Joshua: New Leader, Same Terrors, Transcript

(00:00) welcome to mindshift I'm Brandon and today's episode 6 of our series a secular Bible study today we're looking at the biblical Book of Joshua and there is a lot that happens in this book as always we'll be going through these seven points to help us in point seven I've also started adding in problematic verses and it's at the end there where I can give some of my more personal opinions on the issues with this book but let's dive in right away with book overview this is a redoing this is a second Moses in fact Joshua is referenced as the new Moses he is taken

(00:29) over as leader so where we left off was with Moses's death and he's giving this final sermon to the children of the original Exodus generation that are now going to be the ones inheriting the promised land so now we start with Joshua he has his position of leadership and the time has finally come they are going to go into the promised land now a lot of Christians who haven't spent a lot of time with the Old Testament may just think of the promised land as this place right this small acreage of milk

(00:54) and honey and it's nice and it's just going to be the resting place for the Israelite Nation no this is a very large space of land and within this territory there are many different kingdoms many different tribes to defeat in order to really lay claim to this because the goal here isn't for all the Israelites to just group up together we're going to establish the 12 tribes of Israel in different parts of Canaan so it's on a bigger scale than one might think at least according to the Bible so what happens in Joshua well we first have to get into Canaan and we have to cross the

(01:24) Jordan River they've been camped in the land of Moab right outside of the Jordan River with Canaan Bean on the other side so again just like I said we have a second Moses here so we part the Jordan River and we walk across it this just gets completely glossed over in comparison to Moses party in the Red Sea which I think is a bit unfortunate this is a pretty big deal another miraculous River Crossing and what we see right off the bat here is that the same power that Moses had Joshua has the God is still on

(01:50) their side even with the death of their main Prophet oh I almost forgot before the crossover through the Jordan they send spies in again and it goes much better than the first time when Moses sent the 12 Spies this is where we get the story of Rahab now we could spend an entire episode just talking about the story of Rahab there's a lot of interesting things that happen here like one the fact that Rahab is essentially rewarded for lying right after we get all of these curses that will befall people who break the Ten Commandments and the other laws which definitely include lying it seems that God's

(02:18) objective morality is quite subjective when it suits him also we get this really passionate speech from Rahab to the spies of I know your lord is the most powerful I know he's going to deliver you into this land we've heard about you we know about the Red Sea that was part of and that's why I'm helping you remember me let me be in your good graces here and it's a great story where we have this woman who is a prostitute who is going up against the leaders of her land and line for these spies to help them accomplish their mission but

(02:42) anyways the Rahab story happens they cross the river the next part is not so fun the new generation gets circumcised bummer after this happens they take a couple days for everyone to heal which I just think is hilarious that that's even listed in the Bible after that we get their first Passover celebration in the new land and then we get something really exciting here again this is the kind of stuff that excited me as a kid we have Joshua he's in his new leadership role he just had a successful spy mission they're getting ready to go and attack Jericho and what happens he

(03:12) runs into this mysterious stranger this powerful Warrior and he says who are you are you for us or are you against us and he says neither essentially he says I am for the Lord he says he is the commander of the Lord's army and once again in this second Moses fashion Joshua is told to take off his sandals because he is on Holy Ground that's it it's like two or three verses long and the whole point is to let Joshua know that hey you might be on the right side you might be with the chosen people but I'm not on your side

(03:41) I'm on the Lord's Side and you have the capability of also being against the Lord we've seen that with the previous generations so I'm here to make sure that the Lord's will be done you can either come along for the ride or not at least that's how I take what is happening here and what many scholars seem to be happening as well after this we get into our first few battles so maybe I'll try to do more of an overview here and then we can talk about some of these specific battles because this is a big part of Joshua it's about conquering

(04:06) the land of Canaan so the first two battles are Jericho and I Ai and we see two very different outcomes a complete destruction and a loss and we see a loss because of individual Israelites sin and so here we see the blessings and curses already at play as they're in the new land of Canaan and why is this guy I think his name is Aiken why is he sinning why did he do this he kept some treasure after the defeat of Jericho that was meant for God for himself what did he think was going to happen this is when I just can't believe these stories

