Bible stories; religious violence; "Show them no mercy" 1 "When
the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to
possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must
destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no
mercy." Deuteronomy 7:1-2, NIV. 1 "...do not leave alive
anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord
your God has commanded you..." Deuteronomy 20:16, NIV. 1
Overview of violence in the Hebrew Bible: Biblical scholar
Raymond Schwager: "... has found 600 passages of explicit
violence in the Hebrew Bible [a.k.a. Old Testament], 1000 verses
where God's own violent actions of punishment are described, 100
passages where God expressly commands others to kill people, and
several stories where God irrationally kills or tries to kill
for no apparent reason. Violence ... is easily the most often
mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible." 6 Of the many passages
in the Hebrew Scriptures that describe major loss of life, most
were conventional wars. Four of