Judges 2:6-3:6

Continuing with our Judges series, the next section sets the stage for the rest of the book (and possible the rest of Israelite history). The text says that after the last of those who had been brought out of wandering had died, a generation of Israelites arose that did not know the LORD or what He had done and were wicked, serving Baal and Ashtoreth. In His anger, God sends raiders to plunder and enslave them. Later, God sends judges to save them, but the Israelites do not listen to the judges, continuing to serve other gods, and after the judges die, the Israelites become even more wicked then before.

Seems to set the stage for a recurring pattern:

1. The Israelites failed to keep the covenant
2. The Lord leaves Canaanites around to test them
3. The Israelites forsake God and He is angry
4. God subjects Israelites to their enemies
5. God raises up a judge to deliver and fight for Israel
6. All is good until the judge dies
7. After judge's death, the people are more wicked.
8. Goto 3

There are a couple of interesting things to note. First, by breaking the covenant and worshiping other gods, the Israelites "provoked the LORD to anger" and the LORD, in His anger allows their enemies to plunder, enslave, and defeat them "just as he had sworn to them" (Judges 2:12-15, emphasis mine). Here, it does not seem like the motive for handing the Israelites over to defeat was anger, but keeping his promises. Anger may have been part of the motivation, but the question is whether "in his anger" means "because he was angry" or just simply "while he was angry." Either way, it is clear that the judgement being passed on Israel was precisely what God promised would pass if they broke the covenant. So, because God is just, and possibly because he is angry, the Israelites are oppressed by their enemies.

The second thing to note is that God decides not to drive out all the Canaanites, but to leave some behind to teach and to test Israel. The Israelites disobeyed, so God will not drive out the Canaanites, but the text gives two other reasons for leaving the Canaanites: 1) To teach the Israelites warfare, and 2) To test the Israelites' (continual?) obedience.

Now I come to the "so what?" of my discourse, and I must admit I'm at a loss. The author of Judges seems to be setting us up with a general picture for how the rest of the book will play out. Maybe it is in the specific histories of each of the cycles that there is a message the author is trying to convey. I don't think the author of Judges is just writing history for history's sake, and I think there is more to it than just a general warning to keep God's commandments, there's more to it than that.


[[Update]]

Oppression in the Promised Land.

The Israelites had finally made it to the land God had promised to give to them and their descendants. They go forth to conquer the land, just as God had told them, and they have some great success. Then they begin to have some terrific failures. Some of disobeyed God, and now God was no longer going to help them drive out all the Canaanites from the Promised Land. The Canaanites would, at times, be a thorn in their side, or at other times, their ruler or oppressor. The Israelites are finally in the Promised Land, but life is not going swimmingly all the time. There is trouble in paradise and what we have a a picture of the life of a people with only partially fulfilled promises. The land is mostly theirs, but they can't continually enjoy it. Something is wrong, the covenant has been broken, but is there still hope that it will be renewed and fulfilled? What is Israel's purpose? Is the kingship suppose to be the future hope of Israel?

Peace vs. Passivity

I have seen bumper stickers like this one for a while. When they first came out I felt confused, then mad, then exasperated, and now I'm both angry and exasperated. Hopefully my various responses will be explained as I profess my views about these bumper stickers.

First, if you can't tell, I'm not a fan. It's not that I don't agree with the basic message, because I do. Wanting peace and working to achieve peace are both patriotic. Wanting peace is a noble desire that should be the desire of a patriot, and working to achieve peace translates that desire into action, which can be seen as a civic duty. If this were the only message the bumper sticker conveys, I'd support it 100%

If you look at the other bumper stickers on the car, however, you get a clearer picture of what the message is behind "Peace is Patriotic." Examining the messages of the other stickers, I often find one similar to this:

This message, that "War is NOT the answer" fails to state an answer. That's where the original bumper sticker comes in: PEACE is the answer. Normally it would be nice to know what the question/problem is that the various answers are addressing, and I will get to that presently, but first let us examine these two solutions.

