40,000 Amalekites

The experience of Barry Taylor, former rock musician and now pastor, suggests a reason. He told me, “In the early 1970s my best friend became a Jesus freak. I thought he was crazy, so I started searching the Bible in order to find arguments to refute him.

For the life of me, I could not figure out why God was concerned with the bent wing of a dove, or why he would give an order to kill, say, 40,000 Amalekites. And who were the Amalekites anyway?…