How can the book of Joshua be reconcilled with Christianity?

Question

Christianity professes a message of forgiveness and Universal love. Jesus clearly states he did not come to destroy the old tradition, but to confirm it.

Yet, the Book of Joshua is nothing short of the description of a genocide ordered by the Biblical God. How is this possible? Why is such a God more moral than, say Huitzilipochtili of the Aztec?

Deuteronomy, 7,2: And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.
Joshua 7,21: And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ***, with the edge of the sword.

Joshua 10, 34-37

34And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and all Israel with him; and they encamped against it, and fought against it:

35And they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.

36And Joshua went up from Eglon, and all Israel with him, unto Hebron; and they fought against it:

37And they took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining, according to all that he had done to Eglon; but destroyed it utterly, and all the souls that were therein.

Etc, etc...

In fact, the book of Joshua is nothing less than the description of a genocide proclaimed by God, and how the Israelites exterminated entire peoples in order to take over the promised land.

Answer 1

yep that is what it is-i just love reading the answers to this one-smile and enjoy the night

Answer 2

Hi, Yes, they can be reconciled; but do they need to be one or the other? As you know, the Bible is littered with deaths and suffering; the world has been in constant suffering and deaths occur on a second timetable - to this day. Do you know that most deaths occur on Monday at 9:00 am? Who's to say that what has manifested as of today isn't a bit of evolution, intelligent design and the power of the human mind - God's greatest miracle? Suffering is part of the free will paradox. We make a decision that keeps us on our path to our destiny - no suffering; we make a decision that takes us away from our path - suffering occurs. We continue to suffer until we learn the lesson and make a decision that gets us back into our right path, then we break the cycle of suffering. Then we have yet another opportunity to make another decision; and on and on it goes. I've learned that asking a "why" question of God is setting ourselves up for disappointment. It would be more productive to ask a "What can I do to reconcile evolution and creationism in my mind?" Best Wishes!

Answer 3

Your answer is one of simple historical perspective: events detailed in the book of Joshua pre-date Jesus' time by more than a thousand years (which would be akin to judging 18th century America by 21st century standards). Joshua was a Hebrew leader who took over immediately after Moses to lead his people into the Promised Land. This land had to be conquered. Brutal, yes...but consistent with the ways lands were acquired during this period of human history, and no different than the Egyptians, Babylonians, (and later Romans of Jesus' time). In fact, this is precisely why these events are chronicled in the Old Testament. Christianity is not born until the ministry of Jesus Christ, and are therefore chronicled in the New Testament because from this point forward man's salvation is accomplished through grace and the sacrifice of Jesus' life on the cross (and His subsequent resurrection).
Man's only hope of salvation under mosaic law was in strict adherence to the law and in living in covenant with God (which man more or less failed to do). This made "Christ" all the more necessary, thereby proving that we are not saved by our works (since the wages of ALL sin is death), but by the benevolence of Christ, our confession and rejection of further sin, and our belief in this process.

Answer 4

Two thoughts:
First, It is interesting that in fact Jesus has much in common with Joshua (including their name, which is the same). Jesus once made the point "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." Matthew 10:34. The universal love of Jesus Christ is found in Joshua; it was that one person and her family choose to serve God rather than men. Read the book and find who she was; I will give you a hint, she is mentioned as a person whose faith Christians should mimic in Hebrews 11:31

God's universal Love shown in Joshua for the one person in Jericho whose family was spareed is the same as Christ taught; it is that only by repenting and coming to the Lord can we avoid the destruction that we face (eternal). Do not be deceived, Jesus taught that destruction is for the most of mankind, who will refuse (like the people of Jericho)

Second: as a person who seems to not be a believer (please forgive me if I presume incorrectly), you fail to interpret a great truth that any believer understands: there are worse things than death. As an unbeliever, you see the death of people (the children of whom I agree are innocent, but the grown men and women I would not agree are innocent) as the ultimate penalty; a believe sees a more horrible event than physical death. A believer sees this truth: "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28

While physical death is terrible, when one considers the loss of the soul, that is far worse. It may be that those innocents who lost their lives were preserved from partaking in their parents sins, thus saving their souls

I think that this second point will be lost on you unless you can understand that there can be something worse than losing life, which is the fate of all people.

Answer 5

It Can't

Not with the mealy mouthed Jesus loves everybody form of Christianity today.

