Genocide in the Bible | Dr. Aren Maeir

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

What are your thoughts on this episode? Check out the awesome Doctor at the links above! Support the channel below! Check out our new store! teespring.com/stores/the-history-shop Get your Sea Peoples | Late Bronze Age Merch below! Mugs: teespring.com/new-sea-peoples-mediterranean?pid=658&cid=102950 Hoodies | Shirts | Tank Tops: teespring.com/get-sea-peoples-mediterranean?pid=212&cid=5819 Get your Hittite Merch below! Mugs: teespring.com/HittiteEmpireMug?pid=658&cid=102950&sid=front Shirts | Tank Tops | Hoodies: teespring.com/hittite-empire-shirt?pid=2&cid=2397 Trojan War Merch Below! Mugs: teespring.com/trojan-war-coffee-mug?pid=658&cid=102950 Tank Tops | Shirts | Hoodies: teespring.com/TrojanWarShirt?pid=2&cid=2397 To support the channel, become a Patron and make history matter! Patreon: www.patreon.com/The_Study_of_Antiquity_and_the_Middle_Ages Donate directly to PayPal: paypal.me/NickBarksdale Enjoy history merchandise? Check out affiliate link to SPQR Emporium! spqr-emporium.com?aff=3 *Dislaimer, the link above is an affiliate link which means we will earn a generous commission from your magnificent purchase, just another way to help out the channel! Join our community! Facebook Page: facebook.com/THESTUDYOFANTIQUITYANDTHEMIDDLEAGES/ Twitter: twitter.com/NickBarksdale Instagram: instagram.com/study_of_antiquity_middle_ages/ Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/164050034145170/

[@manichaean1888]

Please do some videos on BMAC in Central Asia and Helmand civilization in Iran. They were developed cultures of Later Bronze Age and trade partners of Mesopotamia and Indus Valley civilizations. They declined at about the same time as the Bronze Age collapse. They obviously were an important part of the civilized world from the dawn of civilization. But unfortunately not much is written or known on this subject.

[@GalileosTelescope]

The difference is many people still look to the Old Testament as a source of morality today, and to justify racial/religious superiority or divinely mandated territorial claims. No one does this with ancient Assyrian or Egyptian texts.

[@atomic_wait]

I'm sure there are oddballs who use old Egyptian texts to justify various distasteful stances, there just aren't many of them and they aren't in positions of power. They tend to be small scale cultists.

[@mike81psy]

