Can we reconcile the Canaanite conquest with a God of love? Paul Copan vs Randal Rauser
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2022
- How should we understand Old Testament accounts of warfare and violence where God seems to command the slaughter of men, women and children?
Paul Copan, author of 'Is God A Vindictive Bully?' aims to show why the Old Testament accounts, severe as they may seem, are not incompatible with Jesus in the New Testament. Randal Rauser, author of 'Jesus Loves Canaanites', says that too many 'apologists for genocide' are defending the indefensible and argues for an alternative reading of scripture.
They discuss whether the warfare passages are hyperbolic, whether non-combatants would have been killed, and whether the term 'genocide' is appropriate.
For 'Is God a Vindictive Bully?' by Paul Copan: bakerpublishinggroup.com/books...
For 'Jesus Loves Canaanites' by Randal Rauser: randalrauser.com/book/jesus-l...
For Paul Copan's debate with Greg Boyd in 2018: Part 1 & Part 2
• Subscribe to the Unbelievable? podcast: pod.link/267142101
• More shows, free eBook & newsletter: premierunbelievable.com
• For live events: www.unbelievable.live
• For online learning: www.premierunbelievable.com/t...
• Support us in the USA: www.premierinsight.org/unbelie...
• Support us in the rest of the world: www.premierunbelievable.com/d...
Randall won this, I think - at about @1:10:00 when Copan refused to answer yet again in an honest manner. Let me help Mr. Copan - the correct, honest answer is "yes, civilians were deliberately targeted".
Partially true.
However, Randall lost overall: he could point out Copan's refusal to follow the implications of his claims, but then Randall arrived at the same position ("civilians weren't targeted") by reading a selective account of the life of Jesus and then forcing that "Jesus" into the OT, insisting He would never do this - despite all Biblical evidence to the contrary. (In the divine judgments, women and children are not spared: Noah's flood; Sodom & Gomorrah; Ten Plagues; Korah's Rebellion; etc)
Both men are grappling with something that offends their moral intuitions.
- Copan follows the Biblical text but won't let the chips fall where they may.
- Rauser rejects the Biblical text.
The latter is a greater offense to God.
@@timffoster “latter is a greater offense to God”
You’re defending a view that has internal inconsistencies. The way you guys talk about God in light of the idea that the Canaanite massacre was literal history ordained by God is reminiscent of how women talk about abusive boyfriends.
You can be a devout Christian without affirming the massacre and related events has literal history that God directly willed.
Love these guys! Can’t wait to hear the discussion
For those struggling with God’s judgement, chapter 25 entitled “Holy War” of Dr. Heiser’s Unseen Realm could possibly help reconcile this. It made much more sense to me when I took a closer look as to what is going on here.
Dr. Heiser's explanation is the only one that makes any sense to me now. I always struggled with the conquest in the past until I started listening to the Naked Bible podcast.
i don't get why religists "struggle" with their belief, isn't god PERSONAL, right
there next to you 24 / 7 (whether you want him or not?) how come you're struggling when
you can ask god to his face what's what?
or is it there is no god right next to you?
@@HarryNicNicholas People struggle because we hold onto our believes about what is right and wrong. So even if God tells us flat out, we are likely to find a way to dismiss it because it doesn't meet our standards. That moral intuition that Randal Rauser kept mentioning is just the morals of our culture. Some of them are right, well some are wrong. But try telling someone that what they have believed since they were children is wrong, that is a struggle.
I have seen this process happen in my own brain, it's actually pretty scary to see what you have evidence for being correct overridden by what you want to be correct. So I can see why our brains are so eager to hide it in the subconscious.
Imagine the person you most respect comes to you and tells you your evil. God can't lie, so I can see why He holds his tongue so often. We literally can't handle the truth.
Just brought the audio book, thanks for the recommendation. Will probably be a year before I get to it though lol.
@@HarryNicNicholas That is becouse most of us have not received the right teaching about the Holy Spirit. An example of Christians who did beleave but had not received the Holy Spirit are the disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19.
Absolutely fascinating discussion. One of the very best broadcasts I’ve heard. I thought Randall was particularly convincing. He seemed to deal with the issues more directly and clearly.
Riveting conversation. Both made persuading cases, which is sorely needed; too much content out there is one-sided or straw manning another side's position, so it's very refreshing to have different views brought out in conversation by intellectual equals, in a respectful and honest way. Well done.
Very excited for this dialogue!
Daily Verse
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love."
-1 John 4:7-8
"Friends, our Gospel blesses those who hear the word of God and observe it. In this regard, I would like to speak about the response of the Polish people to the word proclaimed by St. John Paul II. The power of the Polish Communist state, and behind that the power of the Soviet Union, is what John Paul faced at the beginning of the 1980s. But he was practiced in the art of facing down oppressive political forces, having grown up under Nazism and Communism.
He spoke of God, of human rights, of the dignity of the individual-frightening at every turn, his handlers worried about diplomatic repercussions. As he spoke, the crowds got bigger and more enthusiastic. This went beyond mere Polish nationalism. At one gathering, the millions of people began to chant “We want God! We want God!” over and over for fifteen minutes.
There was no controlling this power, born of the confidence that God’s love is more powerful than any of the weapons of the empires of the world, from crosses to nuclear bombs. This is, of course, why Communist officialdom tried vehemently to stop John Paul II. But there is no chaining the Word of God!"
Bishop Robert Barron "Daily Gospel Reflection (10/08/2022)"
I think both guys did a good job and am still not totally convinced of either viewpoint. However, I do find and appreciate that Paul’s view seems more nuanced. Randall’s thesis that we should be guided first and foremost by our most immediate moral intuitions seems too simplistic of a resolution for my liking. Our moral intuitions need to be heavily considered most certainly but I think our problem more likely lies in a lack of knowledge or understanding of the context concerning these passages.
don;t be silly, they went to a lot of trouble to invent crap for you to swallow, the least you could do is pretend to be convinced.
Incorrect. Rauser stated that if we’ve seen Christ we’ve seen the Father.
Oh wow I’ve always thought about getting these two together on this topic
Great conversation and great channel.
Dr Michael Heiser links the Canaanite conquest with the Sons of God in Genesis 6.
Agreed, Heiser's work is important to understand the commend to utterly wipe out certain peoples. The supernatural view of Gen 6:1-4, as he calls it, answers a lot of questions. Henry Morris talks about it in his Defenders Study Bible also. One can only understand this thru the supernatural view of Gen 6 and not the standard, convenient, traditional answer. The devil wanted to cut off the Christ line and what better way to do that then have his own race of fallen beings doing his bidding. They were children of the devil, genetically modified for evil, and were not redeemable. Why else would God command the Israelites to kill everyone. Same reason for Noah and the flood. The truth will set you free and the opposite is equally true; a lie will keep you in bondage. Shalom
Great and thought provoking discussion.
This channel is unbelievably thought provoking! Thank you for this content!
it's not, it's incredibly stupid, when you imagine things you can reconcile anything you want, it's a dumb video about how to make crap about a subject that is made up. gullible is not the word, forget the existence of god, you swallow THIS tripe hook line and sinker.
Pity that there are not thousands more views of such an important debate such as this.
50:23 WOAH!! He went there! Am impressed with the honesty of this theologian.
Such difficult stuff. I have to take comfort in the fact Jesus Christ himself would have known about the wiping out of the Canaanites, and would have either been able to explain it to us, or would carried the burden of it with him to the cross. Perhaps he suffered by the fact of it, the mystery of it, much more than we do.
Or.. Jesus was just a fallible human like everyone else, frequently hypocritical or inconsistent.
Nearly ALL of Jesus's recorded advice is interpersonal or person-to-god advice. I can't think if any advice he gave that would be considered helpful political advice or anything that is useful for big groups to arrange the logistics of getting along.
@@davethebrahman9870 It's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, whom they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
@@TheRealShrike God came into the world 2000 years as the man Jesus and answered all the questions and provided for your salvation and eternal life. But you would rather stroke your own ego than humble yourself and listen. It's all really rather simple for poor common people but also very difficult for persons blinded by educated stupidity.
at 57:00, Randal actually concedes that German suppression of Nazism was a genocide. The (non-rigorous) language of genocide that Randal adopts can thus have positive application. He's using it as a boogeyman, but not all religions or ways of life should survive.
