After Sinai, the Jews march on Canaan. They kill lots of
people, including women and children, destroy whole tribes, lay waste to cities
and tear them down to the ground... A lot of people don’t like this part of the
Old Testament—they don’t like the Old Testament God, the vengeful, angry God,
the God who demands His people go to war and wipe out whole civilizations. They
compare Him with the New Testament’s kind, forgiving God and decide they’ll
just stick to reading half the Bible (or none). But is that really what those
Old Testament stories tell us? Did God change, as some people say? Did our
perception of Him change, as I used to say? Or are we just being selective in
our reading and our understanding?
The God who gives us the Ten Commandments isn’t a vengeful
God—more like a wise and loving God giving rules for society that have proven
so powerful we still try to follow them today. The God who led the Israelites
out of Egypt wasn’t vengeful—he could have totally wiped out the Egyptians, but
instead he lets them continue in their own land and leads his people elsewhere.
But the God of the conquering tribes and the invasion of Canaan?
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