To have a productive dialogue, we would both need to put all our cards on the table. For example, you bring a certain ethical vision, a specific view of how God should act (theology), a particular reading of the text (exegesis). We all do. What if, for example, God decided a priori in creating human beings with agency to work with human agency in real historical situations? If he overrides human agency every time we wander from God's intention, what does it do to the image of God? To God's will for humans as God's image? It is a huge risk on God's part to create us with agency, but one that dignifies our agency (I'm not using the term human freedom on purpose - that's another matter). If we are willing to consider that God's prior will and action in creation and then limiting the exercise his power on that basis for God's own reasons, it complicates our ethical judgments about the Canaanite settlement and any other morally troubling text. I'm offering only one example of several questions that your comment raises. How willing are you to make transparent your ethical and theological assumptions?

My ethical assumptions are that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all loving God would have an ethical sense which is more advanced than ours and wouldn't be the same as possessed by humans in the time period the text was written. Secondly, murdering children is never right no matter the reason, no matter the end goal, and no matter who orders it. The problem I have with your questions about human agency is that they seem to ignore God's essential attributes, primarily his omniscience and omnipotence. If God is truly omnipotent and omniscient, then he can accomplish anything in any way he wishes. He can remove the Canaanites in a way which doesn't require suffering and death, and which doesn't require the Israelites to become monsters. My problem with the text in Joshua (and 1 Samuel 15) is that it projects a God who is not truly omnipotent or omniscient, but is conceived according to the limited understanding of the people of the time. They have created a God in their own image rather than having the insight and imagination to understand the implications of omnipotence and omniscience in a transcendent being.

​@@michaelgray2534 I agree that murdering children is always wrong, but we're back to the question about how best to understand these texts. Jewish and Christian exegetes have been reading them for millennia and don't draw the conclusions you're drawing. Granted, one can find scholars in the Modern West who do read them as you do and find them morally reprehensible, but in the great sweep of the history of interpretation, they look like outliers rather than representatives. I'm simply saying that your reading is but one that has been considered, and not the best one. You have every right to hold to your viewpoint, of course, but if you do so ignorant of others, then maybe your view is not as conclusive as you take it to be. My questions about human agency in no way ignore God's omniscience and omnipotence (etc.). I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion from what I said. Your criticism, finally, is grounded in the challenge of theodicy. How can an all-powerful, righteous and loving God permit (or command) moral evil? Human agency factors heavily in Christian reflections on theodicy, with full view of God's omnipotence and the other divine attributes. You may not find any of those answers satisfactory, but I do hope you know them.

@@spiritualmaturityproject6694 Your argument based on what past interpretations have considered isn't persuasive. I would suspect many of those who made those interpretations prior to the nineteenth century didn't have a moral problem with slavery either (and they used biblical texts to support that view), but nearly all those living today who examine the texts would have a problem with slavery. It isn't theodicy in the standard sense. This isn't merely a question of God allowing evil, but of God commanding evil to be done. 1 Samuel 15 is the clearest example. In that passage, God (through Samuel) commands Saul to kill children, even those suckling (i.e.- newborns). And yes, I do think omnipotence and omniscience are ignored by your interpretation of the text as you seem unwilling to question why a being so endowed would have to resort to such brutal methods of achieving his will as other methods are easily available to him because he is omnipotent and omniscient. He could have caused them to vanish in a fog of quantum particles, or better yet, caused them to be retroactively erased from history. They wouldn't have ever existed and so wouldn't have had to be murdered. I think the clearest and simplest explanation is that the Joshua and 1 Samuel texts reflect a primitive peoples' conception of God, one which is imprisoned in their own cultural norms, rather than depicting a truly omnipotent and omniscient supreme being. Those who wrote the texts, and those who interpreted them for many centuries afterward, didn't think the actions described weren't evil because of some complicated theological construct about sanctifying the land or some other notion, but because they didn't see the actions described as evil. Their cultural background was such that they saw those actions as simply the way warfare was done. But we don't have that luxury. We understand that murdering children and babies is always wrong.

Yahweh appears to have "lower morals" in relation to the modern day only because of how sickly the morals of modernity have become. Sinful and wicked people are beyond redemption - their corruption winds down to the very roots of the seed of their family tree. The only way to expunge their filth is by pulling the tree up by the roots and cleansing the land in the blood of these unjust savages.

Stephen, is this a topic you'd like to see addressed in a video discussion?

@@spiritualmaturityproject6694 Almighty God does not want women to teach and preach, and "usurp the authority" of men. "Let the woman LEARN in SILENCE with ALL SUBJECTION 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression". 1 Tim 2:11-14 (KJV) [She also does not have the godly decency to veil or cover her head either] He has forbidden it, for it is the Lord Christ himself who has given the command, through the apostle Paul. "As in all the congregations of the saints, 34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 35 If they want to enquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. 36 Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? 37 If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you **is the Lord's command**. 38 If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored." 1 Corinthians 14:33-38 (ANIV) . As it is the Lord's command, that is the end of all rebellious arguments, for they run opposite to what the Lord himself has commanded. The authentic humble "Daughters of Sarah" will be eager and pleased to obey. The rebellious daughters of the "Devil and his angels" will contend to do the very opposite. For they have come under the curse of God as has St. Paul has well warned they would be. "That's why God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe a lie. 12 Then everyone who did not believe the truth, but was delighted with what God disapproves of, will be condemned." 2 Thessalonians 2: 11-12 (GW)

@@spiritualmaturityproject6694It should be discussed so that believers can understand Paul also gave his personal opinion on various matters, such as celibacy or long hair in men being unnatural. His opinion regarding hair was based on the medical knowledge of a time when it was believed semen was stored in the hair follicles of the head. Regarding his personal opinion about women in ministry, he was concerned that women could be more susceptible to deception since this is what happened with Eve.

So I guess you don’t a agree with women being in the ministry?