Child Murder in the Bible

[GrandMasterFox]

I had a discussion with a friend regarding some of the horrible stuff in the OT.

He apperantly doesn't seem to accept the fact that there are actual condemnations of child murders in there.

At least he was willing to look at references if I sent him (cause god forbid he should read his own book :rolleyes:), so after doing a quick search (both from memory and google) the first things that came about was the part about stoning a rebelious child in deuteronomy and the order to kill amaleks by samuel.

Anyone recall other instances?
I'm talking about a specific and direct comand to kill children.
Sure there are plenty of cases where they talk about genocide or murder an entire town, but are there more places where the israelites are commanded to kill children and or babies?

[elbe]

Well, there's Genesis 22 where God demands Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. Right before he slices him open on an alter an angel shows up and tells him not to. It's generally treated as a sign of Abraham's unwavering faith (read: utter fear of god) that he was willing to kill his son on god's command.

[GrandMasterFox]

Well, there's Genesis 22 where God demands Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. Right before he slices him open on an alter an angel shows up and tells him not to. It's generally treated as a sign of Abraham's unwavering faith (read: utter fear of god) that he was willing to kill his son on god's command.

Oh right, forgot about that (that was in my initial list)
There's also the part about solomon's trial - whether he actually intended to cut the baby or not, nobody seemed surprised at the verdict...

[Piscivore]

2 Kings 2:23-24

[elbe]

Exodus 11 has god killing all the firstborns in Egypt as one of the "Plagues".

[DC]

Sodom and Gomorrah, he murdered everyone, thus, also little children.

[ebardos]

Kind of the opposite in Exodus 1:15-17 where Hebrew midwives were told to kill children but refused.

[elbe]

Kind of the opposite in Exodus 1:15-17 where Hebrew midwives were told to kill children but refused.

That was only because God didn't tell them to do it. Then they would have gone all Anakin Skywalker on the younglings.

[Nursefoxfire]

Kind of the opposite in Exodus 1:15-17 where Hebrew midwives were told to kill children but refused.

Who told them to kill the children?

[Brown]

There are a lot of child murders in the Bible, some of them (purportedly) at the express command of the Almighty. In the tale of the Exodus, the Almighty does the deed Himself; but often he gets human beings to take care of the nasty business on his behalf. Moses, Joshua and Saul, for example, ordered or carried out genocide (at least according to the Bible they did so), which specifically involved the killing of children and other non-combatants. There are also many passages glorifying the gruesome murder of children (e.g. Psalms 137:9). The New Testament also speaks of the murder of children or the hardships to be inflicted upon infants, although not as often or usually without the graphic detail (e.g., Matt. 10:21).

There are many who claim that the Bible condemns abortion, but one cannot find any passage in the Bible that says so clearly. And yet, the Bible includes many passages that speak in expressly favorable terms about infanticide.

Check the Skeptic's Annotated Bible for a quick and dirty listing of some of the Bible's lesser-known passages.

[DC]

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+2%3A23-24&version=KJV

never mock a prophet

ETA: Piscovore beat me to it :D

[ebardos]

That would have been the Egyptian King who gave the order in Exodus. The increasing number of Israelites was troubling to him for some reason.

[HansMustermann]

Try Numbers 31. Moses... err... I mean God through Moses, of course, orders the massacre of every prisoner that isn't a virgin girl, including all the little boys. If you can't screw it, why bother sparing its life, I guess.

To make the atrocity even harder to swallow, if that's even possible, is that Midian's only fault there was being too hospitable to Moses's flock. We're not talking about a genocide ordered against some bitter enemy or as punishment for another genocide, but the extermination of some actually very nice people, just because they made convenient scapegoats for why God gave the Hebrews a plague.

Or 1 Samuel 15, where it's explicitly ordered that in the war against Amalek everyone should be killed, including explicitly infants and babies. (And to make it even more surrealistic even the cattle.)

Joshua 6: when taking Jericho they're explicitly ordered to kill everyone within, and so they do. Children and babies are again very explicitly mentioned. (Again, including the cattle and donkeys. One has to wonder WTH problem did the Lord have with cattle.)

Joshua 10: claims _complete_ genocide against several Canaanite nations, to the extent that no soul was left alive.

Deuteronomy 20 lays down the rules of civilized warfare for the Hebrews: For the cities _not_ of Canaan, and which basically did neither the Hebrews nor their god any slight, kill everything male inside the city, take all the cattle and women including the little ones. (Read: girls under 3 years old.) No such exception is given for male babies, of course. For those of Canaan, just kill everyone, leave nothing that breathes alive.

