Week 11 Joshua
Reading through Joshua it’s easy to get knotted-up about the deaths of everyone in the Canaanite states.
I guess there’re lots of people more than just knotted-up, more like angered enough by the wars of conquest to charge the Lord with genocide. And once you’ve got a genocidal deity it’s not a big jump to other conclusions about God – he’s a blood-thirsty, frenzied, murderous tyrant, and like that.
The disadvantage in swinging over to the God-is-an-unrestrained-and-distempered-lunatic view is that it doesn’t work as a stand-alone. It’s appealingly simple, but I have to deal with the bigger problem of juggling Joshua with a raft of other non-maniacal-sounding things the bible says about God.
The thing is, I’m reading through, and so I’m reading everything. I can’t stop and isolate Joshua, can’t forget about what I’ve already read, forget there’s more to come. Can’t highlight or low-light. I have to fit this in with a whole bunch of other things.
Maybe the bible isn’t as streamlined as I’d like it to be, but I can’t change that. I’m reading, trying to make sensible content-management decisions, working toward good conclusions, admitting it to myself when conclusions are standoffish.
It’s great to be clinical. But not so simple to be detached when I’m feeling fearful, and insecure, and distracted, and anxious, and alone, and angry, and confused. Who knows what kind of conclusions are going to surface out of all that?
So I’m wary of my one-dimensional conclusions.