I've been interested, lately, in reading some responses to the apparent problem of reconciling God's command to annihilate the Canaanites (men, women, children) and the enemy-love we see commanded by Christ. I don't claim to have read a TON on this subject yet (I expect to keep finding resources), but I have read the following sources:
1. John Wenham's book "The Goodness of God" has a good chapter on the subject
2. Christopher Wright's book "The God I Don't Understand" has 2 chapters devoted to it
3. Paul Copan's book "Is God a Moral Monster" has 3 chapters devoted to it
4. Daniel Block's commentary on Deuteronomy has a brief article on it
5. Richard Hess's commentary on Joshua has a brief article on it
6. Greg Boyd has 2 sermons, multiple video posts and blog posts about it
7. Norman Geisler's response to the question in Strobel's "The Case for Faith"
I have noted 20 different possible 'explanations'
1. The Canaanites had time to repent (it wasn't rash... they had 400+ years and plenty of warning)
2. The Canaanites were extremely sinful (they deserved it)
3. Annihilating them was necessary for salvation history (Israel needed to survive to produce the Messiah)
4. God can do whatever He wants (He alone has the right to take life... or delegate that right)
5. God wasn't playing favorites (He later judged Israel in a similar way... no 'ethnic cleansing' here)
6. It was the exception to the rule (only applied to promised land)
7. There was hyperbole involved (they were to literally kill everyone, it was exaggerated war rhetoric)
8. The Canaanites were allowed to flee, convert, or possibly make peace treaty/submit to forced labor
9. The war was primarily against false religion, not the Canaanite people
10. The Canaanites didn't necessarily all miss heaven... they were/will-be judged individually
11. We'd get mad at a God who did NOT judge evil
12. It's a mystery (we're limited and must be content not to resolve this issue)
13. The Old Testament God is a moral monster (marcionism)
14. The Israelites only THOUGHT God commanded it (He didn't)
15. It didn't actually happen in history (it was an allegory with spiritual lessons)
16. God stooped down to using fallen realities (War)... divine accommodation
17. They would have died eventually anyways (it's a matter of degree, not kind)
18. It's merciful (for the women and children) to cut off such a corrupt society
19. Jesus was wrathful too (there isn't a need to reconcile OT God with Jesus)
20. God's used it in progressive revelation to show them that violence doesn't ultimately work
Which combination of the above 'explanations' do you see as most effective? Do you wish for me to elaborate on any of them (I tried to keep them as succinct as possible)? Would you want to add something?
Annihilating the Canaanites
Annihilating the Canaanites
Last edited by mattrose on Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:59 am, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
Though I don't think it exhausts the explanations for Old Testament violence I'd like to see you dig into point 19 a bit (Christ is wrathful too, so not any different than the Old Testament God). In my reading and listening to Copan and Boyd I have never heard that point addressed in any depth. Boyd seems particularly unable to come to terms with the idea that Jesus' robe would be soaked in blood from walking on the corpses of his enemies on whom he has just executed vengeance (images from the Old and the New, including the conclusion of Revelation).
Doug
Doug
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
John Wenham and Norman Geisler are the only one of my sources that I feel addressed that point directly.dwilkins wrote:Though I don't think it exhausts the explanations for Old Testament violence I'd like to see you dig into point 19 a bit (Christ is wrathful too, so not any different than the Old Testament God). In my reading and listening to Copan and Boyd I have never heard that point addressed in any depth. Boyd seems particularly unable to come to terms with the idea that Jesus' robe would be soaked in blood from walking on the corpses of his enemies on whom he has just executed vengeance (images from the Old and the New, including the conclusion of Revelation).
Doug
Wenham raised the question: "Can we really square this teaching with that of Christ?"
His answer:
"Our Lord does not minimize the severity of God's judgment; he underlines it... There may be difficulty in squaring the teaching of Deuteronomy with that of some Jesus of modern invention. But as far as the Jesus of the Gospels is concerned, there is an inescapable and indeed a fearful consistency between them."
For my part, I certainly think Wenham's point needs to be considered. I am in the process of considering and don't feel I have much insight as of yet.
Last edited by mattrose on Wed Jun 19, 2013 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
As I organize the 20 'explanations' above... I see them fitting into categories like this (some #'s are repeated b/c I think there is a good way and a bad way to use that 'explanation')
BAD ANSWERS: 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18
CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS: 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18
STARTING POINTS: 3, 4, 11, 12, 16, 19, 20
.............
