Although there are some who believe they possess the single authentic viewpoint!
I do want to acknowledge the importance of your statement here Malthus as I think it is a point that would help others understand a key part of Jewish culture in the modern world. It can be illustrated even to the basic level of the role of creed in religion and the fact that Judaism is without a creed (unless one defines the Shema as a creed - which is a stretch I think).
But this a long way evolved from the worldview of the early Hebrews and, to bring this thread back around to the op, (remember that thing?) one does have to ask both what function that myth of a violent military conquest of the Canaan served to the early Hebrews, and how that functionality changed over the years - that is, what functions does that myth serve to Jews today, and to non-Jews as well?
what’s to feel about? if you’re being bothered by it, you’re pretty ethnocentric.
Jewish people weren’t the first to engage in warfare based on divine right and aren’t the last (thought they certainly keeping that flame alive aren’t they?)
The military exploits aren’t as overrated as some think. There is archaeological evidence corroborating most of the bible’s claims of post-egyptian conquest - that Moses picked up a lot of nomads in his 40 years and then swept through Judea and Israel (did not tear down Jericho however) with swift military success. I got most of this off a PBS documentary but i’m sure there are cites online somewhere.
The fact is, in reply to the OP - I don’t think modern Jews should be too stressed over it - at least not anymore than any other group of descendants whose ancestors committed atrocities in the name of God. Conquistatdors, Inquisitionists, Crusaders, basically Roman Catholics in general, etc.
There is no archaeological evidence for any of this. Not only is there no evidence for an Israelite conquest of Canaan, there is no evidence for Moses, or the Exodus, or Israelite enslavement in Egypt either. The archaeological evidence we do have actually contradicts all that stuff.
I really have to disagree here. I don’t think the Book of Job reinforced a notion of an unknowable deity, but actually did the opposite. This is especially so if you compare it to the “Ludlul bel nemeqi”, which seems to be the work that Job is derived from.
The Book of Job, serves puts an knowable explanation to why Job suffers, “God is testing my faith”. The Ludlul Bel Nemeqi, the conclusion is very different, being that the Gods are angry at something, but there is nothing he can do because the will of the gods is unknowable. The version of the story told in the Book of Job instead makes Yahweh - or rather “Shaddai” in this book - much less mysterious. It doesn’t say that “God works in mysterious ways”, it basically says “God is messing with you to test your loyalty”
I would disagree. That’s the set-up with Satan as the devil’s advocate all right - but it isn’t the answer God allegedly gives - which is more along the lines on ‘I made everything and you just can’t understand why I do what I do’.
As is so often with Biblical texts, it is self-contraditory. ‘God is making a bet with Satan’ is the framing plot, but the text contraducts the plot - and in the end, God gives it all back to Job, apparently supporting the message (which he rejected when it was given by Job’s comforters) that God is just and bad things only happen to bad people - or does it? After all Job’s family stays dead.
