There’s this book of books called The Bible.
In it is the book of Joshua – the story of what happened to the Israelites after Joshua took over after Moses died (at a ripe, old age).
The sixth chapter of Joshua tells a great story of faith in God – the destruction of Jericho, a city cursed by God.
This story was the basis of our lesson in Sunday school today. Everyone loved it, but I got the feeling that no one paid attention to the evil within.
It’s a great story of faith because God told Joshua to follow a very specific battle plan and they did it and it all worked out for the Israelites — praise be to God.
One time for each of six days, the armed men were to follow seven priests playing trumpets in front of the Arc of the Covenant in a circle around the walls of the city.
On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times. At the end of the seventh time, the priests were to blow one loud call on their trumpets and then all the men were to shout at once at the city walls.
God said then the city would be theirs.
Joshua ordered the Israelites to follow this plan.
They followed this plan.
When the trumpets sounded their call on the seventh day after the seventh trip around the walls, the men shouted and the walls fell down. The armed men all went straight into the city.
From the King James Version of the Bible: “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”
One family was spared – the family of a prostitute (which in this case probably means innkeeper) who had helped Joshua’s spies earlier. Besides that family, everyone and everything else was killed.
Now in Sunday school we were informed that the people in Jericho were sinners.
Were the babies sinners? Were the animals? Was every adult a sinner?
Ok, the God of the Old Testament (GOTOT) would probably say that all the adults were sinners because they denied the one true God. According to Moses in Exodus, GOTOT says plainly that he will punish anyone who has a god before Him to a thousand generations (there’s that Second Commandment thing).
So, oh yes, GOTOT blames the child for the sins of his father.
Perhaps this seemed reasonable to ancient man when he wrote these nasty stories, but what he really did was expose GOTOT as a false god himself – a human invention – prone to evil and jealously and spite.
There is no way that such a beautiful universe which makes so much sense was created by a God who has his “chosen people” engage in the wholesale slaughter of cities.
You know what Jericho’s real crime was in the eyes of the authors of Joshua? They were in the wrong place.
That land was promised to the Israelites by God and the people of Canaan didn’t recognize that, so they had to be nuked.
If God was going to evict a bunch of people from their land, why wouldn’t he just have them all die? Why would he need Israelites to go kill them? Why wouldn’t he have just reserved the land in the first place? Why wouldn’t he have just transported them somewhere else?
None of this makes any sense.
Later this morning I read from Matthew. Finally, enter some sanity – the stories of Jesus Christ. Whether you believe in Jesus as advertised or not, these are some great stories.
Check this statement attributed to Jesus in a couple of books of the Bible:
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’”
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