[sphenisc]

I had a discussion with a friend regarding some of the horrible stuff in the OT.

He apperantly doesn't seem to accept the fact that there are actual condemnations of child murders in there.

At least he was willing to look at references if I sent him (cause god forbid he should read his own book :rolleyes:), so after doing a quick search (both from memory and google) the first things that came about was the part about stoning a rebelious child in deuteronomy and the order to kill amaleks by samuel.

Anyone recall other instances?
I'm talking about a specific and direct comand to kill children.
Sure there are plenty of cases where they talk about genocide or murder an entire town, but are there more places where the israelites are commanded to kill children and or babies?

What bearing would they have on him accepting there are condemnations of child murders?

[Piscivore]

(And to make it even more surrealistic even the cattle.)

Joshua 6: when taking Jericho they're explicitly ordered to kill everyone within, and so they do. Children and babies are again very explicitly mentioned. (Again, including the cattle and donkeys. One has to wonder WTH problem did the Lord have with cattle.)
You don't want feral, suddenly ownerless donkeys and cattle competing with your own for graze. And If you've got as many as you can reasonably support already...

[HansMustermann]

Well, in other instances they are ordered to take those cattle and donkeys as spoils of war. And it makes sense too. I mean, if they just conquered a city and took its land, basically they're also getting the pastures that supported those animals.

Yet in the case of cities of the Canaanites they're ordered to kill _everything_ living inside, even the animals. Which is for me a serious WTH. Whatever evil those Canaanites may have done, the cattle or donkeys were not among those who could decide for or against it in the first place (but then again neither were the babies), so what would one execute them for? And it's not like the evil of the Canaanites would rub off on the cattle and leave you with a satanist cow that offends the Lord.

[Lord Emsworth]

I had a discussion with a friend regarding some of the horrible stuff in the OT.

He apperantly doesn't seem to accept the fact that there are actual condemnations of child murders in there.

At least he was willing to look at references if I sent him (cause god forbid he should read his own book :rolleyes:), so after doing a quick search (both from memory and google) the first things that came about was the part about stoning a rebelious child in deuteronomy and the order to kill amaleks by samuel.

Anyone recall other instances?
I'm talking about a specific and direct comand to kill children.
Sure there are plenty of cases where they talk about genocide or murder an entire town, but are there more places where the israelites are commanded to kill children and or babies?

An old thread springs to the mind:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=25902

[Sledge]

What bearing would they have on him accepting there are condemnations of child murders?

I'm glad it's not just me puzzled by this. I'm not sure GrandMasterFox meant "condemnations."

[rjh01]

<snip>

Yet in the case of cities of the Canaanites they're ordered to kill _everything_ living inside, even the animals. Which is for me a serious WTH. Whatever evil those Canaanites may have done, the cattle or donkeys were not among those who could decide for or against it in the first place (but then again neither were the babies), so what would one execute them for? And it's not like the evil of the Canaanites would rub off on the cattle and leave you with a satanist cow that offends the Lord.

One reason for doing this is if the jews (or whoever) are not going to hold onto that land. Then destroy everything. That gives the jews a buffer between themselves and the enemy. Plus it sends a message "respect us or we can do this again."

[HansMustermann]

One reason for doing this is if the jews (or whoever) are not going to hold onto that land. Then destroy everything. That gives the jews a buffer between themselves and the enemy. Plus it sends a message "respect us or we can do this again."

No, see, that's not it either. The same page in Deuteronomy for example forbids destroying the land or for example cutting down fruit trees. They're explicitly forbidden to cut a tree even for siege works in a siege, unless they're sure it's not one grown for fruits.

And generally they're not ordered to massacre and create a buffer of empty land. They've been promised that land, after all. And it makes no sense to create a buffer when they're also ordered to take cities on the other side of it, and this time keep the cattle. A strip of empty land in the middle of your own kingdom makes no sense.

So, really, we just have a god who wanted them to kill those evil Canaanite cows and donkeys, regardless of any other factors. It seems... weird.

Just like the notion that such a God would be concerned with saving the trees, on the same page as he orders massacring babies.

It's almost as if it's a thoroughly schizophrenic God... or the guy who was receiving messages from God was really schizophrenic. Oh, wait, that's redundant ;)

[fromdownunder]

There was a bit of a fludde at one point in the Bible which killed everyone except Noah, Mrs Noah, and their immediate family.

And all the baby animals, bar two.

Norm

[slingblade]

I'm glad it's not just me puzzled by this. I'm not sure GrandMasterFox meant "condemnations."