Galileo´s Telescope they changed it to Marx´s communist manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book : "It's an icon of China and communism as well as a work of propaganda. More than a billion copies have been published, making the book, often wrapped in its distinctive vinyl cover, one of the most widely produced of all time. During China's "Cultural Revolution" it became virtually mandatory to own and carry one... During the Cultural Revolution, in which millions were persecuted or killed, owning it "became a way of surviving", says Daniel Leese, professor of modern Chinese history and politics at the University of Freiburg. Paramilitary "Red Guards" mobilised by Mao to purify the Communist Party would check whether those suspected of bourgeois tendencies were carrying it or whether they could quote from it. As the regime attempted to export its ideas as a form of "soft power", millions of copies were published in translation and sold abroad. It was taken up by Western radicals such as the Black Panthers and passed around as a samizdat text in the Warsaw Pact nations", see www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34932800 "scarcity invalidates Marx's core idea of superabundance, and mortally wounds his theory. Certainly, his historical predictions about worker-led socialist revolutions around the world were off-mark. Today, Professor Shapiro presents more of the shortcomings of the Marxian tradition. These include Marx's failure to account for the ability of the state to buttress capitalism and stave off the conditions needed for its self-destruction, the lack of a declining tendency in the economy-wide rate of profit, and the incoherence of a labor theory of value. It becomes clear that the Marxian theory is riddled with holes. However, Marx does leave two important legacies in his wake: a good critique of markets as distributors of either good or harms in society, and a power-based argument about freedom.", se kzbin.info/www/bejne/hpCTo2iDlKhojKc "The old way of thinking is that Stalin did what he did to consolidate his power. No. He did what he did because he was a communist" - Prof. Stephen Kotkin "Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917" by Prof. R.J. Rummel: "61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered 1917 to 1987... 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period 1917 to 1922... 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928... 11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period 1928-1935... 4,345,000 Victims: The Great Terror Period 1935-1938... 5,104,000 Victims: Pre-World War II Period 1939 to June, 1941... 13,053,000 Victims: World War II Period June, 1941 to 1945... 15,613,000 Victims: Post-War and Stalin's Twilight Period 1945-1953... 6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period 1954-1987... on government genocide and mass killing in this century... the citizens of democracies are the least likely to be murdered by their own governments; the citizens of totalitarian, especially Marxist systems, the most likely... democratic systems provide a path to peace... governments have murdered millions of their own citizens... independent of war and other kinds of conflict, governments probably have murdered 119,400,000 people, Marxist governments about 95,200,000 of them. By comparison, the battle-killed in all foreign and domestic wars in this century total 35,700,000."(1), kzbin.info/www/bejne/m4ucfHZ9ZbCCarc (1) www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE4.HTM "Genetic Entropy presents compelling scientific evidence that the genomes of all living creatures are slowly degenerating - due to the accumulation of slightly harmful mutations. This is happening in spite of natural selection. The author of this book, Dr. John Sanford, is a Cornell University geneticist... The evidences that he presents are diverse and compelling. He... examining how random mutation and natural selection actually operate, and shows that simple logic demands that genomes must degenerate. He then makes a historical examination of the relevant field (population genetics), and shows that the best scientists in that field have consistently acknowledged many of the fundamental problems he has uncovered (but they have failed to communicate these problems to the broader scientific community). He then shows, in collaboration with a team of other scientists, that state-of-the-art numerical simulation experiments consistently confirm the problem of genetic degeneration... in collaboration with other scientists, he shows that real biological populations clearly manifest genetic degeneration. Dr. Sanford's findings have enormous implications. His work largely invalidates classic neo-Darwinian theory. The mutation/selection process by itself is not capable of creating the new biological information that is required for creating new life forms. Dr. Sanford shows that not only is mutation/selection incapable of creating our genomes - it can't even preserve our genomes. As biochemist Dr. Michael Behe of Lehigh University writes in his review of Genetic Entropy, "...not only does Darwinism not have answers for how information got into the genome, it doesn't even have answers for how it could remain there." Dr. Sanford has coined the term "genetic entropy" to describe this fatal flaw of neo-Darwinian theory. This fundamental problem has been something of a trade-secret within the field of population genetics, with the rest of the world largely being kept in the dark"(1) "As early as 1971... Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, then Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at El Paso... noted that between 1835 and 1965 geophysicists had made some 26 measurements of the magnetic dipole moment of the earth’s magnetic field... these data points fitted a decay curve which Barnes calculated had a ‘halflife’... of only 1,400 years. On this basis he concluded that the earth’s magnetic field was less than 10,000 years Old.."(2) "The "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy"... 1978... signed by nearly 300 noted evangelical scholars, including... John Warwick Montgomery... Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching"(3) (1) www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-John-C-Sanford/dp/0981631606/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Genetic%20Entropy%20and%20the%20Mystery%20of%20the%20Genome%20John%20Sanford&qid=1605112937&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR2z2wJNxo4-xpunxrrui2qPMxBp3WURv_48g5ZaTpI3MF3fQ7be7zdqtA0 (2) answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/the-earths-magnetic-field-and-the-age-of-the-earth (3) swbts.edu/affirmed-statements/chicago-statement/

[@rgdunn]

Your right and now we got nuts out there calling the ufo phenomenon demons just like Israel did to the giants

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

Dr Aran Maeir just happens to be Israeli, so it's normal according to him! 😮

[@kurtweinstein8450]

I don't go in for extreme moral relativism. This behavior may have been widespread but was never universal. There were always others models to follow or the ability to choose to do something different. Genocide is genocide regardless of time or place.

[@skodalaskoda8754]

genocide is genocide...thx

[@andybeans5790]

I think one can view historical atrocities through a relativist lens whilst still seeing them as immoral. The facility of relativism here is to contextualise it through the views of people of the time and better understand their motivations.

[@webslinger527]

I think what is really odd especially this is jew and from a Scholars that he seems to forget the Hebrews especially the older Hebrews use a lot of hyperbolic language so did the Egyptians when it comes to genocide is over-exaggeration especially Joshua another book like that even passages later on proof that even more. So what is he taking about

[@speedwagon1824]

Genocide was not genocide regardless of time or place at all.

