Is God a god of Peace or a god of war?
After my last post I decided to see what the Bible had to say on the subject of God's nature and God going around killing people. As you might expect it gives two different accounts: 1. God is a god of Peace (Romans 15:33) "The God of peace be with you all. Amen." 2. God is a god of War (Exodus 15:3) "The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name." Is it possible to be both? I suppose it is possible but this would mean that for God to have both a loving, peaceful side and a violent side, God can not then be all Loving and all peaceful at the same time.
Going by the evidence in the Bible there is definitely a violent side to God's nature as well as the examples in my last post here are some more examples:
God helps Joshua commit genocide against the Amorites in order to conquer the Canaanite cities by throwing hail stones at them from heaven (Joshua 10:11 "As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.") God then makes the sun stand still because there isn't enough time in one day to kill everyone (Joshua 10:13 "So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!").
If that wasn't enough bloodshed and killing they then decide to go on and Conquer the Southern Cities: (Joshua 10:29 "Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. The LORD also gave that city and its king into Israel's hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.")
These acts of violence and genocide are then repeated against the cites of Lachish (Joshua 10:32-33), Eglon (Joshua 10:35), Hebron (Joshua 10:37) and then Debir (Joshua 10:39).
This amounts to ethnic cleansing and any one committing this type of act today would surely be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Don't forget that these actions were fully supported by God: (Joshua 10:40 "So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded").
Obviously not satisfied that enough people haven't already died, the northern cites are then destroyed: In Joshua 11:1-4 the Northern cities (Hazor, Madon, Shimron, Acshaph, the northern mountains, Arabah, the western foothills and in Naphoth Dor, Canaanites in the east and west, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, the Jebusites in the hill country and the Hivites) all unite against the Israelites and are consequently ALL killed (totally wiped out).
So it is possible that there are two side to God's nature (peaceful and violent) but it certainly doesn't look like God is ALL loving and ALL peaceful, if God were all loving and all peaceful then God would have no need to commit acts of violence and go round killing everyone. Also this is more evidence to support my previous post that throughout the Bible God consistently breaks the 5th commandment.
Going by the evidence in the Bible there is definitely a violent side to God's nature as well as the examples in my last post here are some more examples:
God helps Joshua commit genocide against the Amorites in order to conquer the Canaanite cities by throwing hail stones at them from heaven (Joshua 10:11 "As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.") God then makes the sun stand still because there isn't enough time in one day to kill everyone (Joshua 10:13 "So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!").
If that wasn't enough bloodshed and killing they then decide to go on and Conquer the Southern Cities: (Joshua 10:29 "Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. The LORD also gave that city and its king into Israel's hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.")
These acts of violence and genocide are then repeated against the cites of Lachish (Joshua 10:32-33), Eglon (Joshua 10:35), Hebron (Joshua 10:37) and then Debir (Joshua 10:39).
This amounts to ethnic cleansing and any one committing this type of act today would surely be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Don't forget that these actions were fully supported by God: (Joshua 10:40 "So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded").
Obviously not satisfied that enough people haven't already died, the northern cites are then destroyed: In Joshua 11:1-4 the Northern cities (Hazor, Madon, Shimron, Acshaph, the northern mountains, Arabah, the western foothills and in Naphoth Dor, Canaanites in the east and west, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, the Jebusites in the hill country and the Hivites) all unite against the Israelites and are consequently ALL killed (totally wiped out).
So it is possible that there are two side to God's nature (peaceful and violent) but it certainly doesn't look like God is ALL loving and ALL peaceful, if God were all loving and all peaceful then God would have no need to commit acts of violence and go round killing everyone. Also this is more evidence to support my previous post that throughout the Bible God consistently breaks the 5th commandment.
posted by David at 9:36 am
1 Comments:
There are loads more accounts in the Bible of God killing people and genrally acting in an imoral way for instance: in 1 Samuel 6:19 God kills 70 people simpily for looking in the ark ("But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them")
Also in Numbers 16 Korah questions Moses' leadership so God kills him and all his people. Num 16:20-21("The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once.") Num 16:32-33(and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.) Then after the whole Isralite community complains about what had happened God starts a plague to kill them all, Moses manages to to stop the plague but not after 14,700 people had already died from it. (num 16:49 "But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah")
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