Thomas L. Thompson and the Myths of History

I've been reading Thomas L. Thompson's 1999 book "The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel" (also published as "Bible in History: How writers create a past"). It looks like a fairly slim book in the edition I'm reading, but it has small text, narrow margins and thin pages, so has taken me a long time to read it. There's a lot in there.

Thompson is an "Old Testament Minimalist" and makes his case in this book that you can't really use the OT stories to construct a history of Israel as they weren't actually written to narrate that history. In other words, he ends up concluding that we actually don't know very much for sure about the history of Israel, the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. Furthermore he, basically, claims that we have been reading the entire bible wrong for thousands of years, and have therefore completely misunderstood it. It was intended as literature, not history, and to read it as history loses all sorts of important stuff.

I don't really intend to do a review of the book here, but here are a few of my thoughts about the book, and some of the things said in it, in no particular order:

No References!

I'll start with my biggest complaint agains this book. There are no references. None! He cites nobody. He doesn't even give a bibliography or name other authors along the way. As far as the reader can tell, this entire book could have been fabricated by the author. There is some irony here given that this is essentially what Thompson is claiming about the Bible... If any of this is true, or at least plausibly true, the reader needs some more info than this book provides to be convinced. Thompson mentions various archaeological and historical findings along the way, but without any citations the (amateur) reader does not know and cannot judge whether or not his claims about the meaning of certain historical 'facts' are based on sound reasoning or wild speculation.

So while this book is very interesting and seriously challenges many preconceptions about the biblical canon, without supporting documentation or information it must be taken entirely with a pinch of salt.

Anyway, on with the things that actually are in the book...

The purpose of the OT writings

Why are the stories in the OT actually there? Because they suited the purpose and agenda of whoever compiled and edited the 'canon' of the OT. If that editor had access to stories that didn't fit with this agenda, they would not have kept them in the collection. The stories we have mostly show theological points through apparently historical events. Not everything that ever happened in Israel had theological meaning. So the stories of mundane and not apparently divinely guided events would not have been retained by the collection editors. What fraction of actual historical events clearly show the Hand of God at work? Probably only a small minority, so the vast part of real history will not have been retained for inclusion in the Biblical canon. What we are left with is, at best, a fragmented history. Perhaps some of the key historical events are simply not there at all.

And what happened if the editor of the collection had a story that nearly, but not quite, made the theological point he wanted to make? He could either discard it or modify it to fit his purposes. How can we tell the difference between a real story with theological overtones and a modified story with theological overtones?

The Bible is a theological work and if we understand it as such, we have to realise that not much actual history will have survived the editing and compiling process intact.

The timing of the compilation

When was the OT compiled? (And by who?) Most scholars seem to agree that the compilation and editing of most of the books of the OT that we have was done after the exile in Babylon. That is to say, the OT was compiled to make sense in the time following the exile to the people who returned from exile (or possibly a few generations later). Thus the purpose of the compilation exercise was to answer questions like "who are we?", "who is our God?" and "why did God send us into exile?" and so on.

Once again, if the editor had an agenda, then any stories that did not fit the agenda would be omitted or modified to fit.

In a couple of places in this book, the claim is made that the bible chronology has been rewritten in the time of the rededication of the temple in 164BC. It is claimed that the chronology was designed to make the time from creation to that date equal 4000 years. The claimed reason for this is so that the bible narrative would essentially demonstrate that this rededication of the temple was a pivotal moment in history, indeed, it was the culmination of the entire history of Israel before it.

The claim is nothing less than that people rewrote history to suit the purposes of their own time. The agenda of the compilation and editing of the Bible was not to preserve history, but actually to change it!

If this claim is true, then -essentially- the entire bible is false history!

As with other claims in this book, this is an extraordinary claim, and thus (as is now widely quoted) extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Sadly, this book doesn't provide the evidence, extraordinary or otherwise.

An invented religion?
On page 169 Thompson makes a staggering claim. He says that the Assyrians (the people who appear to have taken the Israelites into exile, and resettled some of them back in Israel and Judah some years later) had a practice of moving peoples about in the empire as a means of maintaining control of the migrating people. But one of the things he says they did was to tell the people they were moving that really they were returning them to the land of their ancestors, when in reality they were not. Furthermore, he claims that the Assyrians would "invent" gods and tell the people they were resettling that these gods were the gods worshiped by their ancestors.

"The invention of new ancestor gods was an Assyrian imperial policy that helped create religious ties between societies around regional and local deities. Its counterpart was to develop legends about the 'return' of 'old' long-neglected and forgotten gods."

What he is essentially claiming is that the 'exiles' who 'returned' to Jerusalem had probably originated elsewhere in the empire and were not in any way descended from the Israelites who had been taken into captivity some decades earlier. Those exiles were presumably resettled somewhere else.

Furthermore, he is claiming that the Jewish religion was an invention, given to the 'returning' people as part of the resettling process.

In other words, he is claiming that both the Jewish people and the Jewish religion were fabricated by the Assyrians. There was no continuity between pre-exilic and post-exilic peoples and no continuity between pre-exilic and post-exilic worship. This is such a staggeringly big claim that I can hardly believe it comes hidden in the middle of a chapter on something else! If this is true then all of Judaism and all of Christianity is based on a lie!

And here, again, we get to the problem. As I said above, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. But we are given hardly any evidence here at all. Nothing more than an anecdote really. He alludes to another instance where we 'know' that this sort of thing happened in Ur, where the neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus established (or re-established?) the worship of the god "Sin" (nothing to do with the Christian concept of the same name) by building (or re-building) a temple there in about 550BC. But the book doesn't discuss the evidence. It isn't even presented properly, just mentioned in passing as if the reader should be fully aware of these events. Its not proven that this invention of a god happened in Ur, so its even less clear that it could have happened in Jerusalem.

I really want to read and know more about this, but Thompson doesn't give enough detail, or references for further reading. Doing a quick Google search suggests that the consensus opinion among scholars regarding Nabonidus and the temple was that Nabonidus was a follower of Sin before he became king, and that he was simply using his status in society to promote the worship of his preferred deity. In other words, the consensus view knows nothing of the creation or promotion of false gods, only the resurgence of belief in an already worshipped god.

If that is what actually happened in Ur, then we have no evidence for the promotion or creation of false gods in Jerusalem. In order for Thompson's case to be convincing it needs to actually present the case! As it stands, it appears that this is mere speculation, and wild speculation at that.

