 Thanks so much Skyler and Josh for being with us. The floor is all yours. Hello everybody. Thank you tonight. I appreciate James hosting us on the show. I'm really excited to be able to get to have another debate with Cliff and Stewart. Very fine gentleman in my opinion. I love what they do on their YouTube channel and what they do in college campuses because I love the idea of you know them going out and challenging youth on their basic assumptions right and giving them something to think about and not to just assume necessarily all those things. So what I want to start off with you know when I start this this kind of how I was going to approach an ethics debate about the Old Testament I was like you know I really need to get back and kind of read and dig a little deeper and kind of as I read I thought I would go over some specific passages with you that I think will directly relate to Old Testament ethics and kind of give you a much bigger and detailed picture of what it was like at the time and well at least what's articulated in the Bible is what I should say. So let's go with one of the key figures you know Abraham for instance. In fact a lot of the verses that we're going to be dealing with are going to be directly connected to him. As many of you know there's a couple of reasons you may know Abraham. For those of you who are out there that are not as familiar with the Old Testament let me give you some examples right. This is the guy who when he died actually donated what was that for the generations to come every male among you who is eight days of age must be circumcised including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner. Now this was part of the covenant that Abraham had made with God and if you notice here first of all circumcision is kind of I could use words like gentle mutilation because that's really what it would kind of be more like in those times and you think about first of all he's got to do this and then he's got to have his slaves which interesting enough there you know slavery is not going to be a big thing we're kind of touching on here but it does kind of it says that you have to do the people who were including those who were born in your household and bought with money from a foreigner. It's interesting that you could buy people from foreigners but like I said that's not what I really want to touch on too heavily there's so much I want to talk about with Abraham because I want to keep going with it. You might remember Abraham also is the the man that was tested by by God and you know was told that he had to sacrifice his son and of course at the last minute you know God told Abraham you know you know don't don't kill him but this kind of shows you more of Old Testament ethics like the way a God would treat human beings right so for some reason God needed Abraham to prove that he trusted God I mean you could use different words for it but overall the end result is did he trust God did he love God did he believe what God said was going to happen or to be faithful to all right so but you know God God spared right so later on you move on in Abraham's life we get to a point where now he's 99 years old when Abraham was 99 years old the Lord appeared to him and said I am God almighty walk before me faithfully and be blameless that I will make my covenant between me and you and you will be greatly increased in your numbers so these numbers that Abraham is gifted right we get these lands they're going to come up later on in the Old Testament because now you know he's made a covenant with Abraham these the descendants of Abraham are going to have these lands that they're going to have to go conquer you know to get of course but that will move on to what we get over here to Deuteronomy 20 right so as you got to remember as these lands now belong to the Israelites but you know there are people there like there are a bunch of cities actually there and you know I'll kind of give you a little layout as we read it you'll understand better what I'm saying here so this is what he's saying through to Moses about how Moses and his people are gonna have to go you know well Joshua will we'll have to go and take these cities so anyways when you march up to attack a city make its people an offer of peace if they accept and open their gates all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall be uh let's see here shall be forced to work for labor if you refuse to make uh sorry it's blocking my view here I'm gonna skip down when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand put the sword all to all the men in it as for the women the children the livestock and everything else in the city you may take these as plunder for yourself so now we have a situation of the descendants of Abraham uh you know you're going into cities to you know and they can take women and children's plunder and you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you for your enemies this is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby now this is a key thing this is kind of like the slavery thing where you have hey you gotta treat you know the Israelites one way but however you know you non-israelites foreigners you can have them slaves I don't want to talk about slavery this debate if you want to know about slavery Dr. Josh Bowen has a fantastic book like two of them on there anyways but as I digress I should digress uh so we have him that we have God taking people's women plunder uh these are the nations that these are the nations that haven't been promised to the Israelites right these are the uh these are the nations outside of that now however verse 16 in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as inheritance do not leave anything that breathes completely destroy them the Hithites the Amorites the Canaanites the Prezites we can go through them there's a littleites and there's about six or seven of them all right and all of them get wiped out completely anything that breathes this will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods and you will sin against the uh and you and you will sin against the Lord your God so I just want to point out we have this distinction here right so right now we have Old Testament efforts God's trying to get things done God's made a promise these lands have got to go to Abraham Abraham's descendants because he made a covenant so now all those people had civilizations like civilizations these are children babies full adults complete civilizations and they just came in and were like hey it's ours now God promised it and killed and massacred everybody in it including little children it's hard to believe frankly as I was reading it today uh how almost anybody could believe this at some level I was reading through this chapter it's it's you're kind of stuck in a lot of different positions I think if we're going to take a lot of that kind of narrative and if we give it up if we go through this hyperbolic language we're like oh a lot of this is hyperbolic you know it's not really God's saying go and kill everybody uh it really doesn't work because at that point like it really loses most of the Old Testament with Joshua and the in the conquest like what were they doing then if they're not killing everybody I mean there's literally scripture they was doing around me 17 where it's talking about how they're going to take over the houses like literally they're going to execute all the people and just move in basically is what the idea was at least that's what's articulated in the Old Testament uh thank you very much Dr. Josh I don't know if you have anything left I'm so sorry if I talk too much there was something you wanted to say no I I think you you covered it fine we can we can move into therapy very much guys good job you've got it thank you gentlemen and also want to let you know folks we are very excited for an upcoming debate this Friday you don't want to miss it in particular you guys on the screen right now at the bottom right the book of Daniel forgery or prophecy that's coming up this Friday Dr. Josh will be in that debate in fact and so that's going to be an epic one as he will be partnering partnering with Jim majors against Jonathan Sheffield and Dr. Boyce so that will be an epic one you don't want to miss it hit that subscribe button and that notification button so you don't miss it and with that thanks so much Cliff and Stuart we're thrilled to have you guys here and with that the floor is all yours James thanks for having us on Jens great to be with you both again I've enjoyed every conversation with you both YouTube channels ask Cliff or give me an answer and yeah this is obviously a difficult difficult one to tackle just like the slavery issue that we did not too long ago with Josh for me though I would say the goodness of God always supersedes these tough passages and where he is certainly judging where he certainly is there's that type of eye for an eye tooth for a tooth you see judgment coming look at the book of judges and you see the Israel Israelites and how they're judged they themselves it's not like they get off scoffery it's this cyclical type of motion where they are following God following his rules living well because of it flourishing because of it then they sin fall away fall into all types of debauchery fall into idol worship fall into anything everything you could think of I mean even a type of infanticide and so God judges them because they're becoming like the other nations in many ways and they're not listening to him but then what happens they reach out and oftentimes it doesn't even seem like they don't even really reach out instead it's God taking the step again first step again again and good throughout the entire book of judges where he is saying I forgive you now follow again and we think okay wow what what an arrogant manically just I mean how do you even deal with a god like that who just says follow me and everything will be all right well he's a god of the universe he created everything if fortunately in the bible we get an understanding of a god where you know you get other world views where it's where it's marduk or others who you have warring gods who somehow there is some type of whether one defecates or however there's oftentimes we know this that from other civilizations humanity comes about because of violence and humanity is always considered pretty much the lowest rung that you can imagine in terms of worth in terms of value and yet right out of genesis right out of the gate you get god saying this is good this is good this is good i'm creating male and female in my very image and then you get in genesis nine you get obviously if you spill man's blood then your blood will be spilt showing everybody has worth and value and then you move down to isaia ezekiel seven isaia 58 isaia one um mica six eight i could list endless amounts of passages in the old testament like we don't even have to touch the new testament where it talks exceedingly exceedingly about how god is always even disadvantaging himself for the sake of connecting with the poor and it is so easy any old testament scholar can get to the point of saying that god basically states clearly with over 400 times social justice is is mentioned when it comes to the poor in the old testament alone and gods love his ability to connect and then tell his people on a regular basis commanding them hey if you don't give to the poor if you don't reach out to the poor if you don't even disadvantage yourself for the poor you don't have any type of relationship with me none like like that's it you can pray as much as you want you can be as holy as you'd like we see this with the Pharisees later we see it here with the Levites but you're not a you're not you don't have anything to do with me unless you live for social justice reaching out to the orphan the widow those who are in distress and so this is the theme over and over and over again throughout the old testament and obviously you know if we go into the new testament moral law or ethics that Jesus promulgates it just gets heightened exponentially and so yeah Skyler brought up some some good tricky texts good points I think one interesting one with Abraham I mean if you look at say Deuteronomy 4 you look at the wisdom that came from the Israelites alone and how they would reach the nations I think the wisdom from the Israelites and what God was doing with the Israelites to reach the nations clearly has happened no religion comes even close to traveling as well as the Christian faith says Alam and sauna up at Yale Robert Price of Princeton many have said this and I think Deuteronomy 4 was prophetic in that kind of way because there's obviously something impressive something something attractive about the God in the Bible and we don't even have to get into grace I mean that was actually the main reason why so many were coming to believe in Christ was because of something called grace which we could talk about but maybe for another time but we see this grace throughout the Old Testament we could go you know every time you look at say the flood narrative you got to go to Jonah I mean look at God how many times he forgives Jonah he even puts him in the belly of a whale and yet then he forgives him again and obviously that's typology for the death and resurrection of Christ but then what happens Jonah is still running from God he's tremendously self-righteous God sneers at the self-righteous himself and then he looks at the Ninevites and he says Jonah go to Ninevites connect them to me get them to repent and change their ways they