(04:35) are at all true these are obviously plot lines these are obviously archetypes and narrative structures and plot development at play they can't possibly after everything that has happened after everyone that has been smited after Every curse and blessing has been clearly seen after their talking and being with God we're going to see God on a walk we're gonna see God throw rocks down on people in this book like this God is so active in this community and you're going to tell me this guy thought he could steal treasure from God even

(05:06) the very fact that this God needed treasure is something to just look at the comporeal nature of him in the Old Testament versus this God that we supposedly have in the New Testament so again lots of battles and we'll probably honestly talk about those more in the problematic verses when we talk about genocide not genocide Etc and get into some of the moral issues there but then we get a list of all the victories of Moses and Joshua and this seems like a very boring part of the book but it's a very important part showing God's fulfillment in Covenant all the way

(05:31) starting with Abraham and now happening like this is the book of fulfillment and this is a huge part of it we'll talk about that more when we get into main themes and the book ends with Joshua dividing up all of the conquered land of Canaan amongst the 12 tribes and then Joshua's death so Joshua gets one book Moses got five but we get a really similar narrative to his life that we see with Moses this is going to set us up as he ends the book by saying hey once again reiterating kind of like Moses's final sermon you can serve God and be blessed or go against him and be cursed what are you going to do which

(06:03) sets us up for everything that is going to happen starting right away in judges so let's move on to point to authorship and date so Joshua like a few other books of the Bible and also other books of this ancient time period is that of an eponymous nature meaning they're using the name Joshua to describe the book and sometimes even tried to attribute authorship to we would face the same problems believing that Joshua wrote the Book of Joshua that we would have with Moses writing the first five books of the Bible one of those things

(06:28) being that Joshua dies in this book and his burial is described as well as other people who died after Joshua so the better hypothesis is similar to what we see with the first five books except it's no longer this documentary hypothesis with four different sources this seems to be just a collection of oral tradition it was probably compiled around the same time as the first five books specifically the Babylonian exile between 586 and 539 BCE or maybe even shortly thereafter as they were trying to establish their Kingdom again and instead of being grouped with those first five books which were all very

(06:59) similar through those first four sources Joshua is grouped with judges Samuel and Kings so we see a lot of similarities in narrative structure and literary type and in other various commonalities that would lead us to believe that we had some oral Traditions that were written down and compiled in different sections that were then Amalgamated together to make these books of the Bible coming up so again we don't have a specific person who sat down and penned this we just have a specific group at a specific time that was trying to get their story straight essentially that Babylonian

(07:27) exile is a major time of rebranding for the Israelite nation and they were looking to all of these ancient stories and traditions for identity and this compilation that became a large part of her Old Testament comes again from this during the 6th Century BCE so let's move on to point three which is going to be historical context background and accuracy now finally we are getting into some other land we're getting into some other people groups and it's going to give us a better frame of reference than some of the events that were isolated say like in The Book of Leviticus where they're just camped at Mount Sinai for a

(07:58) year I should also probably point out that we don't have a precise time frame but it seems like most of this is happening just over a couple years so this would be years like 40 through 43 most likely since the Exodus this is happening during the 13th century BCE best that we could guess and there are some archaeological aspects that back up certain parts of the story one would be Jericho Jericho is one of the main cities mentioned and it seems to be a real place that also had a real layer of conquest and that's where we get into some of the problems and I'll save some of this for the contradictions and misconceptions in heirs part in 0.7 but

(08:31) from a historical accuracy Point yes did certain places like Jericho and I and hazor exist and show destruction yes many of the other cities mentioned don't or haven't existed in an archaeological aspect or were shown to be at peace during this time so this Swift couple Year campaign of taking out all of the tribes of Canaan does not align archaeologically speaking or even that a lot of these cities existed at the same time it's hard for us to visualize but it's a can into saying something like within a couple years we did World War One World War II Vietnam and the Korean War like those things are not all at the

