What are we to make of the command…

Deuteronomy 7:1f ‘When the LORD your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you—Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you—and he delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy!’

…and its fulfilment?

Joshua 10:40 ‘Joshua defeated the whole land, including the hill country, the Negev, the lowlands, the slopes, and all their kings. He left no survivors. He annihilated everything that breathed, just as the LORD God of Israel had commanded.’

In chapters 4-7 of ‘The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide and Biblical Interpretation‘, Charlie Trimm sets out four main approaches to understanding the violence of the Old Testament, particularly as it relates to the record, in the book of Joshua, of the destruction of the Canaanites.

What follows is a summary these chapters, supplemented by other sources.

1. The God of the Old Testament is not good.

Celsus (2nd century CE): Moses was commanded to slaughter an entire race, whereas Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek.

Richard Dawkins: ‘The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.’

But to adopt this view is to jettison religion – or, at least, the Christian religion – in its entirety.

2. The violent texts of the Old Testament represent an earlier understanding of God, which we now see be mistaken.  Other OT texts may be accepted as inspired and authoritative for us today.

(a) Historicity denied

Kenton Sparks: the events recorded in Joshua never happened, but were written up later to buttress the political position of Josiah.

Rüdiger Schmitt: most of the warfare material in the OT dates from the exilic and post-exilic times.  They have little to do with actual warfare, but serve as metaphors for keeping the law.

Yair Hoffman: the herem law were created in the postexilic period in order to argue that the Jews should accept foreigners.

There is, of course, a very significant ethical problem in supposing that violent texts were invented in order to promote ethical behaviour on the part of the Jews.

(b) Ethically unacceptable

Randal Rauser: these accounts tell of genocide; and we know that genocide is wrong.

John Collins: our innate ethical sense leads us to reject the extreme violence of the OT.

Thomas Römer: even later OT writings tones down the violence of the warfare texts.

Carolyn Pressler (Women’s Bible Commentary) judges that this passage, and others like it, reveals ‘the violently chauvinistic possibilities inherent in claiming the sole sovereignty of one’s own God vis-à-vis other religions.’

A.C. Emery (DOT:P, art. ‘Herem’):

‘Despite P. D. Stern’s arguments to the contrary, within Deuteronomy ḥērem was at the least a form of genocide, though it may have called only for the eradication of the inhabitants of a city and not an entire people. His argument that intermarriage and covenant making were forbidden in the same context as the ḥērem (as in Deut 7:3–4) does not necessarily carry with it the assumption that there would be survivors to marry or covenant with. It is equally possible that these instructions for ḥērem merely countered the less radical solution of absorbing the inhabitants into the Israelite community.’

This approach effectively disregards the divine inspiration of significant parts of the OT (and NT).

(c) God’s intention misunderstood

Walter Brueggeman: Israel was meant to trust God, and not rely on its own army.  But they went beyond God’s intentions.

Thom Stark: God never commanded the Israelites to slay entire peoples.  These accounts are the result of culture, not divine revelation.

But Scripture does not record any rebuke from God against this supposed misunderstanding on the part of the Israelites.  To the contrary, the conquest is represented as an important part of God’s plan..

(d) Christ is the key

Eric Seibert: God’s character and will are most completely revealed in Jesus, who reveals a God who is nonviolent and kind to his enemies.

Derek Flood: Jesus replaces the retributive justice of the OT with restorative justice.

Richard Hays: the cross and resurrection change everything: the NT trumps the OT.

Greg Boyd: God’s original plan was for nonviolent conquest.

In its extreme privileging of the NT over the OT, this approach approaches the heresy of Marcionism.  Moreover, it side-steps the acceptance, in the NT of the OT stories of Sodom and the conquest of Canaan (Acts 7:45; 13:19).  Moreover, it is impossible to draw a neat line between the supposed vengueful God of the OT and the loving God of the NT (see Ex 34:6).  The NT contains references to the wrath of God.  See also the accounts of Elymas, Acts 13:11; of the deaths of Ananias, Sapphira, and Herod (Acts 5:1–11; 12:20–23).  Consider also Jesus’ action in cleansing of the temple, John 2:14–17 and the condemnations of Mt 23.  The entire book of Revelation is rather violent, as is the teaching of the NT on final judgement.

In summary, these approaches to re-evaluating the OT have the benefit of dissociating God from biblical violence.  But they come at the cost of being able to trust the reliability of Scripture.

3. The texts are not so violent as they appear

Paul Copan: these accounts should not be considered as genocide.  They are more to do with expulsion that with extermination.