would have been the equivalent of modern-day Isis and yet God cares about them even wants them to come to know him okay that's that's off our radar let's be honest I mean in our culture today where we think we are all about you know love for everybody and it's all just emotion it's no real action oftentimes at least when I see you know us Americans frequently it's just those romanticism and and yes everybody deserves an equal shake and but if I ever share this with somebody that that God actually wants somebody like Isis actually to repent and even come to know him and enter the kingdom of God whoa whoa whoa that's a little too far whoa whoa you know an abuser that's a little too far they're too far from anything potentially eternal you know they're damned they abused a kid or well a murderer yikes come on now any good person on the inside would never murder and would never do anything that bad so let's exclude them throughout the entire Old Testament there is no exclusion there's judgment and Skyler brought up some some good passages on that but it's always pushing to ultimate inclusion which is all of the nations coming to know God yeah James how many minutes does he have several minutes all right these are a lot of hard questions and thank you so much for raising them first point Matthew chapter 19 the Pharisees pressed Jesus hey Jesus is a man allowed to divorce his wife for any and every reason and Jesus goes back to Genesis 224 for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be united to his wife and the two should become one flesh and the Pharisees pressed Jesus further well then why did Moses command men to give their wives a certificate of divorce and then divorce them and Jesus responds Moses did this because God is allowing this because of the hardness of your heart the mosaic law in the Old Testament had a lot to do with God accommodating the hardness of human hearts if anybody thinks that the mosaic law is equal to the moral law in the Old Testament they've not read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation clearly clearly there is a moral progression that occurs and God is attacking evil in individuals and in social institutions gradually not right away but gradually how many people died in the Civil War about 600,000 in order to abolish slavery does that mean after the Civil War that everybody's heart was changed and we didn't have any more racism in the United States hardly obviously not the human heart has to change and so from Genesis to Revelation God is calling for a change of the human heart and the mosaic law is God dealing with some very sinful very culturally bound people and progressively pulling them out of wrong and evil in Genesis in Galatians 3 24 the apostle Paul writes that the law of God in the Old Testament is a tutor a tutor that points us to Christ so when you read in context you begin to realize that a lot of those mosaic laws in the Old Testament were not God's timeless wisdom instead they were God accommodating a sinful people and slowly gradually bringing them out of that but the ultimate goal was to transform the heart because you can't legislate morality and change the human heart you can change some behavior I would agree by legislating morality but that is not the intent of the Bible to legislate morality instead obviously the intent of God in the Bible is to change the human heart so that I begin to love God with my heart soul mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself the ideal in the Old Testament is found in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 it is not found in Exodus Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy in the mosaic law in the moral law yes it is found in the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20 in Leviticus the statement to love your neighbor as yourself yes that is moral law that is binding on us today now I find an interesting skyline that you raised the issue of circumcision male circumcision back in the Old Testament days and today in the United States male circumcision is not genital mutilation has nothing to do with genital mutilation at all secondly when God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac he's not giving us a handbook on wise parenting consistently the Bible communicates in the Old Testament that child sacrifice is wrong and God is testing Abraham in Genesis 22 not laying down a moral law that you better sacrifice your child if you really love God so you've got to be very very careful the way you read the Old Testament the 30 seconds left that's that's it James you got it want to say thanks so much to our guests they're linked in the description folks if you want to read or hear more from any of our four guests all of them are linked in the description so highly encourage you folks and that includes if you're listening to modern day debate via podcast we're excited that modern day debate is on podcast so find us and if you're listening via podcast our guest links are in the description box for that episode as well and so thanks so much gentlemen the floor is all yours for the open conversation thank you muted buddy yeah dude do you have anywhere you guys want to start i mean my thing is like here's what i'm willing to do for this debate i think dr. josh and i had uh i can talked about it beforehand and said we're willing to grant objective morality exists right so we don't have to get into this you know what's morals or whose morals are really real i don't want to debate morality tonight we're just gonna we're gonna agree that objective morals exist and i'm trying to just square off how it is god can commit immoral actions like the ones i laid out like taking women and children as plunder executing children uh how he can commit immoral actions be the moral foundation that's a supposedly perfect and can't do the immoral actions um that's where i think the issue really comes to a heads what i would say wait so so when you say you're you believe in objective morals as an atheist just make flesh that went out just shortly for me in terms of i'm just going to grant you object well it doesn't have to be it could be any kind of uh philosophy where you believe in objective moral facts doesn't matter if it's the atheist one whatever and i just believe grant you objective moral facts exist right so we like i've probably got to forgive me josh i've already talked oh so much i think both of us would agree right we could look at a story like uh the flood or we're let's stick with the one here taking women and children as plunder isn't moral it's objectively a moral fact that it's not moral to do that action so why is it god commits immoral actions or is it not a moral to take women and children as plunder therefore god's not committing an immoral action yeah which passage are you talking about oh yeah the one the one i was so it's we can go into uh you were talking about deuteronomy 20 yes when you got here we go uh so i mean literally all when you march up to attack a city and make its people and offer a piece if they accept and open the gates to all their people which i'll be subject to all people should be subject to forced labor and show work for you i mean that's the slavery part but we'll forget about the slavery if they refuse to make peace and engage you in battle uh you get to lay siege uh it says keeps covering up josh you you you emasculate the city and then you take the women and children and cattle yeah this is where you take the women and children as property but of course now that's for the non you know promise lands like the lands that have been promised to joshua or promise that promised joshua promise to the israelites but josh was going to have to go take these by force to get these lands that are promised here so yeah he's given instructions the difference in how you do it now when it comes to the promise lands as you go further however when you lay siege to his city for a long time well no no no one however if however in the cities of nations the lord your god is giving you as inheritance do not leave anything that breathes alive completely destroy them the hithites amorites kianites presides all the different groups theites right those ones you have to kill everybody the ones before just the other lands outside of those groups promised you got to keep the women and children as plunder now this is god telling these people what they can do so god could easily be like hey that's like that's not morally correct that seems like it's objectively a moral fact that uh that would go against my nature to take women and children as plunder and force them to marry you we can go into that that's what i'm trying to understand yeah so so we talked a little bit about this last debate when it comes to obviously it has to there has to be a month right josh who talked about before the marriage can actually be consecrated i mean the plunder piece is interesting too because it's a pretty harsh word but then it's the it's going to be the male's job is responsibility to take care of the female and the kids after that month once they go into this engagement and there is obviously a type of see if you're gonna can i would consider that tremendously a tremendously difficult passage tremendously hard there's no way around it in terms of from our cultural lens the 21st century here in the us saying wow that's an easy one if we were back in that time we would this be a totally different discussion especially if we were not and so for me i still view it as contextually speaking i mean if we're going back here because this passage i think this very one actually came up in our debate with delante and josh um so the month in terms of taking care of as well when it comes to the male it's it's not like you could just take off as well there was something binding there i think also in those passages where literally you're supposed to kill everything that breathes some biblical scholars say that that's actually more gracious than what a lot of the alien civilizations were doing when it came to the type of plundering was more so a level of rape as well as tremendous all the different types of well a lot of it led to infanticide as well so so that's for me is that peace but i would have to connect that i i think it's interesting because i consider too are we going to go to the moral argument or not here and i'm i'm glad we're not going to i think that's i think it's good but you have to connect it to the new testament moral ethics when it comes to treating women and children i talked you know michael sandale at harvard he teaches that class called justice and he wrote wrote that bestseller justice right and wrongs and he talks about how even our culture today like we cannot agree on what is justice we just can't everybody's shouting at each other but i think in the old testament he alludes to this himself i don't think he's a christian i don't know he could be he talks about how the old testament has a comprehensive understanding of what justice is and he offers it and he talks about you know things like social equity he talks about you know obviously the same laws for foreigners as well as the native born you know leviticus 24 22 you know the law of hamer abbey and other legal documents wouldn't be able to touch that i think i think hamer abbey would be able to it would be hard pressed to get you were near that um and then that would obviously carry on to the 10 commandments and i i think again the 10 commandments in and of themselves they've lasted for so long and people know exactly what they are today as opposed to hamer abbey or other codes no one knows what they are they haven't lasted and so why is that i think there's beauty in it in those 10 commandments and i think we can get into negative and positive freedom and the old testament is all about a type of freedom that people shy away from this god and think there is tremendous just dullness it's all he's all about the nose and the negations and you know i think it's it's positive freedom instead you know it's i could use my freedom and sit on the couch and eat twinkies all day but then i probably won't live to the point of the type of freedom of playing with my daughter in the backyard when she's 14 years old 15 years old so so that's what the the old testament 10 commandments give us in terms of that type of positive direction do you want to spend more time though on this dude around to be 20 passive well really really what i'm just like is really how okay so let's just a couple things i want to either acknowledge about the situation right which is it is immoral to take women and children as plunder we all agree that it's an objective moral fact that it is immoral to take women and children and plunder and in wartime it is immoral to execute children no i cannot based on your presupposition of 18 no not no no i'm not saying my presupposition i'm just saying do you believe it's an objective moral fact that uh killing children in wartime purposefully right it's not just dropping a bomb on somebody like targeting children that is a objectively immoral fact yes of course okay well then god orders objectively immoral act uh immoral immoral little things to do he orders people to execute children he targets them right so so he saved the children in those stories the vast majority of times yes targeting is a little he did not target them at all he calls them out he tells you specifically take the babies in first annual 15 specifically he calls them out he says hey the infants the babies the livestock he does target them specifically actually in first