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[Corinthian]

Let's talk about the Amalekite genocide of 1 Samuel 15. Your thoughts?

[jimwalton]

You're right that punishment doesn't equal morality, but disobeying commands coming from a moral authority does.

> If an Islamic dictator states that you will be executed if you practice Christianity, does it become immoral to practice Christianity?

No, because there is a higher moral authority over me.

> The Amalekite genocide of 1 Sam. 15.

Sure. Let's talk. You're great to have discussions with.

The Amalekites were Israel's first enemies from day 1 after crossing the Red Sea (Ex. 17). They were a fierce people who were relentless in their aim to destroy Israel and had attacked them many times.

The first thing you need to know about is the rhetorical warfare bravado language of the ancient Near East. There are many historical examples (outside of the Bible, dug up by archaeologists) of language of "kill 'em all, men women and children, kill the animals, leave nothing breathing." Scholars have found that it was their rhetoric, not their command or behavior. The meaning behind it was, "Let's win a great victory," not "Let's slaughter all the innocents!" This has been soundly established. It was conventional warfare bombast, and was never (except in a few exceptional cruel cases) taken literally. It was certainly not taken literally by the Israelites.

In Deut. 7, God tells the Israelites to "utterly destroy" the Canaanites. Then in the very next verse he says that after that they shouldn't make any treaties with them or intermarry with them. Wait a minute—aren't they all dead? No, it just means win a significant victory, not "kill 'em all." We find out that the ultimate issue is religious (Dt. 7.5): what God wanted "utterly destroyed" was their altars, images, and sacred pillars. He wanted to wipe out the false religion, not the people group. See also Ex. 34.12-13; Dt. 12.2-3. The concern of "kill 'em all" was to purge the land of idolatry, not to commit genocide.

Now to 1 Sam. 15. Here also we find that the Amalekites remain as a people group (1 Sam. 27.8; 30.17-18). They weren't wiped out either. That was never the point. Samuel is using the same rhetorical warfare bravado that was their cultural frame. The Amalekites were even still around 250 years later during the time of Hezekiah (1 Chr. 4.43). Even Haman in the story of Esther (Esth. 3.1) was an Amalekite descendant. So we know that the Amalekite hostility continued for almost 1000 years afterward. God had told them never to let up on their opposition to the Amalekites (Dt. 25.15-17) because of their false religion and the fierce ways. Unlike other Canaanites and Canaanite groups, the Amalekites couldn't (wouldn't) just be assimilated into Israel life.

Another fact that's helpful to know is that the cities of the ancient Near East were mostly military strongholds and governmental centers. The general population mostly didn't live in the cities, but only traded there on occasion or went there for governmental business. Small businesses were also in the cities to service the political and military populations there, but they were largely inhabited by professional personnel. (This is confirmed by the Amarna letters.) When the command was given to attack a city, what was being attacked were not the innocents, but the perpetrators: the governing officials and their armies. Still, the call to "kill 'em all" was language of victory, not of genocide.

Saul's target would have been the Amalekite strongholds, not the population centers. The sweeping words "all," "young and old" and "men and women" were stock expressions for totality, not brutality. They would use those words even if women and children weren't present.

You'll even notice in 1 Sam. 15.5 that specific action was taken so that innocents didn't get caught up in the violence and killed along with the guilty.

You may be wondering why Saul was censured for not killing all the animals too. Doesn't that imply pretty clearly that he had indeed killed women and children, and was castigated for sparing the poor animals? Verse 24 says Saul "violated the Lord's command and your [Samuel's] instructions." Saul's offenses were those of improper conduct in a holy war. He had failed in his role as king, being the administrator of the nation for YHWH. His job was to make sure that the Lord was properly represented: (1) make sure the people keep the covenant of the Law, (2) seek the Lord in battle, and give God credit for victory. Instead we see Saul keeping the best stuff for himself (9) and setting up a monument in his own honor (12), setting himself up as, essentially, the God of Israel (17). This is the problem. He was making himself God and taking matters into his own hands, calling honor to himself. That's the sin here.

