Skeptics and atheists have been critical of the Bible’s portrayal of God ordering the death of entire populations—including women and children. For example, God instructed Saul through the prophet Samuel to “go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Samuel 15:3-4, emp. added). Other examples include the period of the Israelite conquest of Canaan in which God instructed the people to exterminate the Canaanite populations that occupied Palestine at the time. However, if one cares to examine the circumstances and assess the rationale, the Bible consistently exonerates itself by offering legitimate clarification and explanation to satisfy the honest searcher of truth. 怀疑论者和无神论者批评圣经对上帝的描述，命令全体人口 - 包括妇女和儿童的死亡。 例如，上帝通过先知塞缪尔指示扫罗“去攻击亚玛力人，彻底摧毁他们所拥有的一切，不要饶恕他们。 但要杀死男女，婴幼儿，牛羊，骆驼和驴。“（撒母耳记上15：3-4，补充说）。 其他例子包括以色列人征服迦南的时期，上帝指示人们消灭当时占领巴勒斯坦的迦南人。 然而，如果一个人关心审查情况并评估其基本原理，那么圣经总是通过提供合法的澄清和解释来证明自己，以满足诚实的真相搜索者。
The Hebrew term herem found, for instance, in Joshua 6:17, refers to the total dedication or giving over of the enemy to God as a sacrifice involving the extermination of the populace. It is alleged that the God of the Bible is as barbaric and cruel as any of the pagan gods. But this assessment is simply not true. 例如，在约书亚6章17节中，希伯来词是指将敌人奉献给上帝或作为牺牲民众的牺牲品。 据称，圣经的上帝像任何异教神一样野蛮残酷。 但是这个评估根本不是事实。
If the critic would take the time to study the Bible and make an honest evaluation of the principles of God’s justice, wrath, and love, he would see the perfect and harmonious interplay between them. God’s vengeance is not like the impulsive, irrational, emotional outbursts of pagan deities or human beings. He is infinite in all His attributes and thus perfect in justice, love, and anger. Just as God’s ultimate and final condemnation of sinners to eternal punishment will be just and appropriate, so the temporal judgment of wicked people in the Old Testament was ethical and fair. We human beings do not have an accurate handle on the gravity of sin and the deplorable nature of evil and wickedness. Human sentimentality is hardly a qualified measuring stick for divine truth and spiritual reality. 如果批评家花时间研究圣经，对上帝的正义，愤怒和爱的原则进行诚实的评估，他会看到他们之间完美和谐的相互作用。 上帝的报复不像异教神或人类的冲动，非理性，情绪爆发。 祂在祂的一切属性上都是无限的，因此在正义，爱和愤怒上是完美的。 正如上帝最终并最终谴责罪人得到永恒的惩罚一样，是正义和恰当的，因此旧约邪恶人的时间判断是合乎道德和公平的。 我们人类不能准确地处理罪的严重性和恶和邪恶的恶劣本性。 人类的情感难以成为神圣真理和精神现实的合格测量棒。
How incredibly ironic that the atheist, the agnostic, the skeptic, and the liberal all attempt to stand in judgment upon the ethical behavior of God when, if one embraces their position, there is no such thing as an absolute, objective, authoritative standard by which to pronounce anything right or wrong. As the French existentialist philosopher, Sartre, admitted: “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist.... Nor...are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior” (1961, p. 485). The atheist and agnostic have absolutely no platform on which to stand to make moral or ethical distinctions—except as the result of purely personal taste. The mere fact that they concede the existence of objective evil is an unwitting concession there is a God Who has established an absolute framework of moral judgments. 无神论者，不可知论者，怀疑论者和自由主义者都试图站在对上帝的道德行为的判断中，这是多么令人难以置信的讽刺意味，当人们接受他们的立场时，不存在绝对的，客观的，权威的标准 哪些发音是正确的或错误的。 正如法国存在主义哲学家萨特所承认的那样：“如果上帝不存在，那么一切都确实是允许的......我们也没有提供任何可以使我们的行为合法化的价值观或命令”（1961年，第485页）。 无神论者和不可知论者绝对没有平台可以在道德或伦理上作出区分 - 除非是纯粹个人品味的结果。 他们承认客观邪恶的存在仅仅是一个不知情的让步，有一个上帝建立了绝对的道德判断框架。