The wrong people?
Thompson goes on at length to make the claim that there never was a group or nation who would have self-identified as "Israelites" until after the 'return' from exile. All stories told about the pre-exilic nation of Israel should be understood as fiction:

"In writing about the historical developments of palestine between 1250 and 586, all of the traditional answers given for the origins and development of 'Israel' have to be discarded. The patriarchs of Genesis were not historical. The assertion that 'Israel' was already a people before entering Palestine whether in these stories or in those of Joshua has no historical foundation. No massive military campaign of invading nomadic 'Israelites' ever conquered Palestine. There never was an ethnically distinct 'Canaanite' population whom 'Israelites' displaced. There was no 'period of the Judges' in history. No empire ever ruled a 'united monarchy' from Jerusalem. No ethnically coherent 'Israelite' nation ever existed at all. No political, ethnic or historical bond existed between the state that was called Israel or 'the house of Omri' and the town of Jerusalem and the state of Judah. In history, neither Jerusalem nor Judah ever shared an identity with Israel before the rule of the Hasmoneans in the Hellenistic Period."

He then goes on to claim that the only people who should really be described as 'Israelites' are those 'enemies of Benjamin and Judah' who turn up in Ezra chapter 4 and are rejected by the 'Jews' because they were "Samaritans".

Once again, a staggering claim which, if true, would basically render the entire Old Testament untrue. The claim, once again, is that the Bible stories were written and compiled well after the exile, and that the stories were intended to create a history for a people who didn't really ever have one.

There's loads more in this book along the same lines. Thompson wants to destroy the idea of the bible as history. The problem is he doesn't present enough data to support his conclusions. He might be right, but I have no way of judging that, and Thompson doesn't give me any way of judging it.

So in the end, while this is a mostly fascinating book, I have to take it all with a very large pinch of salt, and look for answers to these questions elsewhere.

Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet, and 1st temple worship...

I recently discovered that, as a member of staff at the University of Edinburgh, I have access to the New College library, one of the biggest theological libraries in Europe. So rather than waste that opportunity, I went and borrowed some books.

The first one I read, largely because it was the slimmest of the books I borrowed was "The Lost Prophet" by Margaret Barker. I've previously read her book "The Great Angel" and found it fascinating, and really want to read her first book "The Older Testament", but sadly New College don't have that, so I settled on this.

The book is an examination of the ancient book of 1st Enoch. Exactly how ancient it is is one of the conundrums of the book. It is in five parts, four of which were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, making those parts pre-Christian. The other part is only found in later, Christian, documents, so it is unclear if this bit is pre-Christian or not. This is a bit annoying as this part contains a lot of material about a character called "The Son of Man". If this could be shown to be pre-Christian then this book might yield understanding of what Jesus and the early church meant when they used the phrase.

Conventional thinking about this book is that it is later to, and derivative of, the Old Testament writings. Barker makes the opposite case, that the book of Enoch could be contemporary with some of the Old Testament books, perhaps even earlier. She makes a good case for, at the very least, not assuming the priority of the OT books, just because they're in the canon. The OT books, like Daniel and some of Isaiah, could basically be products of the same kind of thinking that also gave us the book of Enoch. That is to say, in evolutionary terms, that they share common ancestry. 

Barker claims that if we read the New Testament through the lens of this Enochic view of the world, then we can gain insight into many parts of the NT, not just Jude and 2Peter, which refer to it explicitly, but also all the Son of Man stuff in the gospels and some of the thinking of the epistles.

Its all interesting stuff, and might give insights on a few obscure passages, but its not going to set the world on fire...

What I am much more interested in, having read this, is the content of her earlier book, and the thesis contained therein. You see, Barker claims that the stories, rituals and beliefs, etc. of the pre-exilic period in Israel and Judah have been deliberately modified and rewritten with a different agenda in the post-exilic period when the OT was compiled. The Old Testament, she claims, misrepresents the first temple period and, essentially, rewrote history saying that what they did back then was the same as what we do now...

Barker believes otherwise. She seems to hold that the first temple worship was directed to more than one divine being, and that the King was considered by his people as divine and literally the Son of God.

Its frustrating reading this between the lines of this book when, I guess, she makes her full case for this in her earlier book. Must read it.

Anyway, I've also listened to a couple of talks by her on YouTube. Here she implies the same sort of ideas, again without fully spelling them out. One of the most fascinating ideas that she mentions in the talks and also in this book, is the idea that the Adam and Eve story is a relatively new addition to the OT, and that this picture of the origin of the world, sin, etc. was not part of first temple thinking. She points out something surprising - after the first few chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve are never mentioned again in the OT. This is one of the things which suggests that this is a late story, even though it comes first in our book. She suggests that all the Abraham and the patriarchs stuff is much older.

But her main thesis is that the system of worship from the first temple period has been written out of the bible, and only teasing hints remain. I think her basic thinking goes like this:

The 'reforms' of Josiah's day changed the Jewish religion. The rewriting of the story, as told by post-Josiah and post-exilic writers, says that God instructed Moses in a particular system of monotheistic worship, in the tabernacle, which was later set in stone, as it were, in Solomon's temple. But Solomon and those who came after him allowed 'foreign' worship of other gods into the temple, which corrupted the original, pure monotheistic system. So Josiah's reforms were, as seen from a 2nd temple viewpoint, the restoration of the old ways and the expulsion of the foreign gods.

Barker claims otherwise. She notes that in 1 Enoch, it is the 'reformers' who are portrayed as the bad guys who corrupted the original system. Not the original Mosaic system, which may be a later invention, pushing 2nd temple thinking back into a fabricated history, but rather the original Abrahamic and Messianic system of worship where the King was The Lord and The Lord was the King, and where the divine goddess of wisdom, Ashera or Astarte, was worshiped alongside Yahweh and his anointed one, the King.

Barker goes on to claim that these ideas, while written out of the priestly history books, were not written out of public belief, and that these ideas formed the basis of Christianity, with Jesus as the divine messiah, wisdom personified as the Holy Spirit, and the temple 'rebuilt' out of the living stones of believers. Its a shocking thought.

