I thought this was answered. Text alone can mislead. Old Testament scholarship is immersed in text, context, subtext, allegory, dreams, translations, issues of authorship, and interpretation over a period of several centuries spanning interconnected as well as disparate events.
Why is it then surprising if a conclusion disputes a pure literal and textual statement as reflecting the “true intent” of a “divine command” of any real import? When not accept the conclusion of most Old Testament scholars that this was no more than a subjective human projection to deify a course of action for events that took place four centuries earlier.
“I thought this was answered. Text alone can mislead. Old Testament scholarship is immersed in text, context, subtext, allegory, dreams, translations, issues of authorship, and interpretation over a period of several centuries spanning interconnected as well as disparate events.”
No, which is why that discussion the other day was rather fruitless. You are selectively choosing verses for validity based on arbitrary application of your current ethics. When the verses were penned, did the authors think that they might have sounded vile for suggesting ritual child-slaughter? Besides, such contortion of verses which are simple in structure, and unambiguous in message, to virtually mean the opposite of what they really convey, makes a mockery of Scripture, since they can all be interpreted as one pleases.