[@whatarefriends4]

Just because it’s common doesn’t make it right

[@dananicolay5530]

The bigger question is, 'Why would the divine source of all creation command one tribe to commit genocide against another?' Can such a 'god' legitimately be described as anything other than a tribal deity. More broadly, how did Western Civilization fall for such a confabulation? Why would we decide that the sacred text of such a tribe is "The Word of God"? The divine source created ALL people - Jews, Arabs, Norsemen, Celts, Navajo, Aztec, Inca, Polynesian, Han, Viet Namese, Hindu, Tibetan, Aboriginal - ALL PEOPLE! A god who would command the annihilation of any people by another people simply cannot be the divine source of all things visible qnd invisible in whom we live and move and have our being. The Aryan god of the Germans was reviled for generating such action. This YHWH is no different. So what if the world was a more violent place way back when. The divine source of all creation would not be compelled to see human events through that violent lense. Annihilation is not a divine message.

[@shaunigothictv1003]

Excellent analysis Dana

[@zacharymoss2994]

Unfortunately God was working with what kinds of people lived at the times, I remember either hearing or reading that genocide was all too common back in the day and the enemies of Israel would have done the same thing that they were commanded to. There were also human sacrifice rituals that the Israelites at the time of Jericho were strongly against. God didn't want to rob us of free will and had to wait for humanity to grow and change, psychologically and culturally to be less violent.

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

​@@zacharymoss2994nonsense, that's just excuse making. Natural human morality says it msy be necessary to kill enemies, but when you kill women and children too you've passed a line. That's genocide and it wasn't common in the the past, and God never ordered it. The old testament is a human book of lies!

[@allighast9714]

Lovely, loved the art, the zooming all around was a touch too fast and a tiny bit disorienting, wouldn't even say remove it at all, but slowing it down just a second would let us appreciate all the artwork a little more as well! 👍🏼✌🏻 Thanks so much for all the hard work, awesome video as always!

[@anotherelvis]

Ideas for videos: Israelites, Canaanites and the late bronze age collapse. Canaanite religion, and the historical origin of Judaism.

[@ghengiscrayon]

I think they have you covered there.

[@kaarlimakela3413]

Making an interesting point. Another insult to a population would be moving people. Sometimes entire cities or areas were destroyed, but the people were hauled off, to be slaves, servants, skilled craftspeople were picked out to serve royal houses. Then it is written that walls were torn up and the town razed, but the archeology shows ... exaggeration in the record.

[@coltaine503]

Wow. I would not have thought an 'expert' would be such a sorry apologist for genocide. "Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't."? "Maybe someone did it to Israel first."? This is what the Jews wrote in their own sacred scripture as Truth. Some Moabite, Edomite or Midianite didn't insert that into the Old Testament. Dance all around it, become a moral relativist (though God's Justice is immutable and for all time) by saying God was working with primitive cultures, but this is what God commanded and then went on to punish someone did not follow that command. Just wow.

[@Ozzyman200]

A good reminder of how evil the Bible is, thank you.

[@Bugsy0333]

So true !!

[@stargirl6659]

it is as evil as your average human being at that time. Honestly, the sick part is the devotion in it that makes its use very dangerous. Any book can be studied, but the way some people hold on to it as the ultimate truth to justify their own darkness and override any of their higher cognitive functions is what is really eerie.

[@bakedbeans5494]

@@Bugsy0333 Rent free.

[@Bugsy0333]

@@bakedbeans5494 ??

[@shaunigothictv1003]

@@stargirl6659Excellent point.

[@davidbogard8576]

This is still relevant today as Palestinians l continue to suffer through ethnic cleansing primarily justified by the belief that a certain tribe is chosen by God and that their land was promised to that tribe by God.

[@shaunigothictv1003]

Excellent point

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

And even more relevant 3 years later when that tribe are committing genocide again! 😮

[@JoshMull]

Might need a shower after that one lol, feels like a lot of moral dimensions weren't really explored. Feels wrong to play the "past is a foreign country" card on this kind of topic. It leads to a lot of "people back then" type statements, as in "people back then" did this or that different than us. So did people back then not invent empathy yet? No one had any sort of innate human problem with this stuff, like a sense of mercy, compassion, and human decency is an invention like stirrups or the cotton gin, or a video game power they haven't unlocked yet? That doesn't make any sense. To think about this another way, imagine you're the canaanite soldier who did all the murdering and pillaging, you killed the women and dashed the babies against rocks and so forth. Do you think you get PTSD? Do you have nightmares? Do you feel good about yourself? Do you feel shame? Do you feel guilty? If you can conceive of that kind of nuance in the very people doing the actual atrocities, then certainly the idea of life just being about "kill your enemy if you have the chance" has to seem pretty ridiculous, right? I don't know, just seems like a pretty big jump from "this happened a lot back then" to "and everyone was basically cool with it."