And now... re-organized into 3 categories (#'s no longer correspond)
BAD ANSWERS
1. It’s a mystery (don’t even bother thinking about it)
2. The Old Testament god was a different god
3. God never commanded it (Israel was wrong)
4. It never happened… it’s just an allegory
CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS
5. The Canaanites had time to repent
6. The Canaanite religions were the main target
7. The Canaanites were allowed to flee, convert, etc.
8. The Canaanites who remained were very sinful
9. The Canaanites will be judged as individuals
10. The Canaanite children would have become evil
11. The Canaanites wouldn’t have lasted forever
12. The policy of annihilation was exceptional
13. The policy of annihilation wasn’t favoritism
14. The language of annihilation utilized hyperbole
STARTING POINTS
15. This was a necessary part of salvation history
16. God (and God alone) has the right to take lives
17. We’d get mad at a God who never judged evil
18. God accommodated fallen humanity (warring)
19. Jesus was wrathful too (no need to reconcile)
20. God used it to show that violence doesn’t work
Collection of Quotations so far...
Quotes of Note
1
2
“As we struggle to understand this problem, let’s at least agree that it will never be helpful to set the New Testament antagonistically against the Old. Admittedly, we must take into account the historical dimension of God’s self-revelation.” (C. Wright)
3
“If the conquest of Canaan had actually been such a massive and mistaken misinterpretation of God’s will, we should surely read some corrective word later in the Scriptures—if not within the Old Testament itself, then at least within the New. But we find none.” (C. Wright)
4
“The passage purports to be literal; to take it in any other way is to throw oneself into a bottomless pit of subjectivism.” (J. Wenham)
“Their [the passages in question] primary form is simply historical narrative. In other words, we are not really dealing with allegory here at all.” (C. Wright)
5
“These people were given plenty of opportunity to change their ways and to avoid all of this… they had 400 years to repent.” (Geisler)
6
“The primary concern throughout is the total ejection of their evil religions from the land.” (J. Wenham)
7
“Surely the ones who wanted to be saved from destruction fled and were spared... most of the women and children would have fled before the actual fighting began.” (Geisler)
“There is certainly no obstacle to the individual repentance of a Canaanite, nor even presumably to migration, since the conquest was to be little by little.” (J. Wenham)
“The biblical text contains many references to ‘driving out’ the Canaanites. To clear away the land for habitation didn’t require killing; civilians fled when their military strongholds were destroyed and soldiers were no longer capable of protecting them.”( Copan)
8
“There is reason to think that the spiritual condition of the peoples in and around Canaan at the time of the Israelite occupation was one of particular filth.” (J. Wenham)
9
“It would be quite wrong to assume dogmatically that every Canaanite who perished automatically ‘went to hell’.” (C. Wright)
10
“If they [Canaanite children] had continued to live in that horrible society, past the age of accountability, they undoubtedly would have become corrupted and thereby lost forever.” (Geisler)
11
“The Canaanites suffered a fate that ultimately all sinners will face: the judgment of God. The difference between them and other lost peoples is that they met their doom earlier than most.” (Block)
12
“Against the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and other more distant nations there was to be no such policy of extermination.” (J. Wenham)
“So the conquest of Canaan, as a unique and limited historical event, was never meant to become a model.” (C. Wright)
“This Yahweh warfare wasn’t the standard for the other stages in Israel’s history. It wasn’t intended as a permanent fixture in Israel’s story.” (Copan)
13
“The Lord’s commands were every bit as severe with regard to erring Israelites as they were to the Canaanites.” (J. Wenham)
“The conquest of Canaan is never justified on ethnic grounds in the Bible.” (C. Wright)
“The Israelites needed to know that the conquest was not some charade of cozy favoritism. Israel stood under the same threat of judgment from the same God for the same sins, if they chose to commit them.” (C. Wright)
14
“But we must also recognize that the language of warfare had a conventional rhetoric that liked to make absolute and universal claims about total victory and completely wiping out the enemy. Such rhetoric often exceeded reality on the ground. Admittedly this does not remove the problem, since the reality was still horrible at any level. But it enables us to allow for the fact that descriptions of the destruction of ‘everything that lives and breathes’ were not necessarily intended literally.” (C. Wright)
15
“He [God] took action not only for the sake of the Israelites, but ultimately for the sake of everyone through history whose salvation would be provided by the Messiah who was to be born among them.” (Geisler)
“The severity of God’s dealings… becomes intelligible when we see what was at stake. It was nothing less than the salvation of the world.” (J. Wenham).