The problem with 'moral intuition' is that it is by definition dependant on the particular time and culture in which the individual lives. I would suggest such intuition in our culture today would be quite different for people's intuition 2 or 3000 years ago in a Roman, Greek or other culture. Because it is so relative, it is hardly a good measuring stick to use to judge God's possible actions in any specific circumstances.
So morality is relative, and God’s law isn’t ‘written on our hearts’, as Romans 1 claims?
Exactly.. They seem to forget why it happened. As the Canaanites were murdering even children. Had their own Religion. It's the same issue God had with the people in the days of Noah.. Unrestrained pleasure. All was permissible. So God had to intervene are no flesh would have survived. Including Animals..
God does things to preserve the innocent. As you will end up with nothing.
@@WizzRacing So in order to stop Canaanites murdering some of their children God ordered the Hebrews to murder all of their children? How can anyone believe this?
The perfect all knowing powerful hetrosexual male god that is created in the image of his prophets that went on to create a world with trauma, unspeakable evil and death. He then blame it all on human beings. Sounds and looks very human with the hetrosexual male believing agent at the heart of the GOD concept. Pagan infidels knew how to farm, build, read and write before his chosen peoples. His chosen peoples are always sent on a journey to pagan kingdoms for all there needs including food, clothing, shelter, etc. A habit that continues to this modern day through immigration, assylum seekers. Civilizations that prayed 2, 3, 5, 7 times a day over the milleniums only to build houses of prayer. They now travel to infidel lands in order to reap the fruits of human infidel slave labour, human innovations and do there shopping of good and evil by rejecting what they see as evil while demanding what they desire as their human rights. They accept clothing, housing, education, transportation, etc that they did not create or build. I guess its all about their inheritance according to Moses when he used fire, smoke, veil, incense ? fermented meat to exterminate his nosy nephews then rounded up all Israelites over the age of 20 to raid and kill all the Caanites as per YAWAH perfect and logical instructions. A platform for all forms of human mental illness if you pay attention to the cleaver 😎 behaviour of these chosen beings 👁 🙏🤲
@@dawnf3504 What a rant. What's your take on Stalin and Mao?
Randall seems a little too stuck on the definition of genocide including dismantling a culture. If a culture practiced very evil things as part of their religious heritage, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with dismanteling those aspects of the culture, regardless of whether we could technically call it genocide or not.
Very true. The definition of genocide he's working with is not philosophically rigorous at all, and certainly, as it stands, can have positive application.
Children as well Really that don’t have any understanding
I think we need to be careful of how many people rigorously and adamantly believe that the Abrahamic religions of today practice very evil things as part of their religious heritage.
Would those people be justified in committing genocide (any relevant meaning of the word)? My answer is no, but it seems to me they would be going off of your logic.
This was a great discussion. Thanks to everyone involved.
how? convincing you of something you wanted to be convinced of? you can make up your own stories, and probably do a better job.
Two things require to be brought into consideration: 1) God is daily causing men, women and children to suffer sickness and death as a judgement against human sin, and 2) Death is not the end of a person's existence. God has provided an after-life. Therefore, the whole question can not be considered only in terms of the harm suffered by person in this life as the ultimate evil.
"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things:(Leviticus 18) for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: 25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants." Lev 18:24
So Copan seems to be saying that although the text clearly states something the authors are in fact engaging in hyperbole but then he criticizes others for questioning the historicity of certain events.
He is right to criticize them for denying the historicity.
There is a difference in explaining figures of speech that occur in language such as hyperbole, metaphor, etc., and people saying events never happened. The former is a means of explaining language used to describe events that occured and the latter says no such events occurred.
@@jbmurphy7132 But that is exactly what PC is saying, that when the text says that the Israelites completely destroyed a city and left none of the inhabitants alive that that in fact did not happen.
I've watched a couple of conversations with Sean McDowell and Dr. Copan. I realize he's done a lot of reading but I found myself rolling my eyes at many of his responses and I can't work out how people would take them as anything other than a weak justification for 'god's' actions in the Hebrew Bible.
Great conversation. I wish at the end they would have condensed the consequences of their interpretations.
Wasn't Saul kicked out of being king because he did not slaughter the infants and animals? Those commands were not just exaggerating.
First of all, Rauser is essentially denying inerrancy. His position on it is basically "I don't believe in actual inerrancy but fewer people would listen to me if I denied it so I'm going to affirm 'inerrancy' in it's weakest form conceivable". It's very evident that he does not believe Joshua is the Word of God in any meaningful sense, and it seems reasonable to say that all of his skepticism towards it allegedly on other grounds is motivated by a moral issue he personally has with its contents.
Conversely, his functional rejection of Joshua as inspired Scripture allows him to accurately state what the text is saying despite it going against his sensibilities (because he doesn't feel bound to it). Copan on the other hand DOES feel bound to stand by what Joshua says, but because he has similar sensibilities he wants to sanitize Joshua and make the violence in it less severe than it obviously is.
Both allow themselves to be steered and ultimately blinded by their own moral sensibilities. Rauser does this much more, though he at least goes 1% of the way towards justifying his moral position. Still this is insufficient, his 'justification' boils down to "I don't like the idea, it matches this definition in some modern document of some crime I *really* don't like, it must be bad". Most strongly he does this with the accusation of genocide. I'm not defending genocide but in the modern day genocide is seen as the ultimate evil act. This is unique to modern times, frankly genocide in past times was very common, it was seen as bad but even in Scripture it is only ever given in a list of many crimes some king or nation might be accused of.
Like with the accusation of murder, we always make distinction between why someone did something in determining guilt. Simply killing another person is not necessarily murder, it could be in self defense, accidental, in combat etc. As we plainly see in Scripture, God kills people and commands His servants to kill people. He even kills people who in human terms we would call innocent. But the reality is that none are innocent. The reality is that, for ALL who are disobedient against God, punishment awaits which is far worse than anything an Israelite with a spear could inflict. God is the creator of all things and the giver of all life, He can give and take that life and anything else whenever He chooses. He hates sin, and He will poor out the fullness of His wrath upon all unjustified sinners on the last day.
What is a violent death to that? Many people have died violent deaths, many BELIEVERS have died violent deaths. Joshua himself was one of only two survivors from the generation that personally left Egypt, the rest were sentenced to die in the wilderness due to their lack of faith. How many infants died in the Passover? How many children in the cities of the plain died? Oh I bet that could have been "genocide" too right? God destroyed Babylon, not many of them around these days. The only Assyrians left are Christians. What Assyria did to Samaria was essentially genocide, only a remnant survived in Judah and the rest were scattered throughout the other nations or were colonized in Samaria by other peoples receiving the same treatment; and yet this was the means of God's judgement on them.
If you want to tell God He isn't just, that He doesn't have the right to be merciful and patient or imminently wrathful on whoever He chooses to whatever extent He chooses, you're welcome to when you see him. Personally I don't dare, in fact I'll confess that He had every right to do the exact same to me and everyone I've ever met and that the fact that He didn't is a revelation of His incomprehensible patience, mercy, and love.
If genocide were the command of God the Christ would have commanded it in the NT. This isn’t about “innerancy” it’s about distinction.
Dr. Michael Heiser's view is the best by far concerning these difficult annihilation verses. The reason why as he explains is because all the Canaanite tribes that were specificially ordered to be completely destroyed (kheremed) by God, all women and children were actually Nephilim. Deuteronomy 2:8-12, Deuteronomy 3:1-11, & Numbers 13:25-33 which describes the Anakim/Nephilim's geographic locations which include the cities of Jericho, Jerusalem, Lachish, Ai, and Hazor (upper Galilee) in the northern hill country happens to overlap not coincidentally where all the specific cities that were commanded by God to be kheremed (destroying all men, women, and children) during the conquest narrative (Deuteronomy 2:34, Deuteronomy 3:4-6, Deuteronomy 7:2, Deuteronomy 13:15, Deuteronomy 20:16-17, Joshua 6:17-21, Joshua 10:40; Joshua 11:21-23 & Joshua 12:4-5 explains that after the conquest only Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod had nephilim that remained which coincides with the later kherem verses after the conquest in 1 Samuel 15:2-3, 1 Samuel 17:51, and Jeremiah 50:21-22).