[@joek600]

This is an awkward topic for many people. Because the israelites though a pretty insignificant group historically, managed to ''export'' their founding myths through christianity and place their cultural practices in a favourable position through the religious texts. It is right that everybody in the region commited atrocities and genocide. War in middle east was total war in a way that we dont see much in bronze age Greece and certainly we rarely see in classical Greece and Rome and even then there is not a religious justification, only political. The Phoeniceans appear to be pretty nasty when they dealt with their enemies or even their failing generals, but all our info come through the tinted glasses of roman propaganda.

[@TheDirtysouthfan]

What the fuck. First of all, if genocide was so normalized back then, how come the Persians didn't commit it when invading Mesopotamia? The Persians weren't perfect by the standards of the time either, but they were very merciful, and they had the largest empire ever in the Middle East at the time, and in terms of percentage of the population it was the largest in history with approximately 70% of the world population, lasting around 200 years and surviving in some form to the present day. If it was so necessary and normal, how was the Persian Empire possible? Secondly, the groups the Israelites genocided didn't always pose a significant threat to them, many of them were small and weak even by the Bible's admission such as Moab. Hell, they took the Amalekites King hostage. Lastly, it's unlikely the Biblical Accounts were true. Archaeological evidence shows that Israel, at the time of David, was way too sparsely populated for his kingdom to even possibly exist, much less reach the Euphrates. This does call into question the other accounts, which then leads to a more dangerous question, why would the Bible say this if it didn't happen? Did they appropriate other stories from other cultures? Did they tell these histories as propaganda to teach the new generations that it is what you do? Stop trying to push this moral relativist argument, it's incredibly offensive.

[@shaunigothictv1003]

Excellent analysis

[@TR4G1CK]

Thank you, @Thedirtysouthfan, for demonstrating your intellectual superiority over all the historians of the Ancient Near East.

[@trevorhunton7526]

We are what we are and we are what we have always been.

[@Michiganmayor420]

Me playing rome: total war= Genocide? No im just keeping the town moral high so they don't riot

[@omar90s91]

Just like today

[@scienceexplains302]

I agree that most of the Bible is invented. I don’t see how that leaves room to worship the demon Yahweh portrayed in the Bible, tho

[@JohnDoe-zy6tm]

Deuteronomy 2:34 - And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. ..... was it normal? Yes. Did all ancient cultures do it? No. Did the hebrews do it? Clearly yes. Is there any justification for genocide? No. Not all cultures committed genocide and even back then it was considered horrible. Saying they were fighting for their lives so they killed all the babies is just terrible logic. It is desperation to justify ancient atrocities. Saying maybe they did it because someone did it to them is just as terrible... There is no justification for purposefully exterminating your enemy’s babies... none. Even if they are your enemies... If you feel any form of deliberately targeting and mass murdering of babies is justified your wrong. Even if your religion says it’s ok...

[@ireneuszpyc6684]

learn biology; your preaching is cheap

[@JohnDoe-zy6tm]

@@ireneuszpyc6684 Biology makes you feel better about Hebrews killing whole cities worth of babies? Says a lot about you... interesting yet not compelling. Genocide is an atrocity and you justifying it shows only your capacity for cognitive dissonance.

[@Matthew24.4]

So you are anti-abortion then I presume? Awesome! Babies that die go to heaven so God saved those babies from hell by taking them early as they would have been raised pagan. I’m sure that those babies are very happy that they are in heaven for eternity rather than hell.

[@JohnDoe-zy6tm]

@@Matthew24.4 murdering babies of none Christians then saying they are saved is insane. Your cult has made you crazy.

[@lindaeriksson1208]

@@Matthew24.4 I don´t think I´ve ever heard something this insane. Do you actually belive that you can "save" babys from growing upp in the wrong religion by killing them?

