I have long been interested in the way that Bibles interact with the violent portions of scripture. In “How do you teach God’s genocide to children?” I noted how the Zondervan Adventure Bible for children deals (or doesn’t deal) with the genocidal mandate in Deuteronomy 20. Here below I have another example, this one drawn […]
herem
The Canaanite genocide as cruel and unusual punishment in extremis
We’ve now arrived at the ninth installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast “Richard Dawkins and Driving out the Canaanites.” And you’re thinking to yourself: “Geez, isn’t this overkill? Move on Rauser.” And I’m thinking: “That pun was in poor taste. And I’m not moving on, because there is just so much […]
William Lane Craig on killing the Canaanite infants
This is the seventh installment of my ongoing critique of William Lane Craig’s podcast on “Richard Dawkins and Driving out the Canaanites.” You can find the sixth installment here. As in previous installments, we’ll begin with Craig’s own words as we join his discussion at 10:57 into the podcast: “So the only moral question that […]
William Lane Craig’s defense of genocide based on a reprobate culture
This article is the sixth installment in my series “On William Lane Craig’s defense of the Canaanite genocide”. (You can find part five here.) At this point we join the conversation at 10:32 into the podcast when Craig observes: “When you think how utterly corrupt these Canaanite cultures were — practicing child sacrifice to their gods, […]
Crematoria for the Canaanites?
The other day I was speaking with a friend who had recently returned from a trip to Germany. The trip to Auschwitz was certainly not the “high point” of his trip, but it was undoubtedly the most emotionally arresting, memorable part. Since I’ve never been I could only listen to his chilling description and imagine […]
On reading the Bible’s texts of terror
Over the last several years I have wrestled extensively with what Phyllis Trible memorably called the “texts of terror” in the Bible. Texts that narrate slavery, genocide, assassination, beheading, cannibalism, rape, and many other heinous acts. Some of these texts depict Yahweh commanding, commending, or himself committing violent acts. In other texts the actions are […]
Might God call Christians to participate in a future genocide?
Christians who endorse the biblical genocides (e.g. Joshua 6-11) are fond of pointing out that these were exceptional circumstances which were necessary for Israel to maintain her purity in preparation for her role to be a light to the nations. However, they aver, the time for genocide is now over. Today we are called to […]
The God I really don’t understand
I am almost at an end (for the time being) of recycling my old classic posts from my Christian Post blogging days. Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll be reviewing Loftus The End of Christianity again. In the interim, here is a 2009 article I wrote on a new book (at the time) […]
Inerrancy by induction?
In “Can N.T. Wright save Paul the Apostle?” I identified an assumption that guides the way many Christians read the Bible. I called it MIS: Moral inerrancy standard (MIS): While the human authors of scripture were fallen, morally errant beings, the process of inspiration protected the authors from writing down any morally errant sentences which […]
Three theses on devotional child killing
The article I presented at the Atlanta SBL meeting, titled “‘I want to give the baby to God’: Three theses on devotional child killing” is now available! This is the biggest release since Gran Turismo 5! So to read and/or download the paper you can click here or go find it in the “Academic Papers” […]
An update in the wake of Atlanta (plus a bit on rape and child killing)
Well I’m back (as if anybody cares). Wait a minute. I care, so I’ll keep talking to myself if nobody else. It was a good time at the annual ETS conference (with a day at SBL thrown in). Let me say the weather was fine. It has been seven or eight years since I was in […]