Also 1 Enoch 10:8-15 independently corroborates that the Nephilim were not only non-humans, but they were evil beings (akin to the goblins/orcs of the lord of the rings) that God desired to completely annihilate for the survival of mankind, and no, the modern Lebannese arent descendents of the Nephilim, not all of the tribes during the conquest accounts were commanded to be kheremed, only the Nephilim were so it would be impossible for the Nephilim and their descendents to be alive today. Also not all the cities that were kheremed had only Nephilim, for example Rahab in Jericho wasnt a giant, and its likely that she and her family werent because the Israeli spies in order to be spies and blend in had to be the same height as some of the inhabitants of the city, meaning that not all in Jericho were giants, as well as Rahab and her family were rooting for the Israelites as they kept up with the news of the conquest, and they wanted to be freed so they risked their lives to protect the spies. So yeah when all of these points are considered in the context of the annihilation verses, it makes since that God didnt command Gen. Side.
So you think the Canaanites weren’t even human? That’s what supporters of genocide always say about their victims.
@@davethebrahman9870 thats if you ignore all of the context (that I listed out) that proves that they werent (Nephilim were giants that were created from fallen angels sleeping with women that later led to the flood account). You can speculate that it has to be all made up propoganda, but in that instance you would no longer be engaging with the text and you would be doing isegesis that can literally prove anything you want.
Literalists gotta literal!
@@davethebrahman9870 How could you call a tribe who sacrifices their kids to Molech human?
The passages you quote don't mention Nephilim at all. The only reprt of Nephilim is from the first spies. It is absent from their initial response and only comes when they are trying to spread rumours to scare Israel. There were no Nephilim. It was a dodgy report from untrustworthy mouths.
As for Enoch. I wouldn't trust what it says at all on anything. It is a very late text and the version we have now is far removed and several times translated from the original. It also has marks of obvious change. It also calls Enoch the messiah in the current version. It is not reliable.
"Friends, our first reading for this Sunday is about a battle between Israel and the Amalekites. To many of us today, this appears to be either an irrelevancy of history or an outrageous story about God sanctioning genocide. But Origen of Alexandria helps us to see that it is neither; rather, it is a story about the battle of the spiritual life. And in the soldiers, Moses, and Aaron and Hur, we see the variegated offices and functions within the Church engaged in that battle." Bishop Robert Barron "Daily Gospel Reflection (10/16/2022)"
I love how Copan described rape as "inherently problematic". Such a forceful condemnation.
Randal Rauser is the most honest Christian apologist I know. Whether dealing with the atrocities of Yahweh or the horrors of Ravi Zacharias, he stands alone. Among apologists who will dare to acknowledge how truly difficult these questions are. Somehow he maintains his faith through it all. But I lost my faith upon reading Copan’s Moral Monster book back in 2008 or so. From there, Turek, JW Wallace, Koukl, Craig McDowell, and other have increasingly disappointed me with their tendency to try gloss over it dodge harsh realities of the faith. Worse, they have constantly made claims about atheists and atheism that are demonstrably false and disparaging. Meanwhile, Rauser once again keeps his integrity by engaging in honest, intelligent, and fair conversations with atheists on his blog and in his books like “Is the Atheist My Neighbor?” and “A Christian and an Atheist Go into a Bar.” Evangelical apologists would do well to related the gospel (and fruits of the spirit) as Rauser understands it.
Rauser isn't honest, his agenda is deconstructionist social
/\/\,. -/\., R,. סS/\/\
Christians would profit more if they actually studied biblical scholars on issues concerning the bible who know the actual context, like Dr. Michael Heiser on this issue and he flood genesis 6 account
naw, rauser doesn't know of biblical scholarship, read Dr. Heiser instead!
@@jabsterjay5716 My point isn’t what Rauser knows, it’s his honesty in contending with the issues. Heiser is altogether another branch of apologist. The evangelicals I mention above are in line with Copan. Further, they shamelessly (or naively?) stray from a truthful approach.
@@BigIdeaSeeker
idk rauser seems to have an ag3.
Wondering if any Christians have a good answer for why Jesus didn't weigh in on Old Testament violence like genocide, infanticide, misogyny, rape, child abuse and other human rights violations. Jesus, of course, reportedly made oblique references such as his improvement on "eye for an eye" and some comments about Moses permitting certain things because the Israelites were dense. But he could have settled this debate with just a few sentences of wisdom, couldn't he? Why did he not?
For the same reason he didn’t reveal germ theory or antibiotics. He was simply an ignorant 1st century peasant.
@@FffIii-bb3hg These references are far too vague. The explicit violence of the OT cannot be erased with a few feel-good parables. What I am asking in my original question is why Jesus didn't say something like this, as one example among many: "Joshua was wrong. God was not commanding him to kill the Amalekites including women, children and livestock. Joshua was mentally ill and experiencing delusions of grandeur. In fact, god was not speaking to Joshua at all. Now, I will explain to you what mental illness is..." Something like that.
It's always amusing when things like genocide and infanticide are being discussed in the topic of love.
"Friends, our Gospel blesses those who hear the word of God and observe it. In this regard, I would like to speak about the response of the Polish people to the word proclaimed by St. John Paul II. The power of the Polish Communist state, and behind that the power of the Soviet Union, is what John Paul faced at the beginning of the 1980s. But he was practiced in the art of facing down oppressive political forces, having grown up under Nazism and Communism.
He spoke of God, of human rights, of the dignity of the individual-frightening at every turn, his handlers worried about diplomatic repercussions. As he spoke, the crowds got bigger and more enthusiastic. This went beyond mere Polish nationalism. At one gathering, the millions of people began to chant “We want God! We want God!” over and over for fifteen minutes.
There was no controlling this power, born of the confidence that God’s love is more powerful than any of the weapons of the empires of the world, from crosses to nuclear bombs. This is, of course, why Communist officialdom tried vehemently to stop John Paul II. But there is no chaining the Word of God!"
Bishop Robert Barron "Daily Gospel Reflection (10/08/2022)"
This god drowned millions of babies. JP II knew the RC church was evil, and made apologies for their crimes
Can't have one without the other right?
When I listen to these Protestant podcasts most listeners in the average churchgoer probably doesn't even understand that marcion isn't called a heretic by the apostle Paul or some biblical author, Marcy and I was labeled as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church in its early iteration. The fact of the matter is is that marcianism was the mainstream Christianity of the earliest versions of the church and if it wasn't then somebody's going to have to explain to me how will religion that's supposed to be centered around Jesus Christ in the Protestant movement itself, focuses the most on following doctrines provided by Paul, particularly the idea of works being you said being justified by faith alone, how Paul's teachings could be that integral and crucial, and yet having been introduced to canonization and being called scripture by Marcia. And the fact of the matter is in Thessalonians the oldest letter beside the book of Hebrews in the New testament, Paul says that Jesus overturned the law. Now everybody loves Matthew 5 through 7, particularly Matthew 5 where Jesus says think not that I've come to overturn the law I have not come to overturn but to prevail. The only problem there is Jesus says in Matthew 6, you have heard from them of old I for an eye but I say unto you is this not evil if somebody smite you on your left cheek then turn to them you're right, and if somebody petition you to walk one mile go with them Twain. Well wait a minute, all of levitical law is centered around the idea of eye for 9 tooth for tooth. The reason that there is a call for the extermination of the Canaanites is literally based on the idea that God is just, his Justice is surrendered around this levitical law in the Old testament. And then here's Jesus telling us that isn't what Justice is, man has no right to carry out God's Divine Justice even if it is moral atrocity. So what gives people the idea that if it was wrong in Jesus time for humans to carry out Mass slaughter in the name of God's Divine Justice that it would be fully justified to carry out God's Divine Justice A thousand years before.