[@christophe7723]

I wish there would be a better comparison of the text of the bible with external evidence. As it is done, it looks a lot like the religious texts are the only source of history, with nothing to compare it to.

[@recreatingadam980]

Looking forward to this one!!!! Brilliant....

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@bible4truth]

Not brilliant at all. Incorrect and myth

[@Golshanim]

Humans as a herd animal have understood the golden rule to treat people as you want to be treated. This sounds like apologist for terrible deeds that have been evil in any age. It seems that the Semite people (Assyrians who were Semitic too) were particularly savage as opposed to many other tribes of those times that blended and mixed with those they conquered or mixed with. Instead of justifying our ancestors terrible misdeeds we should learn from them.

[@SonyaandSidney]

I don't know if the question was answered properly in the video, but what I get from the discussion is that, yes, religion probably caused violence, but that violence was normal in antiquity and was caused by many things including nationalism, the desire for resources and glory, etc. Religion wasn't the root, but it contributed because that's how the world was.

[@Hevander75]

I just can't wait for the "Were the Colchian Black" series

[@mike81psy]

"Tom Holland is an historian and author of many books including "Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind."... he has found himself surrendering to the moral and... truth of... Christianity." "Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions... Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science... are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world... "This lively, capacious history of Christianity emphasizes the extent to which the religion still underpins Western liberal values."―New Yorker "A galloping tour of Christianity's influence across the last 2,000 years, with vivid vignettes scattered across the centuries, and a concluding argument the Christian faith, 'the most influential framework for making sense of human existence that has ever existed,' still shapes the way that even the most secular modern people think about the world."―Ross Douthat, New York Times "A sweeping narrative.... [Holland] is an exceptionally good storyteller with a marvelous eye for detail... excellent fun."―The Economist "An absorbing survey of Christianity's subversive origins and enduring influence is filled with vivid portraits, gruesome deaths and moral debates...Holland has all the talents of an accomplished novelist: a gift for narrative, a lively sense of drama and a fine ear for the rhythm of a sentence."―the Guardian (UK)... Holland is an award-winning historian of the ancient world, a translator of Greek classical texts, and a documentary writer. He is the author of six other books, including Rubicon, recipient of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and Persian Fire, winner of the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award. He contributes regularly to the Guardian, the Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times", see kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJLZen-jitiJmsk&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR021TWAY9vUaLJfmuh2X7ARj3jUvUIahHR1q9y8vQvcE0C5EyGREe-GgLU

[@drugilbert2447]

Finally an impartial secular view on Biblical atrocities.

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

It doesn't come across as secular at all!

[@theokaraman]

Personally i dont think that the genocidal events of the Old Testament really happened or happened in such scale. There is just no archaelogical findings to confirm the physical extinction of the Canaanites by the Israelites. It is more possible that the Israelites emerged from the Canaanites, instead. Generally, i don't think that the capabilities of the ancients for genocide were that great. They simply didn't have the (industrial) organization and the technology for that. The primary weapon back then was cultural assimilation through many decades.

[@andybeans5790]

I agree with your first point, but I think tge scale of the atrocities were relative to the comparatively small city/community/tribe size. Killing a few hundred people of a clan of only a few hundred people is genocide.

[@katmannsson]

Its hard for me to call much of what happened in Antiquity as Genocide, but I would call the end of the Punic Wars a Genocide.

[@scienceexplains302]

The volume at the intro is far too loud in comparison to the videos

[@Hevander75]

Crossing finger for a video/series on Egypt and Punt trade and cultural relations.

[@stephenmichalski2643]

Mankind.....it's culture's......government.....and religion's......have always been adept at twisting and shaping morality to fit it's own agenda. The minute you say that people had it harder back then or that such actions were the norm then.......and seemingly justify such barbarity.....it only strengthens my belief that while our species has advanced technologically a number of yards in the past 10,000 years......socially.......we might have advanced a few inches. I seriously doubt the men , women and children slaughtered by the Assyrians.....the Israelites .....the Crusaders.....the Moslems......the Nazi's......the Japanese....the Communist.......the Serbs....or the host of others that have committed such atrocities.....would say there was any difference could their silenced voices speak. Ethnic cleansing.....murder.....oppression......injustice is still just that......no matter what time period it occurs in.

