> This does not necessarily mean direct punishment, but rather the natural repercussions and influence of one generation's behavior on the next.
This is a rationalization. If you try to interpret it honestly you can find dozen different places where god punish random people for sins of their relatives (for example "unoborn kids" in cities genocided by Old Testament Israelites either through regular war crimes or direct God's magical intervention).
And then there's the fragment that says that God will not punish a city if there's even one honest man there.
The only way to make it consistent is to ignore contradictions. And I'd say it would be easier to ignore the few ones that are against collective responsibilty (because there's far fewer of them).
> This is a rationalization. If you try to interpret it honestly
You are proceeding to not try to interpret it honestly; and thinking you are a genius for pointing out a supposed contradiction, because this hasn't been studied and researched for over 3,000 years at this point.
> for example "unoborn kids" in cities genocided by Old Testament Israelites either through regular war crimes or direct God's magical intervention
You seem to forget that Egypt, the land where they came from, was literally putting them to genocide first by ordering them to kill all male children; and any country they relocated to, would also have happily committed genocide against them if possible.
We also know from both the Bible and remaining physical evidence that the exterminated tribes were practicing horrific activities of their own. The Canaanites, for example, practiced child sacrifice to Molek, and (though not in the Bible, but from remaining historical evidence) even practiced ritual cannibalism. A command to exterminate them therefore should not be interpreted as intrinsically immoral or undeserved.
Yeah, no; you found something the church called a sin that you could not, or did not, want to overcome.
> Genociding Phillites' kids because some adult Egyptians were killing Jews is evil.
If evil is only an opinion of mind, who is to say? Russians call Ukrainians evil; Ukrainians call Russia evil; both kill the other. In your opinion, it was evil; but if you were forced between accepting a genocide against yourself on one hand, or fleeing and causing a genocide to survive, you may have different opinions.
This is a rationalization. If you try to interpret it honestly you can find dozen different places where god punish random people for sins of their relatives (for example "unoborn kids" in cities genocided by Old Testament Israelites either through regular war crimes or direct God's magical intervention).
And then there's the fragment that says that God will not punish a city if there's even one honest man there.
The only way to make it consistent is to ignore contradictions. And I'd say it would be easier to ignore the few ones that are against collective responsibilty (because there's far fewer of them).