Classic: Genocide in the Old Testament

It says, "God is good and compassionate." Of course, that's where the church starts. "And the Old Testament is a faithful record of God's dealings with humanity." So we see God interacting with humanity in relationship, through covenant, and through his commitment as creator. "The Old Testament describes events that are identified as genocide," and the dark cloud begins to come over the universe as we raise this. "Genocide is always evil." And so the question becomes, how can you put all that together? You can't have the last statement – "Genocide is always evil" – and "God is good and compassionate." How can you put those two things together and make it work? Well this is how one person puts it together – this is how Richard Dawkins puts it together: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction." Interesting opening part of the sentence. By the way, this is in his book, The God Delusion. This is page 31, for those of you who want to have your devotions in this later. "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."

That is a mouthful in a whole lot of ways. And that's where we want to start. We want to talk about the way in which our culture takes particularly the event of holy war in the entry into the land. It's the _____ passage we want to focus on as the focus for this discussion. And think about how we think about this both Biblically and in light of the way the culture sees it, which oftentimes is framed probably not as pointedly as this, but often has a gut reaction to these kinds of stories in the Old Testament, the gist of which comes down to, if that's the God you're asking me to believe in, no way.

So how's that for putting a simple issue out on the table? Gordon, there are some things you want to say to us as we think about this topic in general, and orient ourselves to it. What are some of the concerns that you want to express as you think about this topic, in walking into it?

Secondly, we need to affirm that all war is horrific. However, since we live in a fallen world, some wars are necessary and morally justified. The question is, was the conquest justified? And so that enters into the issue of just war theory. Third, I think we also need to carefully distinguish genocide, which is typically defined as ethnic cleansing and the systematic and planned attempt to exterminate an entire racial group, ethnic group or political group. We need to distinguish genocide, which is aimed out of racial hatred, from holy war, which was not ethnic cleansing, but moral purging. Holy war, the conquest, was not imperialistic or a mere land grab. It was not genocide, not ethnic cleansing. It was holy war. It was herem. It was for the purpose of moral purging. So I think it's important for us to frame those questions. And the scholars that have done the work on the history and sociology of genocide – what happened with Israel in the conquest is in a total different category from the typical kind of genocide that we're talking about.

So that's one way of handling this. Others that I know, evangelicals are explaining it more along the lines of accommodation. God met the people where they were at, and he operated this way in history, even though it wasn't in accordance with his ideal. And we see the ideal in Jesus, and we move beyond this. But God accommodated himself to that situation. I personally believe that – I want to work with that fourth propositional statement. All genocide is evil. I would say all human-on-human genocide is evil. The fact of the matter is that God did order the destruction of an entire culture. But that's not the first time he's done something like this, and I know you want to get into the bigger picture. Think about the flood and also think about hell.

So I think it's important to look at this from God's perspective and what the text reveals about that, and to realize that when we're talking about God judging human beings, that's in a different category as Gordon, I think, mentioned. That's in a different category. God is the creator of life. He gives children as a blessing. And as the creator and the giver of blessing, he has the authority, the right to take that away. As Job said, "The Lord gives; the Lord takes away." He's the only one in the universe that has that right. So it is wrong – always wrong – for human beings to do this kind of thing, but God is in a different category as the creator and the sovereign judge, and he has good reasons for doing this. But we do need to begin to think corporately, and we need to look at things from God's perspective, which I think we will do. But I'll let you decide when we do that.

You see the same thing in Leviticus 18, where the Canaanites – and there, you have a description of primarily sexual sins that violate boundaries created by God. And toward the end of Leviticus 18, it says that the land is vomiting out the Canaanites. And then the Lord warns Israel, it will vomit you out as well if you do the same kinds of things. So there's something about the land vomiting out its inhabitants when they violate God's standards, in a very radical way that's contrary to his holiness.

And then I think of Isaiah 24, which is talking about a future judgment upon the earth, and the inhabitants of the earth have violated the everlasting covenant, which I understand there is a reference to the Noahic covenant. And once again, the earth has been defiled. And it's the same verb that's used in Numbers 35 for the land being defiled when a person is murdered in your territory, and you have to do something about that. You have to seek justice or go through a ritual to purify the land, because bloodshed defiles the land. And when you look in Isaiah a little bit further, chapter 26, the earth is going to reveal its bloodshed. So the earth has been defiled by violence and bloodshed. And I think we need to look at what the Canaanites did in this larger context. What humanity did in Genesis 6 brought the judgment of the flood. Isaiah 24 is talking about a future judgement on the earth that we read about in more detail in Revelation. So those are important texts. Also Genesis 15-16, where the Lord says to Abraham, I'm going to give you this land, but not right away, because the iniquity, awon, of the Amorites has not yet reached full measure. So the Lord is very fair; he's waiting. He realizes that these people are on a trajectory that's going to lead to judgment.

So to me, those are key texts that help us understand what's going on with the Canaanites in the larger Biblical theological context.

Ancient Eastern texts talk about the Canaanites not only practice but prized child sacrifice. If you were a firstborn son, you were going to be sacrificed. Homosexuality, incest, adultery, temple prostitution – the whole culture was reprobate. There's even a text from Mari in which – the king of Mari – in which he talks about thieves and Canaanites were lumped together. So even in the ancient near East, people viewed the Canaanites as just a horrendous lot.