annual 15 so it doesn't matter he's still like over a point still he commits he tells people to commit genocide overall point because we don't he tells people to execute children in wartime that's not in first Samuel 15 and first Samuel 21 you will see that there is hyperability that's being used because all of the enemies that were supposedly wiped out in first Samuel 15 were not wiped out because they reappear in first Samuel 21 josh has a good i think josh has something to say about that not all the people are being wiped out yes do some as a result of being connected with people who have done wrong yes and that's tragic and that's sad and that's wrong but to say that god is going out and targeting children is a total twisting of the text that is absolutely false do innocent children get swept along in the judgment of a group of people that is led by some very wicked warped adults yes they do get swept along in that judgment and that's most unfortunate that's most sad we agree on that josh perhaps like you could you know talk about hyperbole and first Samuel 15 and maybe while you're about to kind of just read first Samuel 15 for people so they can know exactly what we're talking about yeah probably at least that at least that section i think that would be useful yeah so uh so you know your first Samuel 15 Samuel said this all i'm the one the lord that said anoint you the king over the people of israel so listen now to the message from the lord and guys forgive me i am terrible at reading live and doing all this so this is what the lord almighty says i will punish the amalekites for what they did to israel when they waylaid to them as they came up from egypt now go attack the amalekites totally destroy all that belongs to them do not spare them put to death here's where you target people men women children infants cattle sheep camels and donkeys let's keep readings i want the context to be there for everybody so sell some of the men and they mustered them and et aliam 200 000 foot soldiers and 10 000 foot jean actually you know what we don't need that too much later on if you want to figure out like how they did it you can go further um but go ahead josh i think you want to talk a little bit about that finally you get to talk about say something um yeah i mean the textual history i think of first Samuel and second Samuel is probably more complicated than what we want to get into here and it's certainly not my area of expertise um but first Samuel this section in particular is a little complex you're talking about the solid david stories and people can read uh grand mald's book in the old testament library he has a discussion of this but you know the the question of like what is it in chapter 27 chapter 30 second Samuel 1 you see like the amalekites come back up because david has to fight against them right you see it in 14 think 48 there's sort of a summary statement so the the textual history this is actually a little complex the problem with looking at this as strictly hyperbole in the sense that and that would be a question i think to ask what what you mean by hyperbole hyperbole in what way i think that would be useful to talk about um so maybe instead of me trying to argue against that what what would you mean by that hyperbole in what way like who's being hyperbole throughout the bible hyperbole is used jesus says if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away it is better for you to enter heaven with one hand than with two hands to go into hell sure but in this passage for self mutilation he's calling for self mortification where i die to my use of my right hand to pick up pornography or to pick up literature that incites me to violence to act like i don't have that similarly when i was in high school i used to say to my teammates we're going to kill this team not meaning by that that we were literally going to kill the opposing athletic team but meaning that we were really going to beat up on them when you read the book of joshua and judges you begin to realize that all the people were moved out of the country or all the people were killed is impossible because in the next book judges they reappear and they're more of them so obviously they're using exaggerated forms of speech to communicate a point that's hyperbole the exaggerated speech to make a point right so in this passage can you be specific like what do you mean by that like god is being hyperbolic with sol or the writers being hyperbolic with us what do you mean by that specifically if you could because i think that's important i can't be specific i think i think both are included josh it's a great point i think i think that the people understood god's word in a hyperbolic way and they also communicated in a hyperbolic way both okay so if i could let me run this and see if we can't get nailed down what i'm trying to get at so if god is being hyperbolic for example using your example of like we're going to go kill that team sol says or god says to sol in the same way uh hey i want you to you know go go kill the amalakites like go beat them up or something um is that sort of what you're saying that that sol would have heard but he doesn't really want me to like kill them all they're to do battle against them and they did battle against jericho and jericho was probably not a city it was a military garrison not very large because the last day they marched around that city seven times and then they went into take it and when you look at the evidence for i the city of i probably also another military garrison so these were not population centers with a bunch of civilians in them and so you need to be very careful when you take the literature that is being used there come on guys that literature is 3500 years old we're kind of asking you but you're not giving us we're asking you what is the hyperbolic language here and you're just not giving it to us so what is it we know it's important where is it being hyperbolic is god being hyperbolic is it like the person is solving hyperbolic it's absolutely no way i can be more specific than when i said to josh very clearly both god and the author are using hyperbolic i answered that question directly okay okay let's let's all just so what i mean by this is because i think this is important right because it's i don't think there's any question like gloss in younger 1990 right wrote a really good dissertation published it in the jay sod series talking about like joshua 9 through 12 he wrote another article in 2005 kind of re-upping on this and i think there's some useful things there i don't know what i think about his use of syntax about whatever he borrowed it from liveroni so i think this is a useful thing but it's it's important i think in these contexts to be specific about this so if god is let me let me explain why i think this is important if god is saying to saul go wipe them out like you would say go slaughter the stealers in this football game then why is saul rejected in the passage because see if saul heard that and said oh okay i'm supposed to go fight him you know and that that's why is he rejected in the passage because this is like this is one of the primary passages like this in chapter 13 are the two big places where we see saul being rejected by god and the reason that he's rejected is it's very specific in the passage like you know samu comes back and says did you do what god said oh yeah well if god had heard i mean if saul had heard god saying like go fight him i think he could have very it would have been great right yeah i went and fought him but saul said samu says i hear bleeding right i hear like the the flock what's going on and yeah that's right what does he say he doesn't say to saul hey saul there's some babies still alive uh uh he says the king is still alive and some of the animals are still alive well yeah so so saul says well i saved the king and the people saved the sheep right the flock the best of the flock yeah uh yeah that's right yeah right so the point is that why is saul rejected here because he allows the king the leader of that group of people to live and he did not destroy the sheep and he was supposed to kill no but he was supposed to kill everything right the sheep and the people right that was part of it i think we understand now i think we get what like it can't be it can't be hyperbolic or it makes no sense at this point anymore right i think is yeah saul josh you just asked me why was saul judged saul was judged because the king was still alive and the sheep were still alive sorry not judged because the infants were still alive sorry let me just make sure that i'm clear so your interpretation of first Samuel 15 is that there were whole bunches of people left over that saul's been why why was saul judged that was your question you asked me josh right i know it sounds like it sounds like saul was judged because he did not execute the king who was leading the army to wipe out the Israelites and he kept some of the animals as plunder and they were called to kill them so that's why he was judged that's what you asked that's the answer directly one to one right understood so i'm asking a follow-up uh and because it seems like by implication you're saying that other people were left alive it was just because he didn't kill the king and the sheep the text is silent so we don't know well the text isn't isn't silent well what does it say well it says kill everyone right no no how many were alive right no actually it does elude to it does say they killed everybody with the sword in the further you you you everybody was not killed sorry you can't you can't beg that's why saul was judged because he didn't execute the king Samuel had to execute the king because saul didn't do it right stayed with the facts now guys well i okay uh so the text is clear right we can't beg the question and say well we assume that other people were saved alive and then prove that by saying that people were saved alive right we don't know the text is silent you can't argue for silence well the the skyler if you want to if you want to read that section you can it won't the we're you know this the text isn't silent it literally tells you who to kill so once again are you so you're saying god didn't tell people to kill children no i didn't say that that was never asked okay well let me ask you let's just let's just ask the question directly and he launched you okay and i can promise you when you get so upset with god this is preaching you're not debating no no no you guys are not debating no you're preaching and then please stop preaching to me sir can we go back to the debate topic hold on one second i hate to jump in but just to redirect us back to the next topic and then also want to remind you folks our guests are linked in the description and also want to remind you in the live chat please attack the arguments instead of the person thanks so much everybody and kick it back to you guys yeah so it's perfectly clear in the text what god wants these people do and we were you know when we go back to the main point which was what i was talking about which is the derotomy and the derotomy chapter where you know joshua has to go take these cities because they his land promised to the descendants of abraham so in order to clear these cities what's has to happen guys what do the israelites have to do to all these civilizations does he go and kill all the children in some of the places no the majority of them get moved out and you where is that inscription in judges they've been moved out and and some are killed yes some are killed because they were directed to be killed correct your children were directed to be executed no children are killed because they are part of a community that is in rebellion against god and that is whooping up on other people and is sacrificing their babies on olders gotcha god wants you to kill those people one of them to be killing those people god wanted yes god wanted to judge those people and he had their children executed and god judged the jews later at the hands of the assyrians and the babeloneans and some innocent jewish children were swept along in that judgment and they died so if israelite soldier to forgive us and to give us eternal life so god is deeply committed to the well-being of children and adults both in the news not and in the new test that well no that is so just blatantly dishonest why you know why when you talk and we've had these conversations with somebody from here i mean typically we don't get this one on college campuses like last time we were at a major university this topic didn't come up once and i found that really interesting because i'd like to do some sociology from time to time and why does this one skylar this i'm glad we're debating it why this specific topic when it's so in terms of just sociological studies this is like the topic for white male atheists here in the us you talk to somebody in china okay talk to somebody from any of the monotheistic religions this is not a big issue judgment even judgment of children is not a big issue now i'm not one of these guys who just educating oh god can do whatever god wants to do like i like wrestling with the text as well how to do though you can't do whatever god can do though well i mean let me so let me let me like of course so i don't know the point was the good just i i just to observe back i guess yeah it seems like even in this discussion whenever we talk about the assyrians or the Babylonians i don't seem to hear about or the laws of hamarabi i don't seem to hear about all the good things that are in the