(09:07) same time period they could not have happened this quickly let's add in that we conquered some other countries that weren't even countries yet and we'll start getting closer to what we're seeing the claims of the Book of Joshua but we do get a glimpse into the historical accuracy of this tribal Warfare of the claim of the monotheistic God versus the dualistic worshipers or more Pagan practices of people in the Canaanite Nation who worshiped a sun god a fertility God a war god Etc there is a heavy amount of bias being that this is all coming from this Jewish tradition and Source painting these other nations

(09:38) as evil where really they were just following the constructs of their day and their culture no different than the Israelites were and you can point to both saying there were good things here and there were definitely bad things here but that's a big part of Joshua right we have to believe that the Canaanites are pure evil for their eradication this is done a lot by looking to the child's sacrifice of a lot of the Canaanite tribes or if you really want to stretch it and I've already seen it in my comments in some

(10:00) of of the last videos the belief that everyone in the land of Canaan was a giant a half breed from the Nephilim now I don't want to go too far down a rabbit hole but this might be a good time to address it because when we get to problematic verses I'm definitely going to talk about the genocide aspects and I really don't want to hear about this at all because it doesn't make sense for a thousand Reasons first of all all we get from the biblical Canon about the Nephilim which long story short means fallen angels that came down and raped

(10:26) or bred with the normal human women and had this off-breed of giants is that in those days there were giants that and like a couple other references are all that we have all of this would have been Genesis by the way pre-flood The Book of Enoch they give a whole lot more description about the Nephilim and it's fun to think about but it's not canonical and so for the purposes of a secular Bible study looking at these particular books in the Canon but I will address that even if the Nephilim were real and Giants were real they would not have been in Canaan at this time the

(10:55) whole point of the flood if you're mixing the story of Enoch with the fact that there were giants in the land those days is that the flood had to wipe out all of the contagion it's so funny because this is also how you excuse the flood which is God's genocide against the entire world that the only people who weren't affected by The Bad Seed of the Nephilim were Noah and his family so which is it right because if there's still Nephilim in Canaan then the flood didn't work so however you split it this is faulty and it's stupid and it's a really weak excuse to try to get God out

(11:27) of this horrendous genocide that is coming for the people groups in Canaan so to wrap up this point some archaeological evidence for some of the claims this is always where you get the example of someone saying just because a future Society finds evidence that London was a real city does not make the events in Harry Potter true and I think that that is the best way to explain that just because we know Jericho was a real place does not mean that the biblical account here is true in this very same book in the chapter right next

(11:52) to the chapter about Jericho we see the sun and the moon stopping and holding still that is impossible the that would have ended up with the destruction of the entire Earth so let's not start using things like well they found archaeological aspects in Jericho to say yep Joshua is a true story that's just a little bit ridiculous but we do learn a lot again about the tribes and the people in the time if not from at least one biased Source let's move on to point four literary analysis Joshua is just a historical narrative this is a more cut and dry text than what we see with some of the Poetry of Exodus or some of the

(12:29) lore of Genesis this is we went here we did this we conquered them we went here we failed God did this we said this right it is just a narrative structure it does utilize a lot of repetition in themes like obedience and divine intervention and so we see that cyclical nature of the text that we've seen utilized elsewhere in the Torah but we do get something new and that is a little bit more of the political and Military record-keeping that starts to come in at this point of the Bible and it's important for a few reasons again getting that list of Moses's victories

(12:58) and Joshua's victories is starting to establish different leaders in Israel and what happened under their campaigns right it's also important for an inheritance purpose of who gets what we're going to divvy up the land after all of this we need to know what the 12 tribes are where they are how they're acting in these wars which part of the promised land in Canaan they're going to inherit how it's going to be sectioned out there's boundaries there's physical landscapes here that are utilized in this book to describe this military and this political agenda I will say there is an element of that fruition right and