The facts of the matter are that the Canaanites, whom God’s people were to destroy, were destroyed for their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4; 18:9-12; Leviticus 18:24-25,27-28). Canaanite culture and religion in the second millennium B.C. were polluted, corrupt, and perverted. No doubt the people were physically diseased from their illicit behavior. There simply was no viable solution to their condition except destruction. Their moral depravity was “full” (Genesis 15:16). They had slumped to such an immoral, depraved state, with no hope of recovery, that their existence on this Earth had to be terminated—just like in Noah’s day when God waited while Noah preached for years, but was unable to turn the world’s population from its wickedness (Genesis 6:3,5-7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:5-9). Including the children in the destruction of such populations actually spared them from a worse condition—that of being reared to be as wicked as their parents and thus face eternal punishment. All persons who die in childhood, according to the Bible, are ushered to Paradise and will ultimately reside in Heaven. Children who have parents who are evil must naturally suffer innocently while on Earth (e.g., Numbers 14:33). 事实是上帝子民要毁灭的迦南人因他们的邪恶而被毁灭（申命记9：4; 18：9-12;利未记18：24-25,27-28）。第二个千年的迦南文化和宗教被污染，腐败和变态。毫无疑问，人们身体上已经患有非法行为。除了销毁之外，他们的状况根本没有可行的解决办法。他们的道德败坏是“完全的”（创世记15:16）。他们已经堕落到一个不道德的，堕落的国家，没有希望恢复，他们在这个地球上的存在不得不被终止 - 就像诺亚时代，当诺亚传教多年的时候，上帝等待着，但无法改变世界人口从它的邪恶（创6：3,5-7;彼得前书3:20;彼得后书3：5-9）。将这些儿童包括在这些人口的破坏之中，实际上使他们免遭更糟糕的情况 - 那就是被视为与父母一样邪恶，因而面临永久的惩罚。根据圣经，所有在童年时代死去的人都会被带到天堂，并最终会居住在天堂。父母是邪恶的孩子必须在地球上自然地遭受无辜（例如，民数记14:33）。
Those who disagree with God’s annihilation of the wicked in the Old Testament have the same liberal attitude that has come to prevail in America just in the last half century. That attitude has typically opposed capital punishment, as well as the corporal punishment of children. Such people simply cannot see the rightness of evildoers being punished by execution or physical pain. Nevertheless, their view is skewed—and the rest of us are being forced to live with the results of their warped thinking: undisciplined, out-of-control children are wreaking havoc on our society by perpetrating crime to historically, all-time high levels. 那些不同意上帝在旧约中歼灭邪恶的人，与刚才在半个世纪刚刚在美国盛行的那种自由主义态度一样。 这种态度通常反对死刑以及体罚儿童。 这样的人根本看不到邪恶者被施暴或身体上的痛苦所惩罚的正确性。 尽管如此，他们的观点却被扭曲了 - 我们其他人也被迫歪曲思维的结果：无节制的失控儿童通过将犯罪行为置于历史性的历史性高水平而对我们的社会造成严重破坏。
Those who reject the ethics of God’s destructive activity in the Old Testament, to be consistent, must reject Jesus and the New Testament. Over and over again, Jesus and the New Testament writers endorsed and defended such activity (e.g., Luke 13:1-9; 12:5; 17:29-32; 10:12; Hebrews 10:26-31). The Bible provides the only logical, sensible, meaningful, consistent explanation regarding the principles of retribution, punishment, and the conditions under which physical life may be extinguished. 那些拒绝旧约圣经中破坏性活动的道德规范的人必须坚持不懈，拒绝耶稣和新约。 一次又一次，耶稣和新约作者批准并捍卫了这种活动（例如，路加福音13：1-9; 12：5; 17：29-32; 10:12;希伯来书10：26-31）。 圣经提供了唯一符合逻辑的，合理的，有意义的，一致的解释，关于报应原则，惩罚和物质生活可能被消灭的条件。
REFERENCE
Sartre, Jean Paul, (1961), “Existentialism and Humanism,” French Philosophers from Descartes to Sartre, ed. Leonard M. Marsak (New York: Meridian).
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