I wasn't puzzled, I just figured he used the wrong word. Meh, it happens. :D

[Skeptic Ginger]

You can search for stuff like this in The Skeptic's Annotated Bible. (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/) They also have a search engine for the Quran and the Book of Mormon as well as multiple versions of the Bible.

Here's the long list of Cruelty and Violence (http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html), for example.

[MattusMaximus]

2 Kings 2:23-24

This. A "good prophet of God" summoning bears to rip apart children who made fun of him seems so... loving :rolleyes:

[GrandMasterFox]

Thanks to all those who helped!

Just to be clear, what he specifically asked for are places where the hebrew people are ordered to kill children.

He isn't interested in prophecies regarding death of children (I first gave the example of Hosea where the women had their stomachs opened) nor about places where they talk about general genocide without mentioning children specifically.

Still got a lot of great materials, I'll pass it on and see if I score some goals or whether someone is choosing to move the posts around.

I'm always baffled by this notion of some religious people. Whether or not he has a problem with it is one thing, but to deny these things are actually written down?!? Seriously...

What bearing would they have on him accepting there are condemnations of child murders?

LOL, as I said before, not a native english speaker and being corrected is the only way to learn.

Much appriciated :)

[HansMustermann]

Actually, at least some of the examples I gave you aren't all that vague about it:

1 Samuel 15:3 "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

Numbers 31:17 "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. "

My bolding.

Actually, let me give you an extra one, which although isn't a commandment from God, is the kind of mercy they wish upon their enemies. And apparently holy enough to make it into the book, 'cause the Lord loves a good prayer for babies to be smashed against rocks. He's totally down with that ****:

Psalm 137:9 "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (Here "thy" meaning "Babylon's")

[bluesjnr]

not a native english speaker and being corrected is the only way to learn.

Much appriciated :)

In that case then, appriciated = appreciated. :D

[HansMustermann]

I'm always baffled by this notion of some religious people. Whether or not he has a problem with it is one thing, but to deny these things are actually written down?!? Seriously...

Actually not surprising. Most of those people haven't actually read the damned thing, and most don't even know major doctrines of their church, much less some atrocious passage that was never read to them in the first place.

Most people actually seem to not actually believe in what the book actually says, but have an own fantasy version about what they'd like it to say.

[GrandMasterFox]

In that case then, appriciated = appreciated. :D
what's the biblical ritual for resurecting one's spell checker?!?
:D

Actually not surprising. Most of those people haven't actually read the damned thing, and most don't even know major doctrines of their church, much less some atrocious passage that was never read to them in the first place.

Most people actually seem to not actually believe in what the book actually says, but have an own fantasy version about what they'd like it to say.
Well, sure I know that, but for some reason I'm still surprised when it comes up.

[slingblade]

what's the biblical ritual for resurecting one's spell checker?!?
:D


O Lord, we do humbly beseech Thee, protect us from the Grammar Nazis, for they are legion.

(the priest scatters the Scrabble tiles across the Speak-N-Spell)

O Lord our God, give us this day, our Word of the Day calendar, that we might know Your will for enlarging our vocabularies.

(the Junior English Majors proceed up the aisle, clutching the sacred texts of Dick and Jane)

Forgive us, O Lord, our syntactical transgressions, and lead us not into neologisms, for we know not what we say, nor does anyone else, until they passeth into common usage.

(the congregation dons their veils as the spelling bees are released)

Bless, O Lord, the Prescriptivist and the Descriptivist. Keep us ever mindful of the Path of Proper Usage.

(the priest passes amongst the congregation, distributing Lists of Commonly Misspelled Words)

In the Name of the Thesaurus, The Dictionary, and the Chicago Manual of Style, amen.

[swedisaac]

Hosea 13:16

[Robin]

He isn't interested in prophecies regarding death of children (I first gave the example of Hosea where the women had their stomachs opened) nor about places where they talk about general genocide without mentioning children specifically.
I don't understand - if God orders the killing of everybody in the city or "everything that breathes" then that obviously includes the children.

Does your friend think that killing children is better if God does not single them out particularly?

[bluess]

And it's not like the evil of the Canaanites would rub off on the cattle and leave you with a satanist cow that offends the Lord.

For some reason, this just made me laugh. Wouldn't 'Lord-Offending Satanist Cow' be a GREAT name for a band? Or maybe as a new oath. "By all my lord-offending satanist cows, I shall not agree!"

Or maybe I've just had too much coffee....

O Lord, we do humbly beseech Thee, protect us from the Grammar Nazis, for they are legion.