But where Barker doesn't go, is to explain why this way of thinking gets lost from the New Testament. Why don't we know this stuff? Why do we not believe what Barker claims the early Christians did believe? Here's where I have to speculate. What if this stuff got written out again in the 2nd century during all the battles between orthodoxy and heresy? The 'catholic' Christianity that emerged at the end of the 2nd century seems to be a fusion of different strands which went before - what happens if you try to fuse a Christianity based on 1st temple thinking, with a 2nd temple Judaic way of thinking? Something would have to give. Something would have to get left out, or changed, or rewritten. We might very well end up with what we have now.

Of course, nothing is proved here, this is all speculation, but it is fascinating speculation...

David, Goliath, and the combat myth...

I've recently been listening to some episodes of the "Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean" podcast, presented by Prof Philip Harland. They're not exactly the most professionally made things, most are simply recordings of parts of his lectures at York University (Toronto, Canada), but I find them particularly fascinating. Recently he's been talking about the 'Combat Myth'.

The Combat Myth is an archetypal story which seems to have been prevalent through many, if not all, religions in the ancient middle east. While there are variations in the theme, and embellishments peculiar to each telling, there is a basic pattern to the story which is common to all. Specifically:

• There is an ancient and monstrous god/creature which represents chaos, or evil in some of the later tellings.
• The king of the pantheon of gods is unable to control or defeat the monster.
• For a time, no hero can be found who is willing to step up and attempt to defeat the monster.
• Eventually a young god (sometimes, but not always, the son of the old king god) steps up, defeats and kills the monster, and claims (or is given) the kingship for himself.
• Sometimes the young god creates the world out of the body of the slain monster.

This pattern can be seen in the Akkadian myth of Ninurta (the young god) and Anzu (the chaos monster, formerly the servant of Enlil, the old king) which probably goes back at least 2000 years BC, possibly much longer ago. It can also be seen in the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat, sometime between 2000 and 1000 years BC, and in the myths of Baal and Yam, and Baal and Mot, from about the same era. There even appears to be evidence of the same story being told of the Hebrew God Yahweh defeating Leviathan (the sea/chaos monster) in the Psalms (74 and 89), although the actual arc of the story is missing in the bible.

Reflecting on all this, I found myself thinking about the story of David and Goliath. Its basically the same story as the Combat Myth, but told as a human story, supposedly in human history.

• Goliath is a monstrous evil enemy.
• Old King Saul can do nothing to defeat the monster.
• For a time, no hero can be found.
• Eventually a youngster, David, steps up, kills the giant, and ultimately becomes king.

OK, so in the David story he had already been selected as a future king, and didn't immediately depose Saul, but not all the other versions of the story are exact in all the details, either.

It very much looks to me like this is simply a retelling of the Combat Myth as a legend about an ancient hero. So this isn't likely to be a historical event. This seems really quite obvious to me, so I was surprised (after Googling a few relevant phrases) to find that nobody out there on the internet seems to have discussed this parallel. Surely I haven't stumbled on to an original thought...?

I wonder which other stories in the life of the great hero David were invented on the basis of mythic themes?

Jesus is alive...

We sang a song in church last week, for which the main focus of the lyrics and the 'hook' of the tune was the words "Jesus is alive!" This phrase, in a variety of languages, has been one of the main declarations of Christian worship for the best part of two thousand years. But singing it this week made me question why. Why is this phrase a primary article of worship? Its not a statement about something Jesus has done (for us), but is rather a statement of belief in an attribute of Jesus.

In contemporary Christian understanding of Jesus, he has been alive for all of eternity past and will be alive for all of eternity future. Yes, there was that brief three day period when he was apparently - in some sense - dead, but that's barely a blip in an eternity of life. I realsed, when singing those words last week, that the message of the song wasn't 'Jesus is alive again, having been dead', it wasn't a celebration of resurrection 'Jesus is risen', but it was simply a statement of belief that the Christian God is a living God, not a lifeless one like the idols of the pagans.

Then I realised that this statement of worship pre-dates Christianity. Its all through the Old Testament too. God is 'the living God' (e.g. Deut 5:26; Joshua 3:10; 1 Samuel 17:26; etc.) and oaths in the OT were sworn 'as surely as Yahweh lives' (e.g. Judges 8:19; Ruth 3:13; 1 Samuel 14:39; etc.). I found myself thinking that the Christian declaration 'Jesus is alive' is basically an update of the OT statement about God. Then I searched and found that the phrase 'Jesus is alive' (or something equivalent) does not actually occur in the NT!

The most common phrasing for a similar thought that I found in the NT is Jesus / Christ 'has been raised', although there are a few 'has risen' type statements in the gospels. But the most common type of phrasing describes an action that was done by God to Christ - God (the active participant) raised Jesus (to whom no action is attributed) from the dead. The statement is not about something Jesus did or about his attributes. So if that's the NT way of thinking, then why has the 'Jesus is alive' type thinking come to be so dominant?

This return to OT-type thinking seems to be a post canonical shift. Its as if the OT thinking about God has been transferred onto the NT character of Jesus, making him the active participant. This looks like a harmonisation of Christian thinking and Jewish thinking. Some speculate this happened in the 2nd century resulting in the emergence of the 'Catholic' variety of Christianity.

Once again, I can't help but think that the conflict between nascent Catholicism and Marcionism is hiding somewhere in here. In Marcionism (the earliest form of Christianity we know much about!) the Father God who raised Jesus from the dead was emphatically not the same God as the God of the OT. This religion was completely distinct from Jewish thinking. Meanwhile, as Margaret Barker suggests, there was a popular non-monotheistic version of Judaism which meshed well with Christian thought - that Yahweh in OT times and Jesus in NT times were the same character - the son of Elyon, the Most High God. If this is true, then Yahweh, the living God, became Jesus, the God who is alive. Throw all this into a melting pot and fight it out until only one 'orthodox' hybrid religion emerges, and it is easy to see how the idea of Jesus as the living God could win out. Maybe.

Worth thinking about though.

Kill all Amalekites!

Follow the story in Lego form, click here...

Yet another post springing from a recent episode of the Unbelievable show...