(13:29) this is where it gets I don't want to say poetic but like there's a motif at play here that is showing God's still answering of his Covenant God's fulfillment of Promise the fruition of his nature and we see that again like I mentioned earlier with all of these things that Moses did that now Joshua is doing this handing off of the torch the new nation getting circumcised the new nation having a Passover the redoing of sending spies in and having it go better right like there are so many callbacks to what has happened in the previous five books but under a new lineage to

(14:00) show that God is still with the Israelites as they move forward in his plan and the whole point of that is really to be able to highlight these themes so let's move straight into point five and talk about themes as always and this is probably a theme for like all 66 books of the Bible obedience obedience to God we get Joshua re-explaining to the nation of Israel the importance of following the Commandments just like Moses had just done at his death Joshua does that at the beginning and at the end we see that military Victory and the fruition of God's plan here to give them

(14:30) this land will only happen through obedience this might be a good time to better explain what happened with Aiken and the Second Battle at I so I already told you what Aiken did he took all this loot from Jericho and he buried it in his tent and kept it for himself it was like some silver some gold a shawl or something like that and then they go into battle and no one knows he's done this yet and they go into their second battle I and they take a huge loss here and they're like what happened what's going on God Joshua was talking to God and they're trying to sort it out and

(14:57) God says hey go try by tribe household by house sold Man by man find out who did what wrong and then punish them and until you fix this you will not have me giving these other tribes into your hands which I don't know when we're going to talk about free will but this is a great book to do so all we hear over and over and we heard this in the last book as well is God delivered them into their hands Rahab knew that God would deliver them again very little to do with the might of the military here God we see like with what's coming up in gibeon just confusing these people

(15:23) allowing them to completely be taken over this is God intervening in man's will both positively for the Israelites and negatively for all of these other tribes and it's inexcusable if we're going to try to mix God's Will and sovereignty which is what all Christians seem to want to do so badly I talked about this a little bit on my Tuesday video and I encourage you to check that out if you haven't seen it but they finally get to the tribe of Judah and then they finally get down to Aiken you know Joshua spent all morning doing this and Aiken said I did this and he sends people to his tent they dig up all this stuff and they're like yep he did it

(15:52) let's solve this so they take him all of his possessions all of his animals his wife and his children and they burn and stone them they have to do this this is like throwing Jonah out of the boat to appease God's anger at an individual's Disobedience so that there can be Prosperity this by the way might I remind you right after God says in the last book that he will no longer give punishment to children because of what their parents do or to parents because of what their children do I mean it already got thrown out in the very book

(16:21) that that was said that was one of our contradictions in the last book but it is happening again right away here in Joshua and it just blows my mind but again now we don't have to cover this problematic verse in 0.7 since we did it here the whole point is to talk about the theme of obedience we see that there is no hope for Israel if they do not obey the one true God theme two and I've covered it quite a bit already would be the Fulfillment of promises or God's Divine promise like this is it I mean really it is pretty amazing we have been working since Adam essentially all the

(16:51) way down to Joseph and then the 430 years of captivity in Egypt and then the 40 Years of wandering in the wilderness to this moment from that first Covenant that God made with Abraham to now bam here it is we're going into the land imagine if the story were true the anticipation the Jitters we're here but we still have this huge thing to do this is again where it's so hard for me to believe it's true because if you know that you will win every battle as long as you're obedient how do you not just get in line everyone gets a ton of

(17:23) spoils for more they're getting treasure they're getting donkeys they're getting women it's absolutely ridiculous to me here that in this final hour in the most important moment after lesson after lesson after lesson after lesson after lesson they couldn't get it together we see this same kind of structure with the disciples they're hanging out with Jesus all day long and yet they're always surprised by them they're always doubtful it's like really would you actually be that way but I digress so again this divine intervention this fruition of God's promise whatever you want to call it we'll say that for point