See the biggest problem with all of this is is that in order to believe coping and all of these Christians art defending the Old testament being an important part of our faith or whatever, they're putting the Old testament on an equivocal level to the New testament because of the idea that God is the same yesterday today and forever, but notice it's only Jesus is teaching that they have a problem with. Jesus saying a rich man will not enter the kingdom of heaven in the sense that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, well they come up with the idea that there is a fake gate in Jerusalem in ancient times that didn't exist, that was called the eye of a needle and a camel had to get on his hands and knees and crawl in and everyone at the time knew this. This is complete made up hogwash, or the idea it's the most egregious and the most anti-christian, the idea that all of the beatitudes are there to tell you how to treat a fellow Christian and not just any old center. Jesus is literally a friend of sinners, a friend of tax collectors and prostitutes. We are called to be like jesus, these old testament-oriented Christians tell you that Jesus hung around those people but we're called to be righteous which they usually quote the book of Isaiah for everything. But the main problem with saying that turn the other tree get all that stuff is only supposed to apply to other Christians, completely makes no sense when you factor in love your enemies, it makes even less sense when we factor in that the parable of the Good Samaritan is literally to tell you that your neighbor isn't your fellow Christian necessarily. That your neighbor is the one who showed you Grace. But that means not to factor in external things and external labels. The modern equivalent to a Samaritan versus a Pharisee would literally be an Evangelical Christian and a Muslim. A lot of people like to say like an orthodox jew, but the reality is that an orthodox Jew has way more in common with an Evangelical Christian then an Evangelical Christian and an orthodox Muslim. Because in every way the doctrine of Samaritans is heretical. Jesus spends all this time talking about Samaritans, Christians like this Paul copan talk about the importance of Jesus fulfilling these biblical prophets from the Old testament, and the importance of the profit section of the old testament, and literally Samaritan's reject the profits. The ultimate heretics to somebody like this guy. The key detail though is that when people are slandering Marcia knights as being heretics never forget that if you believe that marcian is a heretic, you're saying that the Old testament is the only scripture. Because the big heresy of this Marcy and fellow was the idea that he was calling Paul's letters and the evangelion scripture. You also have to remember that all they mentions of marcian in those early Roman Catholic documents that are the only mentions of him,
did you dictate this using speech-to-text on your phone? Please re-write and re-format it if you want to be understood and have your point made clearly, its very difficult to read and doesn't make any sense in its current form
I DO understand the essence of your thesis , and furthermore I think the gist of your submission is pretty much right . Christ's expressed moral/ethical practice and ideals are often radically subversive of the punitive codes and military behaviour that was attributed to , or supposedly sanctioned by , Divine authority , and reportedly enacted by ancient Hebrews
Daily Verse
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love."
-1 John 4:7-8
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father - Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever. Heb 13:7 John 14:8
Except for the women and infants that God commanded be slaughtered.
@@john1425 Stalin and Mao were great atheists. How do you justify them. They slaughtered probably more than 100 million, enslaved a billion. And how about North Korea with your friend Kim? And China still? Great atheist countries. This is recent and current history, not 3000 years ago. What about abortion being the number one cause of death in the world and the USA, where black abortion is disproportionally high. That's baby killing. Are you anti-abortion?
That's an excellent verse, but has nothing to do with Divine Judgment past, present or future.
God is ❤️ and kill all the babies....
Reuven Firestone's essay 'A Brief History of Hebrew War Traditions" in the volume "Fighting Words" ( a compendium of various religions' writings on and attitudes to war) traces the "conquest" legends/concept of "holy war" ordained by god for the mythical conquest of Canaan through the disastrous uprisings against various external conquerors, to the rabbis' discarding of violent resistance after the last attempts against Rome and the revival in modern times of a divinely sanctioned war of occupation. Firestone shows that this "holy war" concept has been resurrected to justify the settlement movement - leaving us to see that the frightful old testament legends of conquest are exerting their baleful influence until today. Rather than attemting to whitewash the divine part in mythical warfare, scholars should be pointing out what archaeology is actually showing us about these legends and discarding in their turn the idea that dispossessing peoples of their homes, lives and families because a divinity has awarded these goods to a favoured group is an ideology which should have passed into history decades ago.
"all the non combatants were cleared out". A man who knows nothing about ancient warfare, baggage trains and army camps.
Michael Heiser's take is a better approach in Unseen Realm, chapter "Holy War"... that the Joshua wars are directed to annihilation of the giants in Canaan.
Need Dr Heiser to answer this one.
Nah. He goes too far. The Bible gives an explanation as to why God was destroying the Canaanites (Lev 20). Reaching for an explanation not given in Scriptures just sets the stage for error.
I would prefer an explanation for why God deliberately infected humanity with sin in the first place, but beggars can't be choosers.
God did not infect humanity with sin, God is absolutely good. Man became sinful due to disobedience and rebellion against God.
Randal is the critic from within , looking for the critic from without
40:40 my whole perception of what a palace economy is that the civilians who live in around the fortress would retreat there during an invasion. Am I completely wrong about this? Did all the farming families in the surrounding lands who pay tribute just run for the hills?
Do we have any tangible evidence that God commanded this, or is this just mankind invoking God to justify his actions as we've seen throughout history? Does anyone have the answer?
17:50 I was honestly thinking that one of them seems to be a practical Marcionite and the other a proverbial Marcionite. Hope this proves false. 😅
There is much I didn`t know that I have learned from Paul here. I think his position holds up well against the scholarly analysis. I think Randal has something of a point, but then he also believes the inerrancy in scripture and explains Old Testament violence therefore as moral error that we are supposed to find hidden meaning in. This presupposes that God would order acts of violence that contravene a universal moral intuition that he speaks of. Does he belive God to be all-loving or not? Does he really believe God`s real character is most revealed in the Gospels? There seems a big contradiction here.
If god is real, I dont think he is all loving.
Made it to the end of the video and having listened to both parties I came away with the most parsimonious answer being 'God isn't'.
Isn't what?
@@The_Scouts_Code merely 'isn't'
Randal does very well here. Copan is hugely frustrating - he elongates answers, I think to avoid difficult questions he knows he is on shaky ground with.
Nah. Objections that can be spewed out in 5 seconds can take a long time to unpack to fully answer.
This is why throwing out a bunch of objections that your opponent won't be able to respond to due to time constraints is an underhanded debate tactic called a Gish Gallop.
@@grantgooch5834 he doesn't unpack though. He evades. He never directly admitted that civilians are purposefully killed in the Old Testament despite the text literally saying this. It reads like special pleading.
@@georgegabriel5808 His argument is that the text DOESN'T actually say that based off of a comparative study of ANE conquest narratives. Of course he wouldn't admit that.
You guys can't have it both ways. Either you think the author was so dumb that he didn't realize that saying:
1. God ordered the Israelites to kill all the civilians
2. That Joshua did as the Lord commanded
3. That there were still Canaanite survivors
Was a blatant contradiction or it doesn't actually mean that. The principle of charity would suggest it is likely that an author does not blatantly contradict his own narrative.
@@grantgooch5834 This is 1 Samuel 15:3: "Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."
It is the word of God explicitly saying we should slaughter women and children. So Copan ISN'T talking about the TEXT when he makes excuses. He is making thin excuses that somehow God didn't mean this by looking up sources OUTSIDE the text for historicity.
That isn't how we're meant to read the Bible. It's meant to be the infallible word of God. We're not meant to go into our history books and disprove it.
Even if you are right(which is terribly uncharitable), that’s simply an ad hominem and doesn’t really add to the discussion in any relevant way.
Just read the book “God is a Man of war” by Fr Stephen DeYoung…best book on the subject of violence in the OT
How is he the best? How does he reconcile the notion of a good god with the verses of him commanding the israelites to annihilate all of the women and children?
The wages of sin is death Romans 6:23
@@jabsterjay5716 read it, then we can have a discussion.
@@TheOnlyStonemason Let me guess, De Young doesnt ever touch the subject of the infants.
@@jabsterjay5716 , you can continue to be ignorant or read the book
Wow this Paul guy is dodgy about whether the CAnaanites were genocided.
War is father of us all and its a part of all ancient texts and codes including the haudenosaunee great law of peace which I believe is a foreshadowing to the prince of peace. Since Randal is a fellow Canadian and brought up First Nations a lot I will leave with some quotes by the great Canadian literary scholar Northrop Frye.
"The hidden link here is that Jesus and Joshua are the same word. Hence when the virgin Mary is call her child Jesus or Joshua, the typological meaning is that the reign of the law is over, and the assualt on the promised land has begun Matthew 1:21
I think the underlying question under the title question is: how much evil should we tolerate until it becomes too detrimental to surrounding societies? Or, what is evil, and how do we determine something to be widespreadingly detrimental? Because, clearly, according to Biblical narrative, Israel eventually fell into worshipping Cannaanite gods.
This is a matter of human conditioning or moral decay and the facilitation of societies toward productivity while maintaining the rule of free will imo.
How much evil should we tolerate? Certainly not the murder of men, women, children and animals because you don't like their religion.
@@DIBBY40 Obviously, you never addressed the related points in the debate in the video. Nice strawman argument. Want to do more strawman arguments?
@@VGameL0v3e12sF012Ree I was addressing your question: How much evil should we tolerate? The Nazis asked themselves the same question. Their final solution was also the same as Yahweh's final solution. Jesus said, " I say to you, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you." And, " Blessed are the Peacemakers. They will be called the Sons of God" .
