Category Archives: Difficult Bible Passages

Difficult Bible Passages

Did Joshua Kill Innocent Canaanite Adults During the Conquest? Part 2

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God spares those who are truly repentant, those who truly love Him. Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God, offer several examples of Canaanites who were spared and who became members of Israel.

First, there is Rahab, the tavern-keeper in Jericho. Copan and Flannagan write:

The book of Hebrews states: ‘By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient’ (11: 31). Rahab was a Canaanite, yet she was spared because she was not like those who are disobedient, but rather responded in faith. The author of Joshua emphasizes that Rahab ‘lives among the Israelites to this day’ (Josh. 6: 25), 23 and Matthew lists her as an ancestor of both David and Jesus the Messiah (Matt. 1: 5).

Second, there is the example of Caleb, one of the two spies who gave a good report to Israel in Numbers 14. God says in Numbers 14: “Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (Num. 14: 24).

Most readers, however, fail to notice Caleb’s background. Copan and Flannagan explain:

Caleb, though from the tribe of Judah, has a Canaanite background! The text refers to him as ‘Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite’ (Num. 32: 12; Josh. 14: 6, 14). Who were the Kenizzites? They were one of the seven nations in Canaan and were listed along with the Hittites and the Perizzites who lived on the land God would be giving to Abram (Gen. 15: 18– 20). These were the peoples God commanded Israel to ‘utterly destroy.’ Yet Caleb the Kennizite was one of the few in the nation of Israel to see the Promised Land because ‘he followed the LORD wholeheartedly.’

Third, we have the example of the Shechemites. In chapter 8 of Joshua, the Shechemites are included in Israel’s covenant renewal ceremony: “All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark . . . the stranger as well as the native” (v. 33 NASB).

At Shechem, those who heard the Law being read included not only ‘the assembly of Israel’ but also ‘the strangers who were living among them’ (vv. 33, 35). Sprinkle notes, ‘Joshua 8: 30– 35 narrates a covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem despite the fact that Shechem was a major power during the Late Bronze Age as the fourteenth century B.C. El Amarna tablets from Egypt indicate. This suggested to [John] Bright that Shechem was absorbed into Israel rather than being conquered, and so the covenant renewal ceremony was on the occasion of additional people being added to the covenant.’

In part 3 of this series, we will look at even more evidence, provided  by Clay Jones, that God spares those who repent.

 

Difficult Bible Passages

Did Joshua Kill Innocent Canaanite Adults During the Conquest? Part 1

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Some critics of the Bible complain that Joshua must have killed numerous innocent Canaanite adults during the conquest recorded in Joshua 1-12. Because of this, what Joshua did was nothing more than genocide. But the biblical picture is painted quite differently, and if we are going to accuse Joshua of killing innocent Canaanites, shouldn’t we at least read what the Bible actually says?

Paul Copan and Matt Flannagan, in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God, fill in the background for us so we can see what the true biblical picture is.

First, the Bible clearly states that the land where the Canaanites were living had been given to Abraham and his descendants, by God, hundreds of years before the conquest.

Israel had legal title to the land of Canaan based on the promise God had made to the patriarchs (Deut. 20: 16). The Canaanites were essentially trespassers or squatters (Josh. 2: 9– 11). The ultimate goal of Abraham’s calling was to bring blessing to the nations, and this promise includes permanent possession of the land (which, as Scripture progresses, expands into possession of the new heaven and new earth by God’s people).

Second, “Israel had to wait many generations— including having to endure slavery in Egypt— before it could take possession of the land because the Canaanites were not yet sufficiently wicked to judge (Gen. 15: 16).”

By the time of Joshua’s conquest, their wickedness had reached the point where judgment would finally occur. God waited hundreds of years for the Canaanites to repent, but they never did.

Copan and Flannagan add, “During the days of the patriarchs, Abraham’s people were forbidden to engage in violence against the Canaanite nations occupying the land.”

Third, the kinds of

wicked acts (Deut. 9: 4– 5) the Canaanites engaged in were not trivial: incest, adultery, bestiality, ritual prostitution, homosexual acts, and most significantly, child sacrifice (Lev. 18; Deut. 12: 29– 31). Most of these acts are illegal, even in modern Western nations. Any group practicing these actions would not be tolerated even in contemporary liberal societies, and in some jurisdictions, violators would be sentenced to death.

