In numbers 31 God orders the Isrealites to to attack the Midianites apparently because hes fed up with them.
Here are the points to consider.
1) All the adult males are killed to begin with.
2) The spare the women and children.
3) God gets mad because they spared the women and children and he causes a plague.
4) They kill all the females who have "known" an man by lying with him.
5) The kill the male childre.
6) Finally they keep the females who have not known a man by lying with him.
Here is a link to a site that discusses the problem in limited detale.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/abdiscr/abdiscr69.html
(If you have a link to a watchtower article that discusses the matter please post it.)
After reading that explaination of what happened do you:
a) Find it totally just and acceptable
- it will not afect your faith negatively.
- [insert what you wish here].
b) Need a better explaination
- feel unconfortable with it at first glance if I dont get a darn good explaniation for this it will seriously affect my faith.
c) [I] Find it totally unjustifiable and unacceptable
- [insert what you wish here].
d) Undecided
- Mabe the bible has a few problems but i'm not going to give up on it that easy.
Any comments on this would also be nice especially after a) and c).
Oh by the way I vote:
C [I] Find it totally unjustifiable and unacceptable - I dont think that there is a good enough anwser for this anywhere but that wont stop me from listening.
Edited to improve readibility.
Edited by - jerome on 11 January 2003 3:2:55