I thin that's incorrect. I think the question should be -> can God judge a sinner? That should be the main question. I think the question of calling it genocide is just a smokescreen.
@@DIBBY40 "How much evil should we tolerate?" was asking about the Canaanite's evil. Would you tolerate a religion that sacrificed humans? How many humans do they have to kill for their religion before you would say it is justified to stop them by any means necessary?
Comparing it to Nazis shows you know very little about the Nazis. Their conquest of other countries was due to the failing economy. Their "final solution" used the Arian cult's doctrines as the excuse for the failing economy which then justified the conquest. They were asking themselves how long they had to keep up the charade to institute their socialist utopia. And if you look into the Arian beliefs you will found it is much more twisted then just racism.
Paul's argument in summary... "Meh, it wasn't really that bad.".
I firmly believe that it doesn't matter at all what they talk about or what they discover, Justin will continue to display the same cheery introduction and faith in his Christian God.
5:20 This is really coming across as a modern day retelling of Marcion. It is like he is referring to Marcion's 2nd God (Loving and merciful father of Jebus) and, the first God: harsh, cruel law giver and creator of the universe. Interesting mental gymnastics happening here.
14:06 holy shit I was right! lol!!
From an outside perspective, I have to tell you this truly sounds like a conversation attempting to validate killing in the name of god at best and genocide at worst. Not a good look Christians.
Get the 🍿 and some 🍺. Fetch a slice of 🍕 or whatever snack you like, cause once more we're gonna watch the Christians doing mental & moral gymnastics!🥳
I love this channel!
I CANNOT
I WAS never able to love the god of New Testament unless I had to think and focus on Jesus
Basically none of these guys are reading the text as it actually reads. The fact is that God gave this parcel of His land to the Israelites. The Canaanite’s had no legal right to the land, and when ordered to leave, they did not leave. Thus the Israelites acted justly. It is baffling why one would doubt that God has a right to destroy a wicked disobedient people
The Canaanites had no right to the land, but the wandering group of whiny vagabonds led by a bearded, delusional, homicidal maniac (Remember, Moses killed thousands of his own people) DID have a right to the land?
How are you, exactly, um, establishing this legal right to the land? By what court? Voices from the clouds and burning bushes don't count.
Some hermeneutical principles I find helpful:
All communication is contextual, 1. in place (culture) and 2. in time (the story of God's mission of Salvation)
God's revelation is, to varying degrees, always incarnational - God is involved, not distant.
God's revelation is relational ie multidimensional.
God meets us where we are at, he speaks our language.
Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfil the Law.
God's revelation has a goal: love.
‘Hermeneutical principles’ are merely a device to avoid the plain meaning of the texts.
@@davethebrahman9870 Hi Dave, you're employing 'hermeneutical principles' whether you acknowledge it or not - even to declare the 'plain meaning of the text'.
@@2o1t Really? My only hermeneutical principle is ‘What did the writer mean by this?’ That is usually very easy to determine. Oddly enough,historians of the ancient world seem to get by just fine without ‘hermeneutic principles’. They rely on linguistic and comparative background knowledge. ‘Hermeneutic principles’ are only invented for religious texts, in order to allow believers to ignore passages they find difficult to explain. This is both ‘ad hoc’ and ‘motivated reasoning’. There is no evidence that Canaanites were ‘non-human’, or anything other than a semitic ethnos living in a place that Israelites wanted to take. The self-interested opinions of ancient Hebrews do not at all count as evidence for such a bizarre and improbable claim.
@@davethebrahman9870 "Linguistic and comparative background knowledge" is literally what is meant by "hermeneutical principles" you moron. Hermeneutics literally is the study regarding the interpretation of texts.
Let me guess, you probably think Textual Criticism was something made up just for the Bible as well?
Why didn't Jesus just save us all a lot of trouble and tell EVERYONE that genocide is wrong?
The problem is not affirming God is permitted to judge and bring judgment. What Randal is getting at is that it is that men are doing the act and if you accept that on certain occasions infanticide is a good, then you relinquish the ability to say infanticide or abortion is intrinsically evil.
One could argue there is a historical imperative here, that God is ensuring the continuance of the Jewish people thus leading to the Messiah. I dont think it can be used today as an example.
@@PC-vg8vn One could, but must then admit that God preserved Israel apart from objectively moral means.
@@CanadianOrth No it means God did what had to be done due to their unrepentance and to ensure the Jewish people would not be wiped out, and was moral. God is not immoral one day and moral the next. And are we the arbiters of 'objective' morality? Are we a better judge than God?
@@PC-vg8vn The action is a human one. You should just unabashedly admit openly that infanticide is sometimes a good moral act for humans. Maybe you do, but most will tell unbelievers out of the other side of their mouth that abortion is objectively immoral, which is inconsistent with holding Divine command theory.
@@PC-vg8vn Why didn't god just create a world without Canaanites? Wouldn't that have been easier? No need for mass murder. I can think of countless ways god could have solved the problem without mass murder. Uncrossable mountains, raging rivers, natural boundaries to keep them out and preserve the land for Israel. Painless temporary mind control poison, strife-free intermarriage with the Canaanites, a larger planet with open lands for all, a really charismatic Israelite leader who charms the Canaanites, a fearsome creature who roams the lands and strikes fear into Canaanite hearts (but whom the Israelites alone can smite).
That's all off the top of my head...surely the almighty could have had a better plan...
No offense but Copan looks like an older version of moral oral.
I think Randall needs to re-examine his straight out moral understanding...if a child was being sacrificed in front of him - would he just watch because he didn't want to help 'commit genocide'? Think he is thinking it incorrectly is all. Appreciate both sides though
Who uses the term genocide the way Randal does?
Too smart by a half as the saying goes. Thousands of years ago societal mores were vastly different. Canannites, Aztec, Inca empires were very barbaric. Slavery was the norm throughout the world. This man stands in judgement against the God of the Hebrews (Old Testament). I'm reminded of how God rebuked Job...."who are you to question my wisdom...... where were you when I laid the foundation of the world".
IMHO a man may have a great Intellect (Randall) but no man walks in the spirit (as Christians are commanded) that has such a disdain for the ways of God in both testaments.
The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed. The old Testament is in the New Testament revealed. I could see Randall taking issues with animal sacrifice in the Old Testament.
He (Randall) professes to be a Christian. I certainly would not want him teaching any church I or my loved ones attended.
Randall is disparaging the character and nature of God. He keeps using the word "genocide" against women and children knowing full well Its a pejorative.
Simple. Yes, God did! He has His reasons why.... every thing under the heavens is His. Job 41
Maybe try to start thinking for yourself. Start with your moral intuitions, as recommended by Randall, that committing atrocities is immoral. Use that as your starting point and see where it leads you. Maybe god is testing YOU as he did Abraham? Maybe your quest is to realize that the vast majority of OT violence is immoral.
@@TheRealShrike faulty premise in that not all violence is immoral. If one were attempting to break in your home and violate a loved one you would have to use violence to stop them. If you would not your not a pacifist but a coward.
See how logic can dictate how violence can be used to stop evil. No question mark because it's a rhetorical question.
BTW the whole "think for yourself" tomfoolery statement was not missed on me. I assume someone taking the time to listen to a binary debate more than likely has. Take care.
War is father of us all and its a part of all ancient texts and codes including the haudenosaunee great law of peace which I believe is a foreshadowing to the prince of peace. Since Randal is a fellow Canadian and brought up First Nations a lot I will leave with some quotes by the great Canadian literary scholar Northrop Frye.
"The hidden link here is that Jesus and Joshua are the same word. Hence when the virgin Mary is call her child Jesus or Joshua, the typological meaning is that the reign of the law is over, and the assualt on the promised land has begun Matthew 1:21
A ‘people group’ is one composite organic whole, somewhat in the nature of one body and many members and inevitably if one member suffers whole body suffers. ‘Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin a reproach to people’ Pr. 14:34. Even through generations such organic unity exists, so much so Israelite children once lamented ‘Our fathers sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities’, Lam.5:7.
As shown in Amos chs 1, 2 God’s justice dealt equally with Israelites and other nations.
As a faithful remnant of Israel was preserved, so was a righteous remnant from among the Gentiles. ‘In every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him’, Acts10:35.
Copan didn't seem to care how dishonest he was in this discussion.