“Even the historical defeat of the Canaanites by Israel will ultimately be seen to be part of an overall history of salvation for which the nations themselves will praise God.” (C. Wright)
“If the Israelites hadn’t done serious damage to the Canaanite religious infrastructure, the result would have been incalculable damage to Israel’s integrity and thus to God’s entire plan to redeem humanity.” (Copan)
16
“God created life and He has the right to take it.” (Geisler)
“Everything turns upon the reality and certainty of the divine calling to do the deed.” (J. Wenham)
“Punishment changes the moral context of violence.” (C. Wright)
“Without God’s explicity command (and thus his morally sufficient reasons), attacking the Canaanites would not have been justified.” (Copan)
“Perhaps we need to be more open to the fact that some of our moral intuitions aren’t as finely tuned as they ought to be.” (Copan)
17
“He [God] has got to punish sin and rebellion” (Geisler)
“Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.” (M. Volf)
“Maybe the ideal ‘God’ in the Westerner’s mind is just too nice.” (Copan)
18
“Is there any sense in which God accommodated his will to such fallen reality [war] within the historical earthing of his revealing and redeeming purpose?... We might be dealing with something God chose to accommodate within the context of a wicked world, not something that represented his best will or preference.” (C. Wright)
“The Scriptures reveal a God who works through messy, seemingly inefficient processes—including human choices and failures—to accomplish his redemptive purposes in history.” (Copan)
19
“You could make the case that God is more judgmental in the New Testament than the Old. For example, the Old Testament talks very little about eternal punishment, but the New Testament does.” (Geisler)
“There may be difficulty in squaring the teaching of Deuteronomy with that of some Jesus of modern invention. But as far as the Jesus of the Gospels is concerned, there is an inescapable and indeed a fearful consistency between them (J. Wenham)
20
“We shouldn’t stop with the Old Testament if we want a clearer revelation of the heart and character of God.” (Copan)
“Although not resolving the philosophical issues associated with holy war and a good God’s being involved in so many deaths, the death of Christ does add a new dimension to the problem. Christ takes upon himself the sin of the world and becomes the victim of the holy war that God wages against sin.” (Hess)
BAD ANSWERS: 4, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18
CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS: 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 17, 18
STARTING POINTS: 3, 4, 11, 12, 16, 19, 20
.............
And now... re-organized into 3 categories (#'s no longer correspond)
BAD ANSWERS
1. It’s a mystery (don’t even bother thinking about it)
2. The Old Testament god was a different god
3. God never commanded it (Israel was wrong)
4. It never happened… it’s just an allegory
CONTEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS
5. The Canaanites had time to repent
6. The Canaanite religions were the main target
7. The Canaanites were allowed to flee, convert, etc.
8. The Canaanites who remained were very sinful
9. The Canaanites will be judged as individuals
10. The Canaanite children would have become evil
11. The Canaanites wouldn’t have lasted forever
12. The policy of annihilation was exceptional
13. The policy of annihilation wasn’t favoritism
14. The language of annihilation utilized hyperbole
STARTING POINTS
15. This was a necessary part of salvation history
16. God (and God alone) has the right to take lives
17. We’d get mad at a God who never judged evil
18. God accommodated fallen humanity (warring)
19. Jesus was wrathful too (no need to reconcile)
20. God used it to show that violence doesn’t work
Collection of Quotations so far...
