For the first two-thirds of my Christian life, I have taken these accounts at face value. In other words, I understood them to be relatively accurate accounts of historical events. And that is why I had so much trouble reading the Old Testament. In spite of being in the paid ministry, I seldom used these accounts in my teaching and preaching. I hoped that no one would come to me with questions about how the God, whom we call our Father, could command and condone the mass slaughtering of whole communities, sometimes with the goal of putting an end to an entire ethnic group or nation. Interestingly enough, the members of the churches I served over thirty-five years, seldom questioned these violent accounts. In the last third of my Christian life I have striven to deal with my cognitive dissonance.* I have found other long-time Christians have taken the same approach that I did: the-ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away approach. Because, if one accepts these accounts as essentially historical, some kind of explanation and justification is required.
Whether we spoke about our dissonance or kept it to ourselves we had to find ways, even in our own heads, to justify God's actions. Early in my biblical education I was taught that these were examples of God's judgment "in time" (as distinct from his judgment at the end of time). In other words, I was taught (and I accepted) the explanation that these peoples were so incredibly sinful (usually blamed on their idolatry) that they deserved capital punishment. Whether specifically referenced in the biblical accounts or not, the assumption made was that God obviously had given them many opportunities to repent and had they repented he would have spared them--just as he did when he had Jonah preach to the people of Nineveh.
In one sense, for sure, God is God and we are not. How can we possibly understand God's ways? God doesn't owe humanity any kind of explanation. He doesn't have to justify himself. I get all that, but I don not agree with it and here is why. The NT claims that through Jesus, God is demonstrating that he is about grace, forgiveness and thus having relationships with human individuals and communities. Paul and Peter both wrote of God's patience with humanity and his desire that all are come to a knowledge of truth and experience the eternal salvation which he offers--at great price to himself--through the gospel. Those qualities of God do not fit with a God who would say, "I do not have to explain or justify myself to humanity. I can do what I want, when I want, to whomever I want." Our heavenly Father is love. Thus, I could no longer hide behind "God's ways are unfathomable" or "It will all makes sense in eternity" or worse (to me) yet, "Those people deserved to wiped off the face of the world."
So...I decided that there must be another way to understand all this. There must be an explanation of why these accounts are rampant through the Hebrew Bible. Myth, Propaganda or Reality? Part 2 is coming soon...
*"In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. The occurrence of cognitive dissonance is a consequence of a person performing an action that contradicts personal beliefs, ideals, and values; and also occurs when confronted with new information that contradicts said beliefs, ideals, and values.[1][2]
In A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957), Leon Festinger proposed that human beings strive for internal psychological consistency in order to mentally function in the real world. A person who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable, and is motivated to reduce the cognitive dissonance." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)
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