(the priest scatters the Scrabble tiles across the Speak-N-Spell)

O Lord our God, give us this day, our Word of the Day calendar, that we might know Your will for enlarging our vocabularies.

(the Junior English Majors proceed up the aisle, clutching the sacred texts of Dick and Jane)

Forgive us, O Lord, our syntactical transgressions, and lead us not into neologisms, for we know not what we say, nor does anyone else, until they passeth into common usage.

(the congregation dons their veils as the spelling bees are released)

Bless, O Lord, the Prescriptivist and the Descriptivist. Keep us ever mindful of the Path of Proper Usage.

(the priest passes amongst the congregation, distributing Lists of Commonly Misspelled Words)

In the Name of the Thesaurus, The Dictionary, and the Chicago Manual of Style, amen.

Did you know I love in a totally platonic-hug way?

[Robert Oz]

I'm always baffled by this notion of some religious people. Whether or not he has a problem with it is one thing, but to deny these things are actually written down?!? Seriously...


It's cognitive dissonance.

It is also evidence that the Bible is not the source of human morality as so many religious people believe it is. If it were, the murders described would be considered good without hesitation. And yet, it is difficult not to be repulsed by these passages. It takes time to work out your apologetics around these things.

If morality came from the Bible, it should be impossible to feel cognitive dissonance regarding any passages therein.

Your friend is shocked because he is repulsed by the murder of children and yet has been taught since childhood that God is omni-benevolent and just.


Actually not surprising. Most of those people haven't actually read the damned thing, and most don't even know major doctrines of their church, much less some atrocious passage that was never read to them in the first place.


I find this fact quite amazing.

How can religious people truly believe in an all-powerful, loving God that created the entire universe and yet NOT want to devour a book that is allegedly inspired by him and discusses him and his will in great detail?

How can the latest Stephen King novel be more interesting to them than the Word of God?

[slingblade]

Did you know I love in a totally platonic-hug way?

:p

[Robin]

I'm always baffled by this notion of some religious people. Whether or not he has a problem with it is one thing, but to deny these things are actually written down?!? Seriously...
I am amazed also by the way that people who have read it (or are supposed to have read it) lie about it.

I hear comments from clergymen like "Atheists claim that just because there is violence in the Old Testament then God must approve of violence" and "Saying that God is saying people should commit violent acts because of the violent acts described in the Old Testament is like saying that Dan Brown is inciting violent acts by describing them in 'The Da Vinci Code'.

These comments were from letters to a newspaper. I was gobsmacked by them. As clergymen they surely knew that the OT depicts the acts of genocide as being commanded by God.

[HansMustermann]

I find this fact quite amazing.

How can religious people truly believe in an all-powerful, loving God that created the entire universe and yet NOT want to devour a book that is allegedly inspired by him and discusses him and his will in great detail?

How can the latest Stephen King novel be more interesting to them than the Word of God?

It's not even the fact that they're posers in that role of God's fanboys, that bothers me the most. It's the claim of belief that bothers me more.

I mean, in one form or another most _are_ claiming that stuff in it is true, or they believe it to be true. Whether literally, or as a complicated metaphor for something real, or some other version of it. But one way or the other they claim they're convinced stuff in it is true and accurate.

Yet they have no clue what it is.

That's what I have the most trouble wrapping my mind around. How _can_ one claim that X is true, without knowing what that is? Exactly what is the claim X they make? Most don't actually know.

I can't for the life of me figure out the logic behind making a claim yet not knowing what the claim is.

[marksman]

Yet in the case of cities of the Canaanites they're ordered to kill _everything_ living inside, even the animals. Which is for me a serious WTH. Whatever evil those Canaanites may have done, the cattle or donkeys were not among those who could decide for or against it in the first place
The way it was explained to me, it's not a punishment against the cattle. Rather, it is reminiscent of Moses refusing to accept a reward for rescuing the Sodomites when they were defeated by the Four Kings. (He only did it because Lot got caught up in the war and got captured.) Moses explains he never wants it said that Moses' wealth came from Sodom.

So, these peoples -- for unexplained reasons -- are so wicked that the Israelites are nto to profit anything from their destruction. nobody should be able to say that the Israelites success is due to the [insert really evil people]. Apparently, the other peoples the Israelites werekilled were worthy of death, but not so evil that the Israelites couldn't profit from their stuff.

It's not a matter of corruption. It's simply a matter of credit.

(Which is an explanation, and not a defense, mind you. The whole notion is barbaric.)

