The Bible contains error.

I thank Rensacor for his argument. Con says that if I identify a "most obvious" answer that must mean there are less obvious answers. I agree. There are less obvious answers to this problem. I also think they are all bad. Alas, I also do not think Con has successfully identified MSR (morally sufficient reasons) as to why God would order genocide. Before I get to that I'd first like to say that Con has not dealt with my positive arguments at all for proposition that God would not order genocide. Now, Con presents two potential MSR for God commanding genocide:(1) Divine Punishment(2) Corruption PreventionI have Thom Stark to thank for his strong arguments against potential MSR for justifying the alleged genocidal commands. [1](1) Divine Punishment(1) fails as an MSR. (Side note: I strongly urge readers to take a look at all the verses I mention in order to confirm what I'm saying is true. I don't have the space to quote them in their length.) "In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." (Gen 15:16) Here God is talking about the promised land and how the Israelites will receive it once their sin has reached it's capacity, so to speak. So...if God knew that the sin of the Canaanites would reach a level at which the only action to take is order genocide, why, exactly did he not do something about it before they reached that level? No one can say there is any biblical precedent for allowing great sinners chances to repent before drastic measures are taken; the examples are replete. God tells Jonah "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." (Jonah 1:2) He was planning to destroy the city if they did not repent. The sin was so bad that children thee couldn't tell "their right and from their left hand". (Jonah 4:11) If anyone knows the ending of the story we know that all of Nineveh's inhabitants ended up repenting of their sins due to Jonah's preaching. Why, then, exactly, could God not have sent a prophet to the Canaanites before their sins reach the pinnacle and thus avoiding commanding genocide?! Another problem is that this,again, brings up the problem of children being sentenced to die for the sins of their elders. This is very clearly morally wrong. Bringing in the concept of "original sin"[2] doesn't help at all either. Because if the children were already depraved enough to deserve death the moment they entered the world then, why, exactly, did God have to wait for the Canaanites' sins to reach "full measure" (Gen 15:16)?Yet another problem presents itself: take a look at Deut 20:10-18. "When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.... 16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes..." God makes a clear distinction between how those Canaanites who are in Israel's land are to be treated as opposed to those who are not on Israel's land. If imposing this genocide on the Canaanites is really a form of divine punishment it seems mighty convenient that the Canaanites on Israel's' land are just wicked enough to endorse killing en masse yet the ones outside of the promised land are suitable to be taken as the spoils of war. (1) is hardly a good MSR. (2) Corruption PreventionBy "Because God wanted His people to not fall to those evil sinners" I assume Con means that God did not want his people to be influenced or corrupted by the Canaanites who undoubtedly did some pretty bad things. For instance, child sacrifice and idolatry. Of course, one has to question the train of thought that leads one to the following conversation: "Child sacrifice is morally abhorrent. As a matter of fact, we are going to show you how abhorrent it is by murdering your children which is, btw, God approved," says the Israelite to the Canaanite. In Deut 7:1-6 God says, "...3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,..." Of course, one still wonders how genocide is the best option here. Even if the Israelites killed the parents why, exactly, could they not take in the orphaned children and bring them up in a culture where God worship is prevalent? Would that not be a much better option?A more serious problem is this: if concern about corruption was really the motivation for God ordering genocide how does Con explain Num 31:7-18? "...17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. " Basically these women were being saved either to be made wives or concubines. Wait, what happened to the command by God for the Israelites not to intermarry with the Canaanites? The Midianites, would have, just like the other Canaanites been practicing idol worship/other god worshipping/sexual immorality (Num 25:1-9) and child sacrifice. The case against Con's proposed MSR of "corruption prevention" gets even worse when you look at Num 31:25-32: "25 The LORD said to Moses, 26 "You and Eleazar the priest and the family heads of the community are to count all the people and animals that were captured. 27 Divide the spoils equally between the soldiers who took part in the battle and the rest of the community...." Here the women that were captured and kept were given to the soldiers as wives/concubines. Again, what happened to the claim that Israelites shouldn't intermarry because of the Canaanites would influence the Israelites in their sinful practices? Another problem is similar to the one with divine punishment again we run into a very, very convenient rationale. Take a look again at the portion of Deut 20:10-18 that I quoted earlier. Again, God says that it's okay for the Israelites to intermarry with at least some Canaanite women. These Canaanite women happen to be outside of Israel's promised land. Are we supposed to believe that the Canaanites inside of Israel's land were all evil sinners that couldn't be comingled with but the ones just outside the border weren't? They all had similar cultural practices. Again, this looks like a rather flimsy justification for genocide.Both proposed MSR (1) and (2) fail. They are not even close to morally sufficient. They do not come even close to justifying genocide (due to the flimsy moral justification and, at times, even contradictory biblical reasons given for them) and so I maintain that premise (4) in my argument still stands. Remember it was: "God did not have a morally sufficient reason for issuing these alleged commands." And, clearly, if a Just God (as con grants that God is Just) doesn't have MSR to do x he won't do x. Indeed, we still have good reason to affirm what Craig said, "If we Christians can't find a good answer to the question before us and are, moreover, persuaded that such a command is inconsistent with God's nature, then we'll have to give up biblical inerrancy." My opponent asks that I present a (different) argument concerning biblical inerrancy because he feels that this has argument has more to do with the nature of God. But, my argument is very clearly relevant to the question of biblical inerrancy. If the Bible says something that is not true of God (i.e. that he ordered genocide) then, clearly, there is error contained within the Bible.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[1] Stark, Thom. "The human faces of God: what scripture reveals when it gets God wrong (and why inerrancy tries to hide it)" pgs 100-109[2] http://en.wikipedia.org...