prologue for example about social justice and caring for the poor and hamarabi being a good shepherd i only hear about the bad things which specific like oh i mean i don't know enough about hamarabi to right but i mean you used it i think two or three times tonight no no i used it once just in the sense of in terms of comparing the old testament especially the 10 commandments how god acts in the old testament compared to hamarabi and other codes how god acts how he responds in terms of entering into relationships and actually calling people racial equity looking out for and actually disadvantaging yourself for the poor or see we get to the new testament god himself dying on the cross for his enemies my only point there was i mean you know no other religion in that sense especially if you go way back what is 1700 bc so a few hundred years potentially thousand before moses himself you still can't you can't touch it and why do the 10 commandments why are the 10 commandments really known today but i don't too often hear people citing hamarabi's code right i mean i feel like that's an that's an interest that could be an interesting question i think it's has to do more with the religion that's been pervasive not so much the code but and i don't think we need to get hung up on this but you guys have cited ancient Near Eastern societies uh Babylonia specifically and i thought i remember you saying something about a theory but i could be mistaken on that might have been me you're right yeah so i i guess what i'm saying is that i think that you guys you guys utilize not saying that's wrong i might consider it a little myopic but like i don't think that it's wrong to utilize the assyrians to point out things as long as those are legitimate things to point out but it does seem like there's not a lot of good things coming out of christian apologist mouths about ancient Near Eastern cultures right it's it's just so it's just the israelites and i just oh no no to answer your question back with another observation like it i agree with you right i mean when we're talking about old testament ethics or the morality that we see or the practices that we see the values that we see in the heber bible i mean we could talk about good things i mean there's no question we could talk about good things in the new assyrian texts or in the middle assyrian proverbs you know we could do that but i don't know that i don't know that that would outweigh the things that we would have problems with so i would disagree i mean because i'm glad we're not looking at it univocally i mean it's easy just to take a couple verses i mean that's why i love the the ism of of never read a bible verse i'm talking about contextually and then talking about okay what are the bad ones what are the good ones and i am all for a god of judgment a god of justice who takes sin tremendously seriously you know i it was really interesting and i was glad you guys are so honest with me but the very first time i had a conversation with you guys you have me on your show skylar and the very first question was we stewart why do you like a god who says you need to be saved and i think i mean i think that you showed your cards a little bit there skylar i mean why is that such a problem for you well like what what what is so palpably frustrating and just infuriating about this whole saving process and obviously we see it starting it's not a big deal to me it's really honestly like it's kind of annoying but it's not as big of deals the things that i brought up tonight which are like the ones where god is ordering people to commit immoral actions he's telling people to kill everybody in these cities because you just literally if you go to deuteronomy 17 they even talks about people taking over the houses like the literally the plan was to go through joshua to the inherited land that they got through abraham and clear it out everyone was to be cleared out in the places where they were inherited all life had to die yeah the places that was other i mean so go ahead josh please i mean i mean i think it's i think it's incredibly problematic to cite things like um well in judges they show back up uh there's something to that right and i think particularly when you look at joshua nine through 12 there's more of an argument to make there but like the israelites it's not like they get a high five in judges or at the end of joshua for those canaanites still being in the land it's a bad thing they're reprimanded for it right um and when you read later in first kings i mean the people that are left in the land it's not like they're left and all's well with them like they're forced into corvée labor um so it's more complicated than nuanced i think than just well they're they're still there so it's got to be hyperbole i think john collin said it best uh on our on our channel because i asked him about this and he said he said yeah i mean every ancient near eastern king or ruler or any inscription that you read uh boasts about the numbers of people that they killed that they normally didn't kill that many but they killed a lot and they inflated those numbers because that's what you're supposed to do right and i think that if we were to go right now through some of the middle assyrian inscriptions that's occult in the north the first or tiglath polizer the first and you know read through what tiglath polizer says when he says the reason that i'm going and conquering the people outside of assyria proper is because they're rebellious and they're wicked and they're sinful and and asher has extended benevolent arms to them and has and has offered to take care of them and they have totally rebelled against that you guys would say yeah well that's i call bs right that's propaganda but it just seems like there's a slightly different view when it comes to this sort of language in the biblical text so what's your point josh yeah i mean i think that the nuance that stewart you were just talking about not reading things like a single verse i think the nuance that needs to take place when reading through the heber bible is not to start with the conclusion that this is a you know divinely inspired text and then sort of read it through that lens any more than you would start with the inscriptions that the colt in orton say these are inspired writings and so like assuming that when to colt in orta says that everybody was really rebellious and he's working for the deity that that's actually true right but taking a step back and saying wonder wonder what that inscription is because i think you guys would say immediately oh well like we see what the colt in the north is doing like that one's easy it's just it's not the case with the biblical text and i think that's the sort of thing that skyler and i are and skyler i'll be quite after this but that we would hope we would we would you know nuance the reading that way josh the only problem with your whole line of thinking is neither steward nor i have said the bible is divinely inspired that's not our point we've been arguing with the text on its own we've been pointing out how jesus points out that in the old testament a lot of things are done not in god's way but as a way to accommodate some really mixed up cultures and some mixed up people and neither one of us tonight have ever once said that it's divinely inspired so i don't know where you're coming from when you put those words in our mouths sure so um that's fair i don't think you have said divinely inspired why would you we had why did you say we had said that well what's going on josh take a breath it might seem kind of obvious i hate to tell you this i think you have an agenda cliff take it to cliff take a level down bro just give us a second with josh well you guys listen a little better now we'll be accused of having agendas now like these like you're literally you've got you've done this i think twice now now you accuse us of having an agenda really no i'm asking do you have an agenda what is it well you know you never really accused me of setting an agenda yeah i mean i'm trying to make a decision yeah what's going on never once did we say it's a divinely inspired book therefore believe it you're arguing textually cliff i think you heard you the first three times that you asked them the question let josh answer it you heard you three times you said it go ahead josh you know you keep on denying it skylark come on be honest josh answer please yeah i just want to make sure okay um so there is definitely an assumption that i'm making here given certain things that you've said for example uh it does seem like you're assuming in your answers that if a biblical passage says x here and that appears to be contradicted later that there must be harmonization between these two false never said that once well you there must be harmonization i'm never said that once josh i'm just i don't believe that i don't believe i'm just i'm just i'm just gonna wait if you if you can let me speak interrupted uninterrupted for all right and would you please return the favor to me if you guys will not i will listen to you if you listen to us okay fair enough so that's why i use the word seems because because i'm trying to be careful how i say this now um so it seems like for example when you said well we know that it has to be hyperbole in first samuel 15 because the malachites or other nations show up later well that's one way to read it right that usually comes with a harmonization of text view of the text right but i think more strongly when you use new testament writers particularly jesus to explain things in the old testament that in addition to having a christian world view and that is an assumption as well i don't know that you've said that either generally those things together indicate a view of inspiration of the text so if i'm wrong about that you're wrong okay you don't believe that biblical texts are inspired that is not part of the discussion tonight we did not agree to debate on whether the bible is a word of god tonight that is not my lord this is so dishonest cliff if like you can if you can't in this if you hold in this conversation if you're like nope i'm gonna take this christian part of me take it put it in a little closet lock it up say we can't talk about it it's not open for discussion tonight i can't tell you if i believe the bible was inspired by god or inspired whatever word it dr john she was just a moment ago like that's such a disingenuous and and did debate that my friend why why can't we talk about that why would you pick a fight over a very big not an atheist not an atheist an atheist by telling him that the bible is a word of god i don't think that's respectful not an atheist we're not agnostic whatever you are you're not a believer in christian wow whatever you are whatever you are it doesn't matter whatever you could be a christian you could be a deus it doesn't matter cliff this is the christian topic ethics i do want to kind of bring it full circle returning to where we were want to let you know out there folks we do have maybe about 10 more minutes or so until the qna and so gentlemen kicking it back to you it's real simple i am not going to talk with an agnostic or an atheist and communicate the bible is a word of god because a person doesn't believe that and to be honest with you guys i could never show anybody the bible is a word of god so i'm not going to waste your time and mine trying to do that instead i'm going to try and show why the evidence is the new testament is historically accurate and then i'm going to try and help people work through some of the difficult passages in the old testament and for you to call me disingenuous because i'm not going to stand by the bible as the inspired word of god is so intellectually dishonest it's scary absolutely scary i'm just wondering i'm just wondering here's what i'm worried i'm not going to try and i'm trying to wonder okay so this whole time when you're describing the bible to us and describing what the old testament ethics right why would i not believe in a general conversation we're debating christians that we've had debates multiple times why would we not assume if we're talking about old testament ethics that you like we like we can't talk about basic things and it wasn't like josh was looking to have a whole conversation about this particular thing josh was just like hey you know i i assume that you believe the bible was inspired and you picked a fight over it i mean what kind of petty person to order debate over nothing over nothing you pick the fight because this is what happens when you kill the clock gentlemen we've heard from both sides we bring it back to the actual so bring it back to the actual topic we have heard criticism of the debates side all of each side so we do want to return to the you could say task at hand and so are there any last concluding remarks on any of the old testament ethical issues yes the old testament starts with god and that's why there are moral absolutes we're not talking about your bible wait a minute why are you talking about theology i thought we're just talking about the old testament tonight in ethics i thought that was this soon i didn't think we were talking about anything with god right in the sense of your beliefs yeah if i could if i if i could like this is i think this is you asked me cliff like what's my point and that's sort of what i was trying to tie together entirely and when every the topic just to be completely written out for us handed to us and determine everything for us skyler a little broader next time all right