Genocide in the Old Testament?

‘ethnic cleansing’

‘bloodthirsty massacres’

‘xenophobic relish’

‘morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland’

What makes my jaw drop is that people today should base their lives on such an appalling role model as Yahweh – and even worse, that they should bossily try to force the same evil monster (whether fact or fiction) on the rest of us.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

God is morally inferior

The OT is morally inferior

[The Canaanites] were pitilessly driven out of their homes to make room for the ungrateful and mutinous children of Israel.

Christopher HitchensGod is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

[The OT contains] a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre . . .

Christopher HitchensGod is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

OT law and OT narratives

protection for the weak . . . justice for the poor; impartiality in the courts; generosity at harvest time and in general economic life; respect for persons and property, even of an enemy; sensitivity to the dignity of the debtor; special care for strangers and immigrants; considerate treatment of the disabled . . . even care for animals, domestic and wild, and for fruit trees.

Chris Wright

The informed inhabitant of the ancient Near East would have thought, Quick, get me to Israel!

Paul Copan

Some responses

Israel’s unique situation

God can have goodenough reasons

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.

Genesis 15:16 NIV

not an ethnic matter

After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, “The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.” No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you.

Deuteronomy 9:4 NIV

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. . . .

But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.

Deuteronomy 18:24–28 NIV

The scale of the destruction

They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Joshua 6:21 NIV

cities or garrisons?

Jericho and Ai were forts

We know that many of these ‘cities’ were used primarily for government buildings, and the common people lived in the surrounding countryside.

Richard S. Hess

Hess adduces inscriptional, archaeological, and other such evidences that Jericho was a small settlement of probably 100 or fewer soldiers. This is why all of Israel could circle it seven times in one day and then do battle against it.  So if Jericho was a fort, then ‘all’ those killed therein were warriors.

Paul Copan‘Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites’, Philosophia Christi 11, no. 1 (2009)

hyperbolic language

When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’S anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. Deuteronomy 7:2–5 NIV

‘every living thing’

Total obliteration? Not quite. Joshua used typical ancient Near East rhetorical language that exaggerates what actually took place.Joshua was not trying to deceive people; the ancient audience would have readily under-stood what was going on. In fact, if we read the text closely, we see this is exactly right.

Paul Copan‘How Could God Command Killing the Canaanites?’

At the sound of horsemen and archers    every town takes to flight. Some go into the thickets;    some climb up among the rocks. All the towns are deserted;    no one lives in them.

Jeremiah 4:29 NIV

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.

Leviticus 18:24

There is no indication in the text of any specific noncombatants who were put to death.

Richard Hess

[We] are not talking about genocide or ethnic cleansing, but a kind of corporate capital punishment that was deliberately limited in scope and restricted to a specific period of time.

Paul Copan‘Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites’

God’s promises

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Genesis 12:2–3

God is God

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