We are currently faced with two solutions to a problem. Unfortunately only one of them is actually a solution. To solve a problem requires action. War can be used as both a noun and a verb. Because it can be a verb, that means that War can be an action, and right now the USA wars against terror. When one looks up peace in the dictionary, one notes that it is simply a noun. (I looked it up in the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd ed.) As a noun, there is no action, and therefore not a solution but a goal. What is really being offered as a solution, even if not consciously, is passivity. To be passive means to "accept or allow what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance" (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd ed.). In this case, as with all problems in life, not doing anything is as much an action that can be applied to solve your problems as any other more active solution. In other words, ignoring the problem, or just accepting the problem as not problematical, is the solution being offered.

Peace is the goal, not the solution. The problem then is disharmony, or lack of peace. You must act to attain your goal. Can you achieve peace through passivity? Yes, possibly. Sometimes this is the best way to achieve peace. My personality is non-confrontational by nature, so if I can just as easily dig another well as I could fight you for the one I originally dug, I will dig another well. Instead of fighting over a pen that I had just been using, I’ll just grab another pen. But if you attack me personally, I will not acquiesce to your demands. If you call me stupid and tell me I should not believe in God, I won’t just passively accept that you are right and stop believing. If, to try and get your way, you persist to the point of trying to inflict bodily harm, I will have no problem defending myself.

In America’s current situation, America has three choices: 1) Passively accept what the terrorists did and leave them alone. 2) Acquiesce to the demands/lifestyle of the terrorists and change our whole culture. 3) Respond to the threat and defend ourselves from future terrorist attacks.

1) Being passive and just allowing events to happen to you will not create peace. If you really want peace, you must actively work to achieve it. In other words, you must be proactive. When something occurs that you must react to, you must react in a proactive way. The tragedy of 9-11 was able to occur because we failed to react in a proactive way to other tragedies. To list just some of the attacks we failed to respond to:
1993 World Trade Center Bombings
1995 Bombings in Saudi Arabia
1996 Komar Tower Bombing
1998 Bombing of two US Embasies
(To be fair, we did send 2 $1,500,000 missles "around the world to hit two camels in the butt" (as one President has said).)
2000 The USS Coal naval ship was bombed, and we did nothing!
(This is the only instance I know of where are troops were attacked and we didn't take on those who attacked us.)
Looking at our track record, no wonder the terrorists decided to keep attacking.

2) If we change our lives and adopt the culture of the terrorists, we will be at peace with them, but with no one else. As part of our new culture, we would now mobilize ourselves against the rest of the world in order to spread our newly adopted culture throughout the entire world. This brings harmony between us and the terrorists, but war between us and the rest of the world.

3) We must react to our current situation in a proactive manner to prevent, as much as possible, future attacks and to establish, as long as possible, peace. War is not something we should enter in to arbitrarily, but when war has been declared upon us and our way of life, we can not ignore it and hope that it goes away. When war is declared upon us we can meet those who set themselves up as are enemies in one of two ways: ready for a fight or ready to surrender.

Back to the bumper stickers. Since the terrorists have declared war against, being passive will only result in more attacks made against us and more tragedies like 9-11. This can hardly be considered a peaceful. War is upon us whether we like it or not. Even if we choose to surrender, it would still mean war, just with someone else (point 2 above). Therefore "Peace is Patriotic" and "War is NOT the answer" are two incongruous messages to be displaying on your bumper. "Peace is Patriotic" is a pro-war statement, whether you know it or not.

No Post This Week

I apologize for the lack of a post this week. Too many things are happening at once, and blogger is, sadly, first to go

War and Genocide

Before going any further into Judges, I want to try and tackle the issues of War and Genocide that this book brings up. In tackling these issues, I will not make a definitive case, and will probably raise more questions and answer none, but a look at this issues must be made.

