The Bible refers to the land of milk and honey...?

Question

This new discovery confirms that honey was indeed cultivated in the region 3000 years ago:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070905/ap_on_sc/ancient_honey

From a Biblical perspective, this means that the region was the 'land of milk and honey', because those who were there prior to the Hebrew had made it that way, not because God had made it that way.

The question is, from a Biblical perspective, now that we know the people who live in that land prior to the Hebrews had cultivated it and improved upon it with their own sweat, does that not make the purported genocides within the Bible by the Hebrews against these people that much more immoral?

Answer 1

Not really- genocide is always immoral as far as I'm concerned. It shouldn't matter if it's happening to an agricultural society or a post-industrial society or a hunter gatherer society. It also shouldn't make a difference if it's happening to people in their own homeland or somewhere else.

Incidentally, "milk and honey" as a dichotomy is widely understood to be a pre-biblical sexual euphemism- used commonly in goddess centered religions all around Mesopotamia.

Answer 2

You may be reading too much into it. It might be that "A land flowing with milk and honey" simply means it's very good. It could mean that the land is fertile, good for growing food, good forests, a lot of fish & game, nice senery, etc. It might be kind of like saying "It's raining cats and dogs" Is it really raining cats and dogs or is it just raining hard? It may be just an expression denoting something as being very good.

Answer 3

This land was promised to Moses by God,but Moses never reached Canaan.Other Isrealis reached there.God's will had to be done and nobody can question his authority.In which court will you charge God.You are a lesser being.God has destroyed people in past.Take case of Sodom and Gomorrah or floods during Noah's time.How many people died during this time?Many in what we call in present day world genocide.

Answer 4

Canaanites were known for:

1. rampant sexual diseases resulting from sexual perversion.
2. annual child sacrifices to "molech" their idol god.
3. attacking innocent travelers and raping them mercilessly.
4. kidnap, theft, murder and destruction of property of their neighbors.
5. worship of idols that involved sacrificing and consuming the blood of other people.

Today, we have prion diseases which have gotten into livestock and humans because of #5

Today, we sacrifice about 700,000 unborn children annually in America (who knows how many in other countries). Not to mention that it is becoming more common to euthanize new borns for birth defects. #2

Today, we have sexually transmitted diseases killing millions around the world, despite vaccines and anti-biotics. #1

Today, we have every kind of crime justified because of political correctness. (it's some kind of social disease or the result of somebody else's behavior). #3 and #4

Don't imagine for a second that God will not judge us for the same thing. Judgment came to Canaan from the Jews, but later when the Jews did the same things, it came from the Arabs. Then, when the Arabs did it, Judgment came from the Persians.

So shall it be today if we do not turn away from wickedness.

Answer 5

God is never immoral. The people that were there were immoral and stayed that way, taking the nation of Israel with them. They did not use genocide like God told them to do and the people they did not kill led them to worship idols, etc. God was displeased with their unfaithfulness. Israel has always been unfaithful except for very short periods of time.

God told them to destroy the pagan nations and Israel refused because they thought they knew more than God..

Answer 6

Your problem is with God's judgment of the people, not historical fact.
What do you think those people were doing the entire time the Hebrews were in captivity? God was giving them an opportunity to change from their ways. (Study the Caanittes, they liked to make furniture from people's skin and used to bury their children alive in the walls of their homes for good luck).
So they were great farmers. Big deal. They were wicked. God gave them hundreds of years to change. They didn't. God passed judgment and delivered them into the hands of the newly freed Hebrews.

I don't have a problem with God's judgment. Do you?

Answer 7

People have been killing each other outside the Bible for thousands of years before the that....

Why focus solely on the Bible?

What about the atrocities of Rome, Alexander the Great, Babylonia, and Assyria? They wiped out entire peoples in the name of their emperors and so forth...

Ancient Egypt has also killed many in the name of conquest....

Answer 8

bees make honey, even if before people figured out to bee keep... and cows make milk and the Hebrews did have cows... so sure, its possible that they lived in a land of
bees and cows= milk and honey

what are you asking is immoral??

Answer 9

God is sovereign over all the earth. He was sovereign over the land of Canaan before the Hebrew people came there.

He is sovereign over all people and is the authority over all of our lives.

Those who reject him will suffer for eternity because they reject the one who is sovereign over them.

Answer 10

Genocide on a culture that has developed beekeeping and dairying is not more immoral than genocide on a culture that hasn't.