richard2

Hi,

Where in the Bible is it that God kills a bunch of people for something their ancestors did to the Israelites 400 years earlier?


thanks,

richard

John Kesler

1 Samuel 15.

Diogenes the Cynic

In I Samuel 15:3 God orders Saul to slaughter the Amalekites because their ancestors had allegedly scrapped with the Israelites at Sinai. For that, God wants Saul to kill even the babies and the animals.

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

One of the most morally indefensible passage from the Bible.

richard2

What do the apologists say (I can't wait for this one)?

richard2

After Googling a bit, the only apologetics related to this verse that I could find was by Glenn Miller (www.christian-thinktank.com): http://www.christian-thinktank.com/rbutcher1.html

Honestly, I can't stand his articles. He presents a lot of information, but his articles are always messy and poorly written (not that I'm an English major or anything ).


richard

Diogenes the Cynic

Usually, it's some variation of "they deserved it." One of the primary justifications is that the Amalekites were living on land that God had given to Israel and God had given them plenty time to clear out. Also, they didn't worship Yahweh and they were just generally bad.

The weak attempts I've heard to justifying killing the babies center on the idea that kiling them was doing a favor because they would go to Heaven instead of being raised as horrible Amekelites. There's also usually a heathy dose of "Mysterious ways/who are you to question God?" involved with these discussions. There are no good defenses and the apologists tend to get really miffed when you keep hammering on them about it.

John Kesler

There are two main approaches:
1) One can acknowledge that the killing was immoral, but argue that this act does not reflect God's will. There was an evolution of the concept of God, this argument says, and God's true nature is not reflected in 1 Samuel 15. For an example of this tactic, see this footnote from the New American Bible:

2) One can claim that there is more to the story than meets the eye, and that the Amalekites deserved to be killed. This is the approach of the Glenn Miller article that you discovered.

I briefly touched on this issue here.

richard2

Thanks for the info.

And, yes, Glenn Miller actually compares the Amalekites to "terrorists".