Articles
The Conquest of Canaan: Answering the Question of Genocide
In an era of increased skepticism and opposition to the faith, one of the more common doubts raised about Christianity is about the nature of God in the Old Testament: if God is supposed to be a loving and merciful deity, then why does He commit genocide against the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua? This is one of the more popular lines of attack, particularly by the New Atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchins, and Harris, and it is one that Christians need to be aware of and able to respond to. So how should Christians respond to this? The key is to first define the idea of “genocide,” and demonstrate that this is a misunderstanding of the terms that are used in the conquest narratives in the Old Testament.
Understanding the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, hinges on understanding the reality that the Bible was written in a different cultural context than our 21st century Western culture. This is particularly relevant to the discussion of the conquest narratives; in order to understand the language being used in the conquest narratives, it’s imperative to read it as it was written to the original audiences. As an example, Exodus 23:20-23 reads ““Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will completely destroy them.” This seems like clear language to modern readers: Israel is to completely destroy the inhabitants of the land. Joshua 11:15 tells us that “Just as the Lord had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses.” The Lord commanded Moses to destroy all the inhabitants, and Joshua did just that. The skeptics point to the battles against the Midianites (Numbers 31), Jericho (Joshua 6), Ai (Joshua 8), and the lengthy descriptions of the campaigns against Southern and Northern Canaan in Joshua 10-11 as further reinforcement of this widespread genocide. Repeatedly the text uses language of “they destroyed them,” “they left no one that breathed,” “they left no survivors,” and other such phrases indicative of total annihilation. Case closed, right?
Let’s look a little closer, however. Continuing on in Exodus 23, verses 27-30 has the Lord saying “I will send My terror ahead of you, and throw into confusion all the people among whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.” So, the fight against the Canaanites begins long before Israel ever steps foot in the land; Yahweh will be working ahead of Israel to drive out the Canaanites from the land through His divine power. This means that the term “genocide” is a faulty one from the very beginning. The only Canaanites who were militarily engaged by Israel were those who failed to respond to the efforts of Yahweh to displace them from the promised land; in fact, Rahab confirms this is the case when she tells the spies “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you,” (Joshua 2:9). So, there were many Canaanites who survived the efforts of the Israelites by fleeing the land.
The text in Exodus 23 continues even further to raise doubt about the concept of genocide, however, when it says in verses 32-33 that God tells Israel, “You shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.” This is an odd text if Israel was to completely annihilate their Canaanite enemies. If the Canaanites were all dead, why be concerned with them living in the land or making covenants with them? Deuteronomy 7, where Moses is instructing the new generation of Israel before they enter into the Promised Land, contains similar language: “…when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.” Again, if the Canaanites still in the land were to be utterly destroyed and killed, why worry about intermarriage or favors?
Archaeology of this time period helps us to better understand what’s going on in these passages. A stele (a slab of wood or stone erected in the ancient world as a monument) was discovered in 1868 that records the deeds of the Moabite King Mesha in overthrowing Israel’s subjugation of Moab in the 9th Century B.C. This subjugation and subsequent rebellion is actually mentioned in 2 Kings 3:4-5 as part of Jehoram’s issues following the death of his father, King Ahab. The Stele records “Israel has utterly perished forever…I fought against [Nebo] from the break of dawn until noon; and I took it; and I killed everyone in it, seven thousand men and women, both natives and aliens, and female slaves; because I had dedicated it to Ashtar-Chemosh.” We see the same sort of language in the Moabite Stele as we do in the accounts of the conquest; “utterly perished forever” would indicate that Israel had been totally annihilated, but we know factually (from both the Bible and extrabiblical accounts) that Israel lasted for many centuries after this. This hyperbolic language was quite common in the Ancient Near Eastern cultures that surrounded Israel, and it was frequently used by chroniclers and historians of the era to designate a massive, total victory against a foreign foe. This hyperbolic language, however, did not mean that the defeated people were killed to the last man, woman, and child. It would make sense, then, to read the Biblical accounts in the same way: ANE accounts that were using the language of the time to designate God’s total and complete victory over Israel’s foes.
This idea of the conquest not being a total annihilation of the Canaanites is further supported by the text of Joshua. For example, Joshua 10:36-39 records Joshua’s victory over the two cities of Hebron and Debir. Both cities are recorded as having “no survivors,” and being “utterly destroyed.” Yet just a few chapters later in Joshua 15:13-15, the Judahite Caleb drives out the three sons of Anak from Hebron and the inhabitants of Debir; if these people were completely destroyed in chapter 10, how are there still some people remaining? A similar instance is seen in 11:21-22 where the Anakim and their cities are “utterly destroyed” by Joshua, but also driven out by Caleb in 14:12. We can see, then, that the language of “utter destruction” does not require a meaning of genocide, and indeed the textual evidence would argue that the concept of genocide (the intentional physical destruction of a people group) was never the intended goal of the conquest. The point of the conquest, rather, was to “dispossess” the Canaanites of their land and “drive them out” of Israel’s Promised Land. The clear connection is to that of Adam and Eve being driven out of Eden; like Adam and Eve, Canaan was being driven out of a blessed land because of their sinful behavior. Deuteronomy 18:9-14 makes it clear that the Canaanites had fully committed to worshipping idols and demonic powers, and Leviticus 18:24-30 indicates the terrible sexual immorality the Canaanites engaged in. This is the key to understanding why the Canaanites were being driven out of the land. Exodus 19:5-6 is the central verse to the covenant between Yahweh and the Israelites, and details how the covenant will bring blessings to the entire world: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The Canaanites had to be driven from the Holy Land not just because of their sinfulness and the justice of God, but because their sinfulness would serve as a snare and a trap for Israel. The Canaanites would prevent Israel from fulfilling their intended role as God’s holy nation of priests, and the Book of Judges shows that this exact issue arose. Judges 2:1-5 confirms that Israel did not even succeed in the limited task of driving out the Canaanites from the land, which serves as a clear dismissal of the skeptic’s claim that God’s people committed genocide against the Canaanites. Interestingly, however, archaeological record does show that by 1000 B.C., “Canaanite” was no longer a distinct culture or identifiable civilization due. Israel, instead, had become the dominant culture of the region. Thus, despite Israel’s failure to drive out the Canaanites, God’s will was still performed in the region.
So, what do we make of this entire issue? It is important to remember that, even if one were to accept the concept that the Canaanites were indeed wiped out, this was a unique episode in the Biblical narrative. Deuteronomy 20:10-18 makes it clear that the rules of war for Israel against non-Canaanite cities were very different than the initial conquest of Canaan; Israel was to offer terms of peace and was to spare cities if they were willing to surrender (it is also worth noting that Rahab and the Gibeonites, the only Canaanites to plea for mercy from Israel in the text, were spared as well). The terrible sinfulness of Canaan and their potential as a trap to Israel necessitated a particularly harsh treatment against them, but it also seems clear that the focus of the text is upon driving Canaan out of the land. The language of destruction and massacre seems to fit into the ANE pattern of hyperbolic language. This answers the claim of the skeptic while still upholding the main message of the conquest: through the awesome power and providence of God, Israel was able to gain a total victory over their enemies. It is this message – the faithfulness of God’s promises and His inevitable victory over the forces of darkness – that should continue to inspire Christian readers today to the same strength and courage that Joshua and Israel possessed in the conquest.
