Old Testament violence and the Canaanites

What you'll learn

• Explain the conquest commands honestly, showing God's patience and justice (Gen 15:16; Lev 18:24-28; Deut 9:4-5) and why the command was unique and limited, not a pattern for today
• Describe the hyperbole argument of Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan fairly and evaluate it as a debated view among Bible-believing Christians
• Answer the sceptic's moral outrage by showing that it borrows a moral standard, and present the cross as God's final answer to evil

Facing the texts honestly

Some of the hardest words in the Bible come in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. As Israel prepared to enter Canaan, God commanded concerning seven nations: 'you must devote them to complete destruction... and show no mercy to them' (Deut 7:2). In the cities of the land, 'you shall save alive nothing that breathes' (Deut 20:16). At Jericho, Israel 'devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old' (Josh 6:21), and Joshua 10:40 summarises a campaign in which he 'left none remaining'.

The Hebrew word behind 'devote to destruction' is herem: something set apart wholly to God, often by being destroyed, so that no one could profit from it. Richard Dawkins opens his famous attack on the God of the Old Testament in The God Delusion (ch. 2) by calling him 'arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction', and lists genocide among the charges.

Do not flinch or change the subject. A friend who raises these texts deserves to know that Christians have read them too and have wrestled with them. Honesty builds trust. This lesson builds on the problem of evil (Doctrines Under Fire, Lesson 4) and the moral argument (Secular Society, Lesson 3).

God's patience and justice

The first thing to see is that the conquest was an act of judgement, delayed for centuries. When God promised Canaan to Abraham, he said Abraham's descendants would wait four hundred years, 'for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete' (Gen 15:16). God gave the Canaanites more than four centuries to turn.

What were their sins? Leviticus 18 lists them: incest, adultery, bestiality, and offering children to Molech (Lev 18:21). 'By all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean... and the land vomited out its inhabitants' (Lev 18:24-25). Deuteronomy adds that they 'even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods' (Deut 12:31). Ritual child sacrifice was woven into the culture.

And Israel was not chosen for being better. 'Not because of your righteousness... but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you' (Deut 9:5). The conquest was not about race or ethnic superiority. It was God's judgement on sin, the same God who later spared repentant Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) and who says that if a nation turns from its evil, he will relent (Jer 18:7-8).

A unique, limited command

The conquest commands were not a general rule for how Israel should treat outsiders, and they are certainly not a pattern for Christians today.

No one today has any of these. Jesus told Pilate, 'My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting' (John 18:36). The church's only sword is 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God' (Eph 6:17), and our weapons 'are not of the flesh' (2 Cor 10:4). A Christian who used these texts to justify violence today would be disobeying Christ.

• Specific peoples: seven named nations in one land (Deut 7:1), not all foreigners. For cities far away, Israel was to offer terms of peace first (Deut 20:10-15).
• A specific time: one generation, at one moment in redemptive history, as God planted his people in the land through which the Messiah would come.
• A direct command: given by God through Moses, a prophet who spoke with God face to face (Deut 34:10), not a human leader's ambition.

Rahab, the Gibeonites and Israel under the same standard

The story itself shows that the issue was never ethnicity. Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute in Jericho, but she feared the LORD, hid the spies and confessed, 'the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath' (Josh 2:11). She and her family were spared (Josh 6:25). Hebrews 11:31 praises her faith, and Matthew 1:5 places her in the family line of Jesus.

The Gibeonites, another Canaanite people, sought peace and were spared (Josh 9). Joshua 11:19 notes that no other city made peace with Israel. Mercy was available to those who turned to the LORD.

Meanwhile, Israel was judged by the same standard. When the Israelite Achan stole from what had been devoted to God at Jericho, he and his household were judged (Josh 7). Moses warned Israel that if they worshipped other gods, 'Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish' (Deut 8:19-20). That is exactly what happened: the northern kingdom fell to Assyria (2 Kings 17) and Judah to Babylon (2 Kings 25). God is not a tribal deity who favours his own. He is the holy Judge of all nations, including his own people.

The hyperbole argument

Some Christian scholars argue that the language of total destruction is partly hyperbole, a stylised exaggeration typical of ancient war reports. The fullest case is Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (2014), building on Copan's earlier Is God a Moral Monster? (2011).

Their main evidence runs like this. Ancient Near Eastern kings routinely boasted of total victory in exaggerated terms. On the Mesha Stele (ninth century BC), the king of Moab claimed that Israel had gone to ruin for ever, yet Israel continued for well over a century. Joshua itself uses the same style. Joshua 10:20 says Israel struck the enemy 'until they were wiped out', then in the same verse mentions survivors who reached fortified cities. Joshua 11:21-22 says the Anakim were cut off from the hill country and none were left in Israel's land, yet Caleb later has to drive them out of Hebron (Josh 14:12; 15:14). Judges 1 shows many Canaanites still in the land. And many texts speak of 'driving out' the nations 'little by little' (Deut 7:22), which suggests the aim was dispossession and the end of Canaanite religion rather than the killing of every person. On this reading the commands mean 'defeat them utterly', much as a footballer says his team 'slaughtered' the opposition.

This view is compatible with inerrancy. The Chicago Statement says inerrancy is not negated by 'the use of hyperbole and round numbers' (Article XIII). But it is debated. Some Christian scholars, including reviewers sympathetic to Copan and Flannagan, doubt that Deuteronomy 20:16 can be read this way, since it deliberately contrasts nearby cities with distant ones. Sceptics such as Wes Morriston argue that these texts are a reason to reject inerrancy altogether. The wise course is to hold the hyperbole reading with an open hand. It may well be part of the answer, but do not rest your whole defence on it. Even if non-combatants did die, the deeper answer lies in God's right to judge.

