5 replies to this topic

[Jeweliet01]

33 And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. 34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:


I understand that God is just in having evil men die in that the punishment for sin is death...
and that the children would have been raised to follow in the parents footsteps.....
but.........
I can't imagine actually killing a small child--- if they don't yet even know between good and evil, why not raise them correctly??? take them in as your own instead of slaughtering??? It is just very hard for me to justify this and it makes me sad to think about actually doing.

[BDW]

Read Elpis Israel Part First, Chapter IV, Section "The Constitution of Sin", Paragraph 12,
Page 130 (Fourteenth Edition)

[Lectron]

BDW, on Apr 20 2007, 03:18 AM, said:

Read Elpis Israel Part First, Chapter IV, Section "The Constitution of Sin", Paragraph 12,
Page 130 (Fourteenth Edition)

All very well to quote Dr T chapter & verse, but I suspect it will do little to help with Jeweliet's coming to terms with the barbarism of bronze age Moses. A pretty flawed paragraph too carrying all the prejudices of the victorian age he goes on to talk about the uneducateableness of red-indian children without the discernment of what they were being taught, and we now know just what a rough deal the indian tribes had, and the sheer greed that robbed them of their lands.

The killing of infants in bible times is a favourite 'weakness' played upon by aetheists & agnostics.
All I can offer in mitigation, is that it was a generally accepted principle that the head of the family took all the responsiblity, and the wife children cattle etc were his possessions. To destroy utterly simply meant killing him and everything he had. Sorry - just the way it was in the bronze age.

[Matt Smith]

Lectron, on Apr 20 2007, 01:54 PM, said:

The killing of infants in bible times is a favourite 'weakness' played upon by aetheists & agnostics.
All I can offer in mitigation, is that it was a generally accepted principle that the head of the family took all the responsiblity, and the wife children cattle etc were his possessions. To destroy utterly simply meant killing him and everything he had. Sorry - just the way it was in the bronze age.

So if God spoke to Israel in the 21st Century and said "go kill all the ________ "(fill in your choice of peoples) He would not include "and their children too"? Pretty presumptuous don't you think?

Edited by Matt Smith, 20 April 2007 - 09:15 PM.

[Lectron]

Matt Smith, on Apr 20 2007, 10:09 PM, said:

Lectron, on Apr 20 2007, 01:54 PM, said:

The killing of infants in bible times is a favourite 'weakness' played upon by aetheists & agnostics.
All I can offer in mitigation, is that it was a generally accepted principle that the head of the family took all the responsiblity, and the wife children cattle etc were his possessions. To destroy utterly simply meant killing him and everything he had. Sorry - just the way it was in the bronze age.

So if God spoke to Israel in the 21st Century and said "go kill all the ________ "(fill in your choice of peoples) He would not include "and their children too"? Pretty presumptuous don't you think?

Achan sinned in hiding the wedge of Gold, the silver and the Babylonish garment but the death sentence fell on the whole family and his cattle to boot! (what had the cattle done? - they were stoned as well!) Josh 7:1ff

I am not being presumptuous it really was the way things were and yes Jewliet it is hard to accept, but then the Laws of Israel were an improvement on the 'common law' of the land in making, for example, provision for accidental death etc. Josh 20:1ff

When Israel had grasped the spirit of the Law they would have been more readily convicted of their sin and be ready for Christ.

(But they didn't and they weren't)

Edited by Lectron, 21 April 2007 - 06:39 AM.

[freckle]

Jeweliet01, on Apr 19 2007, 08:00 PM, said:

33 And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. 34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:


I understand that God is just in having evil men die in that the punishment for sin is death...
and that the children would have been raised to follow in the parents footsteps.....
but.........
I can't imagine actually killing a small child--- if they don't yet even know between good and evil, why not raise them correctly??? take them in as your own instead of slaughtering??? It is just very hard for me to justify this and it makes me sad to think about actually doing.

Ok. Imagine it this way: You don't kill the little children. First of all you need to decide on a cut off age, over a certain age they will have already absorbed too much of the parent culture and will remember it and you'll risk bringing it into Israel. So to be practical you'd have to destroy all children over six or seven at the oldest. So you find Israelitish families to adopt all the children under six or seven - that's a lot of adopted children - you'd never be able to keep it quiet from them their whole lives. They are going to grow up and find that the people who brought them up actually killed all the rest of their people! Then they will find others in the same situation and they will get together to find out about where they came from and potentially take revenge on those who killed off their culture and people.

To me it seems more practical just to wipe out the whole race - hard as I know that sounds and however much I hate to think of killing a child.