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The nation of Israel when it left Egypt was enormous, if the Bible is to be believed. There were 600,000 men\u2014that is, potential soldiers\u2014which suggest close to two million in the entire company (Exodus 12:37).<\/p>\nThe nation of Israel when it left Egypt was enormous, if the Bible is to be believed. There were 600,000 men\u2014that is, potential soldiers\u2014which suggest close to two million in the entire company (Exodus 12:37).<\/p>\n
The Sinai peninsula, in which the Israelites spent forty years of exile, is a hundred miles wide. To get an idea of how big a group this supposedly was, the Israelites could have held hands to make a human chain to\u00a0cross the Sinai ten times.<\/p>\n
The Exodus and genocide<\/strong><\/p>\n No archeological evidence has been found for the Exodus. Yes, it happened a long time ago, but deserts preserve things such as buried bodies. God declared that all the adults would die in the desert and be denied access to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:30). Since the Israelites didn\u2019t cremate their dead, that\u2019s over a million bodies that should be in the Sinai but, despite our searching, aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n This population count leads to a appalling conclusion. Let\u2019s assume flat population growth so that the Israelites entered Palestine with two million people. Moses said,<\/p>\n When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations\u2014the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites [map<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a><\/em>], seven nations larger and stronger than you\u2014and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally (Deut. 7:1\u20132).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Seven nations, each bigger than the two-million-strong Israelites? Seven nations to be destroyed totally? Do the math\u2014that eclipses the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n Of course, you could do what I do and conclude that the Holocaust is history and the Old Testament stories of the exodus and conquest of Canaan are just stories. That removes the moral cloud, but it turns the Bible into just another book of religious fiction, a buffet at which Christians can take or leave according to their fancy.<\/p>\n What Would William Lane Craig Do?<\/strong><\/p>\n I always like to get an analysis of a cloudy biblical issue from philosopher\u00a0William Lane Craig<\/a>. Here\u2019s what he says about God\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s just dishonest when people like Richard Dawkins portray Yahweh \u2026 as this moral monster.<\/strong> These highly singular commands [to commit genocide] need to be read against the background of the whole of the Old Testament, which includes the great moral law that is given by God, which is head and shoulders above other ancient near eastern moral or legal codes like the Code of Hammurabi and so forth. It\u2019s against the backdrop of the prophets, which explain god\u2019s compassion for the poor and the oppressed and the orphans and the widows. (Source: \u201cRichard Dawkins and Driving Out the Canaanites<\/a>\u201d @ 4:00)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dishonest? Let\u2019s see who\u2019s dishonest. Consider fun Bible quotes like this one:<\/p>\n So Joshua subdued the whole region. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD had commanded (see Joshua 10:28\u201340).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Babylonian\u00a0Code of Hammurabi, written around 1772 BCE, probably preceded the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Mosaic law by centuries. In fact, many scholars think that the Code inspired some of the Mosaic law. For example, the Bible\u2019s \u201ceye for eye, tooth for tooth\u201d is\u00a0found there<\/a>. However, it has nothing like the Bible\u2019s genocide.<\/p>\n Craig will respond that this is cherry picking and that the Old Testament offsets the genocide and slavery with compassionate demands like, \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself\u201d from Leviticus 19:18. (Nope\u2014\u201dneighbor\u201d here\u00a0means \u201cfellow Jew.\u201d) But I\u2019ll grant that looking only at the Bible\u2019s savage side doesn\u2019t give a complete picture. The problem is that Craig wants to cherry pick in the other direction. A balanced look shows the Bible to be what you\u2019d expect from the blog of an ancient tribe. It reflects the morality of the time. There\u2019s no need to imagine a supernatural source.<\/p>\n And why is a balanced look at the Bible the correct approach when God himself doesn\u2019t do that? One error and God sends you to hell. The godly approach would be to find one moral error in the Bible and reject any claims for supernatural inspiration.<\/p>\n This entire interview with Craig is a rich vein of crazy, but let me give just a few highlights.<\/p>\n These Israeli soldiers would be prosecuted for war crimes if this [Canaanite genocide] were to occur today. (5:40)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes they would, and what does that tell you? Are you a moral relativist, where you say that genocide is reprehensible from our standpoint but wasn\u2019t from the different perspective back then? Or are you an objectivist who says that genocide is always wrong? In that case, tell me whether our rejection of genocide is wrong today or Israel\u2019s God-given approach was wrong back then.<\/p>\n Craig tries to minimize the damage<\/strong><\/p>\n If [this] is a good objection, what does it prove? What it would prove would be that the Bible has an error in it, that biblical inerrancy isn\u2019t right, and that would force us to adjust our doctrine of inspiration, but it wouldn\u2019t prove that God didn\u2019t exist, it wouldn\u2019t prove that Jesus didn\u2019t rise from the dead (7:48).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He\u2019s trying to sacrifice the pawn of biblical inerrancy in this chess game to preserve the queen of God\u2019s existence. Great\u2014let\u2019s take that pawn. But no one thought that the queen was under attack. This is clumsy misdirection on Craig\u2019s part. What\u2019s under attack is the bishop of God as\u00a0a morally perfect being. Craig\u2019s own book tells us that God orders genocide, which makes clear that he\u2019s not. Let\u2019s take that bishop as well.<\/p>\n About God ordering the death of everyone, including the children, Craig says:<\/p>\n God, as the author and giver of life has the authority to give and take life as he chooses (11:10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So God has no obligation to the people he created, and he can do with them whatever he wants without moral obligation? A human life is then to God what a sand castle is to us, and each of us can destroy our creations without moral error.<\/p>\n Incredible! This<\/em> is what religion does to good people. It forces them to justify insanity. Like the defense lawyer for a Mafia boss, Craig spins every bit of evidence to fit his presupposition. He removes himself as a credible critic.<\/p>\n Richard Swinburne also plays God\u2019s jester when he said<\/a> that the Holocaust gave Jews the opportunity to be courageous and noble. He said<\/a> that one fewer Hiroshima victims would mean \u201cless opportunity for courage and sympathy.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ll take his analysis seriously when he takes his own medicine.<\/p>\n I can destroy my sand castle<\/a> because I built it and because it\u2019s not alive.<\/em> That Christians cede to God the right to capriciously kill humans for no better reason than that he made them is damning evidence against that worldview. The elementary moral truth that every child knows but that Craig\u2019s religion has forced him to suppress is that there\u2019s a difference between living things (like people) and nonliving things (like sand castles).<\/p>\n Craig has said, \u201cIf there is no God, then life itself becomes meaningless.\u201d But wait a minute\u2014if God can destroy us like I destroy my sand castle, simply because he made us, then life with<\/em> God is meaningless!<\/p>\n Craig could respond that God\u2019s ways are not our ways. That may be, but first we need to conclude that God exists. Given the information that we have, the God of the Old Testament is,\u00a0like Dawkins says<\/a>, a capriciously malevolent bully.<\/p>\n (h\/t commenter Rain<\/a>)<\/p>\n