Fourth,

Israel’s own occupation of the land was conditional; Israel too would be ‘utterly destroyed’ if it engaged in the defiling practices of the Canaanites (Lev. 18: 25– 28). Indeed, later the Israelites would be judged— removed from the land through exile— because they violated the terms of the covenant.

Fifth, and maybe most importantly, we have many indications from the Bible that God spares those who are truly repentant, those who truly love Him. Copan and Flannagan offer several examples of Canaanites who were spared and who became members of Israel.

In part 2 of this series, we will look at these examples.

 

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Why Does God’s Character Matter When It Comes to Interpreting Difficult Passages?

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A couple of years ago I wrote a series of blog posts on why the God of the Old Testament is worthy of worship. We looked at His mercy, His love, and His truthfulness, along with several other attributes. At the time, I had several commenters tell me that considering all the attributes of God is of no help when interpreting difficult passages in the Bible. We should take those difficult passages as isolated texts.

This has always seemed flatly wrong to me. Every time we listen to a person speak, we are interpreting what they say based on what we know about that person. If a friend of mine has been caught lying several times, and he makes an excuse for why he has to cancel a night out with me, I’m going to guess that he’s lying again and that his excuse is fabricated.

A friend of mine who has always been truthful with me will get the benefit of the doubt when he cancels a night out. I will assume he is telling the truth.

It is standard procedure for lawyers and prosecutors to bring forth evidence in a trial about various witnesses’ character so that the jury can decide whether to believe the witnesses or not.

So when someone says that we can’t take into account God’s character when we interpret difficult Bible passages, I immediately know they are applying a double standard. They are refusing to hear the evidence of God’s good character.

If we take the conquest of Canaan as an example, a person who is considering God’s character would not immediately jump to the conclusion that God is capriciously trying to wipe out a particular ethnic group (committing genocide) just because of where they live. Since we know that God is loving, just, and merciful, we would search the Scriptures to find out exactly what’s going on.

We would discover that God had waited hundreds of years before judging the people of Canaan, thus exhibiting His mercy. We would learn that He was first, and foremost, driving them out of the land, as opposed to killing them. We would learn that God’s justice demands that He punish a people who routinely have sex with animals, commit incest, and sacrifice their children to pagan gods by burning them. We would see that God held the people of Israel to the exact same standards which He applied to the Canaanites. We would learn that God welcomed anyone in Canaan who renounced their detestable sinful lifestyle and turned toward Him, thus demonstrating His love for all mankind.

The bottom line is this: it is completely illegitimate to read any difficult passage in the Bible and draw conclusions about what God is affirming or commanding, without first considering what the Bible overwhelmingly teaches about God’s moral qualities. To do so is to apply a standard to God that is utterly foreign to the standard we apply to anyone else whose words we are trying to understand.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Morality

Did God Bless Rahab for Lying?

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In Joshua chapter 2, Rahab lies to the king of Jericho by telling him the spies had already left the city and that the king’s men could track them down and capture them as they returned to the Jordan River. In reality, Rahab was hiding the spies on the roof of her house.

The Bible records that her family was spared by God in Joshua 6, and the New Testament speaks glowingly of her actions in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25. How can this be when she clearly lied? Isn’t it always a sin to lie?

Christian thinkers have struggled to deal with this conflict for millennia. Today, there are two positions which garner the most support. Theologians Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, in The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation, explain the two main options for dealing with this passage.

Some argue that it is not clear that God blessed Rahab for lying. God certainly saved Rahab and blessed her for protecting the spies and assisting in the overthrow of Jericho. However, nowhere does the Bible explicitly say that God blessed Rahab for lying. God could have blessed her in spite of her lie, not because of it. . . .

Others insist that Rahab was faced with a real moral conflict. It may have been impossible for her to both save the spies and tell the truth to the soldiers of the king. If so, God would not hold Rahab responsible for this unavoidable moral conflict. Certainly a person cannot be held responsible for not keeping a lesser law in order to keep a higher obligation. The Bible commands obedience to the government (Rom. 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13), but there are many examples of justified civil disobedience when the government attempts to compel unrighteousness (Ex. 5; Dan. 3, 6; Rev. 13). The case of the Hebrew midwives lying to save the lives of the male children is perhaps the clearest example.