(17:51) two and let's pick out one more again you could get many themes from this like consequence and Disobedience or inheritance or land is an identity Source but let's go go with the fun one which is morality and ethics this is driven home in this book now again I think it's problematic and we'll get into the verses at the end but this book is trying to make a claim for sure that the only moral people group are the Israelites that all of these other tribes are so misguided and lost that they're all worship being either bad

(18:20) gods or false gods there's kind of a distinction there that's made that once again as I mentioned in our fifth episode leads me to believe in many to believe that the interpretation by these people at this time is that there were other gods it wasn't a matter it wasn't an issue it was just which God do you serve is he the truest God the most powerful God Not the Only God I mean even the Ten Commandments is you shall have no other gods before me it seems like an unnecessary disclaimer if you are the only God out there and it's different than some of the Commandments

(18:49) about not making for yourself Craven images or worshiping false Idols so again I bring this point up not to just poke holes in the Theology of the day but to say that the concept here here is that their God is the not only best God but the most righteous God and that this people group is going to be the most ethical that they are the ones who are taking care of the poor and widowed that they are the ones who are going to keep a pure bloodline by not intermarian and all of these other things that is setting them apart as God's chosen

(19:19) people versus the filth of the rest of the world I think it's problematic for about a billion reasons but it is something that this book is trying to get across so I would be remiss if I did not mention it but let us move on to 0.6 reception and influence so right off the bat the first major influence is that on the Jewish tradition the Book of Joshua once again is fruition it is what you turn to so you can say God keeps his promises it's what you turn to so you can say that obedience to God matters right we're taking all of those themes and that's what is being held so dearly

(19:51) by the Jewish people the Christian reception of this book though is slightly different the Christians view this book of one of two things this is just a historical accounting given us some lineage of how we get down to Jesus eventually or this is a Divine romantic foreshadowing to Jesus Joshua to Jesus Joshua has to take them through the Jordan River and into the promised land like Jesus has to take us through purgatory and into heaven that the laws they have to obey and the rituals and sacrifices they have to do to be pure before the Lord are what Jesus's

(20:19) sacrifice is going to do for us the Gentile to be pure before the Lord we see in Jesus what a lot of the Jewish people saw in Joshua the third and a little bit more horrific influence that this book has had is that on Christian military and that may seem like a strange thing but whether you're talking about the Crusades or the Inquisition or even kind of the far-right agenda or American nationalism that is going on today we are looking back at many times to Moses and to Joshua into what they had to do that there's a time to kill that there's a time to eradicate that

(20:51) there are people groups who are not on our level who are getting in the way of God's plan and that there is Justice in being on the right side and what that allows us to to do the Crusades is really the best example of that as there are specific documented examples of looking back to this particular book of Joshua and utilizing it as a defense for their right to go and Conquer these Pagan Nations this is in fact one of my biggest issues with any religious and the potential harm for that religion is that when you can do something that otherwise is not considered moral but

(21:24) you do it for a God and now it becomes not just moral and ethical but holy and right and just these are the ingredients you need for some very very horrible things to happen that have happened throughout all of history not just within Christianity but amongst many other religions as well it's the greatest excuse to commit harm when you no longer call it harm you call it justice in terms of art of course there's so much imagery whether it's crossing the Jordan River or finally getting into the Promised Land one of the ones that stands out the most is

(21:54) Jericho just in terms of a story that has been passed down represented multiple times used for in inspiration and different kinds of art forms Etc this is a major Story one of the central Bible stories and for a lot of different reasons we haven't talked much about Jericho here but one it's the first conquest of the promised land so there's some prominence right there two it was supposed to be one of the most difficult so getting that win right away said a lot three we're looking at this unique aspect here of kind of this peaceful this is supposed to point to God's grace

(22:25) like they're gonna March around for six days and just like God accepted Rahab because of her faith maybe he'd accept some people from Jericho but that doesn't happen because Jericho is stubborn once again it's like the Pharaoh we're gonna do these things you're gonna have your chance God's going to influence that chance which is very problematic and we'll talk about in 0.