[@mike81psy]

"Before exploring the three Enlightenment traditions in particular, Professor Shapiro examines the Enlightenment holistically, using John Locke as the foundation for the discussion. The first tenet of the Enlightenment is a commitment to science as a way of ordering politics, and Professor Shapiro introduces the Cartesian philosophy of science and segues into an elucidation of the workmanship ideal, a central feature of Enlightenment thinking. Corollary to the workmanship ideal, the second tenet of the Enlightenment is the equality of men, ergo an emphasis on individual rights. Does this latter tenet give the basis for the resistance of authority? Throughout the lecture, Professor Shapiro uses a number of primary sources to depict the foundations of Enlightenment thought. Although Locke's thinking is deeply rooted in theology", see kzbin.info/www/bejne/nISUZ2CqfpqNrs0

[@Johnny_Tambourine]

Humans are humans regardless of era. Good video and I'd like to see more about human atrocities throughout history. The story of Nazi atrocities reads like fan fiction when you compare them to the great Roman epic.

[@cygnusustus]

"Other people did it too" is not a defense to "The Bible condones atrocities".

[@chrisrhodes2]

Ancient warfare was bend the knee or risk genocide. The Bible having a deity order and sanction it was pretty new though.

[@rgdunn]

First thoughts about it being normal are ok. But to me the fact that religion where go😢 tells Israel to commit genocide against the promised land is evil

[@Ramoreira86]

"Cry havoc and let split the dogs of war"

[@abdelra7man87]

I really like this channel but the intro music is really annoying. Does anyone else feel the same?

[@benjonesthe3rd200]

One theory that was interesting was how God told Joshua and the Israelites to wipe out certain tribes and not others , in The Bible it talks about the Giants and the Nephalem. The theory was that some of those tribes were giants and had tainted genetics from the Nephalem (When the Sons of God “Fallen Angels” came into the daughters of man in Genesis 3) . So because these tribes had tainted genetics God instructed them to be destroyed and it was heavily forbidden and reiterated NOT to intermarry with the Amorites/Giants . This theory makes sense to me because look at the book of Jonah . Why did God spare the Assyrians in Nineveh ? Could there possibly be a reason to the instructions to perform genecide ?

[@joek600]

Yeah... Also Troy was destroyed because Paris gave the golden apple to Aphrodite instead of Athena or Hera.....

[@aidanmacdougall9250]

Palestinians are not giants! 😒

[@riffhurricane]

I'm not sure I'd call it controversial (though perhaps that's a controversial opinion). Whether true or not its literally spelled out (in one of the most read books of the last two millenia) for anyone to read that cares to. I also have to disagree with your equivocation on whether to call it genocide. A quick Wiktionary definition: "The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, social status, or other particularities." - Killing every man, woman & child in every settlement conquered (as was often the case) seems to fall squarely within that definition to me. Sometimes a thing is objectively what it is. This isn't to say that I'd call them 'evil' - I don't judge them in that way at all. I believe every one of us has the capacity to plumb both the heights & depths of 'human nature' (for want of a better phrase), and our forebears lived in some very extreme circumstances. Anyway, food for thought as always. Seasons greetings & best wishes for the year ahead!

[@aGoyforJesus]

This is the biblical record. God orders the destruction of the people of Canaan because they were wicked while at the same time telling the Israelites that they weren’t chosen because they are good and if they fall into the same wickedness they’ll likewise be judged. Go read Deuteronomy 9. There isn’t a long running campaign to destroy a bunch of other nations nor is there some longstanding order. And Israel is destroyed by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians. Three things on this. We as a nation deserve worse. Repent and trust on Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Second, Israel needed to be protected to preserve the coming Messiah. Third, without God and specifically the God communicated by Scripture your conceptions of right & wrong are arbitrary so you’re caring about genocide or whatever you perceive it to be is arbitrary. What you should be concerned with is that you most likely deserve worse.

[@felixgraphx]

Usually very nice videos but this is 7 minutes finding all possible ways of saying : "It was genocide, but every city/nation/state did it in antiquity". Could have taken that time to explain how their religious texts were written by their shamanic/priest class, and it helped them to control the populations, and that when they lost battles their priests would say "Its because you're sinners", and after victories the priests would say their god loves them and they are the chosen people who will inherit the land. And that their priestly class demonized their enemies by claiming they sacrificed babies and other clichés. A good opportunity missed to explain how religion in general "poisons" everything throughout history, and that atheism is something relatively new as there were no clear separation between myths and reality in antiquity. Edit: typos

[@grapeshot]

Well a lot of people consider the Bible to be this great series of books. That even modern-day societies feel they have to emulate. I feel religion is one of the worst things that could've happen to humans because all it has done is foster the whole us versus mentality. And this is especially true of the abrahamic tribal war god religions.