morality not just two do you understand we didn't pick the topic bro what are you complaining about us picking the topic we didn't pick the topic with dr josh for two and a half hour oh my god you guys are whining about the topic now you're whining about the topic of the day before lord because it's shambles now we have shambles of a duty we're going to give one more shot before we go to qna in terms of the topics there are a lot of topics that i think the audience would definitely enjoy hearing your guys's thoughts on one example being like the blood of noah could be anything you guys want in terms of the ethics genesis one and two starts with god creating human beings in his image part of that means we have a conscience the innate moral ability to distinguish between justice and injustice right and wrong if there is no god there is no mind prior to the human mind who defines what's right and wrong the old testament insists that god's character is just the old testament insists that works in a fallen rebellious world and he uses the Jewish people and often it's not pretty and i can promise you the old testament mosaic law is not equal to the moral law you've got to make a distinction between the mosaic law in exodus leviticus numbers and deuteronomy versus the moral law the mosaic law applied to a theocracy of israel 3 000 years ago it does not apply to us today jesus and the new testament make that real clear so please hear me loud and clear the mosaic law is a tutor it is not the same as the moral law due to the hardness of human hearts due to the immorality of cultures god accommodates people and doesn't set forth his ideal right off the bat and when people say that the mosaic law communicates the timeless wisdom of god that is dishonest with a text that is not what the text is claiming so i think just from that little summation that you gave which like from a christian standpoint i don't think is inaccurate um it this is why it does seem like you take the biblical text as from god right as is inspired by god because you're using it authoritatively you're saying the text says this and that therefore this and so that was my point about bringing up for example the inscriptions of tecolton and orta you know of teglath polizer because i could say to you look these inscriptions begin with god they begin with asher and asher says you know assyria is my land and these other nations that are around that are seeking to i mean they're seeking to destroy my people and i've offered them grace and i've offered them benevolence but yet they they continue to reject it and they continue to be rebellious and so i i have to send my shepherd out to fight them you know i could say well look asher says and i think that would imply that i hold that to be authoritative because that that text is actually asher speaking right and my point in bringing that up is i think very quickly all of us would say is it really asher is this just you know another king doing another royal inscription and would say yes and so but here it does seem like you've come at this saying this body of text old testament new testament is special and i think generally speaking when you when christians utilize that they're speaking from some form of you know inspiration so that's what i'm asking us to all right but i apologize josh i've miscommunicated when i debate muslims i take what they say seriously about the text i read the koran and then i dissect the koran that's what i'm doing with the bible i'm not saying the bible is inspired by god therefore accepted and it's all true rather i am trying to show you why the old testament says what it says and how it is consistent when you read in context both historical context and the context of the book all right i am not arguing that god says i'm saying that the text says god says in the same way when i debate a muslim regarding the koran i say yes a la says meaning by that i'm quoting what the koran says not meaning that i believe in a la okay so that's my point i'm not arguing that bible is inspired by god therefore it's all true that's ridiculous thinking ridiculous so humble about it i hear what i say when you when you okay so let's just put it on the table then we're all looking at the bible then is it immoral of the god of the bible to execute women and children in the in the passages that i've already laid out two or three times all the different ites the emirites the amalakites all this is it moral for as we're looking at it is it an objective moral fact that god is immoral for doing so it isn't a moral action we all agrees that moral to target children if you could save children right if you had the ability to save a child right and make it safe or you know do it peacefully so soldiers don't have to go in and you know kill people like in a warlike aspect it really makes no sense like we all agree that if we could save the children but then we went ahead and like you know killed them that would be immoral right we agree that's a moral fact people god didn't execute any children god has chosen to limit his power by giving us a free will and we human beings have really messed things that's not what the bible says you're not that's not what the bible says cliff it's not what the bible says but i'm sorry but you just said it didn't happen but we just read the scriptures of where it happened it's just dishonest guy let's let cliff finish his thought and then four paragraphs of it we read let's i don't we're it's weird we're imagining to do this but let's let cliff finish his sentence and i promise we'll come right back to you skyler skyler i i don't have anything else to say i know you don't want to deal with it right we read his scriptures we read them and then you're like it didn't happen we're not studying the old testament i don't know what you read what did you hear like you said hey you left quiet to give me a minute to speak we appreciate your and then it was like that was a response we read the scripture sebastian thank you very much for your question want to remind you folks our guests are linked in the description we really do appreciate our guests we love our guests and it gets rowdy here sometimes it's a debate channel folks and it ain't your grandma's debate channel but we do want to let you know folks no matter what walk of life you're from christian atheist you name it we really are glad you're here and so welcome and we're going to jump into these questions for the q and a thank you guys with sebastian's first question who says do you concede that the youth of fro dilemma disproves the possibility of objective morality under god if it's a false dichotomy what is the third option well it's really rather simple justice is an eternal value why god is eternal god's character defines justice so that means there never was a time before god so there never was a time before god when the value of justice existed or didn't exist because god is an eternal being justice has always existed because justice is created and defined by the character of a good god gotcha and thank you very much for your question this one coming in from bubblegum gun says evolution is mathematically impossible also creationism is not christianity stop co-opting our word we're not christian you don't know the creator that one's got to be directed at me i guess so yeah stop changing everything why josh so was your fault i was kidding i can't be no i don't know it should be it should be somehow i can't remember what evolution was brought up did evolution no it of course not of course the bible the bible never answers the question what process did god use to create therefore it's intellectually dishonest to say the bible says that god created using this process so i as a follower christ i'm totally open to god using evolution as a process but i can promise you evolution as an origin is not science it's a philosophy of science that says in the beginning there's no mind there's no god all right thank you very much and we'll jump into this next question this one coming in from steven steen nasty guy i don't understand is this like a new slang term that the young people are saying he says i'm making nan and it's spelled n a n n a a n wait is that like the non like non-brand from you yeah oh really nice good for you steven sigma any also says he's making nan well glad for you guys tom's chair has entered the building tom jumps chair says for both isn't it interesting that the non-theists see they say don't have dogma and it's so they uh basically they're accusing you of having dogma stewart and cliff will give you a chance to respond they're at least implying it i mean i i think typically atheists and christians are both dogmatic just in in different types of ways i mean if you just if you describe dogma in the sense of who's being more intense with their opinions then that's another question so i would you that yeah i don't know i don't know how to answer that question i'd have to ask t-jump what he meant by it gotcha and well technically t-jump's chair but also i remind you it's just a sock a cup but basically i apologize to skylar i feel like i've made this mistake before skylar i put your title as atheist on the screen you actually would say that you're in the agnostic camp instead so sorry about that oh no that's okay that was my fault but matthew powells pet pterodactyl uh says here's two dollars because i love james and dr josh um thank you and uh dr josh you have a fan out there that's like uh but spider the atail thank you for your super sticker appreciate your support and barron vange says to make a long story short god flooded the whole planet during the flood of noah and this included people who died who were pregnant women babies adult men and women cliff and stewart they're asking for your uh response yep in order to cleanse the earth of evil every inclination of the heart and the mind scripture says was evil it doesn't seem a little over the top god yep seems a little bit over the top it also seems a little bit over the top that he forgives people like the nino bites not only forgives them but actually sends people to go and reach them to bring them in in order to enter a type of loving relationship so he's over the top in many different ways when you mean over top you mean in executing children and babies drowning once again once again this is god god literally commanding right god saying hey i'm going like doing an immoral action it is immoral to drown a baby guys everything with everything with kids well i'm just trying to like i'm trying to understand god does immoral actions your god is the foundation you guys can't even let me talk you're so afraid what i'm saying oh boy your god is the moral foundation the foundation can't lie because it's more alive if why wouldn't it be immoral to drown a baby it doesn't make no sense your moral foundation is a is a big old contradiction and that's why i'm a better moral foundation for this planet i don't need to show something better it's gonna show you have a contradiction i want to hear it though i want to hear it i don't need to show a better one i just need to show your moral conjure it's contradictory how is it wrong what tell me what's wrong about my assertion here it's immoral to drown baby that's not what i said i didn't say your assertion was wrong here okay but right agree with me right man you agree it's immoral to drown babies wait didn't we just well i just say you say yes for two hours oh my god so you say yes put some light on your face Skyler and then we'll talk i wish i could this is my my house is completely out i don't know how to answer you i'm just i'm just trying to say that the reason you say something's immoral like lying for instance is that goes against god's nature it's immoral to lie because god is not a liar right why isn't it like a step further we add things like god doesn't enslave people god doesn't have children executed like why are these things against god's nature also especially when you're all powerful and you can do it another way you can do it a hundred million different ways that doesn't involve warfare violence cruelty and hardship on the supposed people you have chosen so you're like a marcia on then who would say god the old testament god of wrath and judgment but then all of a sudden jesus the exact opposite so let's just do away with the god of the old testament let's give everybody jesus is that that's kind of what you're saying oh we're talking old testament ethics tonight so i'm bringing it's not he has nothing to do with the old testament right but the old testament after oh no we can talk about how yeah we can get to i like jesus jesus is the man i like him josh you might want to jump in i just like there so if anybody's interested in this topic this is a really good book for this topic um and the reason the books like this are written like elinor stomp has an article in here where she's arguing essentially what most mainstream christian apologists would argue right you argued some of that stuff tonight guys um but skyler's arguments are mainstream responses to mainstream apologetic arguments so i like i just want that to be clear like if you pick up paul draper's you know article in there responding i think it's paul draper responding to um elinor stomp like it's right in line with what skyler is asking so these things are problematic if if you have like a christian confessional faith there's a reason that these problems come up so i don't want anybody walking away thinking like skyler's saying something crazy off the wall and that's exactly what i hope we i