(22:51) 7 but eventually you don't do it we'll blow our Trumpets the walls will fall down and we will conquer their symbolism with this happening on the seventh day their symbolism with the walls falling down there's a Deliverance happening here there's fruition of God's promise is happening here there's just a lot this is a really Central story so that's about as much as I care to cover it but I wanted to make sure that we gave it some highlighted attention so let's move on to everyone's favorite 0.

(23:11) 7 which has become a catch-all for all issues whether it's contradictions misconceptions errors within the text problematic verses this is where we can talk about the problems with this book I already mentioned some of the discrepancies in archaeological issues that show that not all of these tribes existed at the same time that they weren't all indeed conquered and that even if they were it couldn't have happened on this short time frame specifically within this we'll use again Jericho as the example the best that we can see during this time frame Jericho's

(23:41) walls had fallen long long before so yes it had big walls yes there's other references from other people groups about Jericho's walls but they had already been destroyed and the city was actually inhabited at the time that Joshua and his people would have been moving into Canaan according to the narrative and time frame listed out in the Bible also there's major time issues for the Second Battle of I this loss that supposedly happened and then this eventual victory that happened is problematic again on a time frame and from archaeological evidence perspective

(24:09) also just in general and this one actually is utilized by Christians today as an excuse but we see Canaanite culture Canaanite cities Canaanite tribes that not only started after this time frame that flourished where we're hearing about total eradication from God's people group so this is problematic for a few reasons one either God didn't do what he said he was going to do and he didn't actually give them all of the promised land and eradicate all of the other people in it now the modern day Christian loves this because they say yeah look it was just hyperbole okay it's like what we say on game day

(24:41) for NFL and we say yeah go kill them all we don't actually expect the other team to kill them all we're just saying you're gonna knock them dead you're gonna go get them there are so so so so so so so so so many good reasons not to believe that the Bible intended to be hyperbolic for instance we already saw accounts in Leviticus and numbers of God saying wipe out every one wipe out everything kill every man woman and child and not just ending there we saw for example I think it was in numbers that when they brought some of the women and children Moses freaked out and was

(25:10) like did I not tell you kill them all and then in graphic detail list out that they did indeed kill the mothers and all of the young boys and then kept the young virginal women for themselves that's too much description for Hyperbole and it goes on from there about what happened with some of those individual women like it's absolutely insane to say that it's a bad excuse so what it is is just a contradiction they didn't wipe out all of the people even though they attempted genocide they failed in certain aspects or they didn't know about certain other tribes or other

(25:40) tribes existed after the fact like there's just a lot of issues here and I don't think that any of it works out for the Christian we have a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions with the land that is divided up how it's divided up amongst the 12 tribes again there will be more information in the description but just know that that is out there and it is confusing once again with all of the note taken that's happening in Joshua we get the size of the Israelite nation and Army and it is just seemingly impossible considering what has happened previously biblically speaking as well as what a group of this

(26:12) size would have required in terms of resources and territory Etc so very problematic one thing I didn't cover during book overview was these tribal alliances that happened so you know Jericho and I get taken down and then you get this congruence of Canaanite kings that are like hey this is bad these guys are serious we've got a group together we've got to make some alliances let's figure this out and those alliances both historically and even within text we get multiple iterations of or proof that they didn't happen and none of it agrees with each

(26:40) other Rahab herself is kind of interesting we see one depiction of her here in Joshua and another in the New Testament book of James both with different things to say about her in terms of her righteousness and what happened as a result of her faithfulness to the Lord by lying for the spies there's just a ton of other contradictions like the name of Aiken's father when King jabin was killed what exactly did Joshua do with the 12 Stones from the Jordan River again if it's wrong to lie or not what tribe was agent from did balik fight or not fight with Israel I mean it's just a long long list

