keithnurse said:
This story says God told the Israelites to commit genocide against the Amalekites. If you believe the Bible to be the inerrant, infallible word of your god then you would have to believe this story is accurate, that your god DID tell the Israelites to commit genocide against a neighboring ethnic group. If you believe god really did say this how do you reconcile it with the idea of God being a god of justice and love? The Christians I have spoken to about this have said the Amalekites were bad people and needed to be gotten rid of . How do you know they were all bad as a group?
Actually this is not the only problem with this god over the genocide, keithnurse.
If you read what it say in 1 Samuel 15:2 properly, you will see that God wasn't just punishing what this current generation of Amalekites did in Saul's time. :no: They were being punished for what the ancestors of current generation did in Moses' time, and that was some 250 or more years before the current genocide.
1 Samuel 15:2 said:
This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.
The Amalekites' ancestors didn't want the Israelites to pass through their land, and there was a war between the two people; and the Israelites won (Exodus 17:8-16). So God had already punished the Amalekites by giving victory to Moses and the Israelites.
What did the Amalekites do to Saul and the Israelites? Nothing. They were being punished for something they didn't do. They were being punished hundreds of years later for what their ancestors did, and because the so-called merciful god holds ancient grudge, that he would take his vengeance on the women and children.
Yes, Saul was the one who ordered attack and annihilation of the Amalekites, right down to killing babies, but who gave Saul's this order? Samuel. And Samuel - being both prophet and judge, chosen when he was still young - got his order from God.
carico said:
God told the Israelites to destroy God's enemies which they did.
The OT is a shadow of the reality of what God will do to his enemies. Since
God made the laws, only He is qualified to judge who breaks them. A judge can see
all sides of an issue. Humans can't because humans are the defendants in God's courtroom. That's why not even earthly justice systems allow defendants to judge their own guilt. That's because criminal defendants are too interested in saving their own skins to be honest and object about their crimes and resulting sentence.
So God is the judge and showing contempt for the judge never changes your sentence. it usually makes it worse.
I thought the sons shouldn't be punished for the sins of the fathers. That only the sinners should be held accountable for their own sins, not their children. It was mentioned in the Exodus (or elsewhere) that children shouldn't have to pay for what their fathers did (though I don't remember where exactly).
But what happened in 1 Samuel 15 was the sins of the fathers, but that of their ancestors.
Apparently this is not true.
This was a turning point of Saul's reign. The thing is, Saul spared the king, when Agag surrendered, but had his soldiers killed everyone else, so the king lost favour from God, if you read the rest of 1 Samuel 15. God then had Samuel anointed David as the future king in the very next chapter, 1 Samuel 16:1-13. Agag, king of the Amalekites was killed anyway by the order of Samuel.
The animals were also not kill, but used for sacrifices to the God, but Samuel rebuked Saul, and said it is better to obey God, then sacrifice animals to him.
Then if this is case (in regarding to obedience and sacrifice), then is Jesus' sacrifice is for naught?
It makes me wonder just how illogical and vengefully cruel this god really is.