hope skyler is not simplistic and i hope we're not overly simplistic in terms of what we're offering in his response because rabbis have been struggling with sodomy gamora a lot for 2000 years and trying to figure out what in the world is going on there and what's god's place in it yeah so it's not a simple thing like you're saying it's tremendously nuanced and complex right and last thing i'll say like that's to sort of bring it back to what i was saying i think that's my point the reason that rabbis struggle with it the reason that christian struggle with it the reason that that people that revere the old testament to eber bible is because of the way they view the text right if like nobody wrestles with on the one hand uh you know a middle assyrian uh proverb proverbial text you know saying that do good to your enemy because this is what the gods you know brings them joy but then you have these things that seem to have the gods committing evil acts like nobody wrestles with that really because we go we we kind of get the source right these are people writing this um so so that's that's what that's what i'm trying to get at here is i think this is more of an ancient near eastern text than what may maybe many people want to allow it to be we'll jump into the next question this one from nat the lawyer thanks for your question statement says don't believe what it says believe what they tell us it says i think this is in reference to steward and cliff uh just a sassy if you want to respond you can you don't have to if you don't want to now he's right everybody interprets there there's been multiple people interpreting here tonight and by please read the text for yourself don't take it from me don't take it from steward don't take it from josh or skyler read the gospels read the old testament read the new testament for yourself you've got to do your homework there's no controversy there's really no controversy so we don't go off the rails again bar in mind g says let's just say god exists i still would not worship this god he kills for his own reasons my guess is this for you cliff and steward who were the most humane people in the roman empire by far and away the early christians and the early christian church the sexual revolution came about treatment of women treatment of children treatment of singles we're welcome to the community guys treatment if you want to go really far lepers tax collectors prostitutes you look at humane you look at we talked about the old testament tonight over 400 times social justice is talked about in terms of looking after and going after the widow and those who are marginalized and if you don't do that you have nothing to do with me god says that's why we look at these things that in a nonunivocal kind of way so that person used to ask that question very simplistic question do a little deeper digging this next question coming in from our thanks for your support flat earth guy says i support this channel thank you friend and then also sigma and he says can i get a reference for which passages are hyperbolic and which aren't seems like a critical distinction to have while reading the word of god polka open moral monster right josh i would not go by polka but that i'm not saying it's right i'm not saying it's right but he's gonna have them in there he's gonna have them in there yeah i would disagree with his distinction though like it's not it's not terribly straightforward um so again like mario liberani sort of developed this way to come at these biblical passages this was picked up i hope i'm not misremembering where this chain of events went but this was picked up by then or then by um um lost and younger and you know if you read dozeman's commentary on josh well like i think there's probably something to uh you know ancient Near Eastern war rhetoric i think there is something to that i don't and i think it's unfortunate i think it's often treated a lot sorry so we see it in the ancient Near East right when you see egyptian texts and you see hit tight texts and they both say they won the same battle that they fought right they didn't right oh yes absolutely we sent them running yeah okay well there it's propaganda is probably a it's hyperbole you know as part of propaganda right so there is certainly uh i think that in the biblical text i don't think that we should then treat that like a kid with a hammer for example and say well anywhere that we see and i'm not saying that you guys are doing this be clear i'm not saying you guys are doing this just in general with hyperbole i don't think we should be treating it like a kid with a hammer where everything is a nail right so anywhere we have a difficult passage that seems like you know we've got genociders well that must be hyperbole it must be hyperbole it must be hyperbole you have to let the literary nature of the passage speak one example of this would be like jericho and joshua six rehab is saved she's saved because she's the lone person that's saved that's the whole point she and her family um but that's the whole point of the passage achin is wiped out he's the only one and it's because he and his he and his family because they took things uh so anyway it's the it's the you have to read it in its literary context that wasn't very satisfying i'm sure gotcha and this one coming in from muppet minded said so cliff would you be willing and thought experiment to be my slave under the rules of the old testament today if we live 3500 years ago yes if if we were living 3500 years ago as he brews as cananites and yes gotcha and this question coming in from jupiter darman says given god being pro-life i've always wondered what the christian justification for the quote test of the unfaithful wife is in the book of numbers well the the test is not given how to determine whether that whether she was a virgin or not when she was married or whether she committed adultery or not so no there there is no specific test that i can remember that's given but i do know that when jesus was confronted by the woman caught in the act of adultery he said the one among you who's never sinned you go ahead and you throw the first stone and he offered her and everybody else grace and forgiveness i think they're referring to numbers five with the sotah the the the wife that ostensibly has sex with you know commits adultery with another man but the husband doesn't have immediate proof of that he doesn't have any actual evidence he just has jealousy and so he brings his wife who's suspected of unfaithfulness to the to the priest and there's a ritual there it's a very lengthy ritual in numbers five and scoops up some dirt from the tabernacle floor puts it in water and she swears to god that she didn't have sex with this with this man didn't give an adultery she drinks the potion and then she goes home if her reproductive organs it's difficult there in the Hebrew for reproductive organs swell or whatever then she was she was lying and she can't have children if not you know nothing happens and she becomes fruitful i think that's what they're referring to while cliff is looking this up i want to remind you folks couple of things one hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from we want everybody to have a fair chance at making their case on a level playing field at modern day debate and also our guests are linked in the description so if you have not already you can check out their links which i have included in the description below whether you're listening via youtube or the modern day debate podcast you can access those okay so my response to numbers chapter five is that those tests were put together in order to protect the woman the test actually functioned as a protective measure for a woman falsely accused of having an affair without the test the furious husband might harm her even kill her so the law served as a deterrent against private acts of vengeance and retribution and ensured justice in a potentially explosive situation so that's my understanding of why those tests were implemented in numbers chapter five dushan this one coming in from and oxt says adam and eve did not know good from evil before eating the fruit is that moral for god to punish them when they didn't know disobeying god was immoral yes because of the heart of it it wasn't about you see it's like parenting it's like does the kid have to know absolutely every time why he can't or she can't do something or not and so no that's a good point in terms of god did not add that level of clarity but at the end of the day it was them thinking that god did not have their best in mind which is why that ended up happening in terms of that judgment intellectually adam and eve because they had a conscience and a rational mind knew that there was a difference being right and wrong but they didn't have experiential knowledge and the sin that adam and eve committed was not an intellectual sin it was a sin of the will where they chose to experience rebellion against god that's the knowledge that they gained experiential knowledge i can know with my conscience and my intellect that to murder someone is wrong at the point of murdering someone bathing my hands in their blood and saying now i really know experientially that murders wrong that's tragic that's wrong gosh and thank you very much for your question coming in from dustin elver b says objectives would be objective i think they mean maybe uh yeah objective moral truths objective moral truths would be objective regardless of any god's opinion opinions are subjective yaoi changing his mind doesn't change objective moral truths in order to have objective moral truth which is an intangible value called goodness kindness compassion justice there has to be a mind to define it you do not have a pound of love or a foot of justice those are intangible values and they do not exist separate from a thinking mind therefore if there is no thinking mind prior to the human mind it's the human mind that obviously creates these intangible values of justice and compassion which means they're all subjective it's all relative i'm arguing our consciences tell us that there are some objective values and those objective values point us to a mind prior to the human mind that creates and defines those values but that thing you're referring to is contradictory because the values that you're talking about that it expresses for some reason taking women and children as plunder is not immoral right or if it is immoral your god the moral foundation who cannot do immoral actions somehow is able to commit something that goes against his nature something that goes against his being as you just beautifully articulate it so i'm trying to understand how if objective moral facts exist and certainly drowning a baby would be a moral taking women and children as plunder would be immoral how is it god can do immoral things it's very simple skiler if i pull a gun and shoot steward because i don't like his red hair that's murder it's not a moral steward and i walk in the models and a guy is spraying machine gun bullets into children's bodies and steward hits him high and i hit him low and we break his neck and he dies that's not murder that's killing motivated by a drive to preserve the innocent from being slaughtered skyline between murder and killing god doesn't murder children but god judges a people group and when he judges the people group innocent people are swept along because god doesn't cherry pick he's created us with a free will and there are consequences doesn't cherry pick children who deserve to be saved grateful that there are consequences of my parents love for me they were incredibly generous to me but i also am born into a world where people aren't just generous they're also stingy and they steal that's why i got locks on my door skiler you see it's not so not my point like to make it it's an issue of motive what's going on here right i think what skilers point is that in that analogy that you're describing if the guy that was spraying bullets had his wife and two children there and the police officer said go in and take all of them out right shoot the guy shooting the bullets the wife and the two or three kids that he's got with them shoot them all like we would go we get shooting the guy why are we why are you giving us orders to kill the kids now it's another thing if he says hey look take that guy out yeah and it sucks if we have collateral damage try not to hit the kids but i mean like we got to stop this guy that's a different story it's when there's this direct command take out those three kids and the woman that's what skilers point is i think give you a chance to respond clip and then we'll go to the next one god is in a position to wipe to judge a people group because the evil has risen so much in that people group that they are going to be all wiped out and that's what the old testament definitely does teach and as stewart pointed example of the flood is is an example but also those children are going to be in heaven probably because they didn't do anything wrong those little infants and babies but if there is no god remember skiler and josh you ultimately have despair because innocent children die tough luck kid there's no hope if there is no god who gives us such a strong man of life and i have this no i have it's all despair no i actually love life i have lots of things to look forward to like that's such a like i don't you know you don't get to dictate what my life is like without your made-up religion you're missing okay that's just not how we were it's how it works we you can create