[@shanosantwanos3908]

Very good..I feel belief should not get in the way of searching for truth..and being aware of subverted religions..societal paths..false flags etc etc is vital.

[@geoffrobinson]

The only problem is people always ignore how the texts don’t help the leadership control their populations.

[@andybeans5790]

I suspect Dr Maeir would consider those conclusions to be stepping outside his area of expertise.

[@felixgraphx]

@@andybeans5790 Are you being sarcastic? If you look at his wikipedia page entry he's well versed in bronze age antiquity.

[@larkturner7136]

Bronze Age peoples were brutal but at least they were honest about who they were and what they did.....unlike today

[@grapeshot]

Them being honest doesn't make it right. And it certainly doesn't make them honorable.

[@larkturner7136]

@@grapeshot But it makes them honest, something in very short supply today.

[@grapeshot]

@@larkturner7136 being honest about doing a cruel deed doesn't give you any points in my book. And quite to the contrary many governments and regimes are quite honest about the genocide they participated in.

[@matthewct8167]

We should consider the context behind their actions and not judge them like ISIS, but we shouldn’t follow them as paragons of virtue.

[@junebyrne4491]

Let the guest say something.

[@natanaeloliveira366]

We have to look the bible with the eyes in the period In which it was written. When is said that they killed all man, woman and child, they are only saying they totally won the battle, that they were extremely successful. It's like some kings saying that they were the king of the universe, which is just propaganda. Some nations said to be decimated appears again later, if all of them were killed, why this happens? Just propaganda, that practice was very common and widespread in ancient texts written by the winners.

[@joshsilva6450]

hahaha... oh, great interpreter of the scriptures!

[@sakka9432]

Some of what the professor said was accurate but certainly slanted towards his own worldview. He really missed the point of many of the stories in the Bible, they are mythology. And mythology does not mean legends or made up tails, there’s a kernel of truth in the mythology that is supposed to last throughout time even into our current culture. So why imply that our present level of misperceptions based in scholarly intelligence could not understand the myth of war and violence? Just read the story of Cain and Abel. Does that story still have relevance today for us? A child could understand!

[@현우-h6p]

Im sorry to sound offensive, but theres a lot of over explaining about petty things. For example “Im picky and very cautious to use the word genocide and heres why” bla bla bla for hours…(sorry but news flash, nobody gives af about those things in todays ADHD fueled world we live in now) execute and deliver with more conviction getting to the point. So first off 1) Trim the fat and condense this sucker down to a 30 second T-Tok. It would be way more effective to the audience’s memory and eduction actually retaining something and 2) you will captivate the audience and prevent them from seein a video that says 10 min which will lead to 80% of people skipping or clicking next video.

[@Street.Hermit]

Azazel has for the whole world.

[@williambateman6564]

Don’t talk with your hands

[@tonyjemz777]

The first ancient massacres were in Africa ✊🏿🌍!!

[@grapeshot]

Well that's where Humanity originated from.😏

[@shanosantwanos3908]

@@grapeshot no..that is a debunked political paradigm by certain groups of people.dna proves this.

[@grapeshot]

@@shanosantwanos3908 no it's not all the evidence I see they still say Humanity came out of Africa now I know for a lot of white supremacist that's a butthurt issue for them but I don't care.

[@grapeshot]

@@shanosantwanos3908 www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16018

[@tonyjemz777]

@@grapeshot what does it have to do with white supremacy? It's becoming evident the out of Africa hypothesis is flawed. Racial politics has spoiled everything it touches.

[@ryantruesdell4846]

Every religion is simply their interpretation of the constellations and stars.

[@omar90s91]

Saturn the black cube

[@skodalaskoda8754]

are any experts not jewish?

[@seekerchanel333]

The Phoenician Canaanite black peoples They called themselves the free peoples the friends of the gods Was genocide By nomad Shepard kings So called Assyrian And the nomad tried like Bini Yamina = Judea Kingdom