There are several hangups people tend to have with Christian faith–fun topics like hell, sexual ethics, faith and science, exclusive divine claims, and making sense of the Bible. The very mention of some of these topics at the dinner table can quicken people’s pulses. But an issue that consistently makes the list and is also a quandary for Christians is divinely sanctioned violence and genocide in the Old Testament (OT). Not long ago, my church went through a Deuteronomy Bible study, and the total eradication of the Canaanites is a repeated theme in the book. The defeat of kings Sihon and Og in 2:24-3:11 included the annihilation of all the “men, women, and children” in their towns (2:34; 3:6). Total destruction is commanded multiple times for future battles as well (see 7:2, 16; 20:16-18; 25:17-19). Greg Boyd in his book Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence, says that commands for total annihilation of a people group are given thirty-seven times in the OT (p. 9). There also are multiple commands concerning putting individuals to death for certain infractions: idolatry (see chapter 13 and 17:2-7), murder (19:11-13), dishonoring parents (21:18-21), sexual violations (22:20-27), and kidnapping and selling people into slavery (24:7).
Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins says in his book The God Delusion that the Bible encourages “a system of morals which any civilized modern person, whether religious or not, would find–I can put it no more gently–obnoxious” (p. 268). He goes on to bewail some of the more repulsive episodes in Scripture–from commands about slavery, the oppression of women, stoning people for disobedience, seeming child abuse in the offering up of Isaac, the seeming sadism in the Father willing the Son to give up his life as a sacrifice, and God commanding the wiping out of entire people groups in the conquest narratives. Theologian Miroslav Volf in A Public Faith quotes another atheist, Sam Harris, who writes in his book The End of Faith that the Bible contains “mountains of life-destroying gibberish,” and Volf summarizes him as saying that “[w]hen Christians take the Bible as their final authority, […] they act in violent, oppressive, life-destroying ways that undermine the common good” (p. 18). Dawkins, Harris, and others contend that if we really get our morals from the Bible, we would turn into incredibly savage people.
Of course, most Christians either ignore or interpret those passages in a way that does not condone such violence. When’s the last time anyone heard a sermon telling people to go stone children who dishonor their parents? When’s the last time you heard a preacher call for a holy genocide? Folks like Dawkins and Harris grant that modern Christians don’t teach such things, but they further contend that taking such an approach pushes against the traditional Christian teaching on biblical inspiration. If you don’t interpret those passages in a straightforward way, can you sensibly believe the Bible is inspired by God? Either you believe the Bible is God’s inspired word and have a mass-murderer morality, or you throw biblical authority and inspiration out the window in order to be a good person, but the notion of the Bible serving as an authority or a revelation from God doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. Either way, Christians seem caught in a bind, forced into a contradiction of claims concerning their religion.
Dawkins and others raise excellent questions. Is there a reasonable way out from this conundrum? Can you believe genocide passages are God’s inspired word while also believing God would not want us to perform such actions today and be consistent? What do passages commanding divinely sanctioned violence mean as God’s word to us today?
A Christian View of the Old Testament
To begin, let's look at how Christians interpret the OT. One assumption behind the critique of Dawkins and others is that to believe in biblical inspiration, one must believe believe all parts of Scripture are equally authoritative. While Christians do believe all of Scripture is inspired by God, we do not believe all parts are weighted equally or serve the same function. A passage about putting adulterers to death (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22) is not as authoritative as Jesus showing mercy to an adulterer and calling her go and leave behind her sins (John 8:1-11). Why? Christians believe that Jesus is the fullest revelation of God (John 10:30; Col. 1:19-20), and that the key to knowing God, understanding his will, and interpreting anything in Scripture, especially in the OT, is through the lens of Jesus and the Spirit. In light of Jesus being revealed in the New Testament (NT), Christians consider the NT more authoritative and binding than the OT, and contend that the OT has to be interpreted in light of God’s fullest revelation in Jesus. The function of the OT is primarily to prepare the way for and point us to Christ.