One of the texts – there's two or three texts that are used in terms of the conquest itself. There's annihilation texts in which every man, woman and child is to be annihilated. There's also, though, driving-out texts, or texts in which it talks about, God's going to strike the fear upon the Canaanites. When they hear what Yaweh did to Jericho on high, and when the Israelites come, it's going to strike the fear and the Canaanites will flee before you. So some of their lives would be spared; there'd be some survivors. And there's even examples in which Canaanites that would repent, would be brought into the covenant community. So Rahab, for example, she's a repentant Canaanite when she hears what Yaweh's done. By the way, all the men in Jericho could have done the same thing. Could have repented and come to Yaweh.

The Shechemites – we read Joshua 8, Joshua 24. The Israelites renewed covenant at Shechem. And so there's this possibility the people of Shechem may have turned to Yaweh. And then when David takes Jerusalem – and this is beyond the conquest – when David takes Jerusalem, the Jebusites that survived the battle get folded into the covenant community as Gentile proselytes. Zechariah 9 actually says, it's almost foreshadowing Gentile inclusion in new covenant.

But you also have a set of texts on the conquest that are the herem texts. Bob alluded to herem. Herem can be translated sacred, sacrilege, devoted to the ban, off-limits. And the cities of the Canaanites that were consigned to herem, there was something so abominable about what had happened in these places that Yaweh permanently consigned them to be off-limits, and to be destroyed and wiped off and scourged off the face of the earth. Something had happened in those cities by this Canaanite culture that was so gross – and again, it's not ethnic cleansing; it was moral purging – that they had to be wiped off the face of the earth.

We've got a couple of examples like that today. We've got Chernobyl in Russia, where there was a nuclear meltdown. Now, it's not a moral off-limits, but it's off-limits radioactive. Something happened there that's made that place, for all intents and purposes, permanently off-limits. And we've also got Auschwitz. It was not consigned or burned or destroyed, but it stands as a permanent reminder that sites like that and others, something horrific happened at these locations, and these, for all intents and purposes, are off-limits except for memorial, to stand as an eternal reminder for the degradation of man, what man can do to man.

And I think what struck me about this when we talked about it yesterday when we were preparing for this was that this really is a worldview issue in question. If you have God in the picture, and the idea that we as creatures are responsible to a God to whom we are accountable, then this kind of an event can make some sense. But if you pull God out of the picture, if you say there is no God, or God doesn't exist, or you don't define God that way, or you can't define God that way – when you pull God out of the picture, you secularize this discussion – you're going to end up where Dawkins is. Because there's no context for making the judgments that are involved and the moral condition that causes the earth to react, or that says this is particularly serious and needs to be dealt with, and/or the reminder that in the end, we're all going to be held accountable to God.

So I think this is a very, very important context for the totality of the story. And I think the lesson in this conversation is, in part, that when you take a portion of the Bible and isolate it from the rest of the story of what's going on, the risk is, you miss the context of what is happening in that piece. And this is one of the values of being able to study the Bible as a whole. One of the things we do here, as we say, we expose students to all 66 books of the Bible. There's a reason for that. That story as a whole helps to frame certain things that are happening within the Bible. And if you lose that context, you're going to lose how that story actually works – not only in a Biblical kind of thinking, but in a worldview kind of way, as you think about what's going on.

We do have the mics set up here for questions. So we prayed hard about this before we set up the mics today on this topic. But if you have a question for the panelists, do feel free to come up, because it is one that we want to probe. And I'll just let you start right off.

So this idea about how violence works in our world, et cetera, is a very, very important kind of question to think through and wrestle with. So I'm making a commitment to you that at some point, we will come back and we will discuss pacifism and just war, because it is a very, very important concept with as many conflicts as we have to deal with on a regular basis in our world, to think through where that fits theologically is a very, very important thing to think through. Mikel, come on up and ask a question.

It shows how skewed we risk becoming if we don't think Biblically. Now, I don't say that to be harsh, because it can come across as harsh. I don't say it to be harsh. I say it because the more sacred you view life, the more you treat people with respect. And that actually is part of the core responsibility we have as creatures, is to treat the life that God has generated in this creation with a terrific measure of respect. And out of that terrific measure of respect, to make sure that you don't abuse other people. Obviously there are spinoffs that come off of all this. And we have only scratched the patina layer at the top of the archaeological dig – that little thin layer of dust at the top of this discussion. But I think it's an important way to get oriented to this conversation. So I hope you found the time that we spent with you on this today valuable. And let me close us in a word of prayer and we'll be done.

Father, we come to this topic and we are reminded of how serious it is. Whether people know you or not, they do react with a gut reaction that something is terribly amiss when judgment is necessary. But that which is amiss is not with you. That which is amiss is with us. And we're reminded of that. We're reminded of our need for you, of our distance from you, and yet at the same time, of your desire to draw us to yourself through the offer of your Son, through the forgiveness of sins, through provision of the Spirit, through the gift of life, and through the opportunity to walk with you. Help us to reflect on why these warnings exist in Scripture, that sin is very serious business, and that the opportunity for forgiveness is an expression of your deep, loving grace that comes because we so need it. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.