Nowhere was he dishonest and nowhere does Randal accuse him of such. You invite the charge against yourself by making it.
"Friends, our Gospel blesses those who hear the word of God and observe it. In this regard, I would like to speak about the response of the Polish people to the word proclaimed by St. John Paul II. The power of the Polish Communist state, and behind that the power of the Soviet Union, is what John Paul faced at the beginning of the 1980s. But he was practiced in the art of facing down oppressive political forces, having grown up under Nazism and Communism.
He spoke of God, of human rights, of the dignity of the individual-frightening at every turn, his handlers worried about diplomatic repercussions. As he spoke, the crowds got bigger and more enthusiastic. This went beyond mere Polish nationalism. At one gathering, the millions of people began to chant “We want God! We want God!” over and over for fifteen minutes.
There was no controlling this power, born of the confidence that God’s love is more powerful than any of the weapons of the empires of the world, from crosses to nuclear bombs. This is, of course, why Communist officialdom tried vehemently to stop John Paul II. But there is no chaining the Word of God!"
Bishop Robert Barron "Daily Gospel Reflection (10/08/2022)"
I find it ironic that Paul has a large image of his children behind him in light of the conversation topic.
Where’s the irony if you don’t mind me asking?
Whereas the other chap goes for Salvador Dali. Go figure. 😉
@@sammyking9407 The irony lies in the fact that Copan clearly values the lives of his own children but not the lives of Canaanite children.
@@sammyking9407 it’s ironic because he is completely emotionally unmoved by the thought of Israelite soldiers literally gutting and slaughtering children by divine command. It speaks to the level of emotional separation he’s created for himself where he need not feel anything about the casualties of gods barbaric conquests
@@thucydides7849 I don’t see the irony. This reads more like an emotional appeal and argument from guessing. For you to show the irony, you’ll have to show where Copan affirms one thing in the Bible, but then denies it in his own life.
Dear Friends. There's something terribly wrong with this kind of discussions. Since, according to believers, the Creator of the Cosmos is alive and kicking, wouldn't it be more reasonable for believers to ask this being to explain their God's moral stance on these issues instead of endlessly trying, without any success, to figure it out on their own? Especially that this supposed being does't tell humanity how to go about getting to the truth. With kind regards.
I take it you are not a believer Waldemar?
I agree with you to some extent, as a Christian myself. God is beyond our comprehension, and what we do not know is what would have happened had he not told the Isrealites to take the action that they did. Maybe the Midianites, Philistines, Canaanites would have wiped out the Israelites, or the Israelites would have adopted the religious customs and gods of the surrounding tribes.
The result, no Jewish religion, and no basis for Jesus to walk on the earth.
Of course that's just speculation, but it is something I have prayed about, and I do not base my religion on whether I think God is "right" in doing what he does- of course he is, as there is only one God, so at the end of the day its a moot point.
If God loves us enough to die for us on a cross, that's good enough for me.
What stops you from believing in God Waldemar?
@@blindcuckoo6680 If a god is beyond our comprehension, you cannot make any intelligible statements about it at all, including, "It exists."
If it is beyond our comprehension, what are you praying about, or to? How did you comprehend, "...of course he is [right]?" How do you know there's only one? Did you count??
What stops Waldemar, or any unbeliever, from believing in a god? Maybe it's because theologians have been admitting for centuries the gods are beyond our comprehension, then proceed to make incomprehensible assertions about it.
@@blindcuckoo6680 My Dear Friend. Thanks so much for your response. This are your words: "I do not base my religion on ....." That's exactly my whole point because I make a distinction between FAITH and RELIGION. By my lights FAITH has to do with the experience of " me talking to and hearing from the Creator", whereas RELIGION has to do with the experience of "me talking to and hearing from a human being who maintains they are acting on behalf of the supposed Creator"; huge difference in kind. This is my question for you, please: If one hears from some human being that they "talk to and hear from the Creator of the Cosmos", what is the only possible reaction to this information for a rational/responsible human being? My answer is simple: Wait for your turn to hear from the supposed Creator because it all comes down to the "experience of meeting the supposed Creator and conducting a dialogue with them". If some human being tells me that they experience a personal relationship with the supposed Creator then I would have to hear from this supposed Creator the reasons why they refuse to talk to me. There is no other option avaliable for a rational human being. With kind regards.
@@waldemarbielecki200 Hi Waldemar, You said " If some human being tells me that they experience a personal relationship with the supposed Creator then I would have to hear from this supposed Creator the reasons why they refuse to talk to me."
The Creator has spoken to us, through the Bible. This is a personal dialogue in as much as it gives me the answer to most of my questions, and guides me in life.
Of course I pray too, for answers, for healing, for others t come to know Jesus.
I spoke with a guy on a similar forum who told me he had three questions for God, say down one night and said "i'm not sleeping until you give me answers God". The prayers were all answered within 24hrs in one way or another.
But some prayers are not answered for some time, or even at all.
Have you tried talking to God?
Have you ever repented of your sins and asked Jesus into your life?
@@blindcuckoo6680 My Dear Friend, thanks again for your response. The problem is deeper than that, unfortunately. You said: :"The Creator has spoken to us, through the Bible. This is a personal dialogue ...." Two points here: 1) When I am waiting for the supposed Creator to speak to me I mean this: "Waldemar I as the Creator of the Cosmos will speak to you through one of the books in circulation which is called Bible." But instead I hear you nominating this particular book as the channel through which the supposed Creator speaks to humanity. In ancient Rome priests called "augurs" nominated studying the behaviour of the birds as the channel through which God communicated their will. As you can see there is, in principle, no difference between your nomination of the channel and that of augur's. But I still don't hear Creator talking to me. 2) What if there are contradictory messages coming from the supposed Creator through the multitude of channels nominated by fellow human beings from all over the world. Who decides then what the supposed Creator is actually saying? There are at least 42 000 different "understandings" of the Bible and every 10 hours a new "understanding" of the will of the Creator is born. With kind regards.
If we have a moral inspiration by which we have to measure and interpret the bible, where does it come from?
From God? Then why would God give us a moral intuition that contradicts God's very words.
Not from God? Then wouldn't we be better off using that instead of the biblical texts?
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
But he wants me to effectively deny the teaching of the text on the basis of my own moral judgements? No way. Randal Rauser is a wolf to be avoided.
It's very telling that atheists accuse God of evil, whom they believe doesn't exist, while suspiciously overlooking the atheist totalitarian devils Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Putin, Pol Pot, Castro, and Kim Jong-un; who killed countless millions and caused untold of misery and suffering like the world had never seen.
What a misconception!!!
The God of the Old Testament ordered the death of many people.
The God of the New Testament does not kill. The God of the New Testament rather sends most of humanity to atrocious eternal suffering.
Anyone wanting to accuse God of wrongdoing you can do it know. I am pretty sure He reads posts about Him
Paul's reference to NT judgment passages are weak. God judging someone is not the same as commanding violence. NT references to God giving Israel victories are stronger evidence for his case.
Saying that the Canaanite invasion didn't include indiscriminate killing smacks of interpreting the bible so it says what you want it to say, not what it actually says.
Randall has become somewhat ridiculous to listen to on this issue, especially at minute 49:45 and then again at minute 1:07:6. He tries to suggest that the Canaanites would have still suffered immoral, unjust genocide EVEN IF the ONLY thing that happened was the forced removal of their cultural and religious identity. He actually thinks that it was unjust and genocidal to tear down the Canaanite idols, shrines and cultural/religious icons to Baal and Molech. The amount of pride that it takes to read the OT and lay your 21st century judgements over God’s is too heavy a cost. Ironically, something tells me that Randall probably does not have a problem with going through the American landscape and removing confederate war monuments, flags at all vestiges of the confederacy.
Lastly Copan was very strong at 1:11:25. He brings up great points to demonstrate that in the NT, God is not the passive “textual God” contrast to the OT as Randall likes to assume.
Lmao he has an issue with removing the cultural identity of a culture that literally sacrifices babies
Excellent comment. I wish Rauser gave a proper rebuttal to Copan's objections regarding Jesus' attitude to the OT and Jesus' harsh words and promise to unleash divine violence in the parable of the ten minas. I think Rauser's keeping quiet on such discomforting passages in the NT is evidence that he knows that using his methodology, Jesus should be accused of violating modern-day religious freedom and accused of intolerance. Therefore, Jesus himself gives a deficient view of God. Such a conclusion is unacceptable to anyone who wants to call themselves a Christian.
