Canaanite Conquest

Note: Last Updated 7/29/2024.

Paul Copan:

I’m not arguing that the Canaanites were the worst specimens of humanity that ever existed, nor am I arguing that the Canaanites won the immorality contest for worst-behaved peoples in all the ancient Near East. That said, the evidence for profound moral corruption was abundant.

(Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011], p. 160.) 

William F. Albright (description of the Canaanite goddess of sex and war Anath (or Astarte)):

In the Baal Epic there is a harrowing description of Anath’s thirst for blood. For a reason which still escapes us she decided to carry out a general massacre: “With might she hewed down the people of the cities, she smote the folk of the sea-coast, she slew the men of the sunrise (east).” After filling her temple (it seems) with men, she barred the gates so that none might escape, after which “she hurled chairs at the youths, tables at the warriors, foot-stools at the men of might.” The blood was so deep that she waded in it up to her knees—nay, up to her neck. Under her feet were human heads, above her human hands flew like locusts. In her sensuous delight she decorated herself with suspended heads, while she attached hands to her girdle. Her joy at the butchery is described in even more sadistic language: “Her liver swelled with laughter, her heart was full of joy, the liver of Anath (was full of) exultation (?).” Afterwards Anath “was satisfied” and washed her hands in human gore before proceeding to other occupations. One is reminded of the words of Mesha, king of Moab about 840 B. C., “And I slew all the people of the (Israelite) city in order to satiate Chemosh and Moab.”

(William Foxwell Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1953], p. 77.)

Paul Copan:

Most Christians read Joshua’s conquest stories with the backdrop of Sunday school lessons via flannel graph or children’s illustrated Bible stories. The impression that’s left is a black-and-white rendition of a literal crush, kill, and destroy mission. A closer look at the biblical text reveals a lot more nuance—and a lot less bloodshed. In short, the conquest of Canaan was far less widespread and harsh than many people assume.

     Like his ancient Near Eastern contemporaries, Joshua used the language of conventional warfare rhetoric. 

(Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011], p. 170.) 

Cf. Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011], pp. 170ff.

See further: K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing, [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990], pp. 227-228. Preview.

Tremper Longman III, John H. Walton:

…the Bible is not hesitant to describe historical events hyperbolically to produce an effect in the reader in order to make a theological point. …The description of the conquest of the Promised Land in Joshua 1-12 is a case in point. Joshua 1-12 pictures a complete and utter conquest of the Promised Land, which would be contradicted in Joshua 13-24 and Judges 1 unless we understand, as the ancient audience would have clearly understood, that Joshua 1-12 presents a hyperbolic account for the purpose of making an important theological point.

(Tremper Longman III, John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018], p. 30.) Preview.

Cf. Tremper Longman III, John H. Walton, The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate, [Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2018], pp. 30-35. Preview.

For further study see: Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011], Ch. 15-17, pp. 158-197; John H. Walton, J. Harvey Walton, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: Covenant, Retribution, and the Fate of the Canaanites, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017]. Preview.

R. C. Sproul:

More important is the failure to understand the nature of sin. The assumption of the commentators is that God wiped out innocent people in Canaan. Of the multitudes of women and children living in Canaan, none was innocent. The conquest of Canaan was an explicit expression of God’s righteous judgment on a wicked nation. He made that point clear to Israel. He also made it clear to the people of Israel that they also were not innocent. It was not as if God destroyed a wicked people for the sake of a righteous people. To the Canaanites God poured out justice. To the Jews God poured out mercy. …Three times in this passage [Deuteronomy 9:4-6] God reminded the people of Israel that it was not because of their righteousness that He would defeat the Canaanites. He wanted to make that point clear. Israel might have been tempted to jump to the conclusion that God was “on their side” because they were better than pagan nations. God’s announcement made that inference impossible. The holiness of God is at the heart of the issue of the conquest of Canaan. It was because of His holiness that the act was ordained.

(R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, [Carol Stream: Tyndale, 1998], pp. 119, 119-120.)

Cf. Miroslav Volf:

     I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators’ basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

(Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006], pp. 138-139.)

Cf. R. C. Sproul:

The saved get mercy and the unsaved get justice. Nobody gets injustice.

(R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God, [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986], pp. 37-38.)

Cf. R. C. Sproul:

Sin is cosmic treason . . . treason against a perfectly pure Sovereign.

(Sproul, The Holiness of God, p. 115.)

Cf. John Stott:

The fact is, as Paul demonstrated in the early chapters of his letter, that all human beings are sinful and guilty in God’s sight (3:9, 19), so that nobody deserves to be saved. …The wonder is not that some are saved and others not, but that anybody is saved at all. For we deserve nothing at God’s hand but judgment. If we receive what we deserve (which is judgment), or if we receive what we do not deserve (which is mercy), in neither case is God unjust. If therefore anybody is lost, the blame is theirs, but if anybody is saved, the credit is God’s.

(John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, [Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994], pp. 269-270.)

καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν ~ Soli Deo Gloria