The discussion on the show on Saturday 12th January (link to the show audio) concerned the "Amalekite genocide" in I Samuel 15. My summary of the main points of the Biblical story is as follows:

1. God instructed Saul, through Samuel, to slaughter all the Amalekite people as a punishment for what they did to the Israelite people on their way out of Egypt, several centuries before. 
2. Verse 3 is explicit: "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." - This is presented as the direct Word of God.
3. Saul carried out an attack on the Amalekite people, but did not utterly destroy them.
4. God, through Samuel, chastises Saul for not carrying out the total destruction, and rejects him as king over Israel. 
5. Samuel himself kills the king of Amalek who was spared and, in a later chapter, David destroys the remaining Amalekites. These two show obedience to the command of God, which Saul did not.

The discussion on Unbelievable was between the Revd. John Allister, an Anglican vicar, and Justin Schieber, an atheist (former Christian) and host of the podcast Reasonable Doubts. I have to say that the role played by Schieber in this debate was mostly to be incredulous and point out the plain meaning of the text, which is apparent to anyone.

John Allister's defence of the Biblical story and the God portrayed therein would have been comical, had the subject in hand not been such a horrible one of slaughter and genocide. His take on the issue was basically as follows:

1. God did issue the command, as given.
2. But armies are slow moving things and people have plenty of time to run away, so the only people who should have fought the Israelite army were soldiers; all able bodied women, children and non-fighting men would have easily got away and would therefore not have been slaughtered.
3. It is reasonable to assume that no children or infants were actually killed as a consequence of this command.
4. The Amalekite people who escaped could have assimilated into other tribes - the aim of this was not to destroy individual people, but a tribal identity.

So, in summary, his defence is that God commanded it, but it never happened, even though the bible stories are true...

This is nonsense on so many different levels. But so is the response of several of the people who called or e-mailed in to Unbelievable the following week. A common theme in their responses was that the slaughter of the innocents must have been necessary, but it is morally acceptable because all innocents who died would have gone to heaven. Once again, this is the use of an unseen, but infinite, good to explain or justify a seen, but finite, evil.

Come again? It appears that a commonly held belief is that any infant or innocent child who dies goes straight to heaven. What about original sin? What about freewill? If the people who believe this actually considered the implications of their belief, they would find that the only logical conclusion - assuming that the general aim of Evangelicalism is to get lost souls to heaven - would be to kill all infants at birth, bypassing their freewill and assuring their salvation. If we let children grow up then we run the risk that they might reject God and be damned. Of course, I'm not advocating this, I'm merely pointing out how this argument - as used by William Lane Craig, I believe - is inconsistent nonsense and provides no solution to the problem inherent in this passage.

John Allister's case is no better. He believes that no children actually died. But if, as he believes, the command came from an omniscient God, then why would God give the command? If God knew that no children would die, then why command anything to do with children? No, that doesn't wash. If the command came from an omniscient God, then he knew there would be children there and he knew that they would die, and furthermore, following my reasoning above, that some of them would be going to hell.

I can't see an acceptable way to understand this passage within an Evangelical mindset. Either we have to abandon an inerrant/inspired view of the passage or we have to abandon a view of an omnibenevolent God. There is no middle ground.

So what are the available options of what happened:

1. That the events happened as described.
   As I've noted above, this necessarily entails that God is not a God of love.


2. That the events happened as described, that Samuel genuinely believed he had a revelation from God, but that he was misguided and God never issued such a command.
   This option gets God off the hook, but undermines any claims about the inerrancy or inspiration of scripture. It also casts doubt over any and all claims of revelation from God. I mean, if Samuel got it wrong and didn't hear from God clearly, then what hope is there for the rest of us?


3. That the events (battles, slaughter) happened, more or less as described, but that the command of God and the human dialogue was added by a later storyteller in an attempt to explain why the events happened as they did.
   The supposition here, made by the later historian/storyteller is that the events must have happened because of a divine command, so a divine command was invented to explain an otherwise senseless slaughter. For several years I have found myself drawn to this line of reasoning when dealing with problem passages of Israelite history where God appears to command an immoral action. The assumption is that the history is basically true, but the analysis was fabricated to shift the blame for the immoral actions from the people to their God. An immoral action becomes acceptable if God commands it, right? Or it could simply be a way to insert God into a story which he really had nothing to do with. But all history is God's story, isn't it? So he must have been involved. However, I have come to realise that the only reason to hold to this line of thinking is an attempt to maintain some sort of inspiration or authority of scripture. Even though logic led me to the conclusion that the whole story couldn't be true because of the problems described above, my natural inclination was to preserve some of the authority of the bible by finding a way to ensure that some, at least, of the story was true. But if we're honest with ourselves here, that simply doesn't wash. Which brings us to the final possibility...


4. That the events simply did not happen.
   Once you've given up on this passage as being in any way an inspired account of a historical event, you have to consider why this passage is included in the bible. Well, its there to teach us about God, isn't it? But if we've rejected the view of God which this passage paints, that is, God simply cannot be like the character described here, and we realise that the main intent of the story is to convey a message about God, not a message about history and human battles, we have to consider the option that perhaps the whole incident is simply made up. Certainly, as far as I know, there is no historical evidence (outside of the bible) for these events. This is just the same as the alleged Canaanite genocide from the days of Joshua, there we get the same arguments, but there we have a greater amount of archaeological evidence. Evidence that the biblical stories of conquest and slaughter simply did not happen. Maybe there were some minor skirmishes, and some children died, etc., but there was no genocide, commanded by God or otherwise.

So a serious consideration of the facts, the evidence and the arguments leads me to the conclusion that the story of the Amalekite genocide in the Old Testament is simply fiction. It was probably written many (tens or hundreds of) years after the time of the alleged events and reflects more the beliefs and wishes of the storyteller than anything in real history.

If that's the case here, why can't that also be the case for the rest of the old (and new) testament?

If the Bible is not true here, then where - if anywhere - is it true, and how can you distinguish the truth from the fiction? I still haven't found an acceptable answer to that question.

---

Update
A couple of the responses to this Unbelievable show which were read out in subsequent weeks expressed the opinion that because God is the author and originator of life, it is therefore entirely within his rights to take it away. Everyone dies at some point, right? And presumably God determines when that point is? So whether you live or die, and how long you live for is all God's choice. He has the right to end life as he sees fit, even if this is the life of an ostensibly innocent child. Right?

No. I can't accept that. Suppose I give you a gift for Christmas. I can't reclaim it in January. That would not be right. So how can it be right for God to take away the gift of life? But even if God has the right to reclaim life at any time, claiming the life of an innocent child, before the child has had the opportunity to exercise their freewill in choosing whether or not to follow God, is still wrong. As we've seen above, the child's eternal destiny cannot be assured, so reclaiming the life of innocent children must mean consigning some of them to hell or, at least, annihilation.

