All the women Children

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Once again, you're applying a modern Western understanding of "rape" and "force".

Why would women willingly follow the murderers of their fathers, brothers and mothers? Presumably because they didn't want to starve. And presumably because they didn't want to be sitting ducks for the next tribe that comes along (and this time they really would be r ...[text shortened]... straints of society, civilisation and technology at the time, it wasn't a monstrous one.

You know, the Israelites could have just not committed genocide, and the whole issue of letting the women "choose" between two different nightmares would have been non-existent.

Originally posted by stocken
You know, the Israelites could have just not committed genocide, and the whole issue of letting the women "choose" between two different nightmares would have been non-existent.

Yes. And the Allies could have just not gone to war against Germany.

What justifies the Allied action but not the Israelite one?

EDIT: What's a nightmare to a 21st century Westerner may not be so for an ancient Midianite.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Don't jump the gun.

Now, the Allied action produced plenty of German widows and mothers who lost their sons. Allied bombing of German cities killed hundreds, if not thousands, of German children and produced thousands of orphans.

What justified such Allied military action?

If you've read any of my posts, you'd know that I'm against war of any kind. The only party in a war that I could understand, is the attacked party. So, if the german fascists decided to take control over Europe and setting the goal for themselves to exterminate all jews, I would have understood it if the jews struck back (or found allies strong enough to help them do that).

I do not understand what the russian soldiers apparently did when they entered Berlin (raping and murdering innocent civilians).

And, jumping the gun again, I would not have understanding for them if they had done what Moses and his buddies did.

There's also a big flaw to your analogy in that the reason the allied went into war with germany was to protect themselves from invasion. In the case of Moses and his friends, they were the aggressors. They were the Hitler party of their time.

[Edit: And stop using that "what's this or that in our time may not have been in their time", so arbitrarily. This time, you chose to use the analogy with WW2 germany, so you cannot use that argument.]

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Now, the Allied action produced plenty of German widows and mothers who lost their sons. Allied bombing of German cities killed hundreds, if not thousands, of German children and produced thousands of orphans.

What justified such Allied military action?

Yes, but the allied generals didn't tell their soldiers to kill every male infant, and every german woman who had lain with a german, and take the german girls "for yourselves". "For yourselves" doesn't sound in any way benevolent to me.

D

Originally posted by Ragnorak
Thank you for that. I don't see how it changes anything though. Why would an omnipotent being need to play sick mindgames with one of his creations?

D

Sick mindgames? I guess you can call it what you like -- I prefer a test of obedience.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
You don't need a decoder ring to spot an obvious scam.

By the way you look pretty stupid with your tongue hanging out.

Scam? Dang! My ring is made in Taiwan! How could I have been so gullible?!

Originally posted by lucifershammer
1. No.

As I've said elsewhere in this forum, I do not believe many of the wars and incidents described in the Pentateuch actually occurred. The primary lesson to be learnt here is moral, not historical. The Midianite incident, for instance, can be read as a parable against idolatory, prostitution and having relations with pagans.

2. Who says the ...[text shortened]... vants.

This site might interest you:

http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

3. No and no.

As I've said elsewhere in this forum, I do not believe many of the wars and incidents described in the Pentateuch actually occurred. The primary lesson to be learnt here is moral, not historical. The Midianite incident, for instance, can be read as a parable against idolatry, prostitution and having relations with pagans.

I agree. And they can also be read as parables about what terrible atrocities people can commit when they believe that they are commanded by God.

I will repeat what I have posted before about the Abraham/Isaac story (since that was also brought up here): One rabbi said, “Yes, Abraham’s faith was tested—and he failed! No just person (zaddik) would commit child sacrifice even if commanded by God!”* (And this, the same Abraham who argued with God about Sodom and Gomorrah—even arguing that it was not only unjust to kill the innocent along with the wicked, but that the wicked too should be spared on account of the just; an argument which God apparently accepted, at least in principle.)

That is, we are unable to abrogate our own moral responsibility simply because of a putative command by God. We also should not attempt to retrospectively relieve Abraham or Moses or Joshua or anyone else of their moral culpability because the text says they were commanded by God.

The redactors who collected and edited and wove these texts together kept “the good, the bad and the ugly,” the historical and the allegorical and the mythological. They all become part of what David S. Ariel calls the “sacred myths” of the people of Israel. Jewish exegesis is not literalistic/historicistic; the lessons of the stories are supposed to be searched out and argued, not simply followed; we are supposed to apply our own moral sense to the stories. The rabbis have often wrenched the stories around to make God and the heroes of Jewish mythology look “better.” But rabbis have argued the other way too.

* The Abraham/Isaac story is much more complex than that, with the interplay between elohim and YHVH.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Once again, you're applying a modern Western understanding of "rape" and "force".

Why would women willingly follow the murderers of their fathers, brothers and mothers? Presumably because they didn't want to starve. And presumably because they didn't want to be sitting ducks for the next tribe that comes along (and this time they really would be r ...[text shortened]... straints of society, civilisation and technology at the time, it wasn't a monstrous one.

I'm curious. Do you have any more reason to believe that the women were not forcibly raped than I do to believe they were?

Is it possible that you have been an apologist for this sort of tripe for so long you just don;t know when/how to choose your battles and simply blindly assume that things in the Bible that 'sound' really bad can all be explained away?

TheSkipper

Originally posted by Halitose
Sick mindgames? I guess you can call it what you like -- I prefer a test of obedience.

Exaclty. It is all about perspective. Our perspective is not God's perspective. Our perspective is from a sin nature perspective. God's perspective is from a holy perspective. Can we relate to a perspective of holiness? No, I don't think we can. I personally believe that the battles took place, however. The reason God commanded them to take possession of the Holy Land is because it was promised to Abrahams descendants and it was God's land to give to whomever he wished to. It says in Leviticus that whoever corrupts the land will be vomited out of the land. This happened to both the Caananites and the Israelites on more than one occasion. It is nothing more than a judgement on sin. Is it harsh, yes. We, however, tend to take sin lightly. Especially since we are under a better covenant of grace. Under the new covenant we are told to love our enemies and forgive those who trespass against us. Under this covenant sin is not dealt with as immediatly and harshly as under the old covenant. Make no mistake about it, however, it will be dealt with as harshly if not dealt with before hand under the covenant of grace. As christiains we are to proclaim the good news that we do not have to suffer for the sin and crimes we have commited. We deserve death but do not have to die. If you want to live go to the one who is our universal life source. If you reject life what are you accepting? I think that we view sin and death as two seperate issues. In the eyes of God they are one in the same, however. If you sin you die. This is because God is holy and cannot partake of sin. You then are cut off from your life source and will die. This is why sin is dealt with so harshly in the Bible. When people choose sin they are really choosing death. It is not God choosing it for them.