That is not true Christianity, A majority of them today have probably never read it in there before.Much less the rest of the Bible.
They probably don't even know Jesus called us DOGS and told the Apostles not to go to us ( the Gentiles )

By the way I am a Christian, a Biblebelieving Christian.

God wanted them dead so Israel would not take their ways.

God loved us enough to give us a way out but if you don't want Him , thats it!!

He is not the sissy everyone makes Him out to be

He is GOD

Great subject.

By the way as far as the OT and New Test. arguement

EVERYTHING before the resurrection IS THE OLD TESTAMENT

Answer 6

Your question overlooks the fact that Christianity teaches forgiveness and love as a requirement for humans in treating each other, because we are all imperfect and in no position to judge each other. (The whole rafter in one's eye bit). God however, (if you believe in Him as I do) is perfect and thus his decisions are made from a position of supreme authority and knowledge. Knowing what is best for his people, for humanity and for His glory which if He is the Supreme being of the universe, should be a priority. There are reasons the Jews were instructed to clean out the promised land that cannot be answered in a paragraph, but in an effort to simplify, we can simply state that God, as the owner of all life in the universe, can see fit when to pass judgement over a person or a peoples and we are in a very bad position to pass judgement on his judgements.

Answer 7

Easy.
First Joshua, was anointed by Moses, before he died.
Joshua was to lead the Israelites into the promised land, as Moses failed at one task and disobeyed God.

Second, being that the promised land was filled with corrupt, and pagan culture, it had to be taken out.
Gods bride is Isreal, and Isreals only God is God.
But many pagans had many gods. God already handed down his first commandment, and we all know that one, dont we class?
You bet we do.

In order to occupy a pagan land, you have to put out the trash.
Such is what you do, when you move into a new house.
You start to remodel and redecorate.
Same with Israel. God did the redecoration, by cleaning out the pagan cultures, and their false gods.
God is worshipped by Himself.
And he doesnt want his bride to be surrounded by tribes of other gods.
Thus, God has the right to dismantle and destroy via Israels great army, destroy all pagan culture.
God knows the heart, and thats why he decided on whom to destroy.
When you clean house, you clean top to bottom and in between.
Thats animals, etc.
Anything that worships others gods, is not worshipping God himself.

The question is how could God not clean out the promised land, for his children.
Doesnt a parent want the best for their kids?
God was and is fully justified for genocide, why not..he made man, and man decided, man decided to walk away and worship anything other than God.
God needs no justification for his actions.
We need to understand the full context of the book of Joshua.
The priest in the order after Moses, ordained by God.

Joshua, and this quote is so great..'as for Me and MY house WE shall serve the Lord.'

And thats your bible lesson for today.

Answer 8

Gotta love God for saying killin' and raping is wrong on one hand and then sayin' it's all o.k. on the other. You don't enve have to go past exodus to find God legalizing prostitution. Who needs two masters when you can just have the one?

Cuchlain: Love that name! Reminds us of the bloodiest myth we've read to date. All that nice killin' just for a damn bull... Or was that a bunch of bull?

As for another master, we feel quite certain that Norse god is a far better embodiment of corruption and destruction than your whimpering Satan. The guy has to ASK FOR PERMISSION? Sheesh. Whose responsibility is it then for people like Job getting tortured? Leave it to the director to find a scapegoat to save his own hide.

Answer 9

the old testament is full of horrible violence, and the Christians try to squirm out of this fact by claiming that Christianity started fresh with Christ, which is a whole lot of BS, since they embrace the WHOLE bible, and they can't just pick out the parts that seem to make them look like little angels.

clearly, the horrors that purportedly occurred in the OT days is totally irreconcilable with the supposed peaceful teachings of Christianity. Their proclamations of universal love should be revised to read :Universal Love, but if you don't believe exactly what we do, your population will be butchered, wiped out in horrifying ways. And even then.......

It is not a book for the tender of heart, like pagans.....

Blessings,
Lady Morgana )0(
pagan Witch

Answer 10

I have been pointing out also those atrocities and genocides in the bible to Christians and the majority of them justify those acts and I think they even feels good about those horrible acts believing its what should have happened (as we can read some answers above), one Christian even explained to me the verses saying those children has to be wiped out because dead children goes to heaven or else they would grow up being pagans and goes to hell. These kinds of reasoning makes me sick.

Answer 11

Joshua is not a Christian you can't reconcile it nor should you try. There were no Christians in the old testament. The old testament need not be reconciled with the new testament. JUST ANOTHER HEATHENS ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT Christianity.