Boyd's Apologetics: Bloodthirsty YHVH vs Peacnik Jesus?

[Recusant]

b]Reginus[/b],"]http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/divinely-inspired-infanticide-and-genocide/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/what%e2%80%99s-at-stake-in-trying-to-explain-the-violent-god-of-the-old-testament/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/the-violent-strand-of-the-old-testament-and-our-picture-of-god/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/ot-violence-and-christian-behavior/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/could-old-testament-warriors-have-been-mistaken/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/a-defense-of-ellers-thesis/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/a-critique-of-ellers-thesis/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/craigie-the-problem-of-war-in-the-old-testament-part-i/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/revealing-the-horror-of-war-review-of-craigie-part-ii/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/a-negative-object-lesson-review-of-craigie-iii/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/%e2%80%9cshadow%e2%80%9d-and-%e2%80%9creality%e2%80%9d/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/the-teleological-exegetical-principle-and-ot-violence/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/whats-up-with-the-nephilim/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/yahwehs-war-against-the-nephilim/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/heiser-clarifies-misunderstandings-in-my-review/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/boyd-and-heiser-dialogue-on-the-nephilim-question/
http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/creach-and-the-command-to-utterly-destroy/

I've read basically all of the March '08 entries so far.
I found the discussion of Vernard Eller's stuff especially interesting.  He seems to believe that he can somehow divine the motivations of the Hebrew people in their conquest of Caanan, as reported in the Old Testament.  They apparently were not waging war to take land away from the folks they found living on it, but simply assisting YHVH in a war he felt a need to wage against the Caananites and others.

 

...the Israelites couldn’t be motivated by their own insecurities. They had to place all their trust in Yahweh and couldn’t benefit from their battles (unless Yahweh explicitly allowed them to).

So, because YHVH told them to kill every living thing in a town they captured, they don't benefit from it?  Sorry, but they now own whats left of the town, and the croplands surrounding it.  They do benefit.

Some more kinky reasoning, then a point I found very striking:

 

Eller is particularly critical of anti-war activists...  Both the militarist and the pacifist are trying to acquire security for themselves apart from God. The way to stop wars, Eller argues, is not to get people to stop fighting each other. So long as people and nations are insecure, violence is inevitable. Rather, the only way to stop wars “is to get people to switch from fighting their wars to join Yahweh in fighting his war.”

I'm sure I'm misunderstanding this, because it seems that this Eller fellow is advocating that all of Christianity return to holy war as waged by the Bronze Age Hebrews and subsequently by violent fundamentalist Muslims.

Then we get to the gist of why Boyd is quoting Eller here.  Essentially Eller says that though YHVH was in fact guiding and directing "his people" directly, they simply misunderstood him.  He apparently never really said what they thought he said regarding slaughtering every living thing in a town they had conquered.  I wonder what he supposedly actually said, according to Eller?  Here's how he justifies his "join Yahweh in fighting his war" statement:

 

To really have faith in God, and to truly fight the battles God wants us to fight, we need to have faith that God can achieve his loving ends without using violent means.

M'kay?  

Now for some fancy footwork:

 

One final point needs to be made. Eller argues that, while God didn’t approve of the slaughtering his warriors engaged in, he nevertheless used it to advance his purposes in the world. Throughout the Bible God uses what he does not approve of, as when he allows other nations to defeat Israel to teach them lessons. So too, “once Israel had determined that she was going to fight, God determined that, whether he approved of such fighting or not, he was going to use it to preserve Israel, give her a homeland, and lead her in the way toward the peaceable kingdom” . It’s a matter of God bringing good out of evil.

Isn't that just too sweet?  YHVH:  "It ain't My fault they thought they heard me tell 'em to kill the Caananites, but since they went and done it anyway, I'm 'onna bless their possession of the land.  You know, 'cause I love 'em so much and all."  Gotta love divine deniability!

I'll probably continue reading this stuff, because I'm getting a chuckle out of it, but I guess you have to have already drunk deep of the Kool-Aid to look on it as legitimate reasoning and a straight-forward explanation of why YHVH is not actually a god who commands his followers to commit atrocities in his name.

(Edited to add Boyd's first post on this subject to the list.)

[iNow]

Wow.  Brilliant post, mate.  Bravo.    

[Reginus]

One last entry: http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/jesus-repudiation-of-old-testament-violence/