Hello. I have a question that no one has been able to answer. I feel like God’s laws must be perfect. And yet, He commanded that children, women, and elderly people be killed in Deut. 7 and 20? Why is that?
One Response to “Why did God command the murder of innocent children, women, and elderly people?”
Bruno Paz
2014-05-04 19:22:55
We believe the Bible is the Word of God, His sacred revelation to ancient prophets and apostles.
Hi friend. God is by definition perfectly just and perfectly merciful. If He ever stopped being perfectly just and merciful, He would cease to be God. Scriptures like the one you cited are indeed difficult to understand because they seem inconsistent with what we know about God. It seems to me that there are three possible explanations:
1) There are details not given in the scriptures that explain why God gave this kind of commandment.
2) God did not give any such commandment, but the ancient peoples who wrote the Old Testament tried to use their belief in God to justify their own atrocities.
3) There has been an error in the translation or transmission of the relevant biblical text. As you well know, while Mormons love and honor the Bible as an important record of God's dealings with ancient prophets, we do not believe it to be entirely free of these kinds of errors.
1) There are details not given in the scriptures that explain why God gave this kind of commandment.
2) God did not give any such commandment, but the ancient peoples who wrote the Old Testament tried to use their belief in God to justify their own atrocities.
3) There has been an error in the translation or transmission of the relevant biblical text. As you well know, while Mormons love and honor the Bible as an important record of God's dealings with ancient prophets, we do not believe it to be entirely free of these kinds of errors.
I hope this answer helps.