The NT Application of the Canaanite Conquest

Originally posted by FMF
If their opponents tried to wipe them out, men, women and children, and not just their military forces in the process of conquering them, then yes it was genocide or attempted genocide, of course.

If it was "their opponents" (i.e. another tribe of "man" ) who tried to wipe them out, yes, it would be, but this was God removing evil from the land He had set aside for His chosen people. What don't you get about that? Are you that slow?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
genocide, in it's definition, doesn't care who performs it or who ordered it or whether it was justified.


we, the entire humanity, have decided that genocide is always evil and it is NEVER justified.


the conquest of canaan as described in the bible is genocide. and it is an evil and abominable act and should be condemned. if god ordered it, then ...[text shortened]... of our love.


if god is as portrayed in the old testament, we are all scrwd. and he is evil

I cannot be the first to tell you that you have this exactly backward.

Removing evil cannot BE evil. Is it your testimony then that man cannot be evil?

God is sinless and good, it is man who is evil and driven by sin. This is what separates man from God. To completely flip this and call man good and God evil is to delude yourself and completely ignore the Word of God.

In which case, I'd then know why you have it wrong.

Originally posted by bbarr
You keep making this claim that God and Man cannot be compared or held to the same standard. Why do you think this? I've asked you before but you never answer.

Here's me asking a few days ago:

Why not? I have a bunch of virtue concepts like 'compassionate', 'honest', 'respectful', etc. I know what these concepts refer to and how to apply them to the ...[text shortened]... gate it, the concept 'compassionate' seems to apply. What's the problem here?

Please explain.

You are only considering the "good" virtue concepts. Man can approach these things because we are made in the image of God. God is these things naturally, it is His nature.

But you do not consider the "bad" or "anti-virtue" concepts, like selfish, untruthful, hateful, etc. These are naturally the realm of Man since the Fall. They do not, nor have they ever, belonged to God.

Man was created as a partner to God. This is established when God left the naming of the animals to Adam, thus allowing man a part in creation. Then came the Fall, when man made a choice to sin and become separate from God. Since that day, man is separated from God, man cannot bridge the gap he has chosen to create for himself. He is naturally less than his Creator.

God's compassion, God's honesty, God's love, is a more perfect form of the same virtues that man, at his best, can only hope to emulate, since man now has a sin nature, that he chose over God. These Godly virtues do not come naturally to us, they are no longer in our nature. Man made a decision to sin and remove himself from God and so the decision was also made to become separate from the more perfect form of God's virtues. The best of us can still only hope to emulate, since we all fall short of the glory of God, simply because man chose, from the beginning, to be separate from God, who is the source of all that is good.

Later, God sent His Son to reconcile man with God, but that's another story for another time. 🙂

Originally posted by Suzianne
this was God removing evil from the land He had set aside for His chosen people. What don't you get about that? Are you that slow?

So it was the Hebrews reading in their Hebrew literature, which they had written about themselves, that their Hebrew God had told them to kill their non-Hebrew enemies ~ men, women, children ~ because their Hebrew folk tales told them that the land the non-Hebrews were on was actually the Hebrews' land. Surely this is nothing more than a middle-eastern Iron Age tribe describing their own evil deeds? What corroborating evidence do you have that even the Canaanite babies and children were "evil" and somehow deserved to be slaughtered?

Originally posted by Suzianne
I cannot be the first to tell you that you have this exactly backward.

Removing evil cannot BE evil. Is it your testimony then that man cannot be evil?

God is sinless and good, it is man who is evil and driven by sin. This is what separates man from God. To completely flip this and call man good and God evil is to delude yourself and completely ignore the Word of God.

In which case, I'd then know why you have it wrong.

"Removing evil cannot BE evil."

it is when along with that evil you are obliterating innocents.

Originally posted by Suzianne
You are only considering the "good" virtue concepts. Man can approach these things because we are made in the image of God. God is these things naturally, it is His nature.

