A God Who Orders the Killing of Innocent Children Isn't Worthy of Worship
When I was teaching Sunday school, I did a series of classes using Lee Strobel's works. The following is from The Case for Faith. While there may be the stray original item from me, I deserve no credit for what is written in this particular article. It is properly attributed to Lee Strobel in its entirety.
Before assailing the character of God, there are some things we should consider.
We must be careful not to confuse two things: what the Bible records and what the Bible approves. For example, the Bible records Satan’s lies and David’s adultery, but it doesn’t approve of them.
What about the difference between the God of the Old and New Testaments (you know, the more vengeful God of the OT)? The word for ‘mercy’ in the KJV is used 261 times in the Bible, 72% in the Old Testament - a three-to-one ratio of Old Testament use vs. New Testament use. ‘Love’ is used 322 times - about half in each. One could actually make a case that God is more judgmental in the New Testament. Very little is said about eternal punishment in the Old Testament, plenty in the New.
God’s Orders to Kill
In Deuteronomy 7 He said to ‘totally destroy’ the Canaanites and six other nations and ‘show them no mercy;’ He ordered the execution of every Egyptian firstborn; He flooded the world; He told the Israelites: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Sam 15:3).
These demonstrate that God’s character is absolutely holy and that He has to punish sin and rebellion. Like the Canaanites, the Amalekites were a thoroughly wicked and debased people. For example, they had been following the Israelites and had been cowardly slaughtering the most vulnerable - the weak, elderly and disabled who had been lagging behind.
Unlike us, God knows the future. God knew what the results would be if Israel did not completely eradicate the Amalekites. If Israel did not carry out God’s orders, the Amalekites would come back to trouble the Israelites in the future.
Saul claimed to have killed everyone but the Amalekite king Agag (1 Samuel 15:20). Obviously, Saul was lying because just a couple of decades later, there were enough Amalekites to take David and his men’s families captive (1 Samuel 30:1-2). After David and his men attacked the Amalekites and rescued their families, 400 Amalekites escaped. If Saul had fulfilled what God had commanded him, this never would have occurred.
Several hundred years later, Haman, a descendant of Agag, tried to have the entire Jewish people exterminated (see Esther). So, Saul’s incomplete obedience almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. God knew this would occur, so He ordered the extermination of the Amalekites ahead of time.
In regard to the Canaanites, God commanded, “In the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18).
The Israelites failed in this mission as well, and exactly what God said would happen did (Judges 2:1-3; 1 Kings 11:5; 14:24; 2 Kings 16:3-4). God did not order the extermination of these people to be cruel, but to prevent even greater evil from occurring in the future.
But what about the children? Remember, they could not be left behind to develop a bloodlust for revenge. And their deaths (before the age of accountability) was actually their salvation. Scripture tells us no one is innocent (Psalms 51:5; 58:3). Socially and physically the fate of children throughout history has always been with their parents, for good or ill.
God is sovereign over all life and has the right to take it. In fact, He takes the life of every human being. The only question is when and how, which we have to leave up to Him.
Surely the ones who wanted to be saved from destruction fled and were spared in the hundreds of years leading up to their destruction. And we have the example of the righteous among evil people being saved (Rahab in Joshua 6, the people of Ninevah).
God’s purpose in these instances was to destroy the corrupt nation because the national structure was inherently evil, not to destroy people if they are willing to repent. Consider this: Israel’s enemies were always given plenty of warning. Under the rules of conduct given to the Israelites by God, whenever they went into an enemy city they were to first make the people an offer of peace.
The fighters who remained would have been the most hardened, the ones who stubbornly refused to leave, the carriers of the corrupt culture. Most of the women and children would have fled in advance before the actual fighting began, leaving behind the warriors to face the Israelites. So it’s really questionable how many women and children might have actually been involved anyway.
A thoroughly corrupt culture is one thing, but what about the story of Elisha? Wasn't his a case of divine overkill? In 2 Kings 2:23-25, the prophet Elisha is on the road toward Bethel when “young lads” confront him, making fun of his baldness, saying, “Go on up, you baldhead! Go on up, you baldhead!” Elisha cursed them in the name of the Lord, and two bears appeared from the woods and mauled 42 of them. Seems excessive, doesn’t it?
The KJV has a misleading translation; scholars have established that the original Hebrew is best translated as “young men.” As best we can tell, it was a violent mob of dangerous teenagers, comparable to a modern-day street gang.
Some of the Hebrew used indicates these young men were most likely between 12-30 years old. One of the same Hebrew words is used elsewhere to describe men in the army.
Elisha’s life was in danger by the sheer number of them - if 42 were mauled, who knows how many of them there were in total?