(27:10) here but I want to just move straight into some of the problematic verses so just to quickly cover we already mentioned Aiken's family being killed with him this is a problem we mentioned the verse lightly but I'll give some more detail here about the sun standing still this is found in chapter 10 they're fighting a new tribe from Canaan and they need more time it's gonna get dark soon so Joshua asked God can you go ahead and just hold off on you know how the world works and stop the Sun and the Moon in their place this to me is such a

(27:40) huge issue we see again the Sun moving backwards I think it was for Nicodemus in the New Testament but when people try to say like oh Genesis is just metaphor and so you know Evolution doesn't negate Genesis and the world really can be older because we were talking metaphorically about the age of the Earth all of these things that are obviously problematic that Christians try to excuse like how do you excuse this one this isn't some metaphor this isn't some creation myth this is Joshua and God having an actual conversation where they needed more time for more of their genocidal Behavior so God stopped

(28:13) Time by stopping the Sun and the Moon which the moon goes around us which we know and if it stopped what would happen just with the tides alone on the Earth would be insane but a bigger problem is that we go around the sun which obviously they didn't know here because they're talking about the sun stopping meaning they're thinking the sun moves around us now it's true that the sun moves because the sun is moving around the Milky Way galaxy and that movement stopping would be catastrophic for us as a species on this Earth and for the Earth itself but it shows so many misunderstandings of how the world

(28:50) really works yeah Brandon but those were people of their time of course it was going to be recorded like it was except that this is being done by the God Almighty himself like can we we just not get this wrong getting this wrong here shows how man-made this is Joshua 24 19 is a pretty interesting and problematic verse where all of a sudden God no longer forgives sin Let me just read it for you so I don't mess this up because I think the wording is interesting 2419 but Joshua said to the people you are not able to serve the Lord for he is a

(29:19) holy God he is a jealous God he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins that's hugely problematic is it not so this is at the very end this is Joshua's final message to the Israelites so he's definitely talking to the Israelites some people have tried to excuse this by saying oh well Joshua's actually given a warning to some of the Canaanites like what clearly no he's definitely 100 talking to the Israelites it comes during the proclamation that starts at verse 14 which is choose whom you will serve the very fact that we have verses

(29:49) that say God forgives and God doesn't forgive problem why I'm in this chapter I also want to point out to you that lovely verse that everyone hangs up in their home in the later part of verse 15 which but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord let me just read you where that verse actually starts 14.

(30:08) now therefore fear the lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord and if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord choose this day whom you will serve whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the amorites in whose land you will dwell but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord the context here is chilling he's saying we know there's other gods there were Gods back in Egypt there's Gods here in Canaan and if you think that God is evil

(30:36) which I think is telling that even some of these people who were winning because of God's conquering hand seemed like they were starting to have questions and doubts about the character of God Joshua said pick a side not because our God is righteous not because our god is perfect he goes on three verses later to say you're not going to be forgiven anymore God's going to mess you up if you choose the wrong God pick a side because our God is powerful and our God is jealous and sure under those conditions pick

(31:03) Yahweh for sure he seems to be winning most of the battles but I'm supposed to live in today read this and see the goodness of God wrong let's jump back to probably one of the most problematic verses for free will which is something we've been talking about a lot and that is in Joshua 11 right after the sun was done standing still this is the conquest of the Northern parts of Canaan and down by verse 20 although this whole chapter is pretty bad it says for it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that

(31:32) they should come against Israel in battle in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed just as the Lord commanded Moses I mean there's not much else to say and we've talked about this before but this is the most clear-cut example because not only is it God doing the work delivering them making sure that they win but it was actually making sure that the Canaanites even engaged in the battle at all he hardened their hearts so that they could not like this is the thing so many people in this book specifically talk

(32:00) about well God always offers peace first and then if they don't take it then he's forced because of their evil acts to go in and eradicate them don't you know they committed child sacrifice first of all God loves child sacrifice it's the entire way we have the gospel message second of all it's not a true offering of peace if they were going to take it so you had to harden their heart so that you could go commit your genocide this is morally and ethically absurd on multiple accounts there's two last things that I'll cover here one is the genocide and then two is how God