But you do not consider the "bad" or "anti-virtue" concepts, like selfish, untruthful, hateful, etc. These are naturally the realm of Man since the Fall. They do not, nor have the ...[text shortened]... ater, God sent His Son to reconcile man with God, but that's another story for another time. 🙂

Uh...how would any of this support your earlier claim that God and man cannot be compared? You seem now to be contradicting that claim. "[Man] is naturally less than his Creator" is a comparative statement, right? You're also basically claiming that God's virtues are a "more perfect" expression than those of man. Isn't that another comparative statement?

Your story also seems incredibly implausible. So, somehow, man collectively "chose" a particular sin nature? This seems an incredibly bizarre claim for at least a few reasons. First, 'man' as you are using the term in a collective sense is not an agent. At best, it is a collection of agents, and a collection of agents is not itself an agent. It would seem a real stretch to attribute a considered choice of this kind generally to a collection of agents. Second, even if it made sense to attribute a considered choice of this type to some collection of our forebears, why exactly would this transfer down the line to their progeny? Third, even if a man or collection of men simply resolved to pick and choose their own nature, why should we think they would be successful in actually doing so? One's nature is generally not under one's direct control. Lastly, on your view, what justifies the idea that man's choosing a sin nature with imperfect virtue expression is an irreversible event? After all, if man is somehow able to simply choose his nature, what's the problem here?
Please clarify.

Originally posted by LemonJello

My comments to this paragraph will be deliberately skewed towards the OP of this thread.

So, somehow, man collectively "chose" a particular sin nature?

The New Testament speaks of two heads of humanity, or two men the first man Adam and the second man who is Jesus Christ, also called "the last Adam".

Both of these Adams made a choice which vastly effected score of individual people stemming from them, either by natural birth or by spiritual union, a second birth.

The first man choice to join himself and all descendents from him, to God's enemy. Sin and death effecting all descendents from the first man Adam.

The last Adam, in absolute obedience to God His Father became the Head of a new race consisting of those who receive His as "life giving Spirit" into their innermost spiritual being. They become partakers of the divine nature.

By this I believe the second Head or second man generated a new humanity - "The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45). And by this we understand receiving Jesus Christ as "life giving Spirit" an additional nature was compounded into the descendents of the first man -

"Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." ( 1 Peter 1:4)

The last Adam, Jesus Christ concludes the damage brought to the human race through the first man Adam, and Himself becomes a God giving, divine life imparting Spirit by which people can become "partakers of the divine nature".

The same principle that work against us - that Adam's choice effected negatively our nature bringing in sin and death, works in our favor in that Christ imparted to us as "a life giving Spirit" brings "the divine nature" of Himself into His believers.

This thread is about the corporate Exodus out of one realm and the conquest of entering into the other. The picture given to aid us in this profound matter is the leadership of Joshua of "the army of Jehovah" into the Good Land. A "fight" necessarily must take place.

We take the Bible as God's revelation to man.
You have no regard for revelation from God to man so naturally you will seek more philosophical reasonings of the mind of man to explain.

I myself found it difficult to believe that the choice of one FIRST human being could so effect all human beings. That was until I realized that the receiving of the Holy Spirit indeed cause a nature transfer in my being and in thousands of contemporaries of mine. We shared the same experience. And we believe we share it with millions of others throughout history.

Something of nature was imparted to us as Jesus promised He would come with His Father to make an abode with those who love Him -

"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him and make an abode with him." (John 14:23)

We have experience Christ as "the second man" and "the last Adam" join us to Him and Him to us as "a life giving Spirit" . And this has brought "the divine nature" into the innermost kernel of our spiritual being.

But it is a war to enter into full benefit of this transformation.
To recieve Him is in an instant upon our being forgiven and re-born in regeneration. To corporately live by this new nature city by city as local churches, is like the conquest of Canaan. It is even somewhat limited when embarked on too individually. There is a uniting of oneness in love and practical unity which itself enhances our ability to "take the land" so to speak.

This seems an incredibly bizarre claim for at least a few reasons. First, 'man' as you are using the term in a collective sense is not an agent.

In my experience, I might not believe the story of Adam and his passing on sin and death to all mankind, had it not been for what I noticed happened to us in receiving Christ - the second man.

