debby:

You keep citing this "commandment" but fail to follow this through history. Even though the Torah does make a commandment, many of the injunctions were/are not able to be carried out.

In the case of the seven nations, when you read the account from Joshua to Chronicals, you will find that even Israel balked at the prospect of totally eradicating the nations from the Land. They did not do this.. I'm not making any moral judgement here.. I'm simply relaying history. Israel began making uneasy truces with the people there and even King David would subdue the Philistines, not necessarily by war (after all he was a refugee in the Philistia (modern day Gaza). The Assyrians and later the babylonians would decimate their numbers before ROME wiped them out.

As for Amalek, Saul was to take him out.. but he didn't. Although Samuel would kill King Agag, the Amalekite king had sired children adn they continue the line. In fact, Haman was a direct descendant of the Amalekites. And every enemy of the Jewish people has been "Amalek" either via lineage or via character.

My point is that many of the injunctions were not performed in the same way xians THINK they were or SHOULD be done. Again, the Oral Torah and the ENTIRE History should be reviewed. A "Text Only" analysis will only yeild either an incomplete account/erroneous account or WORSE, an expectation or bias of/against the G-d of the Torah and the people to whom it was given.


Context, context, context!!