When the army of Israel had finished
slaughtering all the men
outside the city, they went back and finished off everyone left
inside.
So the entire population of Ai, twelve thousand in
all, was wiped out that day.
For Joshua kept his spear pointed toward Ai until the
last person was dead.
Only the cattle and the loot was not
destroyed,
for the armies of Israel kept these for themselves.
(The Lord had told Joshua that they
could.)
So Ai became a desolate mound of refuse,
as it still is today. (Joshua 8:24-28)
This biblical
violence is on a smaller scale—a mere
12,000—but
has the heartless sweep of annihilation,
that is, “everyone left inside” is killed, face
to face with a sword most likely, and this
“everyone” refers to the elderly, cripples,
ill, mothers, boys, girls, and infants. Here, the
enemy is the Intimate Enemy—to be obliterated,
no human presence left alive.
The massacre at Ai has an apocalyptic tone.
“Everyone” and everything—desolate mound
of refuse— is butchered and immolated. In this
passage Earthfolk hear an echo of the Poof!
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki vaporizations.
Yet, Earthfolk hold that neither
the Abrahamic nor the Scientism visions could
creatively produce the bomb. Why? One observation: the Abrahamic
tradition foresees the End Time as when their god,
not humans, act. He brings about
the End of Time. Among Abrahamics, unless God Himself directly
speaks to you—as “The Lord had told Joshua”—the
beast in the human heart must be tempered, and so over time the Abrahamics
developed the Just War theory.
Continue—Rituals