[marksman]

That's what I have the most trouble wrapping my mind around. How _can_ one claim that X is true, without knowing what that is? Exactly what is the claim X they make? Most don't actually know.

I can't for the life of me figure out the logic behind making a claim yet not knowing what the claim is.

Because they have two independent thoughts. The primary one, is that all you need to do to get to Heaven is accept Jesus as your Savior. That's it. You don't need to know what's in the Bible. So, that's a totally optional step.

Only secondarily do they believe the Bible is literally true. But since they have "faith", they don't need the evidence. Since they faithfully accept that Jesus is their Savior, they can accept on faith that nothing in the Bible is troubling, and if someone shows them quotes from the Bible that should trouble them, well, they can take it on faith that there's some sort of justification or rationalization that makes it clear that the quotes really aren't so troubling as it seems.

For literalists, faith trumps evidence. It's the same thing that lets Young Earthers ignore geological evidence against a worldwide flood, and allows creationists (and intelligent design proponents) ignore evidence of "macroevolution". Who needs truth when they have "Truthtm"?

[HansMustermann]

The way it was explained to me, it's not a punishment against the cattle. Rather, it is reminiscent of Moses refusing to accept a reward for rescuing the Sodomites when they were defeated by the Four Kings. (He only did it because Lot got caught up in the war and got captured.) Moses explains he never wants it said that Moses' wealth came from Sodom.

So, these peoples -- for unexplained reasons -- are so wicked that the Israelites are nto to profit anything from their destruction. nobody should be able to say that the Israelites success is due to the [insert really evil people]. Apparently, the other peoples the Israelites werekilled were worthy of death, but not so evil that the Israelites couldn't profit from their stuff.

It's not a matter of corruption. It's simply a matter of credit.

(Which is an explanation, and not a defense, mind you. The whole notion is barbaric.)

And yet taking their land or eating from their fruit trees is A-OK. 'Cause nobody would ever fight a war for land as a reward, apparently ;)

[HansMustermann]

Because they have two independent thoughts. The primary one, is that all you need to do to get to Heaven is accept Jesus as your Savior. That's it. You don't need to know what's in the Bible. So, that's a totally optional step.

Which, I suppose, would explain the fundies. On the other hand for example Catholics and Orthodox kinda always insist that what you do matters too. At the very least, you have to do some asking for forgiveness and possibly some symbolic atoning, not just brown-nose Jesus.

And their Jesus is more the passive aggressive type: just thinking any of the 7 thought-crimes... err... 7 deadly sins, makes Jesus no longer talk to you any more until you send him an "I'm really sorry" note through one of his buddies (priest.) You know, like in primary school ;)

Not to mention that there are doctrines which are official that if you believe or maintain anything else, bam, you're automatically barred from heavens. That's kinda the whole idea behind ex cathedra pronouncements.

So you'd think at least those would be more interested in at least what those things are.

Only secondarily do they believe the Bible is literally true. But since they have "faith", they don't need the evidence. Since they faithfully accept that Jesus is their Savior, they can accept on faith that nothing in the Bible is troubling, and if someone shows them quotes from the Bible that should trouble them, well, they can take it on faith that there's some sort of justification or rationalization that makes it clear that the quotes really aren't so troubling as it seems.

For literalists, faith trumps evidence. It's the same thing that lets Young Earthers ignore geological evidence against a worldwide flood, and allows creationists (and intelligent design proponents) ignore evidence of "macroevolution". Who needs truth when they have "Truthtm"?

Actually, I'm more like guessing they're a bunch of posers.

[marksman]

Which, I suppose, would explain the fundies. On the other hand for example Catholics and Orthodox kinda always insist that what you do matters too.
Sure, but none of them require you to know what's in the Bible.

[HansMustermann]

Sure, but none of them require you to know what's in the Bible.

True enough, but you'd at least have to know which of Pope's fanfic you're not supposed to go against, if you want to get into heavens. And, as some recent survey showed, most don't even know the most public of those.

If I'm allowed to be cynical, it's almost as if deep down most people know it's just some bogus fiction, and not worth losing much sleep over.

[marksman]

True enough, but you'd at least have to know which of Pope's fanfic you're not supposed to go against
But none of that was in the Bible. So knowing the Bible still wasn't needed. And if you didn't opine on theological matters, you wouldn't get in trouble for heresy either. The whole thing was designed to discourage inquiry into the details of the faith and encourage blind faith.

If I'm allowed to be cynical, it's almost as if deep down most people know it's just some bogus fiction, and not worth losing much sleep over.
That's not cynicism; it's arguing from your conclusion.