Quotes of Note
1
2
“As we struggle to understand this problem, let’s at least agree that it will never be helpful to set the New Testament antagonistically against the Old. Admittedly, we must take into account the historical dimension of God’s self-revelation.” (C. Wright)
3
“If the conquest of Canaan had actually been such a massive and mistaken misinterpretation of God’s will, we should surely read some corrective word later in the Scriptures—if not within the Old Testament itself, then at least within the New. But we find none.” (C. Wright)
4
“The passage purports to be literal; to take it in any other way is to throw oneself into a bottomless pit of subjectivism.” (J. Wenham)
“Their [the passages in question] primary form is simply historical narrative. In other words, we are not really dealing with allegory here at all.” (C. Wright)
5
“These people were given plenty of opportunity to change their ways and to avoid all of this… they had 400 years to repent.” (Geisler)
6
“The primary concern throughout is the total ejection of their evil religions from the land.” (J. Wenham)
7
“Surely the ones who wanted to be saved from destruction fled and were spared... most of the women and children would have fled before the actual fighting began.” (Geisler)
“There is certainly no obstacle to the individual repentance of a Canaanite, nor even presumably to migration, since the conquest was to be little by little.” (J. Wenham)
“The biblical text contains many references to ‘driving out’ the Canaanites. To clear away the land for habitation didn’t require killing; civilians fled when their military strongholds were destroyed and soldiers were no longer capable of protecting them.”( Copan)
8
“There is reason to think that the spiritual condition of the peoples in and around Canaan at the time of the Israelite occupation was one of particular filth.” (J. Wenham)
9
“It would be quite wrong to assume dogmatically that every Canaanite who perished automatically ‘went to hell’.” (C. Wright)
10
“If they [Canaanite children] had continued to live in that horrible society, past the age of accountability, they undoubtedly would have become corrupted and thereby lost forever.” (Geisler)
11
“The Canaanites suffered a fate that ultimately all sinners will face: the judgment of God. The difference between them and other lost peoples is that they met their doom earlier than most.” (Block)
12
“Against the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and other more distant nations there was to be no such policy of extermination.” (J. Wenham)
“So the conquest of Canaan, as a unique and limited historical event, was never meant to become a model.” (C. Wright)
“This Yahweh warfare wasn’t the standard for the other stages in Israel’s history. It wasn’t intended as a permanent fixture in Israel’s story.” (Copan)
13
“The Lord’s commands were every bit as severe with regard to erring Israelites as they were to the Canaanites.” (J. Wenham)
“The conquest of Canaan is never justified on ethnic grounds in the Bible.” (C. Wright)
“The Israelites needed to know that the conquest was not some charade of cozy favoritism. Israel stood under the same threat of judgment from the same God for the same sins, if they chose to commit them.” (C. Wright)
14
“But we must also recognize that the language of warfare had a conventional rhetoric that liked to make absolute and universal claims about total victory and completely wiping out the enemy. Such rhetoric often exceeded reality on the ground. Admittedly this does not remove the problem, since the reality was still horrible at any level. But it enables us to allow for the fact that descriptions of the destruction of ‘everything that lives and breathes’ were not necessarily intended literally.” (C. Wright)
15
“He [God] took action not only for the sake of the Israelites, but ultimately for the sake of everyone through history whose salvation would be provided by the Messiah who was to be born among them.” (Geisler)
“The severity of God’s dealings… becomes intelligible when we see what was at stake. It was nothing less than the salvation of the world.” (J. Wenham).
“Even the historical defeat of the Canaanites by Israel will ultimately be seen to be part of an overall history of salvation for which the nations themselves will praise God.” (C. Wright)
“If the Israelites hadn’t done serious damage to the Canaanite religious infrastructure, the result would have been incalculable damage to Israel’s integrity and thus to God’s entire plan to redeem humanity.” (Copan)
16
“God created life and He has the right to take it.” (Geisler)
“Everything turns upon the reality and certainty of the divine calling to do the deed.” (J. Wenham)
“Punishment changes the moral context of violence.” (C. Wright)
“Without God’s explicity command (and thus his morally sufficient reasons), attacking the Canaanites would not have been justified.” (Copan)
“Perhaps we need to be more open to the fact that some of our moral intuitions aren’t as finely tuned as they ought to be.” (Copan)
17
“He [God] has got to punish sin and rebellion” (Geisler)
“Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.” (M. Volf)
“Maybe the ideal ‘God’ in the Westerner’s mind is just too nice.” (Copan)
18
“Is there any sense in which God accommodated his will to such fallen reality [war] within the historical earthing of his revealing and redeeming purpose?... We might be dealing with something God chose to accommodate within the context of a wicked world, not something that represented his best will or preference.” (C. Wright)
“The Scriptures reveal a God who works through messy, seemingly inefficient processes—including human choices and failures—to accomplish his redemptive purposes in history.” (Copan)
19
“You could make the case that God is more judgmental in the New Testament than the Old. For example, the Old Testament talks very little about eternal punishment, but the New Testament does.” (Geisler)
“There may be difficulty in squaring the teaching of Deuteronomy with that of some Jesus of modern invention. But as far as the Jesus of the Gospels is concerned, there is an inescapable and indeed a fearful consistency between them (J. Wenham)
20
“We shouldn’t stop with the Old Testament if we want a clearer revelation of the heart and character of God.” (Copan)
“Although not resolving the philosophical issues associated with holy war and a good God’s being involved in so many deaths, the death of Christ does add a new dimension to the problem. Christ takes upon himself the sin of the world and becomes the victim of the holy war that God wages against sin.” (Hess)
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
Good work Matt!