OT prophecies of the Messiah...

Following some comments made in response to a previous post, I thought it would be a good time to look over the Christian claim that Jesus fulfilled many OT prophecies and is thus demonstrated to be the messiah. Some preachers claim that Jesus fulfills 'over 300' prophecies in the OT, but I don't really have the time or inclination to consider that many now, so I'll consider the 39 main ones, which I have taken from this list. If your favourite OT prophecy of Jesus isn't one of the ones on the list, please comment with a specific chapter and verse reference, and I'll have a look at that one too.

In commenting on this list, I'll be looking at a number of issues, two of the main one being whether the OT passage was actually intended or viewed as a messianic prophecy when it was written or first known, and whether or not it looks like the gospel accounts were written specifically to tick the boxes of some of the OT prophecies, that is, the gospel accounts contrived to make Jesus fulfill the prophecy, whether the historical Jesus actually did. Point 1 is case in point:

1. Micah 5:2. The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
This was clearly understood as a Messianic prophecy.
However, two of the gospels and all of the epistles make no mention of this. Luke's story of the census does appear contrived (what sort of census counts the population in places where they don't live?), so there are hallmarks of the story being contrived to tick the prophecy box. I'm not sure this one counts as evidence that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

2. Genesis 49:10. The Messiah will be a descendant of Judah.
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will obey.”
Only two of the gospels (Matt and Luke) make explicit that Jesus was a descendent of Judah. Mark has Jesus himself questioning the claim that he is a descendent of David. But none of that really matters, the main point to raise here is that Jesus had no association with a 'ruler's staff' or a 'scepter' during his time on earth and, thus far, not all the nations obey him. So, at best, this is a prophecy still awaiting its fulfillment. Of course, that means it is not evidence in favour of Jesus being the messiah.

3. Psalm 72:10-11. Great kings will pay homage and tribute to the Messiah.
The website I took this list from quotes the verse from the New Living Translation: “The western kings of Tarshish and the islands will bring him tribute. The eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts.” I looked this up in other translations and the sense is somewhat different: "May the kings of Tarshish and of distant shores bring tribute to him. May the kings of Sheba and Seba present him gifts. May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him" (NIV). In context, the whole psalm is a prayer or blessing clearly intended for the coronation ceremony of any king. The hope is that all the blessings listed, including the favour of foreign kings and nations, will be evident in the reign of whichever king was being enthroned. This would, by implication, have also been applied to the coming messiah. However, only one of the gospels relates the visit of the Magi (not kings!) to the infant Jesus, and they came from the east, perhaps Sheba (possibly modern day Yemen), but not Seba (which was not a place, but the son of Cush, thus linked with Ethiopia; South not East) and certainly not from Tarshish (thought to be Tarsus, Asia Minor; North West). This passage is debated by many scholars and thought by most critical scholars to be fiction, intended to show that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, rather than being historical.

4. Psalm 132:11, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Jeremiah 33:15. The Messiah will be a descendant of David.
“The Lord swore to David a promise he will never take back: ‘I will place one of your descendants on your throne. If your descendants obey the terms of my covenant and follow the decrees that I teach them, then your royal line will never end.”
“‘For the time is coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will place a righteous Branch on King David’s throne. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right through the land.”
“At that time I will bring to the throne of David a righteous descendant, and he will do what is just and right throughout the land.”
Two things here, firstly, and most importantly, Jesus has never yet sat on any throne or ruled over Israel or Judah. So, at best, this is a prophecy still awaiting its fulfillment. But beyond that, the gospels are unclear that Jesus was a son of David:
Mark 12: 35-37 "While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight." (Matthew and Luke copy this story and don't change it, even though both their genealogies of Jesus feature David).
Here, Jesus is clearly challenging the concept that the Messiah would be the son of David. There is no resolution to the story, so left as is, the only conclusion to draw is that, as far as Mark was concerned, Jesus was not a son of David. This is further emphasised by an implication in another Markan story, whereby the only person who calls Jesus 'Son of David' in Mark's gospel is Blind Bartimaeus. And he only says this while blind, after he has been healed of his blindness, he praises God, but makes no further mention of the 'Son of David' thing. Is there a wink and a nudge to the reader there?

5. Isaiah 7:14. The Messiah will be born of a virgin.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
This is one of the biggies, and is one of the most hotly contested. Does 'almah' mean virgin or young girl? Well, I don't think it matters, because the verse is part of a larger prophecy which goes on to say: "for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.”
Did Assyria attack Judea during Jesus' lifetime, but before he knew the difference between right and wrong? No. Indeed, if Jesus was the Son of God from all eternity was there ever a time when he didn't know the difference between right and wrong? And was he called Immanuel? No. He was called Jesus. For these reasons, I cannot see how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. Furthermore, it certainly does appear that Matt and Luke included the virgin birth theme to tick boxes, but even if it happened, a partial fulfillment of a prophecy is actually not a fulfillment of a prophecy.

6. Jeremiah 31:15. Children will be killed in effort to kill the Messiah.
The website I took this list from quotes the NLT: “This is what the Lord says: ‘A cry of anguish is heard in Ramah – mourning and weeping unrestrained. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are dead.”
Having compared the other translations and looked at the Hebrew (on Biblos), the original text would appear to be better translated "her children are not there" or "her children are gone". Given that this verse sits in the middle of a large prophecy about the return from exile, and the immediately following verse says "This is what the LORD says: "Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded," declares the LORD. "They will return from the land of the enemy", this verse must be understood to relate to the absent exiles who would return, not to dead children who couldn't return. Furthermore, Ramah is about as far North of Jerusalem as Bethlehem is south of it. Thus I think Matthew was entirely wrong to use this quote in connection with the slaughter of the innocents which he relates. So, once again, this is not a prophecy fulfilled by the life of Jesus.

7. Hosea 11:1. The Messiah will be taken to Egypt.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him as a son, and I called my son out of Egypt.”
In context (and even out of context) this verse is clearly not a prophecy regarding the future, it speaks about the events recorded in Exodus. Here, the 'son' in question is unmistakably the nation of Israel, not a future messiah. This verse is only understood as prophecy through the lens of Pesher, which I will probably discuss in another post, sometime soon.

