WALT JR
Mr. Till,
Either you have ignored reading the entire text or you have selectively
chosen what to post. I Sam. 15:9 says that Saul and the people did not
destroy everything. Verse 3 gives the command to destroy everything, yet
clearly the text says they did not. In fact, what they did destroy was
"everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed." They
spared the best of the "sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all
that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly."
TILL 4/19
Just who is not reading the entire text? First Samuel 15:8 states that Saul
"took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and utterly destroyed ALL THE
PEOPLE with the edge of the sword." My argument mentioned nothing about
sparing some of the animals. Here is my statement cut and pasted from my
posting that Walt responded to: "This again amounts to contradictory X (all
Amalekites except Agag were utterly destroyed) but not X (all Amalekites
except Agag were NOT utterly destroyed) statements." So what Walt has done
is set up a straw man to divert attention from my real argument. The text
quoted above states X (all Amalekites except Agag were utterly destroyed),
but 1 Samuel 27:8 states NOT X (all Amalekites except Agag were NOT utterly
destroyed).
WALT JR
Secondly, verse 7 says "so Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you
go to Shur, which is east of Egypt." Now it is certainly possible that the
ENTIRE nation of Amalekites were not in that area. In other words, though
Saul may have killed all the people in that area, it is certainly reasonable
to think that some of the Amalekites simply weren't there. These are
perfectly legitimate explanations on why Amalekites exist in chapter
25...not all were there to be destroyed, or not all were destroyed since
they disobeyed God's command.
TILL 4/19
Well, again, just who is not reading the relevant texts closely enough to
see the contradiction? Verse 7, which Walt quoted above, states that Saul
"smote" the Amalekites from Havilah to Shur and "utterly destroyed ALL THE
PEOPLE with the edge of the sword" (with the exception of Agag, as noted),
but look at what 1 Samuel 27:8 says about David's raid on the Amalekites:
"And David and his men went up and made a raid upon the Geshurites, and the
Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these nations were the inhabitants of the
land, who were of old, as you go to SHUR EVEN UNTO THE LAND OF EGYPT." So
the one text states that Saul utterly destroyed the Amalekites (except for
Agag) from Havilah to Shur, but the other states that there were still
Amalekites in the region from Shur to Egypt.
Furthermore, the intention of the references "from Havilah to Shur" or "from
Shur to Egypt" was to denote the thoroughness of the military expeditions,
since these would denote the extremities of the borders of Amalekite
territory, just as "from Dan to Beersheba" was an expression that denoted
the extremities of Israel's territorial boundaries. Dan was at the northern
limit of the kingdom and Beersheeba at the southern limit. See 1 Samuel
3:20; 17:11; 24:2; 24:15; 1 Kings 4:25; 1 Chronicles 21:2.
Finally, let's notice that 1 Samuel 27:9 states that "David smote the land
and saved neither man nor woman alive." The statement suggests that there
was an extensive slaughter of people in the raid executed by David, and this
was immediately after Saul had "utterly destroyed ALL the people" in this
region. This hardly sounds like a mopping up operation in which David
killed the Amalekites who, to quote Walt, "simply weren't there" at the time
of Saul's attack. Furthermore, we read in chapter 30 that even after David
"smote the land and saved neither man nor woman alive," the Amalekites
raided David's camp and took women captive (30:1-2). David pursued the
Amalekite raiders, and when he caught up with them, he "smote them from the
twilight even to the evening of the next day" (v:17). Again, this hardly
sounds like a mopping up operation to exterminate the Amalekites who "simply
weren't there" when Saul smote them from Havilah to Shur. In fact, the same
verse that says that David smote the Amalekites from twilight even to the
evening of the next day goes on to say that "there escaped not a man of
them, SAVE FOUR HUNDRED YOUNG MEN, WHO RODE UPON CAMELS AND FLED." So after
all of this "smiting" by David's forces, 400 young Amalekite men managed to
escape. We can only imagine how many of Amalekites were killed by David
before these 400 escaped. At any rate, it is unreasonable to think that the
Amalekites that David killed (after Saul had utterly destroyed all
Amalekites from Havilah to Shur except Agag) were just the Amalekites who
"simply were not there" at the time of Saul's engagement.
Walt hasn't explained anything. Maybe he would like to have another go at
it. Maybe he would also like to explain how that Pharaoh's magicians could
have done "in like manner with their enchantments" after Aaron and Moses had
changed ALL of the water throughout ALL the land of Egypt into blood.
RJV 4/20
Since Walt Jr is expected to uphold the inerrancy doctrine at his school,
perhaps some of his professors could help him out. After all, it would
seem a bit odd for a school to expect you to uphold a doctrine without
providing any basis for its belief.
-- R Jason Valentine ..ooOO miracle@procyon.com
"I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never
again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and
suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity.
Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal
torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules.
Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love
that iscontingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is
respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a
healthy, unafraid human being."
[Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith"]