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
I'm not sure these items were mentioned,
The Canaanites were demonically possessed and since the Israelites had no way of fighting demons (no Holy Spirit) they had to kill the enemy. Satan knew that Christ was coming through Israel and would inspire the Canaanites to keep resisting. Women and children were not military threats so this command to destroy the Canaanites was beyond addressing a military threat it was to address a demonic enemy that could apparently live in any body.
Rahab repented and was saved so any Canaanite had the opportunity to do the same.
The Canaanites were demonically possessed and since the Israelites had no way of fighting demons (no Holy Spirit) they had to kill the enemy. Satan knew that Christ was coming through Israel and would inspire the Canaanites to keep resisting. Women and children were not military threats so this command to destroy the Canaanites was beyond addressing a military threat it was to address a demonic enemy that could apparently live in any body.
Rahab repented and was saved so any Canaanite had the opportunity to do the same.
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
Interesting thoughts...steve7150 wrote:I'm not sure these items were mentioned,
The Canaanites were demonically possessed and since the Israelites had no way of fighting demons (no Holy Spirit) they had to kill the enemy. Satan knew that Christ was coming through Israel and would inspire the Canaanites to keep resisting. Women and children were not military threats so this command to destroy the Canaanites was beyond addressing a military threat it was to address a demonic enemy that could apparently live in any body.
Rahab repented and was saved so any Canaanite had the opportunity to do the same.
1. I have no problem admitting the role of demons among the Canaanites (perhaps all false religions). I think this 'explanation' would fit under my #'s 6 & 8.
2. I don't believe they had 'no Holy Spirit.' I think the way the Holy Spirit worked (and/or their awareness of the Spirit) was different in Old Testament days... but certainly the Spirit was present or could have been present if the Lord willed it (and the Lord clearly willed this annihilation). But I think your point is actually flawed. You are suggesting they had to kill the Canaanites themselves b/c God wasn't with them in a sense, but all the texts make it clear that it WAS God actually doing it, not them (they were no match).
3. The Rahab comment fits under #7
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
The Bible does provide direct 'explanations' for God's command, of course
I think the explanations offered by the Bible fit under #'s 8 (they were very sinful) and 15 (it was part of salvation history)
Deut. 7:4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods [which would hinder Israel's role in salvation history]
Deut. 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. [Israel was chosen to play a major role in salvation history]
Deut. 9:4 it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. [they were very sinful]
Deut 9:5 the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [God's promise to the forefathers was part of his plan to save the world]
Deut. 20:18 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. [which would hinder Israel's role in salvation history]
I think the explanations offered by the Bible fit under #'s 8 (they were very sinful) and 15 (it was part of salvation history)
Deut. 7:4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods [which would hinder Israel's role in salvation history]
Deut. 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. [Israel was chosen to play a major role in salvation history]
Deut. 9:4 it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. [they were very sinful]
Deut 9:5 the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [God's promise to the forefathers was part of his plan to save the world]
Deut. 20:18 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. [which would hinder Israel's role in salvation history]
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
Hi Matt,
Noticed in your list you had "4. God can do whatever He wants (He alone has the right to take life... or delegate that right)" as a "bad" answer. It struck me immediately as a good answer, thinking of the potter and the clay, Jeremiah 18. God is sovereign and can do as He pleases with His "stuff" (all of creation).
Noticed in your list you had "4. God can do whatever He wants (He alone has the right to take life... or delegate that right)" as a "bad" answer. It struck me immediately as a good answer, thinking of the potter and the clay, Jeremiah 18. God is sovereign and can do as He pleases with His "stuff" (all of creation).
Re: Annihilating the Canaanites
I put the original #4 in both the 'bad answer' and 'starting point' categories, but it ultimately ended up in the 'starting points' category as the new #16 (sorry for the confusion).Homer wrote:Hi Matt,
Noticed in your list you had "4. God can do whatever He wants (He alone has the right to take life... or delegate that right)" as a "bad" answer. It struck me immediately as a good answer, thinking of the potter and the clay, Jeremiah 18. God is sovereign and can do as He pleases with His "stuff" (all of creation).
I think the idea that God can do whatever he wants is technically correct, but is sometimes used as an excuse for not thinking. Of course God can do what God wants, but the question I'm really asking is why would God want to do it (how does it fit with God's character?)? Nevertheless, because the explanation is technically correct and, when used rightly, quite valuable to the discussion... I finalized it as a starting point #16