(a) Spiritualisation

John Cassian: the seven nations to be destroyed by the Isrealites are the seven vices Christians are to defeat within themselves.

Augustine: we should break the idols in pagans hearts, not in their homes.

But this approach side-steps the actual problem of dead Canaanites.

(b) Metaphor

R. W. L. Moberly: whatever the ‘literal’ interpretation might mean, and whether or not it was ever actually implemented, herem is a metaphor for religious fidelity.

Douglas Earl: herem was never actually practiced.  It was a metaphor for radical separation.

Carolyn Pressler: these texts

‘cannot be intended literally; when they are composed in the late seventh century BCE, there are no Canaanites. The martial tone of Deuteronomy would support King Josiah’s military resistance. Especially after the Babylonian conquest, when Judah is a small, unarmed colony, the command to destroy the indigenous peoples would help Judahites resist assimilation to the dominant and presumably attractively cosmopolitan culture of their overlords.’

Christenson (WBC) acknowedges that this language seems intolerably fanatical.  He urges us to read it poetically, as belonging to the sphere of “Holy War as celebrated event”.  It is meant to express what holiness means in relation to God.

The problem with these approaches is that the text is rooted in history, and describes the killing of many people.  In response, it might be suggested that Yahweh intended these commands as metaphor but Israel took them literally.

A common interpretion is that the disputed word carries the sense of ‘devoting’ things to God.  For Wright, a better explanation would be that it is ‘an absolute and irrevocable renouncing of things or persons, a refusal to take any gain or profit from them.’

Thus, things or persons could be completely renounced without being necessarily being destroyed.  Hence the commands prohibiting treaties or intermarriage with the inhabitants of the land.

If everyone was to be utterly destroyed, then the prohibitions of v3 would make no sense.

To put it bluntly:

‘Covenants are not made with people who are already dead, nor are marriages entered into with corpses.’ (Strawn, Lies My Preacher Told Me).

Walton & Walton: harem means destroying identity, rather than destroying lives.  It means ridding the land of idolatry, and establishing the religion of the one true God.  Killing Canaanites happened, but it was rare.

Walton (Lost World) adopts a similar view.  He insists:

‘Ḥerem does not mean “destroy”; it means “remove from use.”’

In other words, it is focussed on the destruction of identity, not on the destruction of people.  Walton notes that in v5, it is the perphernalia of idolatry that is to be destroyed.  He notes, as others have done, that the prohibitions of v3 would be redundant if there were no survivors.

Thompson (TOTC) regards this teaching to mean that the spoils of war (sometimes including women and children) should be given of to the Lord and destroyed.

(c) Hyperbole

K. Lawson Younger Jr: the destruction itself was not as extensive as the language at first sight suggests.  Indeed, the language reflects the martial accounts then current in the ANE.

See Josh 10:10 for a clear example of hyperbole.

But appeal to hyperbole does not solve the ethical problem.  Nor does it solve the historical problem: if Canaanite civilians were not destroyed, what actually happened?

(d) Military only

Richard Hess: the killing in the book of Joshua was limited to military personnel, and did not include civilians.

But this view, with reference to Jericho and Ai, requires the piling up of interpretations that, while all possible, begins to stretch credulity.

(e) Banishment

The Canaanites were not killed, but forced to leave the land.

But the motif of banishment appears less often in Joshua than that of destruction.  And, in any case, the banishment of an entire nation still presents a serious ethical problem.  Today, we would call it ‘ethnic cleansing’.

All of the approaches under this heading are open to the accusation of manipulating the biblical text in some while, while perhaps reducing (but not removing) the ethical objections to it.

4. God was justified in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites

Eugene Merrill: the issue is not whether we regard the destruction as immoral, but whether God commanded it.

(a) Mystery, sovereignty

Who are we to question the sovereign God?

We should read these texts in the light of the entire canon, acknowledging both the severity and the mercy of God.

Stephen Williams: God acted with a heavy heart, grieved at what had to be done.

While it is inevitable that we must, at some level, appeal to divine sovereignty, this approach may inhibit further thought and reflection.

(b) The Canaanites were excessively wicked

Their punishment was therefore deserved.  See Gen 15:16; Lev 18:25; Deut 9:4–5; 2 Chron 28:3.  Also Heb 11:31.

Kaiser (HSB) approaches texts such as the present one unflinchingly:

‘Attempts to tone down the command or to mitigate its stark reality fail from the start. God’s instructions are too clear, and too many texts speak of consigning whole populations to destruction: Exodus 23:32–33; 34:11–16; and Deuteronomy 7:1–5; 20:16–18.’

