Bible needs to be read carefully 


    SCHOLARS debate how the various books of the Bible got written and when and where each one fi rst turned up. But we can date the Bible’s fi fth Book, Deuteronomy, precisely, because the Bible itself tells us. According to both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, workmen renovating Jerusalem’s Temple found it in the 18th year of King Josiah’s reign: 621 B.C. 
    They believed Deuteronomy was written by Moses, but that’s a whole other discussion. Whoever wrote it, it contains some of the harshest commands in the whole Bible. 
    In Chapter 7 and again in Chapter 20, it tells Israel to show no mercy when making war. If you attack a city and it surrenders willingly, you enslave everyone there. (The King James translation soft pedals this a bit. But the original Hebrew text is very clear. You destroy their religious symbols and they become yours for “forced labor.”) 
    If they fi ght back and you win anyway, you punish them: “Thou shalt smite every male with the edge of the sword.” The women, children, and animals, become yours to keep. 
    Worse yet, if the city was Canaanite, sworn enemies of Israel, “Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them.” That is, kill everything: men, women, children, and beasts. 
    (You should let some trees live, though.) 
    Nowadays, this would be considered a war crime. But according to Deuteronomy, 7:2 and 20:10-20, God commanded Israel to do it. 
    I’m tolerant of people’s beliefs, but no one can tell me God commands people to commit war crimes. Or ever did. Of course, a few religious nuts may argue. Those passages in Deuteronomy have been used to justify the European religious wars of the 1600s, which killed millions; genocide in Bosnia; and even the Holocaust itself. 
    If we take a look at King Josiah’s day, when the Book of Deuteronomy fi rst turned up, it’s easier to understand why that passage was written. Jerusalem was surrounded by hostile kingdoms. Wiping out whole cities was standard military practice back then, done by everyone’s army, not just Israel’s. When the Greeks burned Troy, that’s what was going on. Armies did this for centuries. 
    It never occurred to the writer of Deuteronomy that wiping out a whole city’s population would be a horrible atrocity. In Kings, Joshua, and Judges, as well, it’s just the way people fought wars at that time, be it against Jericho or the Ammonites or the Benjaminites. 
    Sadly, there are still those who think God did command it. That it’s fi ne to wipe out men, women, and children who believe differently or err in some other way. But that’s the kind of thinking that brought Timothy McVeigh to bomb Oklahoma City, and causes people to fl y airplanes into tall buildings. 
    As far as I’m concerned, thank heavens most of us have learned better over the last 3,000 years. What’s more, I think God knew better all along. 
    I can’t worship a God who wipes out cities, or who ever did. The God I worship is big, mysterious, gentle, loving, and just — and doesn’t think children should be enslaved or killed just because their parents are at war with true believers. I don’t think God ever approved or commanded the kind of atrocities the Bible says God did. 
    Deuteronomy 7 and 20 are probably the most extreme passages in the Bible. But plenty of other things were accepted in Biblical times that are not accepted any more. Polygamy, slavery, and punishing men who trim their beards, say. By the same token, some things the Bible forbids, are now fi ne with everyone except religious fanatics: trimming the beard, wearing a tattoo, or wearing blended fabrics, for instance. The Bible may tell us those are God’s laws, but they were human standards, not God’s. 
    My point is, you can’t just take your brain out of gear, read the Bible, then go out and do everything it tells you without thinking about it. Cruel people can — and often do — use the Bible as an excuse to do cruel things. What a shameful misuse of the Bible! 
    What’s magnifi cent about the Bible, is that it connects us with the hopes, dreams, ideals, and world-changing faith of people who lived thousands of years before us. 
    But people were people then, just as they are now. Some people said their own opinions were God’s will back then. Some people still do it today. 
    We need to know the difference. 
The Rev. Dennis McCarty is a 
Unitarian Universalist minister in Columbus. His opinions 
are his own, and not necessarily shared by members of his 
church. He can be reached by 
e-mail at columnists@therepublic.com 


Dennis McCarty