8. Psalm 2:7-8. The Messiah will be the Son of God.
“The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: ‘The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today, I have become your Father. Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.”
Scholars seem to think that this psalm was one spoken by the (pre-exilic) king of Israel or Judea as part of his enthronement ceremony, or as part of an annual festival. So it wasn't originally messianic in intent. However, it clearly became understood as part of messianic expectation in the post-exilic period. Thus, if Jesus is the king, then it does relate to him. However, Jesus has yet to return as king, thus this is another prophecy which remains, as yet, unfulfilled.

9. Isaiah 40:3-5. The Messiah will be heralded by the messenger of the Lord.
“Listen! I hear the voice of someone shouting, ‘Make a highway for the Lord through the wilderness. Make a straight, smooth road through the desert for our God. Fill the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth off the rough spots. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all the people will see it together. The Lord has spoken!”
The funny thing about this prophecy is that the original sense of the passage is that the wilderness would be the place where the way of the Lord would be made, whereas the claimed NT fulfillment is that the wilderness is where the voice was heard shouting. So John the Baptist is only a partial fulfillment of this. But this is one of the clearest prophecies fulfilled in the story of Jesus.

10. Isaiah 11:2. The Messiah will be anointed by the Holy Spirit.
“And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.”
This is another passage that is clearly messianic expectation. But has it yet been fulfilled in Jesus? Certainly, out of context Isa 11:2 seems to be fulfilled by Jesus in the gospel stories, but what about the rest of the prophecy? Has Jesus (yet) judged the poor? Has he (yet) struck the earth with the rod of his mouth? Has he (yet) slain the wicked with the breath of his lips? (all in verse 4). No, no and no. So once again, this is one of those prophecies which Christians believe will be fulfilled by Jesus, but thus far in history, it hasn't.

11. Isaiah 9:1-2. The Messiah will bring light to Galilee.
“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will soon be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light – a light that will shine on all who live in the land where death casts its shadow.”
These verses are part of a larger messianic prophecy which ends up with the messiah on the throne judging for ever and ever. As noted above, this hasn't happened yet. However, the opening verses claim this messiah will be in some way connected to Galilee. So if you can separate verse 1 from the 7 verses that follow, then this has been fulfilled (even if it is vague) in Jesus, but if not, then this is still a prophecy awaiting fulfillment.

12. Isaiah 61:1-2. The Messiah will preach good news to the poor, comfort the broken hearted, and announce the year of the Lord’s favor.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”
The gospel accounts say Jesus claimed this prophecy was fulfilled in himself, so this one is pretty clear cut. Jesus apparently did bring good news to the poor. Not sure about the freedom for prisoners bit, unless you read that metaphorically, of course.

13. Psalm 35:19. The Messiah will be hated without cause.
“Don’t let my treacherous enemies rejoice over my defeat. Don’t let those who hate me without cause gloat over my sorrow.”
This psalm was clearly not written as a messianic prophecy, and only later Pesher has turned it into one. And the clause quoted is only a minor one in the psalm. Also, it is clear for the gospels that the pharisees had good reason to hate Jesus - he was challenging their way of life. So not a clear fulfilled prophecy.

14. Isaiah 35:5-6. The Messiah will make the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the mute speak.
“And when he comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will shout and sing!”
Yes. This one is clearly fulfilled by Jesus in the gospel stories.

15. Zechariah 9:9. The Messiah will enter Jerusalem riding a donkey.
“Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey – even on a donkey’s colt.”
This is a messianic prophecy, clearly, but the original context was all to do with judgement on all Israel's neighbours, a judgement that had already happened by the time of Jesus as all of them were under the dominion of Rome. Yes, the gospel accounts do have Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew actually has him riding in on a donkey and a colt - at the same time - specifically to tick this box). However, it is fairly clear in the gospels that Jesus did this act intending to fulfill this prophecy, so is that a true fulfillment? Bus as I'm going to tally these up at the bottom of the post, then this is a yes.

16. Daniel 9:25. The Messiah will arrive in Jerusalem at a specified time.
“Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes.”
This is one of those prophecies that needs unpacking. If you calculate the time of the prophecy of Daniel in a certain way and you make some assumptions about the length of a year (basically that a year is not 365 days, but is only 340!) then the numbers work out almost perfectly for the messiah coming at passover in the year 31AD. Which is (give or take a year) when most people think Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Sorry, but that's too contrived for me. And most critical scholars think that Daniel was written late, so the dates wouldn't add up. So, at best, I'm not convinced by this. Maybe I'll return to this in a future post.

17. Malachi 3:1. The Messiah will enter the Temple with authority.
“‘Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
This is another prophecy where those who claim that Jesus fulfilled it are reading his claimed future actions into its fulfillment. Yes, Jesus entered the temple with (violent) authority, but the judgement and 'day of the Lord' stuff that fills the rest of the prophecy was not fulfilled for another 40 years, at least, and perhaps has not been fulfilled yet. So this is another partial fulfillment.

18. Isaiah 53:3. The Messiah will be rejected.
“He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care.”
Well, it depends which part of the gospel story you read. For part of the story, Jesus was accepted and welcomed by many, while he was rejected at other parts. But yes, it does look like this messianic expectation was fulfilled at the time of Jesus trial and crucifixion.

19. Isaiah 53:7. The Messiah will be silent in front of his accusers.
“He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.”
This is part of the same prophecy as above, so I'm not sure it counts as a separate point. The gospel accounts do tell the story that Jesus was silent for most of his trial. Was that fulfillment or box ticking? This one is hard to tell.

20. Psalm 118:22. The Messiah will be rejected by the Jews.
“The stone rejected by the builders has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous to see.”
Well, Peter 2:7 says that Jesus fulfills this one. Beyond that, it is unclear in the original context what the verse is about. It doesn't look like it was written as a messianic expectation but, like many other Davidic verses in the psalms, it may have gained a messianic expectation in the post-exilic years. The original context does not suggest that 'the builders' refers to 'the Jews', so it is only reading this using Pesher and reading this using non-Jewish Christian reasoning that you can call this one a fulfilled prophecy.

21. Psalm 41:9. The Messiah will be betrayed by a friend.
“Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me.”
Was Judas Jesus's best friend? None of the gospels make this claim. Luckily the original language isn't as strong as 'best friend', and 'close friend' might be better. So yes, if this was understood to be a messianic expectation, then it was fulfilled in Jesus.

