Canaanites

I. Divine Genocide?

B. I believe Christianity has a much better explanation for science, reason, and morality than any secular worldview. It is at these points, however, that these atheists push back at Christianity.

1. Of course, you have probably already talked about science, or at least you will. Many scientists are abandoning darwinianism (see Stephen Meyer or Michael Behe)

2. The existence of reason can really only be explained by reason itself. This is the core argument against naturalism from Alvin Plantinga.

3. Morality is also heavily in our favor. What would it mean to be moral in a Darwinian world?

4. It is this third point where the present objection to Christianity strikes most forcefully. Because we say that one needs God in order to have morality. But what if God is immoral?

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”Richard Dawkins

II. Biblical Passages and God’s Commands

II. Verses highlighting God’s commands for the destruction of cities

“you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.”

“Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword..”

“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ””

These verses, it is alleged, present a God who is immoral. The conclusion is that if this is the God of the Bible, then one should want nothing to do with that God.

III. Initial Answer: Those that have no basis for morality can’t condemn the morality of another.

“Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don't see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live....A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort...and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (...and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful...argument [for the reality of God].” Alvin Plantinga

B. On the secularists system, there is no morality. Or, if there is one, it is not objective.

C. Ayn Rand, for instance, argued that the immoral act is to act in the interest of another.

D. Plantinga: “Could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness [if there were no God and we just evolved]? I don't see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live....A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort...and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (...and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful...argument [for the reality of God].”

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” C.S. Lewis

F. While this answer is powerful and persuasive, it does not go far enough. For it is not merely Dawkins and those who are of the secular perspective that are bothered by this. We tend to be as well, so how do we think rightly about God’s morality in light of these verses?

IV. Perhaps It Didn’t Happen Like We Imagine

Paul Copan is a philosopher and theologian who argues that many Old Testament “war texts,” Joshua in particular, are filled with intentional hyperbole.

Example: “So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”

1. “So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”

But in (and Judges) we see that many are still alive.

3. Copan expands this to all the passages saying that it was standard military language to say that “every man was killed” when only a high proportion were actually eliminated.

4. Perhaps this is like saying, “we totally destroyed them” meaning we played much better than them.

C. I think such an explanation can explain some elements, but not all. Indeed, I think Copan goes beyond the evidence.

D. Nevertheless, he does point out that Jericho, AI, and the other cities indicated as devoted to destruction archaeologically seem to have been military outposts, so the women and children would have been very few.

V. What if it Did Happen Like We Imagine? Is God Immoral?

A. If we say that someone is immoral, we are saying that they don’t meet the standard of morality. But where do we get such a standard from in the first place?

B. When we say someone is immoral, we say that they responded wrongly in a situation. Therefore, to answer whether God was immoral, we have to understand the situation.

“a man shot another man yesterday.”

2. If he was defending his country from invaders, we would say his act was moral. If he murdered as a result of a drug deal gone wrong, we would say it is immoral. Thus, we must look at the situation.

C. The following facts must be taken into account:

1. We are talking about God, not man

a. Any attempt to blame the issue on the Jews fails on an account of divine inspiration. Though the Israelites acted, they did so at the instigation of the words of God.

God can act in ways inappropriate to men and be just in doing so. 1) E.g., God can be jealous without sinning. 2) God has authority over creation, and men owe allegiance to Him. 3) God is the judge of all men.

1) E.g., God can be jealous without sinning.

2) God has authority over creation, and men owe allegiance to Him.

3) God is the judge of all men.

2) This must be kept in mind as we consider this topic.

2. We are talking about sinful men

Notice the reason God said He would drive these people out of the land: “It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you…” ()

b. Notice the reason God said He would drive these people out of the land: “It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you…” ()

“And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” ()

1) Idolatry is the center-piece of their sin, for they form their gods, which form them. 2) Incest 3) Extreme Violence

2) Incest

a) Baal is the son of El from Asherah. El encourages Baal to have sex with his mother, and he does. Baal also has relations with his sister (Anat), and his daughter (Pidray). These are not presented as bad or even odd. b) Early Canaanite laws forbade incest, but the evidence suggests a loosening at around the time of the conquest. Jones indicates that this aligns well with the period between God’s statement that the sins had not yet been full. c) Sodom and Gomorrah was a Canaanite city. Examine not only what they did, but also what Lot’s daughters, raised in such a situation, did when they were with their father.