So I start with the following propositions:

1. God is holy other.
2. God is righteous.
3. What God commands is good/right
4. War is wrong and Genocide is evil
5. God commands Israelites to go to war
6. God commands Israelite to wipe out at least some of the Canaanites.

Given this scenario, either statement 3 or statement 4 is wrong. If statement three is wrong then it is possible that statements one and two might be called into question. Since I don't believe statement three to be incorrect in this situation, it would be fruitless to discuss whether or not God could be holy and righteous and yet command something evil/wrong.

If asked, most people on the streets (or in the Church) would probably agree with statement four. They may make allowances for a just war and say that war isn't necessarily evil, but I think most everyone would agree that genocide is wrong/sinful/evil.

There is another alternative. Maybe statements five and six are wrong. Could the leaders of Israel have been wrong about God's commands? Or were the leaders using religion as a means to justify their political ends? How do we know that these wars were really ordained by God and that the Crusades were not? Maybe the Crusades were God ordained? (Did the religious leaders claim that God commanded the Crusades? Or just that it would be a good thing?)

As a Christian who believes that the Bible is the Word of God, one must hold to God commanding the israelites to wipe out the Canaanites and take the promise land. One must then conclude that the war was just and that so was the command to wipe out the Canaanites.

In fact, the Amorites, at least, were not innocent. in Genesis 15:16, God is telling Abraham what will happen to his descendants and he tells them that his descendants will come back to the promised land, but the sin of the Amorites had not yet reached "its full measure."

Some questions my discussion has raised: By what standard is something called just? Our own personal standard? Is it intrinsically good or evil? If so, how do we recognize it as such? Is there a standard of truth that is outside and above ourselves? Etc....

Judges 1:1-2:5

The LORD tells them that Judah has been chosen to take care of the Canaanites,
and the tribe of Judah asks the tribe of Simeon to help them and in return Simeon
will receive aid from Judah when they take their inheritance. There are successes
and there are failures in this passage.

First, let's look at the successes and why they were successful:

Judah was successful 1:19: "The LORD was with the men of Judah"
Joseph was successful: 1:22 "...and the LORD was with them"

Out of the tribes that this passage mentions, only these two (three, if you count Simeon as assumed because of the Judah/Simeon alliance) tribes are singled out to say that the LORD was with them. A big key to success: The LORD must be with you.

Okay, that seems like a no-brainer, but how is it that the LORD was with some and not with others when the entire nation was going about the work of conquering the promised land? Did not God promise them the land? Are they not in His will when they are going forth to conquer? Well, let us look at the reasons given for failure

Reasons given for the failures:
(In the order they are mentioned)

1. The Canaanites posses superior weapons.
1:19b "but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because
they had iron chariots."

2. The Canaanites were determined to live in the land.
1:27 "for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land"
1:35 "And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres"

3.Israelites disobeyed God
2:2 "'and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their alters.' Yet you have disobeyed me."

I believe number three to be the over-arching reason Israel failed to drive
the Canaanites completely from the promised land. God can overcome the first
two, and there are places in the Bible where it is recorded that He did. But
because the Israelites disobeyed, God was not with them to give them the victory.
When you go without God and you are left to fight a battle in your own strength,
it is hard to defeat an enemy who possesses better weapons and is determined
to win.

Launch Date

Launch Date

Okay, so things have been delayed. I have also decided that the focus of the blog will be Biblical/Theological, but there will be room to deviate into politics and culture if certain current events strike me as comment-worthy. That being said, the new launch date for Anakrino is August 15th. Until then, blog on...

Updates...

Updates...

So the site is coming along nicely and hopefully regular posts will start July 15th as previously posted. I am also debating whether or not to include politics/current events in the possible topics of conversation. I guess we'll just have to see how the site grows.

Comming Soon...

Comming Soon...

This is the initial post, but much work is needed before the site will be actually operational. If you have just checked in with us, thank you, but try checking back in on July 15, 2005. By then everything should be up and running.