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Like you rarely hear anyone with serious power say we should invade countries because it’s what god wanted, and if we do they’re considered a hawkish nut.
Sometimes we elect them as president - twice!
The same reason people (ultrafascist xenophobic evangelicals, ie the majority of the US and 99.9% of all republicans) forgive god for his killing of innocents is the same reason they overlook, handwave, deny or just flat out ignore the killings done by the powerful; it’s cool and they like it. If a million Iraqis die for the “greater good” of statecraft, or a million children in Jericho, Sodom, Gomorrah, et al have to die, it’s because it’s cool and good and for a greater good.
To the evangelical, it’s unthinkable to even question the letter of the word, let alone criticise god. Different sects of Christianity are more tolerant or critical. To a lot of modern sects of Roman Catholicism, for instance, the old testament is more or less ignored as apocryphal.
It’s a book written by humans. I’ll continue living my heresy though
There is an interesting theodicy arguing that just as God took on the sins of humanity in the form of Jesus, he had taken on the sins of early Hebrew society before that. In other words, the violence he enacted isn’t his own will, but a sacrifice he made in order to relate to his people in a way that they could understand, given their level of moral development at the time.
I recall certain early church fathers interpreting for instance parts of the book of Joshua as a metaphorical battle against sin personified as the other tribes/kingdoms.
Similar to what Bezosdied said, Iraeneus specifically suggested God took a pedagogical approach to his revelation to the Israelites.
