The Bible contains error.

Now I will present my argument against the inerrancy of the Bible.The argument goes as follows:1) God exists and is morally perfect.2) So God would not command one nation to exterminate the people of another unless He had morally sufficient reasons for doing so.3) According to various OT texts, God sometimes commanded the Israelites to exterminate the people of other nations. 4) God did not have a morally sufficient reason for issuing these alleged commands.5) So everything every book of the OT says about God is not true. [1, modifications mine]1)Has been granted in this debate.2) Seems to follow from the very notion of a perfectly good being. Obviously, a perfectly good being would have to have MSRs (morally sufficient reasons) to command what looks like - on the face of it at least - horrible moral atrocities.3)Is obvious to anyone who's read the Bible. But let's refresh our memories: "1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you" 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. " [Deut 7:1-2]In case the message isn't clear:"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. 17 Completely destroy[a] "the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites"as the LORD your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God. " [Deut 20:16-18]Of course, there are other instances as well. [Josh 6:21, 1 Sam 27:8-9] 4) This is the crux of the argument. What can be said for it? The most obvious answer would seem to be since commanding genocide is incompatible with the nature of God he did not have morally sufficient reasons because he simply didn't command it. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer to at least some people (mainly inerrantists).I can't answer every single MSR that a defender of inerrancy will likely offer (which I think are all grossly inadequate) so instead of trying to pre-empt Con I will just offer positive reasons for thinking that God would not - even could not - command genocide. I draw a lot of inspiration from Randal Rauser [2] and (again) Wes Morriston [3] here. The first reason would be:I think any normal, adult can just see that genocide is always wrong. Given that we think that God is a) perfectly loving and b) perfectly good it's hard to see how he could ever order genocide on some of his loved ones. For even if some members of that community deserve death it hardly follows that one should kill (or attempt to kill) all members of that community. And this becomes even more problematic when we think of why children would have to be murdered. They are not yet at the "age of accountability" whatever that is and it's rightly considered morally repugnant to systematically murder children who had no part in the sins of their elders. Is anyone in doubt that when the Hutus, for instance, deliberately targeted Tutsi and "sympathizer" Hutu children for extermination that is about one of the most evil things you can imagine? The second reason would be:Even granting how bad it is for the victims of the genocide the problem gets worse. Even if it is somehow okay to try to exterminate whole groups of people it'd be even more distressing to command other humans to do the deed as God allegedly did. Is it in doubt that war is horrible and it does horrible things to the people who do the killing as well? Not only can it horribly damage the psyche (I'm sure we're all aware of tragic stories about military veterans with severe cases of PTSD) and traumatize them for life but it can also transform a normal person into a person who can and will do horribly evil things in war. Imagine the the damage it would do to someone's moral character to have to, under supposed divine sanction no less, kill men, women, and children indiscriminately. It seems that a God who is perfectly good would not order something that is so results in so much manifest evil.The third reason would be a so called prudential reason:If we accept the typical reasons for accepting the genocide texts as inerrant what exactly would prevent someone from having good reasons to distinguish false divine commands from true ones? Imagine I said that I heard God and he told me that killing all scientologists would be an excellent idea. What if I wrote this command down? Would that change the fact that I just either a) went off the deep end or b) attempting to justify my deep hatred for scientologists? Why would Christians reject my claim to a divine command? I maintain the reason would be a moral one. Other Christians would rightly recognize that such an evil claim is incompatible with the nature of a perfectly good God and take it to mean that I did not receive a true divine command to exterminate the scientologists. Of course, if one does not accept that these genocide texts are being erroneously attributed to God then what reason has another Christian to reject my "divine" command?5)The conclusion follows from the premises.I agree with William Lane Craig (himself no sympathizer with biblical errancy and quite a staunch defender of biblical inerrantism) when he says,"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." [4] I propose it's time to take Craig's suggestion seriously. Note that I am not merely claiming that we fail to see how commanding genocide (a great moral evil - perhaps one of the greatest) is compatible with the nature of a God who is perfectly good I am claiming that we see how commanding genocide can't be compatible with the nature of a God of who is perfectly good. Given that God's existence has been granted in this debate the proper conclusion to draw would be that God did not command genocide contrary to what the text says and that, in this case at least, the Bible contains very serious error. In short, why shouldn't a Christian not answer this challenge to inerrancy as C.S Lewis did? "Yes. On my view one must apply something of the same sort of explanation to, say, the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua. I see the grave danger we run by doing so; but the dangers of believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him 'good' and worshiping Him, is still greater danger. The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible. To this some will reply 'ah, but we are fallen and don't recognize good when we see it.' But God Himself does not say that we are as fallen at all that. He constantly, in Scripture, appeals to our conscience: 'Why do ye not of yourselves judge what is right?' -- 'What fault hath my people found in me?'" [5]Sources[1] http://www.colorado.edu...[2] http://randalrauser.com...[3] http://spot.colorado.edu...[4] http://www.reasonablefaith.org...[5] http://www.davidbergan.com...