You all may remember our apologist who now wonders whether the Israelis could know these commands came from god. Well, really they couldn't, but it doesn't really matter. Even if the commands did come from god, who cares? They were immoral commands and should not have been carried out.
More interesting to me is the next section where the apologist asks whether the Israelis were simply justifying their actions. Let's take a look:
When the Israelites destroyed a population, they were acting as God's tools, not taking matters into their own hands. God made it clear to them that he was the one behind their victories (Jdg 7:2-3, Josh 5:13-14). In many cases, the nations were defeated by miracles of God (Josh 6, 10:8-14), and in all cases the Israelites were victorious only because they were following God, who gave them the victory (Josh 10:42).
Why am I reminded of the Nuremberg Defense? Hmmm, maybe because that's what this basically boils down to. This is just a long-winded way of saying that the Israelis were 'only following orders.' Yet, we rightly concluded that that defense shouldn't have worked with the Nazis and it doesn't work here. Sorry, but 'just following orders' doesn't absolve the Israelis from their crimes of aggression and genocide.
Other posts in this series...
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