing] this man over to Satan" (I Corinthians 5:1-5). We need to have a balanced view of God. Seeing only His love leads us to believe in a cosmic Grandpa who couldn't possibly send anyone to Hell. Seeing only His holiness leads to an equally warped view of God as a martinet; the usual reaction is a desperate attempt to follow an all-encompassing set of rules in order to curry God's favor. A balanced view of God recognizes that His love for us and His holiness are both satisfied. In His love, he has provided a way for us to be counted as righteous -- the shed blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. His holiness demands that all who reject His love must be judged, both now and hereafter. Steve Rice ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- new: stever@videovax.tv.Tek.com old: {decvax | hplabs | ihnp4 | uw-beaver | cae780}!tektronix!videovax!stever