God’s Commission to Kill the Midianites (Part 1)

R.A. Torrey, in his book Difficulties in the Bible, devotes a chapter to the slaughter of the Canaanites/Midianites by God’s command (Numbers 31). The difficulty arises with reconciling the New Testament idea of a loving God with such a harsh Divine command. Torrey puts forth seven points, which I have summarized and reduced to five. I will present each and respond to them individually in separate posts.

  1. Extermination of peoples is horrible but utter moral corruption and debasement so pervasive as was seen in the Canaanites/Midianites is far worse. They had become a moral cancer threatening the whole human race. The removal of this cancer is kindness on the part of God. He goes on to say that the Bible is not the only source of this information.

My View
Firstly, what is wrong is wrong. No matter the depths to which the Canaanites/Midianites had bent, they were still God’s ‘children’ (New Testament understanding) and a ‘loving Father’ would never go to the extent of killing his children, despite their evil. He would try ways and means of correcting them, even chastise them if necessary. But I don’t think he would kill them because of their stubbornness and justify it as the better thing to do.

Secondly, he justifies the act calling it kindness. If this were so, then Euthanasia would also be an act of kindness and hence, not wrong. The ISIS’ agenda seems to follow a similar reasoning. Their killing of so-called ‘infidels’ is an act of kindness toward them, saving them from the full wrath of Allah.


Thirdly, he goes on to say that the Bible is not the only source of this information but fails to mention the other sources, unless of course, there were none!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent...
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young pries...
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhort...
Read more