Genocide In The Bible
The idea of God-sanctioned genocide in the Bible may be the most emotionally charged topic of all when it comes to opponents of Christianity. The Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition elicit similar responses, but these can be explained by pointing out that just because someone says they are doing something ‘In the name of Christ’ doesn’t mean they are following His will or His teachings.
More fundamental is the question of the Canaanites in the Old Testament of the Bible where the Israelites were acting under God’s comand. Did God command the Israelites to commit genocide in the Old Testament of the bible…killing innocent women and children so His people could steal their land and their cities? How can we reconcile a God of love and mercy who is fair and just with a God who can order such atrocities?
There are many issues surrounding this question, and many interesting answers I have only recently discovered as I have been studying work by Dr. Paul Copan re: genocide in the bible. I will rely his work called “Are Old Testament Laws Evil” for this topic.
You may be surprised what the research shows actually occurred in the Ancient Near East as the Israelites entered the Promised land…It may not have been as much awash in innocent blood as you may believe.
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As a Christian, how do I explain the Apparent Genocide in the Bible?
First, we will discuss the most common defense of the text…which may be unsatisfying to most of us, and assumes that the purging of Canaan included killing of women and children and annihilating pretty much everyone and everything. Then we will go through some of the research and explanations that show this kind of whole-scale genocide may not have actually been what happened at all…
Atheists and Christianity’s opponents look at the conquest of Canaan as a bloodthirsty people starting a war so they can annihilate the inhabitants of the promised land and take their cities and lands for themselves. They would say they want nothing to do with a God who orders this kind of behavior.
Biblical Genocide: Unique, Unrepeatable Events by God’s People
The first thing to point out is that Israel’s history in the Old Testament as God’s people is unique and unrepeatable. The telling of this particular history in the Old Testament is just that, a recounting of history. We can draw some conclusions and glean insights from it, but the Bible does NOT indicate that we should idealize these events or universalize them for other nations or other times in history.
Israel would NOT have been justified in their attack had God not commanded it of them…and the Bible indicates that God had morally sufficient reason to do so. The Canaanite culture was irreversibly wicked and this was part of God’s judgement on them. Scripture says God left His own people in slavery by the Egyptians for an extended period of time until the wickedness of the Canaanites was complete…in other words, he spared a few good Canaanites…at the expense of the Israelites…until the Canaanite culture got to a point where they were so wicked that there was no chance of their culture (human sacrifice, prostitution, and lots of other nasty stuff) turning around.
Many would say “Who are you to judge the worth of another culture?” That’s just the point here. Jews or Christians or anyone else of any faith are NOT in a position to judge the worth or wickedness of another culture. God is the only one able to judge the value of a culture. If he chose the Jewish army to carry out His decision to bring judgement on them, that’s His choice to make…just like He chose the Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Assyrians to do His will in defeating and enslaving the Israelites in other places in the Old Testament.
As I discussed not long ago in “God’s Prerogative: Is Human Life His To Take?”, if you believe in the God of the Bible, you must also believe that in His sovereignty and Justice, not just his Love and Mercy. If you don’t, then the God in which you believe is not the God of the Bible. God has the right to decide when and where to take a life or many of them, or destroy a way of living that He deems unfit. Unpopular idea, but true if the God of the Bible is real. Please read the article if you want clarification on this idea.
If you don’t believe in God, you will likely find this explanation worthless. However, it is a rational (even if emotionally unsatisfying) explanation if God is who He is taught to be in the Bible. Having said this, however, under an informed reading of the text and in the light of archaeological and historical evidence, the acts of the Israeli soldiers may not have been an example of genocide in the Bible at all.
You’ll have to wait for the next post to find out more about this interesting evidence…
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