[Corinthian]

So when Samuel says that God commanded: "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys," you are telling me that's not actually what God actually said? That Samuel was exaggerating God's command, and this is just "warfare bravado"?

The fact that there are Christian apologists (William Lane Craig comes to mind) running around defending the slaughter of innocent Amalekite children, suggests to me that you're pulling this out of your ass.

[jimwalton]

When a football coach says to his team, "Let's go out there and kill 'em today. Bury them alive. Don't even let them take a breath." We all know what that means. Oh, he actually said it. And someone repeating that wouldn't be exaggerating. But we all know what it means—it means win a convincing and complete victory. In 1 Samuel 15, it is what God actually said, and Samuel was not exaggerating it when he communicated it, but they all knew what that meant. That's what I'm saying: it was part of their culture to use those words to speak of convincing and complete victory.

You didn't seem to "buy" (and you know what I mean by that) my 7 proofs, so let me give you four more that are specific to the text.

1. The Amalekites were a nomadic group spread over a large geographic area. They were not concentrated in cities, and most of them didn’t live in cities. Think of them as spread out over the state of Nevada. "Totally destroying" the Amalekites was not logistically or militarily possible. The idea here was to punish concentrated populations of military power and regional leadership, not to destroy an entire people group. To make an analogy, they were like the "al Qaeda" of their day. You can’t just attack and wipe them out. They're all over the place. But if you can militarily take out their leadership, you win a convincing and complete victory.

2. Look at 1 Sam. 15.5: The city of Amalek was the target of the herem: their governmental and military center, and the persons who have been set up as leaders of the people group. Again, it’s like the U.S. military taking out the al Qaeda leaders. You don’t set an "ambush in a ravine" for a nomadic people scattered over an entire region like Nevada. The only way the military strategy of "ambush in the ravine" makes sense if they are going after one specific group of the Amalekites in one specific location with a specific military strategy in mind.

3. 1 Sam.15.7-9: Saul conquered the city and chased the governmental leaders and the soldiers through the desert to kill them. He took the king captive, most likely let the animals go, and kept the best animals for himself and his men. The idea of the herem was not that everything be slaughtered, but that none of it be taken by the soldiers as plunder. Now look at v. 13: He felt he had done what was expected (except he knew he had kept the best and that was against the command). Are you kidding? By setting an ambush in a ravine next to a city, he wiped out an entire nomadic population spread across a whole region? No, but by conquering the city, capturing the king, and killing the other rulers and military perpetrators. This shows us how he heard the concept of "kill every man woman and child, every animal and breathing thing", as I said in my previous post. It means kill the perpetrators and squelch "the problem of the Amalekites" with a convincing victory.

4. 1 Sam.15.12: If Saul was going to "utterly destroy" all of the Amalekites who were spread out from the Brook of Egypt to Havilah, a nomadic group all over the Negev and the area of Edom, he could not possibly have accomplished this all in one night. In verse 7 he attacked, and the next morning he announced, "Mission accomplished." All he did was conquer a small city.

[Corinthian]

You're deluding yourself.

There are Christian theologians and scholars who accept that the Amalekite genocide happened, exactly as the way it is described in the Bible.

If your argument had any grounding in reality, they'd be using it rather than attempting the much more difficult task of defending genocide.

[jimwalton]

Sorry that I haven't won your confidence in this discussion. Actually, I've done massive amounts of study on the text and on the issue in other texts, and would gladly go head-to-head with any of them. But without such an opportunity, it'll never happen. But since I haven't won you over, what good would it do to talk to them? You didn't actually refute any of my points, but only said that other professionals disagree with me. Too bad. I would prefer to discuss the issue itself with you, not critiquing me because "others disagree." You'll always find others who disagree, no matter what the discussion.