In summary, the biblical text never explicitly commends Rahab for her lie, so maybe Rahab is commended for her faith in God, despite her lie. Another option is that Rahab acted on the higher moral command (save the lives of the Israelites) over the lower command (do not lie) when she was presented with a situation where two moral laws were in conflict.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Sunday School

Commentary on Numbers 25-31 (Vengeance on the Midianites)

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Following the prophecies of Balaam in chapters 22-24, the author of Numbers, in chapter 25, records the last rebellion against God before the Israelites enter the Promised Land. Verses 1-4 describe the catastrophe that occurred. The Israelite men are seduced by Moabite (and also Midianite, as we’ll learn later) women. These women, by the thousands, offer themselves to the men of Israel as sexual partners. The text then tells us that sexual immorality quickly moved to formal worship of other gods, Baal of Peor in particular.

R. Dennis Cole writes:

Milgrom suggests some kind of covenant agreement was enacted in the process by which the Israelites were permitted (after being invited) to engage in the various forms of debauchery associated with the Baal cult. By engaging in such worship practices, the Israelites had violated both the first and second Commandments—to have no other gods and to worship no other deities by bowing down and serving them in the cult (Exod 20:2–5; Deut 5:7–9). Abrogation of any one of the Ten Commandments was punishable by death, and hence the punishment to be meted out against the idolatrous Israelites was severe.

God instructs Moses to execute the leaders of the men who have worshiped Baal, but Moses instead instructs the judges of Israel to execute those men known to have worshiped Baal. It is not clear whether Moses is disobeying God or not, as the text simply doesn’t tell us, but it certainly looks like Moses softens the command from God, perhaps leading to the plague that spreads throughout the camp.

In verse 6, Moses has gathered the leaders of Israel in front of the tabernacle entrance in repentance when something shocking happens right in front of them. An Israelite family leader (Zimri son of Salu) walks right by the assembled crowd with a Midianite woman and takes her to a tent where, evidently, ritualistic sex would occur between the two of them. In other words, the goal of their encounter was to “worship” Baal right in the midst of the Israelite camp.

Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the high priest, sees the couple and follows them. He finds them having sex and he drives a spear through both of them. This act by Phinehas stops the plague that is killing the Israelites, but already 24,000 had died.

God is pleased with Phinehas’s quick action to put an end to the Baal worship within sight of the tabernacle. He tells Moses to tell Phinehas that “he and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

Why would God be pleased that Phinehas killed these two people? Gordon Wenham explains that

because Phinehas executed the sinner, expressing so clearly and visibly God’s own anger through his deed, [God’s] anger was turned away. . . .  To make atonement (kipper) is the usual phrase to describe the effect of sacrifice (e.g. Lev. 1:4; 4:20; 5:16). In normal circumstances the animal died in place of the guilty man. Here the sinners themselves are put to death and consequently animal sacrifice is unnecessary. . . . Israel had broken the covenant by worshipping foreign gods. Phinehas had restored that covenant by his deed, and is therefore rewarded with the covenant of a perpetual priesthood a reward that mirrors the sin atoned for.

The chapter concludes with God proclaiming that the Midianites were to be treated as enemies because of their treachery. The seduction of the Israelite men by the Midianite women led to the deaths of thousands of Israelites. Israel has once again broken its covenant with Yahweh.

Chapter 31 picks up where chapter 25 leaves off. God tells Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites, so Moses calls for 1000 soldiers from each of the 12 tribes of Israel to join the fighting force. Phinehas leads them into battle.

The Israelites kill all of the men of the Midianite clans involved in the treachery against Israel. Cole writes:

Taken in the historical context of this being a divinely directed follow-up campaign after the sinful Baal Peor incident (25:16–18; 31:3–8), this crusade was directed at the tribes or clans of Midianites who dwelled in the central and northern Transjordan highlands, in the vicinity of the lands of the Moabites, Ammonites, and Amorites. The Midianites of the southern regions, such as those of Moses in-laws, were on better terms with the Israelites or were not involved on this occasion.