We see this notion at work in how Jesus and the early church interpret the OT. According to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:17-20, he came not to abolish OT Law, but to fulfill it. This makes the idea of fulfillment a tool Christians might employ in interpreting OT passages. We can understand Jesus as bringing to fulfillment an idea or purpose an OT passage introduces. Once something is fulfilled by Christ, it may not be binding in the same way anymore for those who trust in Christ. Paul gets at a similar notion in Colossians 2:16-17 when he talks of OT food laws, festivals, and Sabbath as foreshadowings of the reality which is to be found in Christ. This once again is fulfillment language–a concept or practice gets introduced in the OT, but it finds its true fulfillment and perfection in Christ, which means those passages and concepts from the OT aren't applicable in the same way anymore. In Luke 24:25-27, as Jesus speaks incognito to his companions, he tells them that the OT points to his own suffering and glory (see also John 1:45; 5:39-47). Peter makes a similar point in 1 Peter 1:10-12 that God's Spirit was working in the biblical prophets to predict the sufferings and glory of Christ. In John 5:39-40, Jesus says in a conversation with Jewish leaders that they think they have eternal life by studying the Scriptures (the OT), and he says those Scriptures testify about him, yet the leaders refuse to come to him for life. Another picture is Revelation 5, where there is a scroll with writing on both sides that is sealed with seven seals, and no one can open it. Then, an angel tells John not to fret, because the Lion of the tribe of Judah can open it, and then John sees a Lamb looking as though it had been slain. The Lamb takes the scroll and is worshipped, and then in the following chapters starts undoing the seals. One way (though not the only way) to interpret this vision is that Jesus, who is simultaneously the slain Lamb and the powerful Lion, is the key to understanding God’s revealed will in the Scriptures, symbolized by the scroll. These passages see the OT as foreshadowing and preparing the way for Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
In one of the fullest reflections we get on this subject in the NT, Paul in Galatians 3:15-25 says the law (OT) was like a guardian or tutor God’s people were under temporarily, intended to lock everyone up under sin until Christ came and people could be saved by faith in him and his grace. While we’d all love for Paul to expound further on the specifics and how all this fits together, he does reveal a sense of progressive revelation, that the OT law was not God’s full revelation or his final plan of salvation, but was temporary and forward-leaning in nature, preparing the way for Christ. You also see Jesus cancel or modify parts of OT teaching. Jesus isn't afraid to correct some aspects of OT teaching. He cancels the OT “eye for an eye” principle (Ex. 21:23-25) and calls us to love, forgive, and pray for our enemies, while simultaneously making more stringent commands relating to murder (Ex. 20:13) and adultery (Ex. 20:14) in Matthew 5. Jesus considered himself to be revealing a more complete and better covenant than the former law, and he wasn't afraid to correct or intensify it in certain ways.
There’s more that could be said here, but I hope you see I'm not blowing smoke when it comes to how Jesus and the early church interpreted the OT. They saw Jesus as the center of the Scriptures, the key to interpreting the Bible and understanding God. There is a sense of progressive revelation going on until the coming of Jesus–the OT prepares us for and points us to Christ, but it is not the full revelation of God and doesn't always carry the same weight of authority as the NT. This does not mean the OT isn't inspired by God, but rather it means parts of the OT play a different role when we interpret them in light of the NT and the coming of Christ. If anything in the OT is contradictory to the teaching of Christ, the apostles, and their close associates who authored the NT, we must interpret those OT commands differently and discern how that passage might point to Christ, while the NT commands are most authoritative and binding for Christian life and practice today.
