I have now finished Joshua. Where I left off, he was preparing to defeat yet another tribe after making amends for a theft.
After the battle, Joshua impaled the body of the king and left it standing all day. I wonder how much blood Joshua got on himself to do this. It doesn’t say anything about him being unclean, but how do you impale a body without getting blood on you?
The Israelites then moved on to conquer more land. But first they were confronted by a group that wanted to make a pact with them. They promised not to kill the people and made them servants instead. The group was then attacked by 5 other kingdoms, so they asked the Israelites to save them. The Israelites went to do so. While they were fighting the armies of the 5 kings, Joshua ordered the sun to stop so that they could win the battle. Apparently God took a command from Joshua, because it worked. The Israelites won the battle and captured the kings. What was the point in putting their feet on the 5 kings necks? Clearly it was meant to make the Israelites feel powerful, but they just defeated 5 armies. The 5 kings were then also killed and impaled, as were the other kings that they later conquered.
So far there has been a lot of murder in Joshua. Is killing everybody really necessary? Apparently God wants to kill everybody. No reason is given. I guess he just likes pointless warfare. Has anybody else noticed that, so far, the only people that the Israelites have killed were once considered God’s people? They’re all familial tribes of the Israelites (descendants of Abraham). Then again, according to the Bible, everybody is a descendant of Abraham. Though later parts of the Bible aren’t written as if this is the case.
At one point, Caleb gave his daughter in marriage to his nephew. So I guess the Bible doesn’t view marriage between first cousins as incest.
When the land was being divided up, the Levites were called the descendants of Aaron, but earlier they were discussed as if they were a separate tribe from Aaron’s. They were already large enough to be a clan, and seemed to be made priests as penance. Aaron and his sons were made priests earlier and separately from the Levites. So what are the Levites relations to Aaron? Later on, the Levites were given land. Earlier in Joshua, it is said that the Levites wouldn’t inherit any land because they got the priesthood, but then they are given land within the land of the other tribes. This seems to be an important contradiction.
God specifically made sure that nobody except Caleb and Joshua would be alive to enter the Promised Land from those that left Egypt, but Joshua makes it sound like everybody hearing his final speech left Egypt and remembers their escape. He also claims that Abraham’s ancestors worshiped gods other than Yahweh. But Abraham was a descendant of Noah, and Noah was saved for being loyal to God. Why would Noah’s descendants worship other gods after what Noah had been through? Surely they would know that it was Yahweh saving Noah that made their existence possible. Then again, by the time Abraham was alive, the Earth was populated with people and they spoke various languages. A stone acts as Joshua’s witness after the Israelites re-agree to all the laws that they had agreed to under Moses. Then Joshua dies.
July 27, 2014
Why I Can’t Agree With the Bible: Joshua: Part 2
23 responses to “Why I Can’t Agree With the Bible: Joshua: Part 2”
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hessianwithteeth 
August 15th, 2014 at 1:45 pm
So many contradictions and parts that don’t add up just from one small part of the bible. Bearing that in mind, one must also consider the bible cannot be taken as an account of actual events, because it is simply a story told by someone. Stories are changed and glorified and the language used can influence the way in which readers perceive what is being written.
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July 27th, 2014 at 11:53 am
The Old Testament shows what man had become without God.
They had become vile, wicked, sadistic, savage, brutal, rapacious, homocidal and warlike.
From those early days of Moses and Joshua, to God’s favorite, King David, was a time span of centuries.
And yet the story of David, from shepherd to King was a tale of bloodshed, betrayal and wanton murder.
The bottom line is that God meets man where he is and works to take him where he ought to be.
Atheism is a barbarian, pre-civilized creed that takes mankind back to those horrific days of yore.
And that is why every atheist always gets stuck back in the days of yore wondering where is the justice in a like-minded band of heathens getting destroyed by the Jews.
The barbarian is too busy being a barbarian to receive the benefits of the wisdom which exudes from the pages of the Bible.
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July 27th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
The Israelites didn’t murder because they thought it was a good idea. They were told to do so by their god. A war god. A god that we today know as Yahweh.
And don’t worry: I’m not getting stuck on any of this. Soon I’ll reach the New Testament and you can find out what I find wrong with it too.
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July 27th, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Hessian,
I don’t think you’re getting the point which is:
Man was too far gone for an atheist teach-in.
The only way to get rid of evil is to exterminate it.
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July 27th, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Right. I highly doubt that murdering everybody is the proper way to eliminate violence. If this god is as powerful as he claims, why can’t he just command the other people the way he commands the Israelites?