your meaning you're exactly right but that's not the argument that's not Tolstoy's not any moves argument i'm just directly what he said was just inaccurate so i'm just correcting it we're taking up virtual muscle the great atheistic atheistic philosopher take it up with free jignichi the great atheistic philosopher they all pointed out exactly what i just said when the appeal to authority right now in the old testament it's exactly what the authority please he asked he's a saying if there is no god sounds like an appeal to authority and your death is an accident guys it's logical that the only thing that lies between those two accidents is another accident you're a life in my life who knows what's gonna happen oh i'm valuable and now i have dignity but that's my own pipe dream that's my own fantasy in reality i'm a cosmic accident if there is no crazy i don't know what happens when i die maybe is something else into the next ridiculous accusation you want to jump into spicy roads is question who says how come the flood didn't fix anything the world went bad again right away what was the point of it cliff the point is that god judges evil because god is good why is god angry god is angry because he loves and because he loves human beings when we destroy ourselves and when we destroy each other he is angry every spouse that i know of gets angry not because they hate their other spouse but because they love their spouse and the spouse that they love has done something harmful and destructive anger when it's not a selfish anger is good if if my children get wiped out and i'm not angry with a person who wiped them out i don't really love my children so god judges because god loves and because god is just god just do you mind if i just because i think this is actually relevant so the literary point of the flood in you know the primeval history is god starting over right the priestly author writing about god starting over um and so this this is the point of the text he creates from genesis one in this watery chaos we see that watery chaos brought back it's to show that humanity as a whole immediately descends into rebellion right that's what we see and that's why god has to then start over one more time at the tower of babel and genesis 11 and he takes out his chosen nation through abram thanks for your next question this one coming in from triumph the insult dog says adam and eve were in the beginning and evolution apparently didn't exist so where did the different races come from where does the bible say evolution didn't exist got you and alex shannon says just because someone doesn't have an answer doesn't mean you're right by default i don't know who this is for they don't actually put a name anybody object to that i think i steward i think you said something earlier to skyler about um i'd like you to come up with like a better moral system and skyler said i don't have to have a better moral system i just have to show a contradiction in yours i see i think that makes sense am i am i going to speak to that or yeah i think that it was for you i think that makes sense no no yeah that's legit the point still stands though okay fine let's whatever it might be let's let's bring up the secular humanist manifesto and you know whether that's our next debate or whatnot it's still what is the moral system because i i mean i love humanists and i think they're doing some great things but still what what is a moral system that truly makes sense all are going to have holes but then ultimately what is what is the best one and i know the point of the debate tonight was absolutely the morality of the old testament so that wasn't my main point you got it and alex shannon thanks for confirming that in the chat that that was for the purpose and then barren vangie said easy partner citation needed when and which roman god killed babies i can't recall any roman god having killed babies who said a roman god killed babies i think earlier you guys were saying that i i guess in in first century christianity they were better than the roman religious system i think it came up then yeah i think it's something this general idea that like israel somehow was more moral than the places around them which is just just factually not true historically no that's that's old testament i'm going new with the early church the church for example if you look at what they did for the community i mean if you were single even if you were just single if you didn't have a girlfriend you were completely ostracized and the early church was known to actually bring singles into their community uh then early with the plagues early on uh 300 ad christians were known to go and get people set up hospitals and pull people out into the countryside many of whom died themselves and then with the sex ethic that's why tom holland for example will talk about how the me too movement is all about christianity he's not a christian but in his book dominion it's best seller recently he just riffs on this whole thing because the whole idea of actually women having value and women not just being mistreated by their husbands and their husbands being able to have actual prostitutes on the side and married multiple wives that was shattered once christianity came along so there's tons of different examples of them i think that push back on something like that would be slavery in the early church would wait i mean i mean re jennifer glancy's book we don't have to take up time with the year ronald charles book but it's all about slavery in the early church so the early church you're saying owned a bunch of slaves yeah absolutely oh i i disagree with that i mean it depends what you mean by that like like you went to they went to the block and actually started buying slaves and then had slaves in church at them like yeah i mean slaves like for example and this isn't like my area of expertise for first century second century third century slavery again re jennifer glancy and and ronald charles on this but um no it's worth it it's worth it to read it um but i mean things like you you know a um a slave couldn't become a monk unless he had like permission from his master or something but i mean like they had slaves they talked about um there were there were very few church fathers that apparently stood up against slavery and they didn't stand up against it because it was immoral it was because it was gluttonous to have like more than two so there's definitely some truth in the last point yeah i've never heard of the first point well yeah this next one coming in from socks fan oh four says that they're quoting psalm 137 8 through 9 they say oh daughter babel on you devastator happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock and then they ask how is it ethical to crush babies it is not ethical it's totally unethical and that's one of the things about the psalms if you take the psalms as being communicating god's eternal wisdom every word of them then you're making a big mistake the psalms are examples of a human being open up and sharing their guilt their anger their hatred their vengefulness and so in this in this psalm psalm 137 the babeloneans the assyrians have bashed jewish babies heads on rocks and the psalmist is crying out in anger that isn't goes over the top and it goes into vengefulness and it's wrong but that's part of what prayer is prayer is struggling with god over the issues that have really eaten my lunch that are really grating against me so prayer is not putting on my sunday best and appearing to be all together rather prayer is me being honest before the true god so psalm 137 is not commending bashing babies heads on rocks but it's an honest expression of the vengeful feelings that the psalmist is struggling with gotcha thank you very much for your question this one coming in from brian stevens do appreciate it my twin brother he says do store it in cliff believe evolution happened if so would they be willing to debate our dear friend kent hovind on this topic kent hovind you're in the need to manage the kent hovind is in the halls of creationism a very widely known name so if you uh you don't have to say yes i don't know if i want to host them but they say do store it in cliff believe evolution happened if so would they be willing to debate kent hovind on this topic namely if you don't believe or if you do believe evolution happen would you be willing to debate kent hovind now this is part of what i was trying to communicate with josh and skyler whenever i'm debating someone i try and listen and understand what they're saying and take what they say seriously and then build on it that is why i was trying to communicate to them i'm not going to try and persuade you that the bible is the inspired word of god there's no way that i can show any book is the inspired word of god that is not me being disingenuous if you want to ask me do i believe that the bible is the inspired word of god and then why i believe it is the inspired word of god i'd love to answer that question but i'm going to listen to you and seek to understand where you're coming from and then address where you are not where you might be one day i wasn't calling you disingenuous for that reason i was calling you disingenuous because you jumped on my boy josh for just simply assuming that you believe that the bible is inspired by god but you jumped on it like that's why i said that was i never said that oh okay well people can go back and watch the video how you start basically accuse them like did i ever say that did i say it this time it's just like it's some kind of weird accusation yet we should just drama we should keep going we will i just want to correct it though that's what i wasn't because you couldn't give an answer next up raw nakedness says when will cliff present his completely let's see when will uh cliff present his evidence to a peer-reviewed journal when skyler stops interrupting me raw nakedness says again when will steward present his findings about white male athias to a peer-reviewed journal latest i saw was 68 percent i think that is out of the washington post saying yes in your email i'll send it to you are you saying do i understand right you're saying that 68 percent of athias are white males or are you saying yeah 68 percent of athias are white males on it can't be on the whole globe though is that just the us us yeah okay um interesting and juicy and thank you very much for your question bar in vongi says let me make my point even more clear no other god kills babies just the god of abraham why is that not christina not odin only el should i you say i don't know what i've never heard el should i marduk was the question other gods don't kill babies yeah i think they're saying like out of all the religions it seems that the god of the olden new testament is the only one that killed babies or yeah you've got to be kidding me with the israelites were commanded by god was not to sacrifice your babies to god that's what all the canaanites were doing and the hittites they were sacrificing their babies their children as an act of worshiping god and yave el should i jehovah in the old testament says no you are not to sacrifice your babies to god that was one of the big cultural differences between the jews and many of the cultures surrounding them this is simply not true israelites oh just you should probably tell them no no i mean like i just it's a like if we're talking about israelite history that's not true if we're talking about biblical history that is true gotcha and this next question comes in from brandon arteline who says who is responsible for the most infanticide molak or yaoi molak i don't have the definite numbers but i'd have to go back and check how many children were drowned in the flood i went out when how many how many children you guys think would be the number drowned in the flood like at least 5000 right like you have to at least give us like 5000 kids drowning yeah i mean yeah i mean i i think well i don't think that's very much but yeah but i mean i think people probably should go read heath through rail's book on child sacrifice in ancient israel or francesca steve rakapulu on menas and child sacrifice you know again if we're talking about historical israel then really you know israel was evidence is relatively clear that israel was very had very little difference between the canonites because it was a canonite culture um and so this is what the biblical authors are responding to but again yeah i would like i would it is more like even a deity like that's a question we don't really have evidence outside of first millennium carthage uh physical evidence anyway uh of child sacrifice in canaan we don't we don't have anything we have we have carthage um anything really reliable and again that's you know mid to late first millennium i think as early as the seventh century but so you have to rely on textual data to do that sort of thing and of course that's not unbiased um so it's that's a complicated question i would encourage people to read i don't think with marduk i don't think i mean obviously they're putting literally little babies abortion was very dangerous some abortion was going on but literally little babies heating up that molten hot rock and putting little babies on top of it and they're leading parents out of the city because of the screams i mean it's a very late representation i don't think you have that with the god the judeo christian god god of amyram and jacob actually i think out of genesis chapter 22 many biblical scholars would say that what happens with abraham and isek is