A key question is why would God not reveal all of himself immediately? Why did God selectively reveal his will over centuries instead of sending Christ immediately after humanity fell? While we’re peering into a mystery here, one possible reason is that God wanted to reveal to us just how incapable and weak we are apart from the fullness of his grace accomplishing salvation for us. Lest we think we could be good or save ourselves apart from a unilateral work by God, the OT serves as a painful but powerful reminder of how nasty sin is and how it enslaves us (Romans 7:13-14), of how imprisoned we are by sin and evil apart from God’s full rescue in Christ (Galatians 3:22). Paul, as he concludes a section of his argument in reflecting on God's work and faithfulness to Israel, says in Romans 11:32 that God has bound everyone over to disobedience in order that he may have mercy on us all. This gets at the notion that Luther lifted up from Paul (and it’s present in Deuteronomy 31 as well)–Luther taught the second function of the OT Law is to condemn us as sinners and drive us toward Christ our Savior. The OT reveals to us how bound we are by the power of sin and evil and prepares the way for a greater work of salvation in Jesus. Through it we gain a deeper perspective into our own flaws, but also a greater appreciation for Christ and a sense of our need for Christ and the Spirit.
Some Observations on Genocide in the Larger Framework of the OT
Let’s briefly make some observations on the genocide passages within the larger framework of the OT, and then turn to look at how the NT either enriches or changes these passages.
God Is a God of Judgment–One of the primary things we can learn from these passages is that God is a God of judgment, who is disturbed, wounded, and angered by our sins. Our sins are deserving of death, and God has rights over life and death. Some of the reasons listed in the OT for why God drove out the inhabitants of Canaan can be found in passages like Deuteronomy 18:9-14, which lists out some of the practices of the people. They would sacrifice their children in fires as offerings to the gods and would listen to sorcerers, physics, and necromancers. Leviticus 18 also lists out a host of sexual sins that were practiced by some of the Canaanite people, along with another mention of child sacrifice. So we’re not talking about societies that walked old ladies across the street and were deeply life-affirming, kind, and generous. Worshipping false gods isn’t just a matter of making God upset, but it has direct consequences on how we treat others. If we fail to worship the one true God and commit idolatry, the way we treat others will fall out of sorts as well. God takes the lead in decreeing judgment and is the primary fighter and giver of victory. In fact, a lot of the victories Israel wins are miraculous, because they weren’t a trained army or a bunch of professional mercenaries. These were people who were delivered from slavery in Egypt and had wandered in the desert for 40 years before undertaking the conquest at God’s leading. God's miraculous ability to give victory against frightful odds is on display in these passages.
There Is Mercy Even Toward Canaanites–In the book of Joshua, God commands mercy for Rahab, the Gibeonites, and sojourners who ostensibly could have been Canaanites–apparently God’s holy war wasn’t waged on the basis of ethnicity, but rather on the basis of whether people accepted or refused to find shelter under the wings of Yahweh. You also see that God’s plan has always been to bless all people and to reach the world–he tells Abraham all nations of the world will be blessed through him in Genesis 12. There are many passages in the Law that are about caring for the sojourner in your midst, the foreigner who lives with you. And sojourners were always welcome to worship Yahweh and to become devoted to Yahweh. So the wrath of God can’t be said to be racial in motivation or about ethnic cleansing–God loves all people and has always welcomed all people who were willing to be in relationship with him.
