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Posted on 04/14/2026 10:47:40 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Richard Dawkins casts the Old Testament God as: "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction - a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (The God Delusion)
Dawkins’ description is extreme and one sided, but even Christians struggle...We know that he is the God of life not death, creation not violence, mercy not destruction...
Christians take several approaches to the violence of the Old Testament.
1. We can reject the depictions of God here as inconsistent with God as revealed in Jesus...However, this approach is to be rejected because it does not do full justice to the complexity of the God who is revealed in Christ.
2. We can reinterpret the descriptions of violence to make them less confronting...However, this does not address the complaint that God is still commanding dispossession and, in at least some cases, killing.
3. We can assert God’s right to judge the world...However, isn’t God’s desire also for mercy?
4. We can re-contextualise the violence within the story of the Bible.
This approach sees the violence in the context of God’s bigger plan and character, climaxing in the cross.
God’s judgment of the Canaanites is one part of his plan to redeem humanity from within the mess of human history. It is not indiscriminate violence. Nor is it simply racially based—the Israelites will experience the same judgment as the Canaanites in 586 BC at the hands of the Babylonians when they fail God’s covenant.
Christians do well to remember that most of us, as gentiles, belong on the Canaanite side of the story in Judges. We are living proof of the grand scope and glorious mercy of God’s rescue mission.
Ultimately we need to re-contextualise the violence in light of the cross of Christ.
(Excerpt) Read more at au.thegospelcoalition.org ...
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He found what he went looking for.
Thus the OT answers the question:
What are you saved from?
Jesus whipped the Temple money traders. That’s violence.
Jesus sent hundreds of pigs off a cliff. That’s violence.
“Jesus sent hundreds of pigs off a cliff. That’s violence.”
But first he cast the demons into them.
What happened to the demons?
Not to mention destruction of private property and a mans means of livelihood. I’m not disparaging Jesus or His actions - just an observation
Sin and the Curse (specifically including death) are the direct result of Man’s (and Satan’s) rebellion against God. He’s just managing the details.
Just thinning the gene pool of reprobates. I expect another one is coming.
Escaped to continue wandering.
Yes, cherry-picking through the Bible to prove some point is an old and well-worn practice. Throw in some anachronistic presentism, and you have a book for liberals to buy.
Let’s just say that the Iron Age was undoubtedly a dangerous time, with tribes warring against each other, social constructs tentative and inconsistent, a particular people who even God himself declared to be ‘a stiff-necked people’ and you have a context in which a devoted God has to administer a lot of tough love.
“Jesus whipped the Temple money traders. That’s violence.”
No, that’s punishment.
Stirring the pot. Tagline.
Those who have read The Unseen Realm know that I have an atypical perspective on the conquest — specifically, the contention by many that the Israelite conquest was an indiscriminate genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan. My view is that it wasn’t indiscriminate at all, and that wholesale genocide wasn’t the point of the conquest. Rather, the command of to “devote to destruction” (ḥerem/kherem) was focused on the giant clans (denoted by words like Anakim, Rephaim, and, occasionally, Amorites). That is, I believe the rationale for the ḥerem was to eliminate the Anakim, the vestiges of the nephilim (Num 13:32-33), since those peoples were perceived to be (and were, in some way, according to the OT) raised up by rival gods hostile to Yahweh (and thus their own purpose was to prevent Yahweh’s people from kickstarting the kingdom of God on earth). Other people were certainly killed, since the giant clans were scattered among the general population, but I contend the conquest rationale was framed by the urgency to eliminate the nephilim bloodlines. This is textbook “mythic history” (actual historical events framed by, and articulated in light of, theological rationale / beliefs).
I base this position on a few points:
1) There are a range of verbs for what the conquest was supposed to do and what it did do — several of which don’t speak of killing or annihilation. For exampleְ garash (גרשׁ – “to drive out”: Exod 23:28, 29, 30, 31; 33:2; Deut 33:27; Josh 24:12, 18); yarash (ירשׁ – “to dispossess, drive out”: Exod 34:24; Num 21:32; 33:52, 53, 55; Josh 3:10; 12:1; 13:6; 17:12, 13; 23:5, 9).
2) The conquest account actually begins in Moses’ day in the Transjordan — which is specifically aimed at Sihon and Og (Deut 2-3). The latter is clearly a giant, and both are referred to as Rephaim (a term linked to the Anakim in Deut 2:11), kings of the Rephaim, or Amorites (in Amos’ recollection of the conquest, the Amorites are described as very tall – Amos 2:9). Consequently, the conquest begins with giant clans in view.
3) The conquest instructions projecting the days of Joshua begin with what appears to be a general command of ḥerem to the entire land (Deut 7:1-2). Howver, I argue that the use of this verb is designed to take the reader’s mind back to the battles with Sihon and Og. This makes sense because as one proceeds through the conquest, the subsequent uses of ḥerem coincide at places where Anakim giants were seen and known to be present. The particular usage frames the general instance.
I’d like to elaborate on this perspective in this post.
Gods old testament actions only “seem” evil if viewed from a worldly perspective.
When compared to eternity, all of human history is the blink of an eye, even more so a single human lifespan. Life is misery and death. God shortening your sentence here isn’t evil, it could be seen as mercy.
My personal opinion is that it was genetic cleansing. Getting rid of anyone carrying genes that resulted from the interbreeding with the Nephalim.
When I read through the Bible the first time, it struck me that the most “fire-and-brimstone” passages depicting God’s wrath are not in the Old Testament. I found them in 2 places: The Book of Revelation, and from the mouth of Jesus himself in the Gospels. Whereas the OT is hundreds of pages of God showing patience and mercy to people who didn’t deserve it, with only occasional focus on His wrath. The whole notion that the OT shows an angry God and the NT a loving God is a complete fiction.
‘...but even Christians struggle...We know that he is the God of life not death, creation not violence, mercy not destruction...’
not this Christian. the God of the OT jibes perfectly with the God of the NT, for me under the correct interpretation.
History saves the day, though we have zero right to judge God. The Assyrians, (aka Ninevites) for example, were a particularly brutal people. When they conquered a country, they would put hooks in the noses of their victims, attach them with a chain to the person in front of them and in back, then march them, naked, back to their country. You can imagine the suffering; the fellow in front of you would stumble and fall, ripping the hooks out of his and several other’s noses, only to have the hooks replaced and the whole gruesome death march to continue. They were very fond of skinning their victims alive and using their skin to wrap around posts to make a sort of monument. (Is it any wonder Jonah ran from Him, rather than go and preach to Ninevah?) But the greatest offence to God was the worship of idols, which worship often involved unbelievable brutality. When He saw His own people worshiping in like manner, He would warn them for sometimes hundreds of years before he would act and lift his hand of protection from them.
um..
You are forgetting Sodom and Gomorrah. As well as Noah and the flood and then Moses and the Egyptians and then finally the ethnic cleansing of the promised land that was occupied by pagans
So that is Genesis, Exodus, and all the books telling of how “at Gods direction through judges or prophets” tell the tale of occupying the promised land at Gods direction.
Numbers Ch. 31 ...
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