The Battle of Jericho.
Recorded in the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament, it's basically depicted as a holy war where the Jewish people deliver some 'righteous justice' to evil pagan tribes who practiced idol worship.
To summarize the whole ordeal: Moses dropped plagues on Egypt for a week, Pharaoh called 'GG,' and the Jewish slaves bailed. But once they got out, they just wandered in circles in the desert until they saw a place nearby called Canaan, a land supposedly 'flowing with tits and ass,' so they invaded.
Then, the local natives had the audacity to not hand over their land and property to the 'Chosen People,' which is how the battle kicked off.
The Jewish tactics were unique: they just kept circling the fortress for seven days, and on the last day, at the priest's signal, they blew their trumpets and the walls suddenly collapsed.
They immediately entered and 'utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword' (quoting the original text), and burned everything in the city. Truly hardcore.
In short, they committed a laundry list of modern-day war crimes: genocide, infanticide, arson, looting, etc.
Of course, if you look at other primitive religions of Middle Eastern nomads from that era, this kind of stuff wasn't exactly out of the ordinary. However, since this isn't just an ancient myth but part of the scriptures inherited by Christianityโa global religion with 2 billion followers todayโthe controversy is bound to be bigger.
The main excuse the Bible offers is that the Canaanite tribes were 'corrupt and defiled.' But if you look into what that 'corruption' was... it basically boils down to 'they don't believe in OUR God.' That's it.
Even if the Yahweh mentioned in the Bible is the real God, it's common sense in modern times that forcing religion is wrong. But more than anything, at that time, Yahweh was merely the 'indigenous deity' of the Jewish people. To use a metaphor, it's like Japan forcing Koreans to worship at Shinto shrines for their national religion.
Some argue that the Canaanites were inherently sinful by nature. But defining a specific ethnic group as inferior and trying to exterminate them collectively is no different from what the Nazis did.
Some say, 'Well, it's the Old Testament, so it could happen.' Yeah, as I mentioned, considering the era, that kind of description makes sense. But if you accept that, you have to give up the absolute truth of Christianity. Unless you abandon the existence of the universally righteous and supreme Jesus, the two ideas are clearly incompatible.
Anyway, this issue remains a 'hard problem' in theology, and apparently, they usually don't teach this part to young kids in church. Source: Sing-geul Bung-geul Earth Gallery
"Users are fact-checking the OP, pointing out that Sunday schools definitely teach the Jericho story. Some are debating the 'war crime' aspect by bringing up ancient pagan practices like human sacrifice, while others are just baffled by how hardcore the Old Testament is."
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