Exaggerated Victory Language–Ancient near eastern military documents typically exaggerated their claims of victory and their accomplishments in battle. Kings in the ancient near east used to claim that they killed every single person in the land, then later would talk about how much tribute the presumably dead group of people then had to pay. Hint: people who have been totally obliterated can’t pay tribute. It was inflated, trumped up language that exalted in victory, even if all of the people weren’t literally killed (see Dr. Lawson Stone, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGVn1gaSsAsn ). We see hints that a similar notion might be at work in the total destruction passages in the OT. For instance, Joshua 10:20 says that the Israelites “[struck the Amorites] with a great blow until they were wiped out,” and in the very next breath talks about the remnant that fled into fortified cities. I thought they were wiped out, but then they’re hiding in cities? You see this in Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in which Moses commands the Israelites to “devote [some of the native inhabitants] to complete destruction” in verse 2, and then goes on further to command them not to intermarry with them. Why would they even have the chance to intermarry if they are devoted to complete destruction? In 1 Samuel 15, Saul is said to have eradicated totally the Amalekites, but they pop up later in 1 Samuel 27 when David makes raids against them, and again in 1 Samuel 30 when they raid David’s city of Ziklag when he was living among the Philistines. Another example is a people group known as the Anakim. In Joshua 11:21-22, it says that Joshua totally destroyed the Anakim who were in the promised land and in the hill country around the city of Hebron. The text says only in the territories of Gath, Gaza, and Ashdod–Philistine territory–did some Anakim remain. Later, however, Joshua 14:12 and Judges 1:20 tell of Caleb asking Joshua permission to take possession of the hill country and to drive out the Anakim who are there. But wait, didn’t Joshua totally destroy them from the hill country earlier in chapter 11? Moses totally destroyed the Midianites according to Numbers 31, and yet they pop up again to oppress the people of Israel in Judges 6. There are other examples of “totally destroyed” people groups who reappear in Scripture. It’s possible the original audience would have understood those passages not to be talking about literal, total annihilation, but that it was commonplace to use hyperbolic, exaggerated language concerning victories (see Scott Risley, http://bibleteachings.org/what-does-it-mean-to-utterly-destroy-the-canaanites/ for more). With these passages in mind, the total destruction commands may not actually refer total destruction, but could be inflated military language that was common in the ancient near east at that time.
How Do Jesus and the NT Inform How We Interpret These Passages?
Jesus Bears the Curse of Death for Us–While some of the prohibitions in the OT are still considered sinful in the NT, the punishment of death has fallen away. Jesus does not stone the woman caught in adultery, even though Lev. 20:10 and Deut. 22:22 command it. Why? Through Christ bearing the curse of the law, namely death and an experience of exile, for us (Galatians 3:10-14). Jesus fulfilled the death penalty by dying for us, in our place, for our sins. This creates space for God to be both just in condemning sin in one place in Christ, and yet also making a way for God to show great grace and love for those who repent of their sins and throw themselves at the feet of God's mercy. That’s in part why you see no commands to stone or kill someone in the NT. The highest form of discipline in the NT seems to be excommunication.
Non-Violence and Spiritual Warfare–Jesus was undeniably non-violent toward people throughout his life. If there is a place for violence against other humans in the New Testament, you might be able to argue for it from Romans 13, with the constraints that someone is part of an official government position designed to reward what is good and halt evil, though that matter is disputed within the church. Otherwise, there is no divinely sanctioned violence against other human beings present in the NT. We do see a move from eye for an eye thinking into the call to love our enemies in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-48). We see Jesus call peacemakers blessed children of God in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:9). We see Peter telling us to follow the example of Christ when suffering unjust treatment in 1 Peter 2 and 3 by entrusting ourselves to him who judges justly, and to imitate Christ and show his love even to the people who would harm us. We have Paul telling us in Romans 12 to bless those who persecute us and not to repay anyone evil for evil, but to overcome evil with good. When it comes to following Jesus and having a Jesus-centered faith, becoming more devout and zealous about our religion should not make us more violent, but more peaceful. Becoming more devoted to Christ should, in the words of James 1:19, make us more quick to listen, slow to anger, and slow to speak. It should make us more full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It helps us believe in and work for justice without having to insist on our own way or eradicate those with whom we disagree. It helps us hold together grace, love, and tenderness alongside a deep longing for justice, truth-telling, and things being made right.
There is a place, however, for spiritual warfare in the NT. This gives us a hint that one way we can interpret violent OT passages is to spiritualize them and use them in reference to spiritual conflict. Jesus casts out many demons in the Gospels and gives a teaching about “binding the strong man” in Mark 3:20-30 and its parallels, implying that Jesus is stronger than Satan and came to drive him out. In Ephesians 6:10-20, Paul mentions that we are in a struggle against spiritual forces of evil and darkness, and therefore we need to be equipped with God’s armor and be ready to wage spiritual war. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11, Paul urges the Corinthians to forgive an offender and to be on guard against the devil’s schemes, one of which apparently is to harbor unforgiveness and grudges. Later in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6, Paul says that though we live in this world, we do not wage war as the world does, but rather the weapons we fight with are not of this world. They are weapons of divine power that can take down arguments against Jesus in order to make every thought captive to Christ. The Apostle John says in 1 John 3:8 that the reason Jesus appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. The NT portrays the world and the church as caught up in a cosmic battle waged by spiritual forces seen and unseen. Suffice it to say there is a spiritualizing move when it comes to violence and warfare language in the NT. This illuminates one way we can focus our rage and violent energy. It isn't to be directed against human beings, but against powers, principalities, and the forces of darkness.