actually god's speaking against infanticide right so again i think you're conflating biblical israel and historical israel uh what you just studies some of your studies you can't just read yeah i mean read he's too real he wrote the book on it i've got a i've got a video where i interviewed me the slavery stuff too you you said that ladies name i've read so many secular historians one second story just to just to be here just in case i wasn't i wasn't sure that josh is done just want to be sure that we heard and i promise we'll come right back to you sort no i think that's fair i mean i i i do recommend a lot of books that's fair um again i think if we're strict we have to we have to kind of pick one to talk about at the time so if we're taught like that representation of the bronze you know statue the arms it's a later representation what we have evidence of is from carthage and it's from the seventh century down to i think the second century bce and we have to be careful when we try to draw distinctions between what's being represented by like the prophets um in the heber bible and what was actually being practiced by the israelites those are two i think different things so i'm fully on board with that i think then we also have to look at the early church as well because they were known for i mean the whole pro-life movement came out of the early christian church and so they were against abortion but more so really geared towards really speaking out against infanticide which was going on and we know how many little babies and little kids were just left on trash heaps that was like run of the mill that was totally fine in early roman empire and christians fought against that and completely shifted the tide now that's really weird maybe they weren't reading their old testaments i don't know and you think about joshua like how many how many of those all those heights the hip heights the malachite all the heights that we listed earlier like the 10 civilizations like after joshua went in and took it over because god promised us land to abraham imagine all the like the people that were left over like that the war had disparaged right like we see how war tears apart countries um and we think in the end like god shows this methodology right instead of making everybody just poof out of existence right hey all these enemies let me give you a peaceful death no war no fighting israeli don't have to go in and do this with with swords they don't have to commit acts of violence against children or anybody boom but which way does god choose the way that weirdly human beings of that culture in that time period how every culture wrote about their gods so it just yes he seemed like he was just moving right along with the tide of the time then all of a sudden jesus comes and boom it just way above all the other gods all of a sudden so why does he act that way in the old testament what why why didn't he just start where jesus started off we don't we don't know must jump to the next one this one coming in from victor hallock says for cliff does god love good action because it's good or is good action good because it is loved by god goodness is based on the value and dignity of a human life when i'm a good person it means i am respecting your dignity your significance your value the only way that we can have innate intrinsic real significance and value is if we have been created by god for a purpose if there is no purpose to our lives we have no value we're just accidental collections of atoms therefore goodness flows from the character of god who created human beings in his image within eight value goodness is respecting the value of a human being and loving that person and that respect and compromised in the life teachings death and resurrection of jesus christ that you and mr lightning 20 says in the land of egypt when god killed the first born of everything isn't there a moral or alternative to that sure there are many alternatives i do not know why god chose to create the way he did but i can promise you that there has been some really wrong thinking expressed over the past two hours here and that think wrong thinking is god is all powerful therefore god can do it anyway we can imagine that is false god cannot make a square circle god cannot create a human being with a free will and then violate that free will and turn him into a robot or an automaton and it's fascinating when god became a human being in jesus christ how jesus chose to limit his power simon simon satan has asked to sift you i have prayed that you would not your faith would not fail but peter did fail in his faith so even jesus prayer was not answered as some overwhelming powerful thing that aborted peter's will and i can promise you jesus did not perform an overwhelmingly spectacular miracle in order to persuade judice iscariot not to betray him so god has chosen to partially limit his power by giving us a free will which means god does not approve of much of what we human beings do because we are abusing the gift of free will and doing that which is wrong gotcha and thank you very much for your question john w thank you for your super sticker i think that was it and want to say folks our guests are linked in the description we appreciate our guests and so i want to remind you as always to be your friend your regular friendly selves oh we did have one or two more pardon me on that but want to ask you to be your regular friendly selves in terms of attacking the arguments rather than the people endow xd says in second kings was it moral when god killed a bunch of boys with two bears for making fun of elisha for being bald when you read the text carefully you will notice that those were young men and they were violating god and they were violating elisha they weren't just joking around and so god chose to judge them for the wrong that they had done and guess what i deserve the judgment of god because i am a dirty rotten sinner no i've never murdered anybody and no i've never raped anybody i've never stolen large some of money but i have lusted i have been greedy i've been self-absorbed i am a sinner and it's only the grace of god that's going to forgive me and reunite me with god and give me eternal life that's why i am in desperate need of jesus christ because i am not this great person that i wish i was if you do not deserve to be eaten by a bear i just want to let you know that like you do not deserve to be eaten by bears i don't know what you think you've done or anything in your life that's bad but if you're ever face to face with a bear right don't think it's because you deserve this but i deserve hell i don't just deserve a bear i deserve help because i've committed cosmic treason i've rebelled against god so i deserve hell but christ bled and died on a cross to forgive me for that wrong to take the hell that i deserve in his body i put my faith in him and he's given me something i do not deserve forgiveness in eternal life i just uh if i if i could again just to sort of bring it back to this this is sort of my overarching point if this if we were to pick this story up um and again put it over in a royal inscription from the neo-assyrian period i think we would all be disgusted by it right i i that's why i say i think that we're starting from a place where we're holding the biblical text the heber bible at a different level and then sort of working our way through it through that lens and that's that's what my point is i think when it comes to these discussions and i think the point you just made josh is an example of breathing off the fumes of the judeo christian heritage when you express your disgust the reason you're disgusted with is something is because you think it's really wrong well remember josh if there is no god nothing is really wrong it's subjectively wrong from your perspective but from obviously from an inuit's perspective who wants to allow their baby to freeze to death in the snow it's just right that's right for them and for a white racist south to have a slave well it's right for them it's all relative if there is no god it's culturally relative it's based on individual opinion sure yeah i mean i i i don't think that's why i think that it's wrong but um i think i'm using that far more colloquially than your than your um maybe interpreting what i'm saying but uh i don't think that subjectivity necessarily means useless but it's not my field of expertise um so just because something's not like really really wrong how can you judge how can you judge on the god of the bible for allowing some boys to be mulled by bears because they were disrespectful to a live job i mean where do you get off with your culture three thousand years later judging a culture that was three thousand years ago you're making some pretty big claims josh all right let's give josh a full chance to respond to both that and then the question earlier i think was in terms of whether or not subjectivism was uh worthless josh was still finishing that thought right so i mean so sort of to go in reverse to answer that question though i'm not judging an ancient culture that's not what i'm doing um this is sort of the material point that i'm making um but i think that subjectivity can be very useful it's very useful to me all the time for example when i came in today to the house i said it's kind of chilly in here i went to the thermostat up but there's no like really really you know firm definition objective definition of what chili means it's just subjectively to me and my wife is pregnant with twins so it's not chilly to her so we had to have sort of a discussion about it and of course i turned the temperature back down um sorry so yeah that was all i was gonna say we can jump into this next one this one coming in from mark reed says cliff if god can't violate humans free will how did he harden pharaoh's heart in exodus 912 and killed the firstborn children nine times before we read that the lord hardened pharaoh's heart we read that pharaoh hardened his heart jesus said there's an unforgivable sin is blaspheming against the holy spirit i can play so many games with god that i sear my conscience and i can dull myself to the voice of god and that's exactly what pharaoh did gosh and this one coming in from related uh dustin everly says cliff did god know that adam and eve would go against his commands because god is outside of space and time because god knows everything yes god knew that adam and eve would rebel against god does that mean that he forced them no when we say that god knew that he would that they would do that what we're saying is due to god's perspective outside of space and time he saw the future the present the past at a glance because god lives in the eternal now adam and eve had a free will they made their own decision did god know they were going to decide that yes because he's outside of space and time he's eternal gotcha and this one coming in from barren von jesus says god doesn't sacrifice children but what about yaoi sacrificing jesus that is human sacrifice of his own child no it was still jesus's own based on his free will his decision to go to the cross now brings up the tough question of the trinity father son and holy spirit but absolutely did god do a type of sending his son allowing his son to make this decision certainly but it was full fully based off of jesus's own volition to go to that cross and the old testament backs that up as well clearly coming right through the book of isiah pointing to jesus jesus his own decision to go to the cross in order to make this great sacrifice even for his enemies gotcha and this one coming in from actual socialist trash thank you for your question says we're the native or were the native americans not subject to a genocide because you can still find some living in the north uh north america was the native american genocide hyperbolic obviously the native american being slaughtered is not hyperbolic it's an historical fact and it's tragic the way western europeans came into america and destroyed way way way too many native americans it's sinful it's wrong because native americans are human beings created the image of god and it's deplorable the way they were treated no question about it it's what joshua did they literally did the same thing they went in dislocated people killed people executed children it's literally what the text says guys we read it earlier and somehow we're like pretending like it doesn't doesn't exist there like i'm sorry how did they get there how did the israelites get in canaan right it's the point of what is the point of josh josh what doesn't make any sense with narrative there's josh what doesn't go there and conquest and take that land for the israelites god was judging god was judging those people god was not judging the native americans by the hands of the western europeans but what the text clearly says is god was judging them for their wrongdoing that's the difference well with that we want to recommend folks one we really do appreciate our guests they're linked in the description and so also folks that includes if you're listening to modern day debate via podcast you can find their links in that description box as well it has been a true pleasure gentlemen it has been lively it has been energetic it has been fun thank you skyler dr josh steward and cliff it's been a true pleasure folks stick around i'll be back in a moment with a post-credits scene telling you about upcoming debates including tomorrow destiny will be here debating pogan on marxism versus capitalism so thanks for that folks and be right back