I cannot speak for anyone else as much. But it was noticing the truthfulness of the New Testament that receiving Christ did bring us into a new humanity, that opened me up to believe Paul's word must be right. There was a first man Adam and a second man, the last Adam Jesus Christ.

We can make a transfer by being joined to Jesus Christ.
We are naturally born into the influence of the first man Adam, the forebearer of all human beings.

I no longer believe in a gradualism which negates the existence of a FIRST man and FIRST woman.

But the first Adam and his wife Eve, brought a foreign element into the human race polluting what man was by direct creation and corrupting our nature.

In the second birth, when Christ and the Father come to make an abode with us, God works from the inside out to conquer the damaged humanity from the center to the circumference of our being.

This moving OUT from the innermost to the circumference is related to the New Testament sense of conquest that this thread is about.

At best, it is a collection of agents, and a collection of agents is not itself an agent.

We believe sin and death came into the world through one man Adam.
We believe regeneration, transformation, and transfiguration comes to those of the kingdom of God through the second man Jesus Christ.

As I said, in my case, when I saw how receiving Christ did do something to my nature, I eventually decided that the Apostle Paul and the Bible must be telling the truth about the damaged wrought upon mankind from the first Adam. The same principle was at work as before but in a positive way.

The believers are joined collectively to Christ through regeneration.
So it must be true that we were all born into the world in Adam and effected by that one man's decision to withdraw from God and join himself to God's enemy.

It would seem a real stretch to attribute a considered choice of this kind generally to a collection of agents.

These thoughts and those below make sense perhaps if we exclude the Person of God from our reasoning process.

Can God and man be compared? Yes and no. On the side of no we consider a passage like -

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, And your ways are not My ways, declares Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts." ( Isaiah 55:9)

In that sense our thoughts and our ways, God has said, are not to be compared.

On the other hand, we are created in the image of God and according to His likeness (Genesis 1:26,27). So some comparison CAN be made.

This may be what Suzanne was alluding to.
I would say the comparison of human beings to the Creator of human beings is a Yes and No matter.

It is evident that God DOES want the comparison of His communicable attrobites to be the same. Othewise He would not 1.) Create us to be in some way LIKE Him. 2.) Conclude a salvation in which we match Him as His counterpart - the wife and bride of Christ New Jerusalem. "We shall be like Him."

But in this eternal oneness between the saved and God God retains a Head and Source function. He builds Himself into man, mingles with man, unites with man and conforms man to the image of Christ the Firstborn Son of God.

Yet certain non-communicable attributes He will not share as He retains a Head of the Body aspect. He is the Source of the salvation. He was the Source of our original creation.

Satan was the source of our corruption through Adam's stepping out from his neutral and innocent position to be joined to the Devil.

One's nature is generally not under one's direct control. Lastly, on your view, what justifies the idea that man's choosing a sin nature with imperfect virtue expression is an irreversible event? After all, if man is somehow able to simply choose his nature, what's the problem here?

We did not choose to become fallen sinful people. That is true. We were naturally born into this. But we do have a choice to remain "in Adam" or be transferred into Christ.

That is a choice we do have as to how we respond to the Gospel of Christ. We can choose redemption, regeneration and to become partakers of the divine nature by receiving Jesus Christ as "life giving Spirit" that He offers [Himself] to us in that form.

We can CHOOSE to ignore the offer and stay in our fallen Adamic nature of corruption and alienation from the life of God. See Ephesians 4:18 - "alienated from the life of God".

Originally posted by FMF

So it was the Hebrews reading in their Hebrew literature, which they had written about themselves, that their Hebrew God had told them to kill their non-Hebrew enemies ~ men, women, children ~ because their Hebrew folk tales told them that the land the non-Hebrews were on was actually the Hebrews' land. Surely this is nothing more than a middle-eastern Iron Age tribe describing their own evil deeds? What corroborating evidence do you have that even the Canaanite babies and children were "evil" and somehow deserved to be slaughtered?

This theory does not work for me. The story of the Old Testament is too candid about God's displeasure with Israel to possibly a purely self serving excuse for a Jewish nation's behavior.