3) Violence

a) “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.”

4) Adultery 5) Child Sacrifice

a) There were “temple prostitutes” who performed their duties naked. Indeed, there are even directions for priests to mimic the actions of the god El in this regard. b) There were laws against it, but only for married women. Men were allowed to do as they pleased.

5) Child Sacrifice

indicates that people must not give their children to Molech, a Canaanite deity.

“Molech was a Canaanite underworld deity represented as an upright, bull-headed idol with human body in whose belly a fire was stoked and in whose outstretched arms a child was placed that would be burned to death.”

“A bronze image of Kronos was set up among them, stretching out its cupped hands above a bronze cauldron, which would burn the child. As the flame burning the child surrounded the body, the limbs would shrivel up and the mouth would appear to grin as if laughing, until it was shrunk enough to slip into the cauldron.”

6) Homosexuality 7) Bestiality

7) Bestiality

7) Bestiality

a) “Baal makes love with a heifer, a cow in the field . . .” b) The stuff we have from this period is so grotesque that the article refused to print it, and even what they did print, I was unwilling to say publicly. c) The documents describe dream of bestiality, which indicate that this occurred with some frequency. Jones thinks this explains why all the animals had to die. If they were a part of bestiality, they were defiled. “no one would want to have animals around that were used to having sex with humans”

8) In sum, one writer argued that if the sins being committed by these people were being done today, there would be a call to attack such people and stop them from their heinous crimes.

The Canaanites were not ignorant of theirs sins against God

1) ) Rahab () and Gibeonites (.)

2) Rahab () and Gibeonites (.)

Further, we see that God was willing to forgive

1) God saved Rahab and her family, because they repented ()

2) God would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah

3. So God, the Judge, chose to exercise His justice through Israel

a. God did the same with Sodom and Gomorrah earlier. b. He did the same with the whole world in the flood. c. He will do the same one day according to the book of Revelation.

b. He did the same with the whole world in the flood.

c. He will do the same one day according to the book of Revelation.

4. God was willing to condemn His own people when they sinned

a. God indicated that the people must entirely rid themselves of the Canaanites, lest they become like yeast and spread. One day God will completely wipe out sin and sinners. Of course, Israel did not do this, and they failed in the way God predicted.

b. God destroyed the family of Achan because of Achan’s sin. ()

c. Indeed, what God commanded for Canaanites happened to His own people. It was not genocide, it was capital punishment of a divine variety

d. : “26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.”

e. And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

f. “There were “male shrine prostitutes” (), they committed acts of “lewdness,” adultery and incest (; ; ; ), and even Solomon set up altars for all his foreign wives and even set up an altar to Molech (, ). In time the Israelites sacrificed their sons and daughters (, ; , : ; ; , ). Instead of repenting when things went badly for Judah, they concluded that it was because they stopped burning incense to “the Queen of Heaven,” Inanna/Ištar (). So the Lord said that Israel became “like Sodom to me” ().”

VI. Other Remaining Issues

A. But why the children?

1. While it makes little sense to us Westerners, most of the world has held to a group view of life.

2. Note that when Achan sinned, the result affected his children as well.

3. Indeed, we have inherited a sin nature from Adam and are cursed because of it.

4. I do take personal encouragement from my belief that God is gracious to children who die before an age of accountability.

B. Should the church seek to destroy unbelief?

C. Will God destroy nations today? ()

D. Why has this become more of an issue

1. The Western mindset is unbalanced: “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. . . . 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.”

2. “Our problems regarding God’s ordering the destruction of the Canaanites,” Clay Jones writes, “come from the fact that God hates sin, but we do not.”

3. “We do not appreciate the depths of our own depravity, the horror of sin, and the righteousness of God. Consequently, it is no surprise that when we see God’s judgment upon those who committed the sins we commit, that complaint and protest arises within our hearts.”