I was minding my own business, reading 1Samuel, then suddenly God ordered the extermination of an entire ethnicity that hadn’t even appeared for several books (and generations, in-universe), then turned on Saul when he went soft and saved the livestock and took the king alive. Even as far back as Pseudo Philo, there were (not even half-hearted) attempts to explain what the hell happened, there.
If only that were an isolated incident. One interesting theist writer, who is notable for dissolving Free Will and refusing to accept arguments that let God off the hook for evil and not rejecting scientific evidence because he wasn’t a complete idiot, when asked about old testament genocides, bluntly admitted that explaining those commands of God is one of the hardest parts of taking the Bible seriously.
(Pseudo Philo is basically first-century Old Testament fanfiction, which covers from Genesis through the end of 1Samuel. It’s much more fun, tries to make females stronger characters, and is much lighter on all the genocide and rules-to-become-obsolete. In particular, Pseudo Philo’s version of Kenaz, a throw-away side-character in Judges, gets an epic upgrade, including the introduction of the seven artifacts of doom and what amounts to a Bankai. As a bonus, the important characters almost always take their access to a picky-but-omniscient being at least halfway seriously (they never ask for instructions on how to solve the world’s problems, but they at least ask questions and expect answers, and request replication of a variety of miracles before agreeing to anything.). Were I to write a RATIONAL! Old Testament while still trying to claim God is good, I’d probably use Pseudo Philo as the main source material.)
I was minding my own business, reading 1Samuel, then suddenly God ordered the extermination of an entire ethnicity that hadn’t even appeared for several books (and generations, in-universe), then turned on Saul when he went soft and saved the livestock and took the king alive. Even as far back as Pseudo Philo, there were (not even half-hearted) attempts to explain what the hell happened, there.
If only that were an isolated incident. One interesting theist writer, who is notable for dissolving Free Will and refusing to accept arguments that let God off the hook for evil and not rejecting scientific evidence because he wasn’t a complete idiot, when asked about old testament genocides, bluntly admitted that explaining those commands of God is one of the hardest parts of taking the Bible seriously.
(Pseudo Philo is basically first-century Old Testament fanfiction, which covers from Genesis through the end of 1Samuel. It’s much more fun, tries to make females stronger characters, and is much lighter on all the genocide and rules-to-become-obsolete. In particular, Pseudo Philo’s version of Kenaz, a throw-away side-character in Judges, gets an epic upgrade, including the introduction of the seven artifacts of doom and what amounts to a Bankai. As a bonus, the important characters almost always take their access to a picky-but-omniscient being at least halfway seriously (they never ask for instructions on how to solve the world’s problems, but they at least ask questions and expect answers, and request replication of a variety of miracles before agreeing to anything.). Were I to write a RATIONAL! Old Testament while still trying to claim God is good, I’d probably use Pseudo Philo as the main source material.)