Had we only the book of Joshua, it would still be somewhat awkward to dismiss that book as self grandizing for Israel. But I suppose it could conceivably be done.

But after you add Judges, First and Second Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the minor prophets, the theory of Old Testament Israelite self promoting propoganda, totally breaks down.

It might be more realistic to say it sounds like it was written by Israel's enemies.

Now, I am purposely resisting turning this thread into just another apologetic for God's actions in the Old Testament. We have been circled through those debates before. This thread has more of its focus on the New Testament application of the conquest of Canaan.

Originally posted by sonship
My comments to this paragraph will be deliberately skewed towards the OP of this thread.

So, somehow, man collectively "chose" a particular sin nature?

The New Testament speaks of two heads of humanity, or two men [b]the first man Adam and the second man who is Jesus Christ, also called "the last Adam".

Both o ...[text shortened]... alienation from the life of God. See Ephesians 4:18 - "alienated from the life of God".[/b]

This was written 2:27 AM in the morning. Excuse the typos and English errors.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
are you justifying the murder of children?

You are assuming that children were innocent.
Josh 11:22
Anakim
NKJV

OT:6061

OT:6061 `Anaq —

Anak = "neck"
the progenitor of a family, a tribe, or a race of giant people in Canaan
(from The Online Bible Thayer's Greek Lexicon and Brown Driver & Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, Copyright © 1993, Woodside Bible Fellowship, Ontario, Canada. Licensed from the Institute for Creation Research.)

Originally posted by sonship
This theory does not work for me. The story of the Old Testament is too candid about God's displeasure with Israel to possibly a purely self serving excuse for a Jewish nation's behavior.

Well, good grief, how tenuous your belief system is, then. My "theory" ~ that the Hebrew literature is Hebrews writing about themselves and Hebrews writing about their God figure [and lo and behold the Hebrew God tells the Hebrews that the Hebrews are the Hebrew God's chosen people ~ who would have thought?] and it is Hebrews writing about Hebrew enemies, whom the Hebrews deem the evil enemy, and thus the literature is what it is, completely uncorroborated, quintessentially partisan ~ and this observation doesn't work for you?

How is 'what works and doesn't work for sonship' supposed to persuade anyone?

If the Hebrew texts are historical documents at all, then they provide prima facie evidence of ~ and confessions to ~ at least two genocides. Where is the morality in all this? And what effect does it have on your own moral compass that you swallow all this and see at as an objective account of good v evil?

Originally posted by checkbaiter
You are assuming that children were innocent.

What were the Canaanite babies, infants and children "guilty" of? And, aside from the literature of the Canaanites' enemies, who we are told openly wanted to take the Canaanites' land, what evidence do you have that the Canaanite babies, infants and children were "guilty" of anything that warranted their deliberate and calculated murder?

Originally posted by Suzianne
I cannot be the first to tell you that you have this exactly backward.

Removing evil cannot BE evil. Is it your testimony then that man cannot be evil?

God is sinless and good, it is man who is evil and driven by sin. This is what separates man from God. To completely flip this and call man good and God evil is to delude yourself and completely ignore the Word of God.

In which case, I'd then know why you have it wrong.

do you believe in 100% nature and 0% nurture? it appears this is what you think as you seem to be saying that all the infant canaanites were evil and that regardless of upbringing they would remain evil. is this what you think?

Originally posted by Suzianne
If it was "their opponents" (i.e. another tribe of "man" ) who tried to wipe them out, yes, it would be, but this was God removing evil from the land He had set aside for His chosen people. What don't you get about that? Are you that slow?

if you look in a dictionary you will see that genocide is genocide regardless if there was a good reason or not. you are perfectly within your rights to argue if it was morally right or wrong.....but you are flat out wrong, with no argument when you say it wasnt genocide.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
if you look in a dictionary you will see that genocide is genocide regardless if there was a good reason or not. you are perfectly within your rights to argue if it was morally right or wrong.....but you are flat out wrong, with no argument when you say it wasnt genocide.

It seems Suzianne is using the No True Scots Genocide logical fallacy to sidestep the inconvenient meaning of certain words.