Not to mention that Rauser does not just have a problem with just the Canaanite conquest. He also has issues with the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, eternal conscious punishment, you name it. Earlier in the interview, Rauser said that Christians should be careful of labeling him a Marcionite. Given the fact that he has trouble accepting uncomfortable parts of the OT and NT, why is labeling him a Marcionite not an option?
Also, I think the whole debate was a smokescreen. I think the main question should be: does God have a right to judge human beings? That should have been the debate topic and it takes away the blanket of Rauser's supposed "Jesus principle".
@@computationaltheist7267 Rauser means well but like Boyd his view must extend into the NT and as you say rework passages so as to sanitize Jesus and God according to their methodology. I do think there is a lot of textual warrant for rethinking eternal conscious torment. I hold to the conditional immortality view and a literal second death. But that’s a separate discussion.
One edition that I wish that Copan would give greater attention to is the view of Michael Heiser. He takes the textual record of giants in the land and their connection to the Nephilim seriously. His view is that only in the hill country where the giant clans, also called the Anakim, were present were designated for herem. We cannot dismiss that textual witness as mere fiction or exaggeration if we want to take the rationale for the conquest seriously. The specific target was the bloodlines of the Anakim/giants/Amorites (often used interchangeably), not necessarily every Canaanite. This is why there are repeated references to the Israelite taking care of the widow and the orphan and the foreigner. Israel probably needed to absorb Canaanite widows and orphans in distress-provided they joined themselves to Yahweh as Rahab did.
Removing confederate monuments, or at least posting plaques to point out the absurdity of confederate monuments, sounds like a great idea.
@@TheRealShrike I don’t support the continuing presence of Confederate monuments in public-service-access places, such as city halls or in front of judicial buildings. But my point was that given the definition of genocide that Randal wants to work with, if there were to be a systematic removal of all Confederate history and paraphernalia in the south, it would be a form of cultural genocide according to him. I think using the term “genocide” in that context is absurd. I think it’s equally absurd to speak of cultural genocide being done against the Canaanites through the dismantling of their human sacrificing shrines and Canaanite idolatry.
THE WORLD RULER TRIES TO KILL ME
And then a voice of the world ruler came to the angels: “I am god and there is no other god but me.” But I laughed joyfully when I examined his conceit. But he went on to say, “Who is the human?”
And the entire host of his angels who had seen Adam and his dwelling were laughing at his smallness. And thus did their thought come to be removed outside the majesty of the heavens, away from the human of truth, whose name they saw, since he is in a small dwelling place. They are foolish and senseless in their empty thought, namely, their laughter, and it was contagion for them.
The whole greatness of the fatherhood of the spirit was at rest in its places. And I was with him, since I have a thought of a single emanation from the eternal ones and the unknowable ones, undefiled and immeasurable. I placed the small thought in the world, having disturbed them and frightened the whole multitude of the angels and their ruler. And I was visiting them all with fire and flame because of my thought.
And everything pertaining to them was brought about because of me. And there came about a disturbance and a fight around the seraphim and cherubim, since their glory will fade, and there was confusion around Adonaios on both sides and around their dwelling, up to the world ruler and the one who said, “Let us seize him.” Others again said, “The plan will certainly not materialize.” For Adonaios knows me because of hope. And I was in the mouths of lions. And as for the plan that they devised about me to release their error and their senselessness, I did not succumb to them as they had planned. And I was not afflicted at all.
Those who were there punished me, yet I did not die in reality but in appearance, in order that I not be put to shame by them because these are my kinsfolk. I removed the shame from me, and I did not become fainthearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands. I was about to succumb to fear, and I suffered merely according to their sight and thought so that no word might ever be found to speak about them.
For my death, which they think happened, happened to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. Their thoughts did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me.
It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the rulers and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance.
I feel like both are missing it.
Love this channel. God "seems" to command (vindictive) behavior OT? The answer is yes. Theologians attempting of reconciling the god of the OT with the God NT is like swimming in crude oil upstream. Not happening. Marcion wasn't a heretic in 150AD.
Paul "God can't make an omelette without either murdering children or lying about it" Copan
Where are the Marcionites, Gnostics, and Deists when we need them?
So God is either ok with genocidal murder or the Bible is full of hyperbole? That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence - or faith.
It's easy to look at it from that point of view when a person thinks God shouldn't ever judge a person for violating His laws. If a person violated human laws, you would expect an authority to hold them accountable for it, would you not? Also, "murder" implies a person takes someone else's life _without_ God's command or approval.
Some day, maybe in 10,000 years, we'll all understand what all these Bible passages REALLY mean. It will be so useful then...
That's also the way I would sum it up. They seemed to spend all their time stating and re-stating their positions and their critiques of the other's position. I never heard either of them specifically address the question in the title. I can't imagine returning to this channel if this episode is typical.
It's fascinating looking at the language. "A textual god, and the real god" Using special language helps give gravitas and assumed weight that there is a depth to this phrase. Just say "an imaginary god in the bible and a real god who doesn't do anything evil". Here the debaters try to say the two are the same. Obviously all gods are imaginary, but don't try and rehabilitate Yaweh as a nice guy.
I wonder what Randall thinks of the flood of Noah. Was that not genocidal in his mind? Or was it merely an allegory or spiritual in some way? The truth is, he leans too much on his own moral intuition.
True. If one ignores biblical context, one would miss out on the connection between Genesis 6, and the conquest accounts where God annihilates groups and tribes, which wasn't because they were disobedient, but because those were the nephilim
@@jabsterjay5716 All morality is intuition. Do you not share the intuition that killing non-combatants, in particular babies, is wrong?
@@davethebrahman9870 Yes, if they were nephilim, it'b be like if you asked me if it was moral to |
@@jabsterjay5716 You seem to inhabit an entirely imaginary universe.
@@davethebrahman9870 he is getting this from biblical studies, probably Micheal Heiser. It has to do with a worldview brought about in Deuteronomy that was poorly translated in to English.
57:15 Yes, what happened to the Nazi's was a cultural genocide. You can't use technical definitions like this then complain that they don't emotionally sit right in some cases. This is why Paul is trying to clarify the distinction between literal genocide and seeking to end a culture. I'm kind of left baffled by Randal's idea of fixating on the word genocide given Paul's view; if you're using it as a technical, anthropological term, which Randall is all too happy to do when establishing his definition, than there is nothing wrong with saying that eradicating Nazism fulfills the definition of such.
So the question is not whether it was technically genocide under a specific definition that includes removing cultural precepts, but whether or not this was ethical?
If the culture in question is so demonstrably evil as to be irredeemable, eg Nazism, than removing it completely is morally good.
It's plausible this may have gone for the Canaanite's as well, though I tend to agree with Randal's more pragmatic arguments against Paul's attempts to radically downplay the tragedy of war as it was conducted in this context. The idea it might be more complicated is one thing, but I don't think we can make this neat argument that no civilian was harmed throughout a conquest which is just extremely unrealistic and doesn't seem consistent with all the available information in the text.
Friends, our first reading for this Sunday is about a battle between Israel and the Amalekites. To many of us today, this appears to be either an irrelevancy of history or an outrageous story about God sanctioning genocide. But Origen of Alexandria helps us to see that it is neither; rather, it is a story about the battle of the spiritual life. And in the soldiers, Moses, and Aaron and Hur, we see the variegated offices and functions within the Church engaged in that battle." Bishop Robert Barron "Daily Gospel Reflection (10/16/2022)"
Oddly enough, both men are facing the same challenges: reconciling their moral intuitions with Scripture.
* Copan has always befuddled me. I haven't read his books, but I've listened to a number of his lectures, interviews and debates. He consistently avoids Biblical passages and proofs that are distasteful to him for which he doesn't have a good explanation. He can't bring himself to let the chips fall where they may. (If he has a good explanation in his books, I wish he'd bring it out in his lectures/interviews.) Perfect example is at roughly 59:00 and again at 1:07:00 in this interview. Randall made a pointed question to him ("Did the Israelites ever actually destroy defenseless women and children as the Bible says?") and Copan wouldn't answer the question directly, even though his assumptions necessarily bring him to that conclusion. But he won't say it. Why not?
* Randall, on the other hand, runs to the NT to see a 'softer, gentler, Jesus', and then reads that "Jesus" into the OT so he can allegorize away the passages that are distasteful to his moral intuitions. In short, to get to his conclusion, he has to soft-peddle the offense of sin to a holy God. But is he right?