(32:30) physically used to show up supposedly so as for genocide like just read Joshua the majority of chapters are all about genocide it's conquering after conquering after conquering of people Group after people Group after people group with Specific Instructions I'll read you one example chapter 11 verse 10 and Joshua turned back at that time and captured his or and struck with the sword for his or formerly was the head of all the kingdoms and they struck with the sword all who were in it devoting them to destruction there was none left that breathed and he burned his Oar with fire and all the cities of those kings

(33:01) and all their kings Joshua captured and struck them with the edge of the sword devoting them to destruction just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded this is again why I don't like the hyperbole example or excuse because God commanded it right it'd be one thing if they were just recounting after after the victory Joshua's like hey we got them all but it's specific to say God told this to Moses which we saw we saw what happened when Moses didn't follow it meaning that they left some people alive and God was mad and then Moses was mad and now Moses has told Joshua how to

(33:30) conduct this kind of warfare and now Joshua is doing it and we're seeing that no one is Left Alive that everyone is taken that every horse is hamstringed ETC and even at the end it says all the way back to because God commanded it God's commands are quite specific they're very important to follow to the letter of the law it is not something where God exaggerates right God is precise when a woman menstruates how long is she supposed to be gone it's a specific number of days when a man has a nightly Omission a wet dreamer what does he need to do specifically to be pure

(33:58) again in the eyes of God right like I know those examples are absurd but because this God is absurd and because he cares about everything down to the finest detail so don't tell me that all of a sudden we have a God who just loves to exaggerate and then here's the last thing that I just want to read you because I think again you just forget you think of Jesus you think of the Holy Spirit you think of these as these invisible forces and these people who are up in heaven watching you caring about you but let me read you a

(34:21) different version of this same God this is actually going back to chapter 10 when the sun Stood Still and I promise this is the last thing I'll read and we're going to get a couple things out of it so chapter 10 let's start with verse 8 and the Lord said to Joshua do not fear them for I have given them into your hands not a man of them shall stand before you and the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel and as they fled before Israel why they were going down the ascent of Beth Horan the Lord threw

(34:44) down large stones from Heaven on them as far as a zika and they died there were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword so we have no free will I'll give them into your hands and I'll do so this time uniquely I'll cause a panic there were other ways that God did this in other verses and in other books of the Bible so he changes their literal Minds so that they can't congregate and form a cohesive defense against Joshua and yet some of them even still get away in fact most of them still get away so God says fine I'll do

(35:16) it myself we're not talking about the angel of the Lord we're not talking about the armies of the Lord we're not talking about Joshua anymore God himself through rocks this is the comporeal god you get in the Old Testament this God was so big that he could throw stones that somehow I guess existed in the Ethereal Realm Of Heaven down from heaven so Heaven here we get a physical description of up he's throwing down Stones big enough to kill all the people who are fleeing that he would get the credit for the battle and end up killing

(35:46) more people than Joshua did with the sword tell me why we have a Divine hiddenness problem today God used to show up all the time I'm just so done with all of the excuses this is obviously a man-made myth story that we have tried to make reasonable with newer writings from hundreds of years later in the New Testament trying to point back to this as the same God as Trinity as a cohesive nature Etc it fails it fails it fails it fails it fails I have said that the number one way to be sure about your atheism right is to look at the Bible

(36:16) that is supposed to be the evidence of this God and to see how invalid it really is and if stories like these don't showcase it to the nth degree I don't know what else to tell you so stay tuned because we will show you this in every single book in the Bible in part 7 of every single one of these episodes I hope you learned something today I hope this was interesting please tell me what you know about Joshua that I forgot to mention or that I do not know please feel free to correct me where you think I am wrong this is another highly eventful book and there's a lot that I definitely didn't have time to get to so

(36:46) fill all the gaps in the comments thanks for watching have a wonderful day subscribe if you like this kind of content and until next time keep thinking