The underlying concept in this text, and others like it, is that of ḥerem.  Kaiser understands this to mean ‘that which is dedicated to destruction’.  It was applied to those people groups who steadfastly and cotinuously opposed God’s work and God’s people, including those of southern Canaan (Num 21:2–3), Jericho (Josh 6:21), Ai (Josh 8:26), Makedah (Josh 10:28) and Hazor (Josh 11:11).

These nations were destroyed in order to prevent the corruption of Israel and other nations, Deut 20:16-18.  They had been involved with child sacrifice, sodomy, bestiality, and other terrible vices, Lev 18:21; 18:25, 27–30.

The death of innocent people, including women and children, is, at worst, unfortunate collateral damage =, and at best, protection another depraved generation being raised up.

However, the book of Joshua does not refer at all to the wickedness of the Canaanites.  We need to assume that the Canaanites were more wicked than other nations.  Even if they were very depraved, their destruction as a people would be an unjust punishment.

Walton and Walton: God’s judgement cannot be linked to the wickedness of the Canaanites, because that nation was not in covenant with God.  The language of crime and punishment is not used in the biblical texts.

(c) The land of Canaan was unique

The Canaanites were targeted because they occupies the land that had been promised to the Israelites.  They were free to stay if they renounced their religion.

L. Daniel Hawk: text about judging Canaanite sin are found in the context of the promise of the land.

Eleonore Stump: the destruction of the Amalekites shows what would not work in dealing with Israel’s sin.

(d) God judges sin regardless of ethnicity

God is more gracious towards the Canaanites than at first appears.  Their judgement, announced in Gen 15:16, is many centuries coming.  There is evidence of messengers of peace prior to military action (Deut 2:24–26), and of God’s intention to redeem the Canaanites (Zech 9:7).

It is possible that many Canaanites decided to join the Israelites.

God also judges the Israelites when they sin.

The problem with this view is that it seems to make the problem of violence worse, and not better.  It is no great comfort to say that the God who attacks foregn nations also attacks his own people.

Moroever, there is thin evidence that the Israelites engaged in missionary activity with the Canaanites before they destroyed them.

(e) Redemptive trajectory

William Webb and Gordon Oeste: the OT war narratives do not represent God’s ‘best’, but are rather an accommodation to what was possible at that time and under those circumstances.  The ‘war bride law’ (Deut 21:10-14) is not ideal, but is an improvement on practices in the ANE.

Note the prohibition against killing prisoners, 2 Kings 6, and the Lord’s refusal to allow David to build the temple, because he had blood on his hands, 1 Chron 22:6–10; 28:3.  This upwards trajectory climaxes with Jesus, who rejects all violence, and transforms the war traditions of the OT.

(f) Parallel with the flood and exodus

L. Daniel Hawk: both the flood and the exodus represent a virtual new creation, in which deliverance comes out of chaos.

But the parallels between the flood and the destruction of the Canaanites are imperfect, and, in any case, ethical objectons can be raised against both.

(g) Parallel with final judgement

Meredith Kline: the destruction of the Canaanites as a foreshadowing of eschatological judgement, disturbing the normal actions of common grace.

Phillip Cary: we ourselves deserve the same fate as the Canaanites.

Arie Versluis: the Canaanites become a symbol of evil elsewhere in the OT, lending an eschatological flavour to these accounts.

In the NT, the land of Canaan becomes a symbol of heaven, Heb 3–4; Rev 21–22.  Although the NT does not connect the destruction of the Canaanites with judgement, it does so with Sodom, 2 Pet 2:6.

Such a reading does require us to read the Bible as a whole.  Reading the OT on its own would not permit this view.

(h) The death of children

This is the most obviously troubling aspect.

Some, appealing to hyperbole, deny that any children were killed.

Others attempt to mitigate the problem by appealing to age of accountability, and suggesting that these children went straight to heaven.  But the available biblical data offers little direct support for this.  Moroever, if it is inethical for parents today to kill their children in order that they might go directly to heaven, why would it be ethically acceptable in OT times?

Still others appeal to the idea of corporate solidarity: ancient thinking dealt less with the individual, more with the community.  If the Canaanites as a whole were wicked, then their punishment extended to the entire nation.

In summary, this fourth view seeks to take seriously the biblical data, but ends up associating the God of the OT with violence.  Many would call this violence ‘genocide’, and would be deeply concerned that it might be (and, indeed, has been) used to justify genocide today.

Comment

I found this to be an even-handed and useful summary of the possible ways of understanding these difficult texts.

I was a bit disappointed that Charlie Trimm felt unable to nail his own colours to the mast by indicating his own preferred interpretation.