They also execute the 5 tribal leaders, or kings, of these Midianite clans. In addition, we see that Balaam, the prophet from chapters 22-24, is also killed. We discover in verse 16 that Balaam stayed with the Midianites and counseled them to seduce the men of Israel with the women of Midian.

Verses 9-12 describe the aftermath of the battle:

The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Moses, however, is unhappy with the soldiers who bring back the women of Midian as captives. He instructs them to kill all of the women and only keep alive young girls who are virgins.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Why Does God Order the Killing of Canaanite Livestock?

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During the conquest of Canaan, the Israelites were sometimes commanded to kill all the domesticated animals living among the Canaanites. Why would God command this? The simple answer is this: the Canaanites were having sexual relations with their animals.

OK, I know this is totally disgusting to us moderns, but that is how it was in the ancient near east. Christian scholar Clay Jones writes about the issue of bestiality among the Canaanites in this blog post and in a paper called “We Don’t Hate Sin.”

Jones first provides evidence of ancient near east attitudes about bestiality:

Hittite Laws 199 states, ‘If anyone has intercourse with a pig or dog, he shall die. If a man has intercourse with a horse or mule, there is no punishment.’

There should be no surprise that bestiality would occur for the Canaanites since the god they worshiped practiced it. From the Canaanite epic poem, The Baal Cycle we learn:

Mightiest Baal hears; He makes love with a heifer in the outback, A cow in the field of Death’s Realm.

He lies with her seventy times seven, Mounts eighty times eight; [She conceiv]es and bears a boy.

Further records from the ancient near east mandate that animals be tied to the bed before intercourse: “At my head a buck is tied. At my feet [a ram is tied]! Buck caress me! [Ram], copulate with me!”

From the Egyptian dream book, Jones notes that it is a bad omen for a woman to dream about sex with various rodents, birds, and reptiles, but it is a good omen for a woman to dream about having sex with a baboon, wolf, and goat.

In short, scholars have confirmed that bestiality was rampant among the nations surrounding Israel. In contrast, the God of Israel mandated the death penalty for anyone caught having sex with an animal (see Lev 20:15). The animal itself also must be killed.

Therefore, since the Israelites would be pushing out the people of Canaan (and killing those who refused to leave), the sexualized animals left behind also had to be killed. These animals, who were used to having sex with humans, could not possibly be allowed to remain around the Israelites, both for practical reasons, and for spiritual reasons.

Jones records the fact that even the ancient Hittites recognized the problems that sexualized animals could cause.

They also needed to point out when humans might not be at fault: ‘If an ox spring upon a man for intercourse, the ox shall die but the man shall not die…. If a pig spring upon a man for intercourse, there is no punishment.’ Notice that even the Hittites, who engaged in sex with animals, realized that oxen who tried to mount people had to die.

Is it the animals fault that humans were having sex with them? No, but Jones argues that the innocent are always impacted by the sins of the guilty. It is a ridiculous notion to think that one person’s sin can be contained and not harm others. Sin always harms others.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Why Don’t Christians Sacrifice Animals to Atone for Sins?

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There are many commands given by God to the Israelites at Mount Sinai that Christians do not obey, animal sacrifice being one of them. Aren’t we disobeying God by not following his commands? Skeptics of Christianity love to read through the Book of Leviticus and point out how inconsistent we are in obeying God’s commands. How do we explain this?

In general terms, Christians are told by New Testament writers that we are under a new covenant and that the old covenant given to Moses at Mount Sinai (often called “the Law”) is obsolete (see Heb 8:13 and Rom 7:6, for example). Therefore, there is no obligation for Christians to obey any commands in Leviticus without further consideration about how those commands should be applied by New Testament believers.

More specifically, the New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient sacrifice for all of mankind’s sins, so further sacrifices are unnecessary. Jesus said he came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Paul said, “Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). Peter said, “You were ransomed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). And finally, Heb. 7:27 mentions the daily sacrifices the Levite priests offered, but Christ offered one sacrifice “once for all when he offered up himself.”

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Skeptics, Top Ten Posts of 2014

#3 Post of 2014 – Why Don’t Christians Stone People to Death?