And they weren’t just making fun of his baldness. Scholars agree their taunts were intended to challenge his claim to be a prophet. They were saying, “If you’re a man of God, why don’t you go up to heaven like the prophet Elijah did?” Apparently they were mocking God’s earlier work of taking Elijah to heaven.
They were contemptuous in their disbelief over what God had done through both of these prophets. And their remarks about Elisha being bald were most likely a reference to the fact that lepers in those days shaved their heads. They were assailing Elisha - a man of dignity and authority as a prophet of God - as a detestable and despicable outcast. They were casting a slur on not only his character, but on God’s, since he was Gods representative. What would it say about God if He allowed His prophet to be treated thusly?
The Pain of Animals
Many critics question God’s character through the pain and suffering of animals. Surely it would not be beyond the competence of an omniscient deity to create an animal world that could be sustained and perpetuated without suffering and death. Well, God did create those kinds of animals. The original paradise and the one to come is going to have those kinds of animals, so it will not always be as it is now. In fact, we’re told that God originally created animals and human beings to be herbivorous (Genesis 1:29-30).
After the flood, God told Noah in Genesis 9:3: “Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” Isaiah spoke of the new heavens and the new earth where “the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox” (Is. 65:17, 25).
So God created everything good, but everything was affected in the Fall. God’s plan was not designed to be this way; it’s only this way because of sin. Ultimately, it will be remedied.
But wasn’t the system of animal sacrifice cruel? Actually, the way they were killed was quite humane; it was the most painless way to die. There was no waste - everything was used - so essentially they were growing and harvesting animals. This was not an attempt to eliminate a species. And of course the most important reason for animal sacrifice was their pointing ahead to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.
What about all the pain in the world as a result of animals hunting and killing other animals? The sum total of suffering that God allows in the world is enormous. The entire presupposition is wrong. As C.S. Lewis said, there is no sum total of pain. It’s a misnomer. No one person or animal experiences the sum total of pain. In fact, no one person experiences at one time the sum total of pain of his/her lifetime. As far as animals are concerned, the Bible is very clear that they are not to be abused. “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal” (Proverbs 12:10).
In assessing the character of God, we use the Bible, but can the Bible be trusted? Is there any rational reason to believe that the Bible really does accurately reveal the truth about God? It turns out there’s more evidence that the Bible is a reliable source than there is for any other book from the ancient world.
The unity of the Bible attests to its miraculous authorship - 66 books written in different literary styles by perhaps forty authors with diverse backgrounds over 1500 years, and yet the Bible amazingly unfolds one continuous drama with one central message. That points to the existence of the divine Mind that the writers claimed inspired them.
The Bible has incredible transforming power. From the beginning, it has renewed people; given them hope, courage, purpose, wisdom, guidance and power; and formed an anchor for their lives.
While early Islam was spread by the sword, early Christianity spread by the Spirit, even while Christians were being killed by Roman swords.
However, the most convincing evidence falls into two categories: Archaeological evidence of its reliability and miraculous confirmation of its divine authority.
Confirmation by Archaeology
In John 3:12, Jesus says, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” Conversely, if we can trust the Bible about straightforward earthly things that can be verified, then we can trust it in areas where we can’t directly verify it in an empirical way.
There have been thousands of archaeological finds in the Middle East that support the biblical record. A discovery not that long ago confirmed King David. The patriarchs (the narratives about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) were once considered legendary but these stories are increasingly corroborated.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was thought to be mythical until evidence was uncovered that all five cities mentioned in Genesis were situated just as the Old Testament said. Concerning their destruction, archaeologist Clifford Wilson said there is “permanent evidence of the great conflagration that took place in the long distant past.”
Various aspects of the Jewish captivity have been confirmed.
Every OT reference of an Assyrian king has been proven correct.
Excavations in the 1960s proved Israelites could have entered Jerusalem by way of a tunnel during David’s reign.
There’s evidence the world had a single language at one time.
Many times scientists have been skeptical of the OT only to have new discoveries corroborate the biblical account. Samuel says that after Saul’s death his armor was put in the temple of Ashtoroth (a Canaanite fertility goddess) at Bethshan, while Chronicles reports that his head was put in the temple of a Philistine corn god named Dagon. Scientists thought it had to be wrong; they didn’t think enemies would have had temples in the same place at the same time. Excavation confirmed two temples at the site, separated by a hallway. It turns out the Philistines had apparently adopted Ashtoroth as one of their own goddesses.
Critics charged there was no evidence that Hittites ever existed. Digs in Turkey discovered the records of the Hittites.
Archaeologist William F. Albright: “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition.”
Even small details in Acts have been confirmed, like which way the wind blows, how deep the water is a certain distance from shore, what kind of disease a particular island had, the names of local officials, and so on.