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July 27th, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Hessian,
Evil must be exterminated. History has shown that over and over again.
I think we have already discussed how US forces exterminated Germans and Japanese by the hundreds of thousands during World War II.
If the genocidal evil of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had not been exterminated they would have established hell on Earth.
That isn’t a religious statement. It’s a statement based on what the Nazis and Imperial Japanese actually did to the peoples they conquered.
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July 27th, 2014 at 5:23 pm
History doesn’t show that we should destroy evil. History has nothing to say about evil. What the Allies did to innocent Japanese people was despicable. It is not okay to imprison people, or drop bombs on them, because you disagree with their government. Germans were mistreated as well, but they had the advantage of being white. What the Nazis did was wrong, but not all Germans were Nazis. In fact, very few were. Antisemitism was rampant at the time, which is why Hitler got away with so much before anybody stepped it. They didn’t think what he was doing was evil. In fact, they were much more concerned with his taking over other land than they were with his treatment of humans. The British and French were afraid that Germany would take over their land.
There are better explanations for human actions than “they were trying to stop evil.”
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Hessian,
History does indeed have much to say about evil.
I just gave you two examples, the Imperial Japanese and Nazi Germany.
And you proved me exactly right, and in the process lost yet another argument against yourself by making the value judge that it was the US that committed evil during World War II by exterminating Japanese citizens.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:06 pm
You’re making value claims. You’re seeing what you want to see. Site me the academic journal article, or peer reviewed (published by a university) book, that shows that the allies were interested in stopping evil. Note that this means the premise of the author should be that the allies intended to stop evil.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:11 pm
Hessian,
Of course I am making value claims.
One must be able to judge between good and evil.
To the atheist, good is what the atheist likes and evil is what the atheist does not like.
Therefore is an atheist likes committing genocide it is good.
But if God exterminates the wicked and the atheist doesn’t like it, why then God has committed genocide.
Such absurd “thinking” demonstrates that the atheist is a slave of bias, just like any uneducated savage.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:13 pm
Unless you can provide sources, your claims are meaningless.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:15 pm
Hessian,
Common sense and common knowledge don’t need to be sources.
Just start using your brain to think.
Imagine a brain to think with.
It’s easy if you try.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:16 pm
How do you know your common sense is correct without evidence?
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:25 pm
Hessian,
World War II is common knowledge.
It’s all over the media, all over Netflix.
Tom Brokaw, leftist journalist and mouthpiece for the Democrat Party, even wrote a bestseller called, “The Greatest Generation.”
Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, two prominent Hollywood leftists, produced two epic World War II series called, “The Band of Brothers” which concerned the exploits of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne in the European theater and the exploits of US Marine, Eugene Sledge, in the Pacific theater.
When I was in middle school I read every book in the school library about World War II, which included the Nazi death camps.
Since US public schools have been run by leftists for the last 50 years, all students learn about is how awful America has been since its founding.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:35 pm
You didn’t answer my question. Just because people know of world war 2, doesn’t mean that your common sense is true. We have evidence for WW2. We don’t accept it as true simply because we saw a video on Netflix about it.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:37 pm
Hessian,
Lots of people knowing about something is what common knowledge is.
If you don’t know about World War II, than I recommend you see “Pacific” and “Band of Brothers.”
They are very enjoyable as well as being educational.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:48 pm
Common knowledge is not common sense. And I’m not going to get my information about history from a fictional movie. I’ll get my info from peer reviewed sources like a proper historian. I recently watched Planes with my little cousins. Should I use that as evidence that planes can talk? Unless you can offer better reasons for believing something your words are meaningless.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:50 pm
Hessian,
Common sense is knowing, without having to consult a study, that evil must be exterminated.
That common sense conclusion is informed by experience.
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July 27th, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Common sense is looking both ways before crossing the street. Why is this common sense? Because we might get hit by a car if we don’t. How do we know that we might get hit by a car? Because it has happened to other people, or, in some cases, ourselves. This bit of common sense is supported by evidence. Where is your evidence that evil exists and must be exterminated?
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July 27th, 2014 at 11:49 am
[…] Source: Why I Can’t Agree With the Bible: Joshua: Part 2 […]
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:26 am
After reading this I have become a follower of this blog and makes me want to read what’s to come as well as past blogs. Thank you for catching my eye with what you wrote.
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:31 am
Thank you for taking the time to read it 🙂
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July 27th, 2014 at 6:32 am
You are welcome! 🙂
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