With that in mind, the most problematic and difficult content of the Bible for me to understand (as a Christian, let alone a dweller in a modern, pacifist, egalitarian context) is the apparent command to kill an entire tribe, including animals, women and children – even babies; if interpreted literally (i.e. 1 Samuel 15:1-3).

(On this, see Matt Flannagan’s various posts providing what I see as good reason to see the ‘total destruction’ language as a culturally normative – and hyperbolic – war language.  The Bible itself records later activity of the very nations who were killed, which indicates that the command cannot be literal.)

But putting to one side the question of how literally we can responsibly read the ‘harem’ command, this is still the annihilation of an entire nation.  I don’t propose to ‘solve’ this one with this post, but I do offer some contributions to the discussion.

• The literary question: How literally can we read the command to kill a whole nation, babies and all? Hey! I said we were putting that to one side! Go to Matt’s blog for that one!  But yeah, I don’t think it’s a literal command.  But as for the question of in what sense can we say God commanded this, it seems to me (and seems to fit with the doctrine of Incarnation?) that the word of God has to ‘take flesh’ in real time and space, and that a command of God must be intelligible to the recipients – using language and terms that would make sense to them.  It makes all the historical sense in the world that the command would use the ‘war language’ of the times.
• The biblical theology question: How does this command square with the rest of the Bible? First of all, the supposed contradiction between an only wrathful OT God and an only gentle NT God is rubbish, because God is described as both wrathful and gentle in both the OT and NT.  Second, there seems to me to be both continuity and discontinuity with this command and the rest of the Bible.  Continuity in that God, right throughout the Bible, gives and takes life; discontinuity in that there does seem to be a progression towards non-violence.
• The ethical question: Isn’t it ‘just wrong’ to command a whole group of people to be killed? Even just the fighting men if it wasn’t a literal command? I actually don’t think it’s so simple as it being ‘just wrong’.  There is a lot we don’t know about the historical situation.¹  If we grant a) that the command isn’t literal (babies, women, etc.), leaving only militants being killed, and if we grant b) that the ‘rules of engagement’ were applied (allowing non-combatants to leave, making an offer of peace first, etc.) as prescribed in the Torah, and if we grant c) that the people killed indeed practiced cannibalism, human-sacrifice and were bent on killing the Israelites, then it certainly puts things in a very different light.
• What about someone who doesn’t know all of that about the historical context, etc.?  How do they deal with this command to kill a nation, including babies, etc.? This is a very good question, because the author(s) of these texts certainly did not intend them to become the subject of a historical and ethical evaluation.  These commands reflect a God who is wrathful (and grieved) at human sin.  More specifically a God who is grieved and angered by false religion (namely: worship of – and obedience to – idol non-gods) that leads to such dehumanising and degrading practices as child sacrifice & cannibalism.  Quite apart from 1) the debates over whether the command is literal and 2) the qualifications about progressive revelation, we can understand these commands quite basically: God is saying ‘enough’ to anti-humane nations, and sparing them from their own continued existence.  Putting them out of their own misery, so to speak.  I read this comment here, which takes a similar line – “The great Master of life and death (who cuts off one half of all mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways.”

I don’t think any of this ‘solves’ the issue, which I will continue to ponder.

1. I’m also entirely bracketing the current buzz of discussion as to the historicity of the accounts up to and including King David.  The evidence is not as clear, methinks, as some want it to be.

I also wonder if Psalm 91 was another favourite? I can imagine it being sung – and expounded – in Synagogues.³ Surely the revolt against Rome would be God-sanctioned and God-sheltered! I can imagine Jesus being tempted in the desert⁴ by this kind of ‘firm belief’⁵, and countering it with the Torah. His messianic path was one that led not to a violent take-over, but to the Cross.

1. Not all 1st century Jews were militant – i.e. Hillel
2. See Matthew 3 and Luke 3
3. or perhaps more whispered in less public gatherings?
4. Scorcese’s ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ has a brilliant scene along these lines
5. reference to Jars of Clay lyric from ‘Oh My God’; ‘You take away my firm belief, and graft my soul upon your grief.’

Two points:

1. The things created in days 4-6 (filling the spaces separated/formed in days 1-3) are as follows: sun, moon, stars, sea-creatures of all kinds, sky-creatures of all kinds, land-creatures and livestock, man and woman.  These same things – in the reverse order – are listed by Moses in Deuteronomy 4 as things not to make idols out of or in the likeness/image of.  “…Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.”  These are created things.  They are not to be worshiped as though they were the Creator.  This anti-idolatry sentiment is present in Genesis 1.  The surrounding cultures did make idols/gods out of each and every one of these things.
2. Curiously, all of the ‘filling’ activity is on days 4-6 – except for the vegetation/plant-life, which is, as it were, tacked on the end of day 3.  The land is allowed to produce plants and trees that bear fruit according to their kind.  We see a parallel here: the ‘fruit-bearing’ word at the end of the three days of ‘forming’ parallels the command to the male and female to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ at the end of the three days of ‘filling’.  The ‘fruitfulness’ theme continues on through Genesis, and is picked up again and again throughout the Bible (and is part of the inspiration for a really great blog!).  Here in Genesis 1, the forming and filling acts of God climax in fruitfulness, and set the stage for all subsequent fruit-bearing.  In the New Testament, believers are also formed and filled by God as a part of enacting their fruit-bearing as well.

• Someone a lot more biologically inclined than myself could (probably? if indeed such short-lived organisms exist?) give examples of fast-reproducing organisms (microbes, gnats, etc.?) whose life-spans are only a few hours, and thus would have died on the same day of their creation.
• According to ‘mature creation’ theory (creation created ‘mature’ – light already in transit from distant stars, trees with [very misleading!] annual rings only moments old, etc.), there would have been very, very ‘mature’-slash-about-to-die birdies and fishies created, some of which – conceivably – would have died on the same day of their creation.
• Also, unless not one, single, fish-eating bird dipped down and tasted of the delicious bounty of the shimmering little fishies below, at least some fish would have died on the same day of their creation.

Beyond conceivable doubt, even given a 24-hour day understanding of creation (with 6, successive acts of ‘spontaneous creation’), there would have been physical death before the events of Genesis 3.

((note: I see no reason to doubt that the text of Genesis 1 was originally a poem/song expressing theological truths, as opposed to being a play-by-play, moment-by-moment, fact-by-fact account of the ‘how’ of creations’ origin.  Thus, the nit-picking-ly detailed exercise above ought to be unnecessary – but is merely noted in reference to those who insist that there could have been no death before the Fall.))

Both Matthew and Mark also record this question asked of Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I don’t want to bother with the whole discussion of what this question means and what it doesn’t mean (suffice to say that it does not mean ‘how moral must I be to get into heaven after I die’).  I’m more interested in how Jesus answers this “law expert”.

Jesus’ initial response is very rabbinic (or Socratic) in that he answers the question with a question.  His responding question assumes that ‘eternal life’ (literally: “the life belonging to the age to come”) has to do with… well… doing life the way God wants; in other words, doing what the Law says.  Luke doesn’t need to spell this out, even for his Greek audience (‘Theophilus’); everyone knew that Jews were people of Torah.

Anyway, Jesus’ responding question is also a demonstration of the non-shocking fact that first century Jews had differing understandings of their Scriptures in general and the Law (Torah) in particular.  His response is this: “What does the Law say?  How do you read it?”

Again, every Jew would have known the general assumed answer to the question.  If you want to attain to the eternal kind of life, then (duh!) do what God says in the Torah.  The real question-behind-the-question, however, is what does the Torah (and thus God) require of us?  So Jesus’ initial response turns the question back onto this Law expert, essentially saying, “Well, what do you think?  What do you think the Law says we must do?  What is your interpretation?”

The man’s response is spot-on: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength; and Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus responds approvingly: “You have answered correctly.  Do this and you will live.” He essentially says, “That’s it.  That’s the correct summary of the whole thing.  That is what the Law/Torah is all about.”

Now, the conversation could have been over with at that point.  But then…

“And who is my neighbour?” This was a question which was perhaps common.  Where is the line between ‘neighbour’ and ‘enemy’; just how far do we have to take this command!?  But Luke specifically also tells us that the man’s respose was in attempt to justify himself.  The tighter the boundary for ‘neighbour’ the better for this Law Expert.

In response to the ‘who is my neighbour’ question, Jesus then tells the story of what we know as the ‘Good Samaritan’, who has compassion on a man left ‘half dead’ by robbers, bandaging him, pouring oil/wine on the wounds, taking him to an inn, staying with him the rest of the day and that night, and giving the innkeeper enough money for weeks of care for the man, and a promise to return and pay any extra charges.  Amazing.  And of course, Jesus is being very provocative and offensive by casting a Samaritan as the hero and examplary character in the story (to say Jews disliked Samaritans puts it mildly); and casting the Priest and the Levite as the scumbags.

It’s a moving story.  One of the most humane stories known to humanity.  It contrasts utter selfishness with total selflessness.

But what I think is brilliant is the way Jesus uses this story.

He finishes it up by putting a question to the Law Expert, “Now, which one of the three was a neighbour to the man?”

The man (Jew thick and through) cannot even say the word ‘Samaritan’, so he simply says the obvious answer, “The one who had mercy on him.”

But wait.  Jesus has also done something else…

The man’s question had been ‘who is my neighbour’.  Jesus has just asked ‘which one was a neighbour to him’.  Jesus refuses to give the ‘who is my neighbour’ question the dignity of a response.

The Law Expert’s summary of the Torah was brilliant -  Love God, Love neighbour – but his ‘justifying’ question about who his neighbour was had essentially robbed his accurate summary of it’s relevance (what good is a command to Love Neighbour, if you’re confused about who your neighbour is?).  Jesus has reframed the question; and has put the emphasis back on the imperative to Love.  The implication is this: it doesn’t matter who the person is, love them as yourself. Don’t worry about who your neighbour is, just be a loving neighbour.

This, after all, is what the Law, the Torah, was all about.  This is what the eternal kind of life is all about.

Love.  This is Jesus’ answer to the ‘what must I do’ question.  Which is why Jesus wraps up the conversation saying, “Go, and do likewise.”

Ryan Browning responds to young-earth views here.

Noooooo!!!!!

Hat tip Halden.