Acts was authored by the historian Luke, and had to have been written before A.D. 62, about 30 years after Jesus’ crucifixion.
He wrote the gospel of Luke even earlier than that. So here you have an impeccable historian proven right in hundreds of details and never proven wrong, writing the whole history of Jesus and the early church. And it was written within one generation while eyewitnesses were still alive and could have disputed it if it were exaggerated or false.
Oxford University classical historian A.N. Sherwin-White: “For Acts the confirmation of historicity is overwhelming” and “any attempt to reject its basic historicity must now appear absurd.”
Evidence of Divine Origin
If the first verse of the Bible is true, and we have already looked at evidence that supports that it is, then not only are miracles possible, but miracles are actual, because the biggest miracle has already happened - making something out of nothing.
And the Bible is the only book in the world that has been miraculously confirmed. It’s miraculously confirmed by the fulfillment of predictive prophesies, and it’s confirmed by the miracles performed by those who purported to be speaking for God.
Confirmation by Prophesies
The Bible is the only book in the world that has precise, specific predictions that were made hundreds of years in advance and that were literally fulfilled.
According to Barton Payne’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, there are 191 predictions in the Old Testament about the coming of Christ, including his ancestry, his city of birth, that he would be born of a virgin, precisely the time in history he would die, and so on. For example, Zechariah 12:10 tells of his being pierced, a picture of his crucifixion; however, it was written before crucifixion was even implemented by the Romans as a means of execution. The Jews stoned people to death back then.
So incredible predictions were fulfilled in the life of one man, even though he had no control over most of them. He couldn’t have arranged his ancestry, the timing of his birth and such.
But what about Nostradamus and others like him? Their predictions are often very enigmatic, ambiguous, and inaccurate.
Nostradamus’ Hitler prediction said, "Followers of sects, great troubles are in store for the Messenger. A beast upon the theater prepares the scenical play. The inventor of that wicked feat will be famous. By sects the world will be confused and divided… Beasts mad with hunger will swim across rivers. Most of the army will be against the Lower Danube [Hister sera]. The great one shall be dragged in an iron cage when the child brother [de Germain] will observe nothing."
Not a single prediction of Nostradamus has ever been proven genuine. A study of prophecies made by psychics in 1975 showed they were accurate only 6 percent of the time, which is not really much better than guessing, if it is better at all. To be fair, not all biblical prophecy is sharp, but many prophesies are very specific.
Confirmation by Miracles
The one sure way to determine whether a prophet is truly a spokesman for God or a charlatan trying to deceive people is whether he can produce clear-cut miracles. All three great monotheistic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - recognize the validity of miracles as a means of confirming a message from God.
The Bible, which we have seen is historically reliable, records prophets who were challenged but who then performed miracles to establish their credentials.
Jesus even said outright, “Don’t believe me unless I do miracles of God” (John 10:37). Even Nicodemus conceded this when he said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2).
Muhammad actually believed Jesus was a prophet who performed miracles. And Muslims also believe Elijah and Moses performed miracles.
Unlike Jesus, miracles were not a part of Muhammad’s ministry. When Muhammad was asked to perform miracles, he refused, telling questioners to read a chapter in the Koran. Yet Muhammad himself said, “God hath certainly power to send down a sign” (Sura 6:37). It wasn’t until hundreds of years after his death that Muhammad’s followers invented miracles and credited them to him.
But when John the Baptist inquired through his disciples whether Jesus was the Messiah, He replied confidently to them: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22).
It's not difficult to conclude the Bible is a supernaturally confirmed book unlike any other in history. Its historical reliability has been authenticated by archaeology, and it contains the miraculous fulfillment of clear predictive prophesies and the performance of documented miracles.
And what about alleged contradictions? We need to approach the Bible the way an American is treated in court: presumed innocent until proven guilty. Quite simply, when it has proven to be accurate over and over again in hundreds of details, the burden of proof is on the critic, not on the Bible.
Common mistakes include failing to understand the context of a passage. For example, Psalm 14:1 says, “There is no God.” The full passage actually reads, "The fool says in his heart there is no God."
Another mistake is assuming a partial report is a false report -
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” vs “You are the Christ” vs “The Christ of God.” These are complementary, not contradictory.
One should also be careful about neglecting to interpret difficult passages in light of clear ones or basing a teaching on an obscure passage.
One mustn't forget that the Bible uses nontechnical, everyday language.
One should keep in mind the Bible uses different literary devices.
Forgetting the Bible is a human book with human characteristics can lead someone into error. Sometimes they used human sources or used different literary styles or wrote from different perspectives or emphasized different interests or revealed human thought patterns and emotions. But like Christ, the Bible is totally human, yet without error.
For a more detailed treatment of the Canaanite issue, see also: