How Could God Command Killing the Canaanites By Paul CopanOnly in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the Lord your GodDeuteronomy 2. NASB. 1. Such texts have troubled Bible believers and unbelievers alike. In his book, The God Delusion, atheist Richard Dawkins asserts that Israel engaged in ethnic cleansing those bloodthirsty massacres carried out with xenophobic relish. How should we make sense of these kinds of texts I have written a book on Old Testament ethics Is God a Moral MonsterIii OMAHA Beach by Gary Sheahan. This was the one sector of the Normandy coast where the German defenses had begun to reach the expectations of Field Marshal. The American Revolution was by no means a purely AmericanBritish conflict. The fight for American independence piqued the interest of Europes most powerful. GIF' alt='American Conquest Fight Back German' title='American Conquest Fight Back German' />By Paul Copan Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. The American Revolutionary War 17751783, also known as the American War of Independence, was a global war that began as a conflict between Great Britain and her. Drawing on unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, The Great War tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators. World War I. Hostilities ended six months after the United States saw its first action in World War I, and only a relatively small number of German prisoners of war. Event. Date. Global Population Statistics. The Spanish Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula ends in January with the conquest of Granada, the last city. Forever enshrined in myth by an assassins bullet, Kennedys presidency long defied objective appraisal. Part of the awardwinning Presidents collection. Baker, including four chapters on the Old Testament and violence. I can only here briefly summarize my response to this perennially perplexing question. Keep in mind that I am offering an alternative to the Sunday School version of the Canaanite question. First, I will make a few introductory remarks. Then I will sketch out the key points as a preview of the warfare discussion in my forthcoming book. Introductory Comments. Contrary to what some Bible believers claim, the Canaanites were not the absolute worst specimens of humanity that ever existed or the worst that existed in the ancient Near East. And what about the critics question, Who is to say that these accounts are just like that of any army in history attacking another people in the name of GodThe brief reply is, This was a unique, unrepeatable historical situation, and we could not justify Israels attacking the Canaanites unless God had commanded this by special revelation. Even so, God had patiently waited over 4. Canaanites would be ripe for judgment Genesis 1. Israels enslavement in Egypt in the meantime. By the Israelite attack on Canaan, God accomplished two things. First, He brought righteous judgment on the deserving Canaanites a kind of corporate capital punishment. God directed this destruction, however, less against Canaanite persons as it was against Canaanite religion Deuteronomy 7 35 1. Exodus 3. 4 1. 2,1. The Canaanite godsgoddesses engaged in all kinds of sexual acts including incest and bestiality. Not surprisingly, worshipers of these deities engaged in ritual prostitution not to mention infant sacrifice and other deviant acts. In our sex saturated culture, many people do not seem concerned about sexual immorality and the destruction it wreaks on individuals, families, and society. Our anger may flare up about racism or gender discrimination, but todays society has jaded our moral instincts when it comes to other soul destroying activities. Gods anger at a societys moral and spiritual suicide mission His saying Enough turns out to be a sign of moral concern. Second, God was able to prepare a land for His people to create the proper religious setting to make sense of a coming Messiah who would bring redemption to Israelites and Gentiles alike Genesis 1. Who are the intended recipients of this salvation Jews, yes, but also Israels most hostile enemies Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and Philistia Psalm 8. Isaiah 1. 9 2. 32. Dongle Software'>3 Dongle Software. What is more, God even incorporated the Canaanites into the new Israel, the true people of God Zechariah 9 7 the Jebusite, who has been assimilated into Israel Matthew 1. Killing the Canaanites was not racially motivated rather, it was theologically and morally motivated via divine mandate. Infiltration, Internal Struggle, and Conquest. The typical Sunday School version of the Canaanite story assumes that military engagement was the only means of taking the land. Many evangelical scholars, however, reject the military only model. They recognize that the biblical text refers to some type of infiltration e. Judges 1 12 5 as well as internal struggle Judges. After all, the Canaanites continued to live in the land. One Old Testament scholar observes that we see more than a simple conquest model, but rather a mixed picture of success and failure, sudden victory and slow, compromised progress. Yes, the Israelites entered Canaan, and they did engage militarily, but without causing extensive material destruction. As we will continue to see, the picture is a bit more complex than simply conquest. Ancient Near East Warfare Rhetoric. Any conquest of Canaan was far less widespread and harsh than many people assume. Consider Joshua 1. Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded NASB. At first glance, it appears that Joshua captured all the land, defeated all the kings, and destroyed all the Canaanites cf. Total obliterationNot quite. Joshua used typical ancient Near East rhetorical language that exaggerates what actually took place. Joshua was not trying to deceive people the ancient audience would have readily understood what was going on. In fact, if we read the text closely, we see this is exactly right. Joshua later refers to nations that remain among you, and he warns Israel not to mention, swear by, serve, or bow down to their gods Joshua 2. Judges 2 1. 01. The same is true in Judges which is literarily connected to Joshua they did not drive out the Jebusites they did not take possession they did not drive them out completely 1 2. NASB I will not drive them out before you 2 3, NASB. In fact, these nations remained to this day 1 2. NASB. Yes, Joshua uses ancient conventional warfare rhetoric. Many other ancient Near East military accounts are full of bravado and exaggeration, depicting total devastation. Ancient Near East readers knew this was massive hyperbole and not literally true. Interestingly, Deuteronomy 7 25 uses words like utterly destroy right next to you shall not intermarry with them NASB. As we have seen, the chief concern is destroying Canaanite religion not the Canaanite people. The Amalekites. What about 1 Samuel 1. God commands Israel to utterly destroy haram and not spare the Amalekites Who were these people They were Israels enemies from day one Exodus 1. Judges 3 1. 3 6 35, 3. For nearly 1,0. 00 years, the Amalekites dogged and threatened Israel. So did Saul really wipe them out except for Agag, whom the prophet Samuel finished off Well, there is more going on here. Despite all appearances, the Amalekites show up again in 1 Samuel 2. During Persian King Xerxes time 4. B. C., we encounter Haman the Agagite Esther 3 1. Agag had been king of the Amalekites. Haman mounted a campaign to destroy the Jews as a people 3 1. Repeatedly, we see that the Amalekites were resolutely hostile toward Israel. Men, women, and childrenWhen reading the text of 1 Samuel 1. Israel targeted and obliterated Amalekite noncombatants. However, Old Testament scholar Richard Hess argues that we do not actually have indications that this was so whether toward the Amalekites or the Canaanites. Deuteronomy 2 3. We left no survivor NASB. Again, in the next chapter, we read that Israel utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city 3 6, NASB. The Great War American Experience Official Site. Part 2. Narrator On the evening of April 2nd, 1. President Woodrow Wilson and his wife Edith left the Capitol and headed to the White House. Only moments earlier, Wilson had asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. A. Scott Berg, Writer It was the greatest applause Wilson had heard in his years in office. After the speech, he and his wife go back to the White House. Wilson goes into his office. And he puts his head down on the table and he weeps. And one of the men on his staff said, but Mr. President, what, what are you, what are you crying about I mean you just had this incredible response in Congress. He said, can you imagine people applauding my asking to bring us into war And with that he put his head down and sobbed again. Narrator A shaken Wilson had to confront the fact that, after struggling for nearly three years to keep America out of the Great War, he had now committed his nation to a conflict that had already left millions dead. David M. Kennedy, Historian We know from the record that Wilson was filled with anxieties about what he understood that he was asking the country to get itself in for he knew that he was asking the country to sacrifice in ways it had never done before, for a purpose that was not all terribly well defined. Narrator In his speech to Congress, the president had proclaimed that German aggression was a challenge to all mankind. The world must be made safe for democracy, he said. We shall. . bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. Alan Axelrod, Writer America was unique in the war because it was not fighting for survival it was fighting for an idea. And Wilsons idea was to preserve, develop, defend a way of government and, it was hoped, spread that way of government to the world. Chad Williams, Historian Woodrow Wilson was fighting for this ideal of democracy on a global scale. But what will it mean to fight a war on largely ideological grounds How do you rally a very divided country behind thatGet in Line. Narrator Americans began to notice the posters almost overnight. Within weeks they were everywhere plastered on buildings and displayed in trolley cars, hung in the windows of restaurants and in barbershops. America was suddenly at war and the message was inescapable Loyal citizens were expected to do everything they could to support Woodrow Wilsons crusade for democracy. The campaign was the handiwork of a former journalist from Missouri, George Creel, who had helped Wilson retain the White House in 1. He Kept Us Out of War. Now, only a week after the declaration, Wilson turned to Creel to convince Americans to get behind the war as quickly as possible. It was a plain publicity proposition, Creel recalled, a vast enterprise in salesmanship. Wilson needed Creels help. Despite his eloquent call for intervention, the president knew the nation was deeply divided about the conflict. Fifty members of the House and six Senators had voted against the war resolution. Senator Robert La. Follette of Wisconsin, argued that Americans opposed the war by a margin of 1. The Socialist Party of America, under its leader, Eugene Debs, denounced the struggle as a crime against the people of the United States. Christopher Capozzola, Historian Eugene Debs was an unyielding spokesman for working class and labor concerns. He also strongly opposed the U. S. entry into the war. He believed that workers of the world had more in common with each other than they did with the ruling parties of the nations that were at war. Narrator Further fueling opposition, Wilson was making plans to institute a draft. In response, the anarchist Emma Goldman founded the No Conscription League and organized protests all across the country. Nancy K. Bristow, Historian The idea of the draft is very controversial. The idea that the government can call on you or call on you to give up your son to go put their life on the line is absolutely counter to the notion of American individualism or what an American democracy looks like. Narrator Facing such determined opposition, Wilson and Creel conceived of a plan to galvanize support for the war. David M. Kennedy, Historian Creel was a pioneer, you might say in the field of public relations. And then Wilson appoints him the head of something called the Committee on Public Information, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is essentially the U. S. governments agency for propaganda. Narrator Creel was a passionate believer in the rightness of the presidents cause, and he saw it as his mission to educate Americans about the wars enlightened aims. His Committee on Public Information, the CPI, began in tiny quarters, but was soon bursting at the seams. The Division of Pictorial Publicity featured posters painted by famous illustrators like Charles Dana Gibson that portrayed the war as a heroic fight for democracy and freedom. Pamphlets called Loyalty Leaflets and the Red, White and Blue series, were printed by the millions in fourteen different languages, explaining the principles the country was fighting for in simple terms that every American could understand. Christopher Capozzola, Historian Wilson is asking the American people to make the world safe for democracy. Germany had become a symbol of autocracy, of violence, of un freedom that needed to be destroyed. Narrator It was a fight for the minds of men. Creel recalled and moral verdicts took on all the value of military decisions. Alan Axelrod, Writer Creel saw his problem as transforming the American people into one white hot mass of enthusiasm for the war and the CPI went from a bureaucracy of one person to an army of about a hundred thousand people in the space of a couple of months. Narrator Creels propaganda campaign was a mix of inspired improvisation and disciplined commitment to the governments message. For Woodrow Wilson, however, it wasnt enough. He had long argued for a law that gave him the power to penalize disloyalty and root out subversion wherever it could be found. On June 1. 5th, he got his wish. Congress passed the Espionage Act, an unprecedented measure that made it a crime to collect, record, publish or communicate information that might be useful to the enemy. Richard Rubin, Writer The Espionage Act was passed ostensibly to prevent espionage but really it clamped down on dissent. It was used to battle any kind of antiwar vocalization. Wilson was a very complicated man. Chip Ac97 Codec Driver Download. On the one hand he was a professor, he was a devotee of the constitution at the same time he was a very proud, some might say egotistical man, and from the moment America entered the war he identified the cause of the war with himself. And he absolutely would not tolerate any dissent from anybody. David M. Kennedy, Historian Its really kind of amazing how quickly the public mood changed from skepticism, reluctance, opposition to war to big majorities were full throatedly in favor of the war. It didnt just happen spontaneously. The government went about the business of deliberately cultivating enthusiasm for the war and deliberately suppressing any negative voices. Narrator The flood of propaganda and the power of the Espionage Act sent an unmistakable message to the American public The time for open debate was over the country was now on a war footing and every citizen was expected to get in line. Pershings Challenge. Narrator On the morning of June 1.