- - -
When God moves in divine wrath and judgment, God has, can, and will destroy all people in the path of His wrath, including women and children ..and even their animals.
- Noah's flood drowned the whole planet (there is no possible way that women, children or animals could survive if they weren't on God's ark)
- Sodom & Gomorrah (the only survivors of any kind - women, children or animals - had to be physically removed from the 5 cities in the region)
- Ten Plagues affected scores of people, ultimately killing firstborn children and firstborn livestock ("every house had death")
- Korah's Rebellion had women and children being swallowed up by a targeted earthquake
- Jericho saw everything destroyed except Rahab and her whole household survived while Achan (who forsook the faith of Joshua for the riches of Jerich) received the exact same punishment as the occupants: He and his whole household, wife, children AND ANIMALS were destroyed.
- The capture/destruction of the northern 10 tribes by the Assyrians in 722 BC (Is 10) surely involved the killing of women and children (See Sennacherib's Prism). This was the work of God (Is 10)
- The capture of Judah and the destruction of the temple in 586BC by Nebuchadnezzar most definitely involved the destruction of women and children. This was the work of God (Jer 51)
- The destruction of Jerusalem in 90AD is seen as divine wrath against the people of Israel as God finally "cuts off" the olive branch and grafts in the Gentiles. Do we think for one moment that women and children didn't die under General Titus' hand?
- In Rev 19, as Randall points out, we see anyone/everyone opposed to God being destroyed, including men, animals and even slaves (Rev 19:17-18)
On the question of whether or not women and children died under God's wrathful judgment, some of the items I've listed above are not up for interpretation. EG, even if the flood was local, if it took place, then women and children died at the hand of God. If S&G were destroyed by fire, then women and children died at the hand of God. Etc. So given God's demonstrable history of how He handles judgment with water, fire, earthquake and plagues, only one question remains:
*When God judges with the sword of the Joshua, did He judge with the same moral consistency as He did when judging with water, fire, earthquake and plague, namely, including women and children in His destruction?*
The text explicitly says 'yes'.
- Randall needs to explain why his moral intuitions compel him to say 'no'. His friend, Jerry Shephard, is right at 1:22:19, even if that's not what he wants to hear. We are, after all, talking about a God who will throw all His enemies in hell. Surely that kind of God isn't going to suddenly go squeamish about killing said apostates.
- And Copan needs to belly up to the bar and let the chips fall where they may.
.02
Just one thing: Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 Ad.
@@cobusprinsloo The temple was destroyed in 70ad. The city was destroyed in 90ad.
Oof. Copan really does refuse to answer the question directly despite many follow-ups.
Randal Rauser's view takes that of the liberal mainline Protestants who compartmentalize the Jesus of the Gospels as this all loving, non-judgmental figure who is opposed to the Old Testament God of wrath. This view of Jesus also bends to liberal human "moral intuition." He must forget that the Jesus of the Gospels also is attributed to saying, "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me, " Luke 19:27. Jesus also is attributed the saying "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,'" in Matthew 25:41 after judging those who didn't show love by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and in prison, by sending them to everlasting Hell. Jesus also condemned anyone who affirmed that eternal life is available to anyone outside of Himself in John 14:6. He called all who came before him were "thieves and robbers" in John 10:8. The New Testament is more exclusivist and judgmental than the Old Testament. Rauser is not even a good Marcionite. He can't even claim any "inerrancy" if he is willing to admit the Old Testament is a product of its times, written by tribal men.
After reading some of the comments on here I’m reminded of the quote, "With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion."
The sad reality is that literally all the atheistic regimes in history (mostly in the 20th century) has annihilated more people than all of the casualities of religious wars combined since the first century.
Bolshevism/ militant atheism makes everyone into cold austere malevolent
Gen. 0. Sideal machines
What's your take on Stalin and Mao?
@@joannware6228 I’m no historian, but I think they probably fall in the “bad people can do evil” category.
@@HP-ni4si naw, atheistic regimes created the worst civilizations that committed the worst attrocities, moreso than all of the past religious societies combined, with no exception
This conversation was a great case for atheism/agnosticism ha
Bingo. My favourite quote from Hitchens is what he would tell God to do if he, like Abraham, was told to kill his child.
Lol, this shows how iollogical atheism is. How exactly is the existence of a book which attributes (in your opinion) atrocities to God prove that God doesn't exist? If I write a book that says you commited genocide does that somehow make you stop existing?
I don’t see how this conversation logically leads to atheism. At most it would make a case for a different view of God or Scripture, not that Jesus didn’t resurrect or that God doesn’t exist.
@@mentalwarfare2038 because as a nonbeliever you can harmonize both positions, acknowledging the conservative view of: "yes, yahweh was a genocidal maniac and plans to team up with Jesus in the future to do it again." And you can also agree with the liberal scholar who says we don't need to take this OT stuff seriously. Just turn into a good life lesson and realize these are not the literal words of God.
Also, the cognitive dissonance ends and you can sit back, sip some lemonade, and laugh as Christians tear each other apart because they can't agree on anything.
@@user-zl8fd8ko7d I think Christians agree on a lot- Jesus as the Son of God who lived on earth, died for you and for me, and was resurrected, and sits on the throne with God the Father
As a non believer are you not just avoiding making a decision- " you can harmonise with both positions"?
C'mon Randall, you're almost there! Jump ship and become a progressive Christian or a skeptic... just rip up that contract of yours. You know... the one that shackles you and prevents you from going the last intellectual mile.
If only god could have written his own book, imagine a bible without ambiguity or the need for parables
Copan was victorious and completely destroyed Rouser. Rouser was demolished and devastated. Throughly De-Rouserfied.
Aslan is not a tame lion.
This guestion only arises becouse God began to be primarily conseptulized as a loving god. God however is Good and Righteous and therefore He hates all Evil and Wickedness. We all deserve to die and only his Mercifull Grace are we allowed to live.
Copan’s approach requires a rather low of the text - I would disregard entirely.
30:03 Paul Kopan simply does not know enough about ancient battles if he thinks that in every scenario that all the innocence would’ve been cleared out. That is most definitely not the case. 90% of the ancient battles you’ll ever read about end with one of the people groups being totally enslaved or destroyed entirely. Read Thucydides
don't tell, i bet you can.
you can do anything when you make the crap up yourself.
You know if there were not Cannaites alive today. The text would only confirm their eradication. And we would have to say indeed there was a genocide. But there are descendants still around. Clearly some were spared. Enough that it survived up to this date despite all the wars of conquest. So did they obey God or disobey God? Or where they were given a different order, that clearly spared the lives of some? And for some Cannaites to have been spared, to then thousands of years later have converted to Christianity, hmm it doesn't sound to me like God destined all to perish. Maybe we still don't know what the text means.
Palestinians claim that they're the remnants of the Canaanites.
“I am the son of Jericho. I am 10,000 years old … I am the proud son of the Netufians and the Canaanites. I’ve been there for 5,500 years before Joshua Bin Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho. I’m not going to change my narrative,”
Saeb Erekat
Randal acts like the text doesn’t have a context from which it emerges that has its own rules that informs how the text should be interpreted.
What ‘rules’ are those? You are bringing false interpretation to the texts.
He doesn't have his own rules, he has his view of who God *should* be and he attempts to mold the text to fit that view. Most open theists have the same problem.
I am with Paul on this!!!
Randall's response to Copan's argument that these cities were military outposts seems to be to point back to the language that he agrees is probably hyberbolic, which seems to miss the point. He never, as far as I can tell, makes a solid case for why we should assume non-combatants were targeted.
It is the other way around. The archaeological evidence indicates that there were no purely military Canaanite forts. These were cities and towns. All the guff about ‘military outposts’ is just an attempt to avoid the obvious.
@@davethebrahman9870 could you give me a source for that?
@@danielcartwright8868 Source: he made it up.
Skeptics also like to claim that Egypt ruled the Sinai like the Romans did when in reality they maintained small garrisons in fortified villages, exactly the type of places he's claiming didn't exist.
@@danielcartwright8868 The only ‘forts’ in the Iron Age were those established by great powers on their borders, such as Egypt. The Canaanites were not even a single polity. They were composed of city states, which by their nature are not merely ‘forts’. You can read about Canaanite city states in every modern historical work on the subject.
@@grantgooch5834 You seem to be confusing the Egyptian border forts with the Canaanite city-states.