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If you are a Christian, how many times have you heard a skeptic say, “If you believe that the Bible is really the Word of God, then why don’t you [fill in the blank with a divine command from Leviticus]?”

Since the first five books of the Bible (aka the Pentateuch, Torah, or Law) contain hundreds of commands that deal with all aspects of human life, there is plenty of material for the skeptic to choose from. The purpose of this “gotcha” tactic is to take a verse from the Law that offends 21st century ears and challenge the Christian’s lack of consistency.

After all, skeptics think, if Christians truly believed that the entire Bible was the Word of God, then we  would follow every command given in the Bible, right? Isn’t that just obvious? Since Christians don’t obey every command, then they are inconsistent and must not really believe that the Bible is the Word of God.

The skeptic argues that we actually get our moral values from the surrounding culture, just like everyone else. But if we get our moral values from the surrounding culture, then why don’t we jettison the Bible altogether? We obviously don’t need it.

What is wrong with this approach by the skeptics? The skeptic who quotes from the Law and asks Christians why we are not following the commands found in the Law has failed to read and/or understand the New Testament. How do I know that?

The NT clearly states in several places that the Law was fulfilled by Jesus and no longer applies to Christians. Here are a few passages proving the point:

“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one [the Law] obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.” (Heb 8:13)

“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” (Gal 2:15-16)

“Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian [the Law].” (Gal 3:23-25)

“But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code [the Law].” (Rom 7:6)

These verses and others clearly state that Christians are not under any obligation to follow the divine commands given to the Israelites as they left Egyptian slavery and journeyed toward the Promised Land. As my seminary professor used to tell us, the Old Testament was written for us, but not to us. It was written to ancient Israel.

Now, does this mean that Christians should completely ignore the divine commands given to the Israelites? No, it doesn’t. But the question as to how we should apply God’s words to the Israelites to our lives today is an altogether different subject.

The bottom line for this blog post is that every time a skeptic throws a command from the Law at me and accuses me of being inconsistent, of not obeying one of God’s commands, I know that he hasn’t read the New Testament and understood one of its major themes – Christians are not under the Law!

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Did God Promise to Commit Genocide?

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In Exodus 23:23, God says, “My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.” It seems from this verse that God is going to kill all of these people only because of their nationality. Is that what’s going on?

There are two things that we need to pay attention to. First, these people groups, commonly referred to by the largest of the groups, the Canaanites, have been warned by God to repent of their wickedness. The wickedness of Canaanite society was anticipated in Gen 15:16.

Their sins are described in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (see Lev 18 and 20; Deut 9 and 12), and include rampant incest, bestiality, and child sacrifice, just to name a few. Theirs is a desperately wicked culture that God had promised to destroy. God had been extremely patient with them, waiting for hundreds of years for them to repent, but they did not.

Second, the reader needs to continue on to verse 27-30 where God clarifies exactly what he means in verse 23. God’s plan is to drive them out of the land, little by little, year after year. This is what He means by the phrase “wipe them out.” Rather than killing the Canaanites, God’s primary plan is to push them out of the land so that they will not corrupt the people of Israel. Only the Canaanites foolish enough to stay behind will be attacked by the Israelite army.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Does God Punish Children for Their Parents’ Sins?

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In Exodus 20:5-6, the text says “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Many people mistakenly presume that these verses state that God punishes children for the sins of their parents, even if the children are innocent of those sins themselves. Is this right?

No, it clearly is not the right interpretation, as we are reminded in Deut 24:16 that “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.” So what does it mean?

According to biblical scholar Douglas Stuart in his Exodus: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (New American Commentary),

this oft-repeated theme speaks of God’s determination to punish successive generations for committing the same sins they learned from their parents. In other words, God will not say, ‘I won’t punish this generation for what they are doing to break my covenant because, after all, they merely learned it from their parents who did it too.’ Instead, God will indeed punish generation after generation (‘to the third and fourth generation’) if they keep doing the same sorts of sins that prior generations did. If the children continue to do the sins their parents did, they will receive the same punishments as their parents.

In fact, if we finish reading verse 6, we see that God’s real desire is for his people to love Him and keep his commands so that He can show His love to a thousand generations.