22. Zechariah 11:12. The Messiah will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.
“And I said to them, ‘If you like, give me my wages, whatever I am worth; but only if you want to.’ So they counted out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.”
There is nothing messianic in this OT passage. In order to relate this to Jesus it has to be taken completely out of context. However, I think that Matthew did read this as messianic and included it for box ticking purposes.

23. Zechariah 11:13. The 30 pieces of silver will be thrown in the potter’s field.
“And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potters’ – this magnificent sum at which they valued me! So I took the thirty coins and threw them to the potters in the Temple of the Lord.”
As above, part of the same prophecy. I think this is box ticking.

24. Psalm 35:11. The Messiah will be accused by false witnesses.
“Malicious witnesses testify against me. They accuse me of things I don’t even know about.”
Another non-messianic verse from the psalms that appears to have somehow become part of messianic expectation. Also, this translation (NLT) is not the sense of the verse preferred by most translations. Most translations drop the 'accuse' sense of it and translate as "ask me things I don't know", which is certainly not a parallel with the gospel story.

25. Isaiah 50:6. The Messiah will be beaten, mocked, and spit upon.
“I give my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pull out my beard. I do not hide from shame, for they mock me and spit in my face.”
I can see how this has become 'messianic' after the stories of Jesus were circulated, but in its original context, it was clearly a passage about how the prophet ('2nd' Isaiah) was badly treated for being faithful to the Lord, and how the Lord looked after him.

26. Isaiah 52:13-14. The Messiah will be beaten, bloodied, and disfigured.
“See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. Many were amazed when they saw him – beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person.”
First things first, the verse clearly says it is about the 'servant' of the Lord (i.e. a prophet), not about his Son. But anyway, this is the beginning of the 'suffering servant' prophecy which certainly appears to parallel parts of the gospel story.

27. Psalm 22:7-8. The Messiah will be mocked and told to save himself.
“Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, ‘Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him!’”
Psalm 22 doesn't appear to have been written as a messianic psalm, but by the time Christians were trying to get their heads around the idea of a crucified messiah, this psalm would have resonated greatly. The parallels are so striking that many believe that Mark wrote the crucifixion story with psalm 22 in mind. That is, it was not prophecy fulfilled, but rather a story told using building blocks from a familiar narrative.

28. Psalm 22:16. The Messiah’s enemies will pierce his hands and feet.
“My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet.”
As above.

29. Psalm 69:21. The Messiah will be given vinegar and gall to drink.
“But instead, they give me poison for food; they offer me sour wine to satisfy my thirst.”
A different psalm, but the same reasoning as above can apply here. Mark used this text to build his narrative, not the other way about. And even if it is fulfilled prophecy, it is only partial fulfillment as nobody offered Jesus poisoned food.

30. Psalm 22:17-18. The Messiah’s enemies will divide his clothes among themselves and cast dice for his garments.
“My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments.”
Psalm 22 again. As above.

31. Psalm 34:19-20. The Messiah’s bones will not be broken.
“The righteous face many troubles, but the Lord rescues them from each and every one. For the Lord protects them from harm – not one of their bones will be broken!”
An odd verse to claim regarding Jesus. I don't think you could say that the Lord had 'protected him from harm', or that he was 'rescued'.

32. Psalm 22:14. The Messiah’s life will be poured out like water.
“My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me.”
Psalm 22 again. As above. And this one is quite tenuous anyway.

33. Zechariah 13:7. The Messiah will be struck down, and his disciples will be scattered.
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, the man who is my partner, says the Lord Almighty. Strike down the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn against the lambs.”
Well, on the night he was betrayed, the disciples certainly scattered, but the story is quite clear that they were all back together again only a few days later. Beyond that, it is hard to say what the Zechariah passage is on about. It could be interpreted in a number of ways, and the prophecy fulfilled in Jesus way is certainly not the most obvious reading.

34. Isaiah 53:9. The Messiah will be buried in a rich man’s grave.
“He had done no wrong, and he never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.”
OK. That one fits.

35. Daniel 9:26. The Messiah will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing.
“After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple.”
If this is a prophecy fulfilled, then it would seem that the 'truth' of Jesus victory on the cross would not be known until after the city and temple were destroyed. Yet most people seem to agree that the claim that Jesus death bought salvation was widely known long before the destruction of the temple in 70AD.

36. Psalm 16:10 & 49:15. The Messiah will be raised from the dead (resurrected).
“For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your godly one to rot in the grave.” “But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of death.”
Well, 49:15 speaks of being saved from death (i.e. not dying), so it is not relevant. But the other wasn't really written as a messianic psalm and only took on that role long after its composition. But I'll concede that this one appears to be a fulfillment.

37. Isaiah 53:4-6, etc. The Messiah will bear the sins of many and intercede for sinners.
“Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.”
This is certainly the understanding of Christians. But it is not clear to non-Christians that Jesus bore any sins or was an atonement. So I can't see how this is proof of anything, it is only part of a belief structure. And as a side point, it is not clear from some of the gospels that Jesus died an atoning death, but that's a discussion for another blog post.

38. Psalm 68:18. The Messiah will ascend to heaven.
“When you ascended to the heights, you led a crowd of captives.”
Erm, did a crowd of captives ascend with Jesus? No. So its not a prophecy fulfilled, is it?

39. Psalm 22:30. The Messiah will be served by future generations.
“Future generations will also serve him. Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord. His righteous acts will be told to those yet unborn. They will hear about everything he has done.”
OK. I'll grant you that one.

So where does that leave us? Did Jesus fulfill some prophecies in the OT? It appears so. Did he fulfill all the messianic prophecies? No, far from it. Did the gospel writers arrange their stories to tick some of the prophecy boxes? Some of them did.

Out of the 39 prophecies listed here, I'd say that 10 of them are reasonably clear prophecies fulfilled in the story of Jesus. That's 25%. Not a great hit rate, given that there are thousands of prophecies in the OT and this list of 39 is someone's list of the best candidates for fulfillment.

I don't think the 'evidence' of prophecies fulfilled is that great...

(if you comment on this post, please quote the specific verses you're commenting on, thanks)

The God of Moses and Joshua (and his implications)

Every now and then, books or articles I read touch on the question of the (apparent) immoral behaviour of God as presented in the early books of the Old Testament - particularly the stories of the conquest of Canaan.