God Still Expresses Divine Violence in the NT– Divine violence and the judgment of God does not disappear in the NT. All throughout, from the Gospels to Paul to Peter to John, they affirm that Jesus will return to judge the whole world and exact justice. John sees a vision of this in Revelation 19-20, where Jesus as the Rider on a White Horse comes to wage war against all that is opposed to God, and you also see the great white throne of judgment, where God definitively decides the fate of the whole world. Also, the judgment of God is still active in the present age as well–its not all stored up until Jesus comes back. God strikes Ananias and Saphira dead in Acts 5:1-11 because they lied about how much they were giving to the church and kept back part of the money for themselves. In Acts 12:20-23, King Herod Agrippa I is struck down by the angel of the Lord when he is giving a speech because people started calling him a god and not a man, and he wouldn’t give glory to God. The text says “he was eaten by worms and breathed his last,” which sounds like a pretty unpleasant way to go. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:27-34, attributes people in the church getting sick and some even dying as a result of God judging and disciplining them concerning abuses in how some in the Corinthian Church were celebrating the Lord’ Supper. Jesus also says he’s going to kill the children of a false prophet labeled Jezebel at the church in Thyatira in Revelation 2:18-29 (perhaps her children are her disciples/followers?), who have been given time to repent, yet have not. God’s present justice and wrath has not disappeared in the NT. Still, we do not see any commands for God’s people to carry out divinely sanctioned violence against other humans in the NT like we saw in the OT. The NT focus tends primarily to be on the return of Christ as the time when God fully exercises his justice. Peter says this delayed justice and judgment displays God’s patience and kindness, which is meant to lead us toward repentance so everyone may be saved (2 Peter 3:8-9). God’s primary desire is for everyone to be saved, and in some cases he allows present injustices in hope that we will turn from our sins and be saved and transformed by his grace. Still, if we spurn God’s grace and mercy in Jesus, the same holy and just judgment displayed in these earlier examples waits in store for us.
Is God a Baby Killer?
You may think all the aforementioned stuff is well and good, but let’s not beat around the bush–are you really trying to defend God concerning commands about killing babies in those total destruction passages? Is it ever possible to give a moral defense of such an action? And if so, doesn’t that seem a bit hypocritical, especially since much of the church champions defending unborn life but worships a God who at least at some point in time commanded the killing of Gentile babies? Children are dependent and defenseless. Young children are more the product of their parents and culture than their own choosing. Who they are is almost entirely received, not chosen. Only when they get older are they able to have more power of choice and self-definition, and more moral responsibility gets assigned to people based on how much power they had in making moral decisions. How on earth could God command things like this and be good?
There are several options on how some people proceed here.
1. Those Passages Are Wrong and We Need To Leave Them Behind–Some folks take this approach, but again, it seems to fall prey to the critique Dawkins and others give. It’s hard to make much case for biblical inspiration and authority if you simply choose to dismiss parts of the Bible you don’t like. This isn’t how Jesus treated the OT (see for instance Matthew 5:17-20; 15:3-11; 21:42-44; 22:29-32; 26:54; John 10:35). If Jesus viewed the OT Scriptures as inspired, I don’t think we can simply say they are wrong and we need to move on from them. It’s probably not wise to think we know better than Jesus. It’s better to ask how should we interpret those passages and how are we to understand them as being inspired, even if the surface level meaning is not applicable for Christians.
2. God Did Not Speak These Commands, but These Texts Showcase How God Accommodates Fallen Humanity–Greg Boyd is a proponent of this view in his Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence, and Boyd makes the case that Moses and others either misheard God and/or made him in their own image when it comes to commands about inflicting divinely sanctioned violence. Boyd maintains that if Jesus, the perfect Son of God, was misunderstood by his disciples multiple times concerning his crucifixion and resurrection, then could it also be possible that God was misunderstood by his servants in the OT? Boyd makes the case for direct and indirect revelations of God, that when any picture of God in the OT conflicts with the picture of God revealed in Christ crucified, we must consider it an indirect revelation of God (p. 98). These passages are still inspired, however, in that we may be able to lift some principles or truths out of them, even if the entirety of a passage isn’t 100% applicable to us as Christians. And, the flawed are grisly parts can showcase how God accommodates broken sinners like us, which points us to God’s ultimate act of accommodation–the cross of Jesus–where Christ painfully bears the sins of the world to make a way for us to be made truly whole and holy if we turn from our sins. Even the nature of Scripture is cross-shaped in that it accommodates human sinfulness in order to point to God’s love. In this way, Boyd maintains that Moses and others didn't actually hear from God on divinely sanctioned violence, but the passage is still inspired by pointing to God's loving accommodation which ultimately leads us to the cross.
I think Boyd’s paradigm has a lot that is stimulating. I would modify him in a couple ways, and I also don't think his paradigm is without issues. First, Boyd seems too limited in his typology (typology has to do with how the OT foreshadows Jesus and the new covenant). He makes his particular interpretation of the cross crowd out other valid biblical themes about Jesus. What about the resurrection, the ascension, and Jesus’ eventual return and judgment of the world? He has a typology of how OT divine violence foreshadows the cross, which is true and good, but he doesn’t seem to reflect much on how OT divine violence could also foreshadow other aspects of the work of Jesus. I think there are a lot of connections that can be made to Christ's final judgment in the genocide passages. In fact, the vision of the rider on the white horse (Jesus) in Revelation 19:11-21 reads a bit like an OT genocide passage. I think Boyd's model misses this.
Second, Boyd doesn’t fully capture how God sometimes results to coercive force. He writes, “God must always act by means of influence rather than coercion” (p. 58). I agree with an aspect of this statement since I’m an Arminian. I believe God acts by means of influence when it comes to inviting people into a saving relationship with Christ. We are not coerced into becoming followers of Jesus, but loved and invited into the relationship and given grace-enabled choice. But I chafe at the word "always" in the quote above. If we resist God, he is not opposed to bringing coercive judgment and discipline into our lives. Again, I’d appeal to the aforementioned examples of Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5), Herod (Acts 12), the Corinthian Christians getting sick and dying from God’s judgment (1 Corinthians 11), and Jesus saying he’s going to kill the children of Jezebel (Revelation 2). It seems pretty clear to me that God is using coercive power to bring judgment in these passages. You can still be a pacifist like Boyd and believe in God’s right to exercise divine violence–in fact, it can be some of the grounds of your pacifism. Boyd makes the case that many in the church have made God in our own image, and perhaps Boyd is doing the same when it comes to screening out any possibility that the God we see in Jesus crucified and risen could still use coercive force?
My main question is over why Boyd doesn't use the same explanation concerning OT food laws, the sacrificial system, circumcision, religious festivals, Sabbath observance, clean and unclean laws, etc. Did Moses "mishear" God on those commands? Jesus considered those things to be revealed from God, though he fulfilled them and they aren’t binding for Christians. Can we not think similarly on divinely sanctioned violence? Of course, the key difference between the former issues and divine violence is that the former did not entail any loss of human life. Could God have commanded divinely sanctioned violence, knowing it would be a temporary, incomplete revelation whose true significance would be revealed in Christ–Christ bearing the death all sinners deserve, Christ waging war against evil spirits and calling us to join the battle, and Christ bringing final judgment against evil? That leads to the next possibility, which also is not without its challenges.
The strength of Boyd’s approach is that it gets you off the hook for believing God commanded genocide while also holding onto the plenary inspiration of Scripture, but his approach is not without issues.
3. God Spoke These Commands, but Their Function Is Spiritual and Typological in Nature–I see a couple ways people could go here. One is to pull from the above knowledge of exaggerated military victory language to make a case that in giving the total destruction commands, God did not intend the total eradication of people, but rather the military defeat and overthrow of a broken culture. That is probably how proponents would interpret the distinction made in Deuteronomy 20:10-18 on how to go to war with nations outside the promised land vs. how to go to war with nations in the promised land. The total annihilation language was more on the eradication of a culture, not the actual killing of women, children, and babies.
Others would say yes, God is speaking commands to kill women, children, and babies. Probably no one wants to get stuck defending this position if there's a better explanation, but even if it is the case, I’d have a hard time seeing God consigning people to eternal damnation, especially children, who have no ability to choose anything other than what is given to them by family and culture. Perhaps Paul’s comments in Acts 17:30 that “in the past God overlooked such ignorance” of idolatry would be relevant here?
These approaches maintain the notion of God genuinely speaking these commands, even though they are temporary and indirect revelations, and their main Christ-revealed function is that they are prefigurations of the cross, spiritual warfare, and final judgment. They do not "get God off the hook" when it comes to commanding violence in the past, however. Whether you hold to a softer view or a literal view of the nature of the violence, these views still bring up questions concerning God's faithfulness and fairness. These may not be insurmountable given some of the considerations above, but they can be "sticky wickets," to quote a friend who gave some feedback on a draft of this. Of course, proponents of this view maintain they are not applicable at face value for Christians when it comes to God commanding people to eradicate others, since nowhere is this supported in the NT.
4. God Still Calls the Church to Inflict Violence and Holy War Today–This position would say there is no significant difference between Old and New Testaments on the issue of divinely sanctioned violence. God’s people are still called to use violence to enforce God’s will. This is the mistake parts of the church fell into during the Crusades. While you could make a biblical case for this position, you would have a hard time making a Christian case, because supporting this would require having the OT become weightier and more foundational than Jesus and the NT when it comes to your theology. That’s not a Christian way of doing theology and is not how Jesus and the early church interpreted Scripture. Perhaps an exception can be made for those in governmental roles created to preserve order according to Romans 13:1-7.
I think options 2 and 3 can work for thinking through this issue, though the conversation certainly isn't over.
Conclusion
Biblical inspiration does not mean all Bible passages are weighted equally or function in the same manner. Jesus is the key to interpreting Scripture since he is the full revelation of God. When an OT passage conflicts with a NT passage, Christians should obey the NT while also seeking to discern how that OT passage connects to the work of Christ. God has authority over life and death. He sometimes exercises that right in history, but mostly God patiently waits to express his full and final justice until the return of Christ, an act of love done in hopes that people would turn from their sins and trust in Jesus in order to find life, meaning, and hope. Christians have a diversity of views on if God actually commanded the genocides, and if he did, on whether it was an actual genocide or the use of exaggerated language. Becoming more zealous and devoted to Jesus should not make Christians more savage and violent people. Jesus was non-violent toward people, and he and his apostles call us to be non-violent as much as possible, while still standing for truth and goodness and struggling against spiritual evil with spiritual weaponry.
With these thoughts in mind, I’m hoping that the next time we read or hear the genocide passages in all their gruesome detail, we can receive them as God’s inspired words to us through Christ. They should remind us that Jesus died for us to show us grace, though we are sinners who deserve wrath. They should remind us that we are challenged to join in Jesus' battle against sin and spiritual evil, participating in spiritual warfare through prayer and lining our lives up with God's truth. They should remind us that Jesus is returning to judge and totally annihilate all evil, while those who trust in Christ will enter into God's promised land of eternal happiness, healing, and harmony. May we wrestle with these texts and come away with a deeper appreciation of Christ.
