sotto voce

Bit of tautology, there.

Those were the days when Catholic rulers didn't find it a problem. Not a bit. Now the problem is not offending the liberal elite. Confounded democracy. Confounded Protestants.

That's the way believers put it, anyway. But this is progress. Somebody's actually done some reading.

Horatio Parker

Ulfilas, bishop of the Goths, left Kings out his Gothic language translation of the OT because his subjects were already too warlike.

sotto voce

If we insist that cesspits are pure fountains, we will celebrate such idiots.

hjalti

Even if we assume that the objective wasn't to exterminate every single part of that groups from the face of the earth or to kill all of those who were living there, but "merely" the ethnic cleansing of the "holy land", why does that matter? It's still genocide. :huh:

To continue with the Nazi-analogy: Let's imagine that the Nazis had won the war against the Soviet union and had conquered all the European part of the USSR (the line from Archangelsk to Astrakhan). The plans called for the almost total extermination of the native population there (and I don't think the Nazis would mind they just fled to Siberia to starve). Their main goal wasn't to kill every single ethnic Russian on the planet. Again: Why does that matter? It would still be genocide.

Kenneth, are you an apologist for genocide?

manwithdream

Dr. Avalos' article is about the book of Joshua, and Joshua 2:9-11 says the people of Canaan heard about Israel and were scared of them. If it was ok like his article says that Assyria used to just take people captive, but not kill them, maybe it would have been better if the Canaanites had just left before Israel got to them. They had that option.

I think every piece of land on earth was conquered by some group of people who killed some other group. I also think most people in Canaan and every other place were also war-like people and not gentle peaceful people, but I could be wrong. Was that the one place on earth where nobody ever conquered anyone else or were the people also fighting each other?

Kenneth Greifer

manwithdream

Assuming the events of the Bible happened as it says, where should the Israelites have gone after being slaves in Egypt? Should they have scattered or gone as one to any place and what place would have allowed maybe a million or more people to just move in peacefully? Would that have happened? IF they had tried to enter Canaan peacefully and practiced their own different religion that rejected their gods, would the Canaanites have massacred them? You all assume that people in Canaan were all open to letting strangers move into their land and follow strange religious beliefs. I think they would have had to fight anyway.

Kenneth Greifer

Jaybees

There have been cases of peaceful infiltration, but that's rare. What you described is far more typical.

The reason so many fingers are being pointed at the Israelites, here, is not because they were much more warlike than most but because their tradition says they were ordered to engage in killing, rapine and total destruction by their god.

Jaybees

"Assuming the events of the Bible happened"??????

If you assume that to be the case, then all bets are off. If a million or more people can go wandering off in the desert for forty or so years living on heavenly sent manna, then anything is possible. The land could have been cleared for them ahead of time. No fighting would have been necessary.

Keep in mind that a fairy tale is not the same as the real world.

manwithdream

I am confused. If you think the whole story is false, then why are they discussing it as genocide? I understand they are saying that it is wrong to condone genocide even if it did not really happen, but I think that the story should be taken in context. The "genocide" of the Canaanites that they think is fictional, should be considered in context, based on the story. In the story, if you believe it or not, a million or more people try to enter an already occupied land and the result is war. In context, it makes sense. I don't think the story would make sense if everyone just said welcome to our land which is not what usually happens in a small piece of land.

Kenneth Greifer

Steve Weiss

The bible is totally fictional with a few actual references to give it an unearned credibility, as in any work of fiction. Few, if any, of the events related in either the OT or NT actually happened, and none of the so-called miracles did. The point, however, is not the factuality of the stories but the intent of the stories to give a supernatural sanction for mass murder and call it justice and good in the eyes of the ultimate and unquestionable authority. Blood, blood and more blood encouraged and commanded by the tribal diety is the standard that Abrahamic religion espouses for the sake of its chosen tribe. A more primitive code can hardly be imagined, and herein one finds the justification of genocidal Nazism. What goes around comes around.