THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:
Skeptics seeking to disparage the Bible and, with it, Judaism and Christianity, cite certain passages in the Bible that depict all-out warfare as mandated by God. Consider Israel’s “conquest” of Canaan under Joshua, and a notably bloodthirsty passage like Deuteronomy 20:16-17, which says “you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them. . . as the LORD your God has commanded.”
There’s been intriguing recent discussion of this complex issue. Even conservative evangelicals, who defend the Bible’s historical accuracy, are reinterpreting such passages, as we’ll see.
“Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary,” issued by Judaism’s Conservative branch, freely admits a modern reader “recoils” from a demand to wipe out a population group. It says the context is the Canaanites’ “abhorrent” deeds. Verse 18 goes on to explain combat is necessary so “they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods.” Commentaries think ritual sacrifice of children was a major part of this. The context of such verses is said to be “the Torah’s abiding fear that these pagan nations will lead Israel astray.”
Here’s another part of the context. Risking anymilitary advantage from surprise, Joshua informed Canaanites in advance about the invasion plan so they could flee from bloodshed, and he first offered a peace settlement before resorting to combat. (That was relatively humane for the cruel culture 3,000 years ago.) The same point is underscored by a classic source in Orthodox Judaism, the “Pentateuch & Haftorahs” compiled by Britain’s longtime chief rabbi, J.H. Hertz.
This Orthodox commentary also observes that the Israelites’ need for a homeland is part of all human history, including for most western nations. Israel added to that the “ethical justification” of countering Canaan’s “depravity” as with human sacrifice. Moreover, “the whole moral and spiritual future of mankind was involved.”
Reform Judaism’s official commentary says Joshua’s forces did not in fact annihilate the Canaanite population even though that “would not have offended against the usual practice of the times.” Instead, it thinks the Bible’s words were a “retrospective command,” written long after the fact, to say if Israel had done this “you would not have lapsed into idolatry.” Ancient military events were always interpreted “as manifestations of God’s will,” and — notably — the Bible assailed not just other nations but Israel itself.
Also, according to the Jewish Bible (Christians’ Old Testament), God’s will on warfare is complex. The great King David was forbidden to build God’s Temple because his wars shed too much blood (1 Chronicles 22:8) and nearly lost his realm for conducting a military census (2 Samuel 24). God rebuked Simon and Levi for slaughtering Canaanites (Genesis 49:5-7). And so forth.
In Christian interpretations, minority pacifists say Jesus’ preaching of love forbids all war-making by believers. Meanwhile, liberals and skeptics may dismiss the narratives as nationalistic propaganda not to be taken literally. Catholic exegete Tommy Lane of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary thinks “Israel misunderstood and misjudged God” in these Scriptures!
Well, what about Bible-defending conservative Protestants? Books that ponder these difficult passages include “Did God Really Command Genocide?” (Baker, 2014) by ethicists Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, and “Holy War in the Bible” (InterVarsity, 2013), an anthology edited by Copan, philosopher Jeremy Evans, and Old Testament scholar Heath Thomas. An article by Thomas, formerly director of doctoral studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and now theology dean at Oklahoma Baptist University, summarized major points as follows.
First, the few verses about wiping out populations use the “exaggerated” rhetoric that occur in all war stories from ancient times. Second, the Bible put far more emphasis on dispossessing Canaanites from the land than on killing. Third (as above), God’s primary concern was not obliteration but “resolute” moral opposition to Canaan’s idolatry and sin. Fourth, God waited patiently 400 years before the conquest re-established the inheritance of the Holy Land dating from Abraham’s time.
Finally, commentaries say the singular conquest set no precedent for later Christianity, which teaches creation of God’s kingdom through love, not coercion. “These wars were fought in a particular time and are neither to be repeated by the Church nor to be justified for any peoples” today, Thomas insists.
Adding to the discussion is the brand-new “Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God” (www.ivpress.com/flood-and-fury) by Matthew J. Lynch, an evangelical Bible scholar at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. As the title indicates, Lynch deals not only with the conquest of Canaan but the destruction in the Flood of Noah, which The Guy sidesteps in this item for simplicity’s sake.
Lynch candidly admits there’s no solid consensus answering the problem of God’s direction and Old Testament violence, or on how to “resolve the moral tensions” involved but careful reconsideration can help. His own unconventional interpretation says the Book of Joshua mingles a “majority report” depicting military advances – perhaps a “re-telling of a popular conquest story” long after the actual events — with a skeptical “minority report” in which God “bursts any militaristic bubble” and requires a “heavy dose of kindness toward foreigners, strangers, and outsiders.”
Instead of some mighty military “conquest,” he writes, the Bible itself portrays an “incomplete and gradual” development of Israel’s control of the land, paying special attention to Joshua’s farewell address in the Book of Joshua chapters 23 nd 24.
Equally important is the 2017 tome “The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest” (www.ivpress.com/the-lost-world-of-the-israelite-conquest), co-authored by John H. Walton of Wheaton College (Illinois) and formerly at the Moody Bible Institute, with his son J. Harvey.
The Waltons say that unlike modern histories, in context the Old Testament war narratives employ symbolism and hyperbole that ancient readers would have understood as such. Though modern readers above all crave human happiness, they observe, in chaotic ancient times the greatest good was “establishing and sustaining order” as with Israel consolidating its Holy Land regime.
In a crucial technicality, the Waltons dispute the usual translation of the key Hebrew term herem as a command to “utterly destroy” a population. Rather, they argue, this means to remove or make something off limits for human use, which in this context meant that flight by Canaanites was morally preferable to combat.
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