The Bible underneath it
The God Who Gave the Orders
Both traditions teach Jehovah is Jesus. Then read what Jehovah commanded.
The point in one sentence
Believers keep stern Old Testament God and gentle Jesus in separate mental rooms, but both traditions teach they are the same person.
Step one: close the escape hatch first
Do this before quoting a single atrocity. If you lead with the violence they will reach for "that was the Father."
For a Latter-day Saint, this is airtight
- The 1916 First Presidency doctrinal exposition: "Jehovah, who is Jesus Christ the Son of Elohim." Read it on the Church's site
- The Church's own manual on Old Testament violence identifies Jesus Christ as "the Great Jehovah of the Old Testament" while explaining the flood and the conquest. The manual
- Russell M. Nelson, General Conference, 2005: "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Creator, the great Jehovah." Full talk
For a mainstream Christian
The Trinity means one being acting with one will. And the New Testament places Christ in the Old Testament directly: John 8:58, 1 Corinthians 10:4 ("that rock was Christ"), and the one almost nobody knows: Jude 1:5, whose NIV footnote reads "Some early manuscripts Jesus."
Step two: the catalog
- The firstborn of Egypt, including "the firstborn son of the female slave." Exodus 11:4-6
- And he hardened Pharaoh's heart first. "I have hardened his heart so that I may perform these signs." God removed Pharaoh's ability to relent, then killed Egypt's children for the refusal he caused. Exodus 9:12, 10:1
- The Amalekites: "men and women, children and infants." 1 Samuel 15:3
- Midian: kill the boys and the non virgin women, "but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Numbers 31:17-18
- Forty two boys mauled by bears for saying "Get out of here, baldy." 2 Kings 2:23-24
- The rape victim marries her rapist and he may never divorce her. Deuteronomy 22:28-29
- Beating a slave to death is unpunished if the slave survives a day or two, "since the slave is their property." Exodus 21:20-21
When they say
"That was the Father." For a Latter-day Saint, quote the 1916 statement. For a Trinitarian, quote the Jude 1:5 footnote. This is the objection their own theology forbids.
"The Canaanites were exceptionally wicked." Textually accurate, and grant it fully. Then note it does not touch the method. Even if every adult deserved judgment, the command specifies the infants and the livestock.
"It is ancient war rhetoric, hyperbole." A legitimate scholarly position with real evidence. Concede it. Then make the point that survives: hyperbole about scale shrinks the problem, it does not remove it.
Why this should make you question
Both traditions offer the identification as comfort. But continuity runs both directions. You cannot take the comfort of it and decline the discomfort. It is one claim, not two.