Is the brutality of ISIS and God's Old Testament Holy War the same?
Illustration from the Morgan Bible of the Israelites being repulsed from Ai. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Most people, Christians and non-believers alike, are horrified by the atrocities of the (IS) Islamic State. But for some Christians the current violence also raises uncomfortable comparisons with the Old Testament . How does this "holy war" perpetrated in the name of Islam differ from what God told Israel to do under Joshua ? I'd like to point to three aspects of the biblical accounts that can help us. What does the Bible actually say? First, we need to make sure we don't misrepresent what the Bible actually says. Here are Moses' instructions in Deuteronomy 7:1-6: When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations - the Hittites , Girga Shites, Amorites, Canaanites , Penzzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you - and when the LORD your God has delivered them