The Judge of all the earth, and the cross

God is the Giver of life, and only he has the right to take it. 'I kill and I make alive' (Deut 32:39); 'the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away' (Job 1:21). Every human being dies by God's decree (Gen 3:19). If we have no right to take innocent life, that is precisely because life belongs to God. What would be murder for us is not murder for him, any more than a judge passing sentence is a kidnapper. As for the children, Scripture does not tell us their eternal state, but we know the character of the Judge (Gen 18:25) and his mercy toward little ones (see Lesson 1 on infants).

Now turn the question around, gently. When a sceptic says the conquest was evil, by what standard? Dawkins himself wrote in River Out of Eden that a universe of blind physical forces has 'no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference'. If that is true, there is no objective evil to accuse God of. The outrage borrows a moral standard that only makes sense if God exists.

Finally, see the conquest as a preview. It was a small, local picture of the final judgement that awaits every nation (Acts 17:31), including ours. If we were judged by the same standard as the Canaanites, none of us would stand. But God has given a final answer to evil. At the cross, the only truly innocent One was put to death, and God's judgement fell on him so that guilty people could go free. Like Rahab with her scarlet cord, anyone may still take refuge in God's mercy.

Example: Talking with a friend about the Canaanites

Friend: How can you worship a God who ordered genocide? Deuteronomy says kill everything that breathes.

You: That's one of the hardest passages in the Bible, and I won't pretend it isn't. Can I give you some context that changed how I read it?

Friend: Go on.

You: God waited over four hundred years before this, because the Canaanites' sin was 'not yet complete'. The texts describe a culture that burned children as sacrifices. And God told Israel plainly it wasn't because they were better; he warned them that if they did the same things, they'd be thrown out too, which later happened. A Canaanite woman named Rahab turned to God and was spared, and she ended up in Jesus' family tree. So it wasn't about race. It was judgement on sin.

Friend: It still sounds brutal.

You: It is sobering. Some scholars also think the language of total destruction is partly ancient war hyperbole, since Joshua itself mentions survivors. But here's my question: you're saying this was really evil, not just distasteful to you. Where does that standard come from if there's no God?

Friend: Fair, but I still don't like it.

You: Honestly, neither do I. But it reminds me we'll all face a Judge. What gives me hope is that at the cross God took judgement on himself, so people like Rahab, and me, can be spared.

In their own words

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: among other things, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.” (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006), ch. 2)

“If the Bible is inerrant, God really did command the killing of whole populations, including children. It is more reasonable to conclude that God did not give these commands, and so to reject biblical inerrancy.” (Wesley Morriston, 'Did God Command Genocide? A Challenge to the Biblical Inerrantist', Philosophia Christi 11:1 (2009))

“Jesus, who taught love of enemies, reveals what God is truly like. The violent portraits of God in the Old Testament reflect the fallen, culturally conditioned perceptions of the human authors, not God's true character.” (Gregory A. Boyd, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God (2017), a progressive Christian approach)

“Appeals to 'hyperbole' are special pleading. Deuteronomy 20 contrasts distant cities, which are offered peace, with nearby cities, where nothing that breathes may be left alive, so the command means what it says.” (A common critique of Copan and Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? (2014), raised by sceptics and by some sympathetic Christian reviewers)

Key texts

• Genesis 15:16: 'The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.' God waited over four hundred years before judgement: the conquest shows his patience before it shows his wrath.
• Leviticus 18:24-28: The land 'vomited out' the Canaanites for their sins, including child sacrifice, and Israel is warned the land will vomit them out too.
• Deuteronomy 9:4-5: 'Not because of your righteousness... but because of the wickedness of these nations.' Judgement on sin, not ethnic favouritism.
• Deuteronomy 8:19-20: If Israel worships other gods, 'so shall you perish'. Israel stands under the same standard.
• Joshua 2:11; 6:25; Hebrews 11:31: Rahab the Canaanite confesses the LORD and is spared, and is praised for her faith. Mercy was open to Canaanites who turned to God.
• Joshua 10:20: Enemies 'wiped out' and yet survivors in the same verse: a key text for the hyperbole reading.
• Deuteronomy 32:39: 'I kill and I make alive.' God, the Giver of life, has the right to judge.

Objections and answers

Try answering each one yourself before you open the response.

Written task

An atheist podcaster challenges you on air: 'Deuteronomy 20:16 says to save alive nothing that breathes. Your God commanded genocide. Defend that.' Write a 350-500 word answer you could give, either as a spoken response or a short article. Face the text honestly, explain God's patience and justice from Genesis 15:16, Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 9:4-5, show why the command was unique and not a pattern for today, explain and evaluate the hyperbole argument fairly, turn the moral objection around, and end with the cross.

Hand this in to Mr Scott. He will look for:

• Faces the text honestly without minimising it, and explains God's patience and judgement on sin from at least two of Genesis 15:16, Leviticus 18:24-28 and Deuteronomy 9:4-5
• Shows the command was unique and limited and not ethnic (using Rahab, the Gibeonites or Deuteronomy 8:19-20), and not a pattern for Christians today
• Explains the hyperbole argument accurately with textual evidence and evaluates it as debated, without resting the whole case on it
• Shows that the objector's moral outrage assumes an objective standard that points to God
• Ends with the cross as God's final answer to evil, in a gracious tone within 350-500 words

Further reading

• The God I Don't Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith by Christopher J. H. Wright: Accessible, honest chapters on evil, the Canaanites, the cross and the end of the world from a respected Old Testament scholar.
• Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God by Paul Copan: A readable reply to the New Atheists on Old Testament ethics, including the Canaanites and slavery.
• Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan: The fullest case for the hyperbole reading, with philosophical responses to critics. More demanding; read alongside its critics.