Reading the Essential Bible Handbook by the Abingdon Press I came across an entry that said in the conquest of the holy land the Israelites had to offer peace first and I came across a Jewish site explaining it more fully here:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beli...ace.shtml?BFIS

Followed by mass killings of Canaanites

Kind of like Afghanistan... sometimes war brings peace.

Interesting article on the Torah by a rabbinical student:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/beli...Genocide.shtml

Some quotes:

Who is Amalek?
According to the book of Exodus, Amalek is the nation that attacked the weakest among the Israelites as they fled from Egypt. This transgression was not to go unpunished. The Torah has a harsh prescription for Amalek: annihilation.

and

In the Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides explains further that the command to wipe out Amalek isn't based on hatred, but on removing Amalek-like behavior from the world (3:41). For Maimonides, then, the commandment is not necessarily fulfilled through killing; it can be fulfilled through moral influence and education.

Deuteronomy 20 distinguishes between the obligatory war of conquest against the seven nations of Canaan and other wars. However, according to Maimonides and Nahmanides, the obligation to offer a call for peace is applied to both. Nahmanides, in quoting a midrash, also claims that there is an obligation of a Jewish army, laying siege upon a town, to provide an open direction to escape for those of the enemy who do not wish to fight (Sefer Hamitzvot 5).

Some legal authorities were more eager to remove the command entirely from being applicable in our era. For example, in the 19th century, Rabbi Abraham Sachatchover argued: "If they repent from their ways and accept the Noahide commandments, and they no longer continue in the path of their forefathers, they are no longer held responsible for the sins of their forefathers." (Avnei Neizer Orat Hayiim 2:508)

The Sachatchover Rebbe, like Maimonides, suggests that Amalek is a way of being, not a genetic trait.

I just realized how out of context these types of statements are on the topic of the OT wars.

How come so many people are incapable of considering anything in context?

How come so many people forget the Israelites came out of a 400 year slavery?

How come the Egyptian pharoah's instructions to kill the first born is never remembered? How come the pharoah tried to take out all the male children in the days of Moses' infancy?

How come they never know about the peace process outlined at the beginning of Deuteronomy 20?

How come they never ask "why didn't the people at Jericho come out and make peace...they had 7 days to do it? And many of the nations Israel faced suspected God was with Israel. In Numbers Balak learns 3 times God is with Israel from Balaam when he calls him to curse the Israelites and still Balak stays angry with the Israelites.

Why aren't the Israelites supposed to heed God when he's been serving them quails and dew changed into manna for years in the desert?

How come they miss that famous passage in the OT where God tells the Israelites: don't think you're good and that's why you're getting this land...because he's timed this to coincide with the other people who are at the height of their wickedness.

How come its beyond people's ability to see that God's ancient people replaced human sacrifice with animal/grain/burnt offering sacrifice. A tremendous upgrade for that day and time.

How come people can't see this all as a spiritual evolution? Many people do and have learned the hard way cross generationally.

Read the Prodigal Son in the NT. He only learned the hard way. Stubborness has that effect.

two wrongs don't make a right. you would expect an all loving and all powerful God to be less petty about these things.

and learning things cross generationally is pretty useless for those in early generations since you know, they are dead and presumably in "hell"

Nope. You're cherrypicking context again.

How come you miss that famous passage in the OT where God tells the Israelites: don't think you're good and that's why you're getting this land...because he's timed this to coincide with the other people who are at the height of their wickedness.

The earth is permanently in rebellion, an evil state, since the Garden of Eden.

You'll have to prove your underlying assumption that the pagans weren't evil.

what does this have to do with anything?

uh huh, and i wonder who set THAT up.

and you'll have to prove that they were.

regardless, it takes a psychopath to consider new born babies evil, or every single person of a particular city, evil. Not only that, its laughable that you think the most lowly slave, or the women, of a particular city had any say in whether they accepted the Israelites peace offering or not.

You forfeit then. You didn't back up your assumption or disprove spiritual warfare.

Score one for the atheists! you didn't back up your assumption or prove spiritual warfare!

see this is easy!

if you dont want to have a discussion, then dont post on a discussion board.

Words to live by, my friend.

Although you've already forfeited by failing to support your burden of proof I'll toss you another question.

Why does The Father need to submit to the degenerate rebellious ways of his children?

Are you sure The Father couldn't raise again or have reborn any innocents slaughtered even if they were pagans?

Are you sure The Father isn't simply f*cking with the believers and is actually intending to send them all straight to hell?

+1

The old testament peace process seems to vaguely be about killing anyone who makes disagrees with the old testament, and sometimes also about killing those who believe in it but failed to adhere to it.

There is also a rule about not killing, so you might be looking at the world's first catch-22.