God, as presented in these books, commands his people to slaughter entire towns and nations, not merely killing the soldiers involved in battles, but killing women, children and even animals. Sometimes it is implied that the women and children of the defeated enemies may be kept as slaves, sometimes even sex slaves. But it goes beyond that, God is also presented as enacting extreme vengeance on his own people - sometimes commanding groups of them to slaughter other groups of them, and sometimes sending disease, poisonous snakes, etc. among them.

What are we supposed to do with these passages? Ignore them, explain them away, believe them, in some way base our own behaviour on them? Did these events actually happen? Did God command these events?

Here are all the possible options, as I see it (if there are others, please comment and tell me):

1. It happened more or less as recorded. God did and commanded these things. His people carried out genocide in his name. This makes God (and the people who obey his commands) morally responsible for the actions and would mean that the bible contains accurate history and theology.
   
2. The events happened; the people did the genocide. But not all of the events were commanded or enacted by God. This makes the people morally responsible, but lets God off the hook. This would mean that the bible contains accurate history but inaccurate theology.
3. God commanded such things, but the people did not carry out the genocide. This makes God morally responsible, lets the people off the hook, and would mean that the bible contains inaccurate history but accurate theology.
4. God did not command such things. The events did not happen. This would make the bible neither historically accurate or theologically accurate.

Ever since I first wrestled with these issues, I have kind of assumed that option 2 was the closest to the truth. That the (later) writers of the biblical accounts knew the events in their own history and theologised them by inserting the commands of God into the story to explain or defend the behaviour of their ancestors.

The reason for this choice was basically based on the presupposition that God is good. And therefore God could not have commanded such acts. The story (as presented) seems inconsistent with the known character if the loving God, so there must be something wrong. God could not have issued these commands, so they must be insertions of the authors, not historical events.

The problem with this assumption is that it reduces the biblical accounts to being simply wrong on the question of what God is like. I never really grasped the consequences of this belief before, but if the bible is wrong on this issue, then we have no basis for knowing what God is like from any parts of the bible. If this bit is wrong, why should we expect that (for example) Isaiah or Jeremiah are any more accurate, and what about Matthew or Romans?

Pretty much all we know about the character of God comes from the bible. So here all I was doing was taking the picture of God as presented in one part of the bible, and assuming that to be true, and using it to dismiss an alternative picture of God, given in another part of the bible. I never, until recently, noticed the flaw in that reasoning. Put simply, there is no way of knowing which of the pictures of God presented in the bible is the true one. Indeed, there is no way of knowing if any of them are true.

But if we can't distinguish between them, how can we have any faith? I think there's three options:

1. Choose to believe that all of the biblical pictures are able to be reconciled and that all, equally, paint an accurate and true picture of God. This is the view of most conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists and is more or less the view I was raised to believe. However, it is now a view I have to reject. The more I read, the more I reflect on these issues, the more I see that the bible does not present a uniform and reconcilable picture of God, rather it presents multiple pictures which, quite simply, do not present the same God. At best, the bible presents multiple flawed views and misunderstandings of the real God. At worst, it could be that none of the views contain enough truth to be trustworthy. Which brings us to point 2.
2. Chose to disbelieve all of the biblical pictures. If none of the pictures can be shown to be trustworthy, then all should be rejected. This way, inevitably, leads to agnosticism. Possibly the whole way to atheism. The more I read (on all sides of the discussion), the more compelling this option seems to become. Perhaps this is the only truly rational choice. But its a choice I haven't made (yet?).
3. The final option, as I see it, is to pick your favourite view of God, as presented in the bible, and run with it. I think that's what most believers do in practice anyway, without actually thinking about it, but it is possible to be intentional about it too. This seems to be what certain denominations do by defining a statement of faith, etc. For example, in a recent sermon from The Meeting House, they expressed the opinion that their whole belief system is intentionally viewed through the lens of the Gospels. In other words, they start with the words of Jesus and if they encounter anything that seems to disagree with that picture, the Jesus picture trumps the alternative. Jesus trumps Paul's opinions, Jesus picture of the loving Father trumps the OT God of vengeance, etc. The problem for me is that this leaves you with the problem of how to choose which picture to follow? There is no compelling reason to choose one over another. Yes, choosing the Jesus picture is more consistent with contemporary morality than choosing the Moses/Joshua picture, but that doesn't make one more true or accurate than the other. It really does boil down to picking a favourite, or, in most cases, accepting (or never questioning) the picture that you were raised with. I'm no longer sure what to believe, and I'm also not sure if I can justify (to myself) deciding to believe one option, when the evidence for any of them is so slight.
   

But back to the original question of the Canaanite genocide.

The more I've read on the subject recently, the more things point to options 3 or 4 (from the first list up there) being closer to reality. There is no archaeological evidence that these events actually happened. Indeed, a close look at the biblical evidence (the list of unconquered lands at the end of Joshua) makes it clear that the genocide never happened either - the unconquered lands after the alleged genocide include several of the lands which should have been wiped out already.

So, either God commanded genocide, but the Israelites did not follow through, or God did not command any such thing, so it never happened.

Believing either of these options is to acknowledge that the bible is wrong. The stories are not history, they are reduced to tall tales of the olden days, which may contain nuggets of events which actually happened, but most of the story, including the commands of God, are embellishments, added by storytellers around the campfire or added by historians with an agenda to push - perhaps bolstering the claim that the Israelites were ethnically different from the Canaanites ("We must be, there's none of those guys left...").

This leads us to the point of acknowledging, once again, that some of the stuff in the bible is simply not true. Perhaps, in some cases, it is deliberate fiction. This brings us, of course, again, to the question of how you can distinguish the truth from the falsehood, and if there is any truth in there at all. And I'm slowly coming to the realisation that you can't.

Its an all or nothing thing. Accept all of the bible as true and accurate (yes, I know that some of it is poetry and some is allegory, so some of it can't be true or accurate within its own genre type) with regard to history and with regard to claims of the character of God. Or. Reject it all as true or accurate.

Problem is, I can't accept it all without rejecting reason, logic and common sense, but I don't want to reject it all. I am more than slightly concerned that "can't" inevitably trumps "don't want to", which leads to only one inevitable outcome. Maybe I have to make that choice eventually. But not yet.