In the conquest of Canaan, three goals were being accomplished. Dr. Michael Gleghorn draws on the book 'Body, Soul and Life Everlasting' to provide an overview of what the NT teaches about the body-soul connection. The ceremony ends with directions: To be repeated five times by the company and the singers of the assembly.12 About this John Gray comments, We may well suppose that this activity of El was sacramentally experienced by the community in the sexual orgies of the fertility cult which the Hebrew prophets so vehemently denounced.13, Child sacrifice. God knows who will or will not repent of his or her sin and if He concludes that all the children would have been similarly corrupted, then He is perfectly right to institute capital punishment. Now after all of this God gives marching orders. In fact, He waited almost 400 years, and until their society had become completely depraved, before He instituted His command of capital punishment. Such arguments are clearly illogical. Not only have some people rejected Christianity over this, but it has even spurred some Christians to leave the faith. The Canaanites had hundreds of years to either repent and follow God or to reject Him and follow idols and false Gods. Heres why. For one thing, the Canaanites worshipped other gods. He blogs at, How J. K. Rowling Played, then Lost, the Polarization Game, GAFCON IV: Lessons from a Communion in Birth Pains, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Christian Nationalism, What to Do When Your Child Is Addicted to Video Games, Radical Christian Gentleness in an Era of Addictive Outrage, The FAQs: Anglican Group Calls on Church of Englands Leader to Repent, Whats the Earliest Evidence for Christianity? Then they would simply abandon worship of the true God. God did not just decide to command the Israelites to destroy all the inhabitants of Canaan simply because he promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit it; he commanded them to do it because the Canaanites were wicked, evil, sinful people. The Spirit of God comes on Jephthah, but the military leader's efforts still end in tragedy. Capital Punishment Reason 4 Moreover, most atheists do not customarily condemn the very practices that God condemns, for example, idolatry, adultery, and homosexuality. He believes the latter is the correct interpretation. Thanks to his obedience unto death, our own sins are forgiven, and we can now stand in Gods favor by faith alone. Abraham starts bargaining with God. Additionally, some ANE manuscripts talk about party-boys and festival people who changed their masculinity into femininity to make the people of Ishtar revere her.17. Herem literally means ban or banned. It means to ban from human use and to give over completely to God. Killing of the Canaanites: What Does This Say About God? Little of the Canaanites' textual records remain, perhaps because they used papyrus instead of the more durable clay for writing. They engaged in temple prostitution which was thought to be a re-enactment of the sexual unions of the gods and goddesses. Even so, many who acknowledge Gods existence still have trouble accepting the morality of Scripture. 7. . Josephus records that the Jews in Jerusalem were first whipped, and then tormented with all sorts of tortures, before they died, and were then crucified before the wall of the city.So the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another, to the crosses, by way of jest, when their multitude was so great, that room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the bodies.26 Titus then renamed the region Palestine and for almost 1,900 years one couldnt find Israel on the map. Can the actions of the Israelites legitimately be called genocide? Change). . 7:22). In our pluralistic age, its easy to forget what an offense that is to the true God. Yahweh is a God of justice as well as mercy. At first, the Israelites tried to compromise and worship God the way the Canaanites worshiped their gods. Help train Christians to boldly share the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that clearly communicates to this secular age. As soon as we heard it, Rahab of Jericho said, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath (Josh. the people of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, the entire populace from every end[of the city]. However, if we properly understand the whole picture we will be able to view Gods actions as full of mercy and fairness in His dealings with His children. All rights reserved. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it (Jeremiah 18:7-10 ESV). Because of this, I think the term should be avoided. And they even sent their own children into the fires of the god Molech as living sacrifices. [Ed. God had given the Canaanites more than four hundred years of probation, during which He sent prophets and warnings. The quote is from Gail Patches, The Great Debate: Craig, Hitchens ask Does God Exist? Whittier Daily News, April 5, 2009, A1, A4. And He said to Abraham, you and your children to the fourth generation must be patient too. Wouldnt that be a more merciful thing to do? Shedding light on this question will actually show that God is merciful and good. God had warned them against that (Deut. Though rebellion must be put down and rebels must be punished for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), God displays mercy for He is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Sue Bohlin processes how she is handling the crisis of tongue cancer by trusting Gods goodness. Wouldnt even infants, as they grew, begin to ask, What practices did my parents do which resulted in your killing them? As sad as this is, it also points to the horror of sin. Albrecht Goetze, ed. The Killing of the Canaanites - Genocide or Capital Punishment? - Part Perhaps what the skeptic is really concerned about is whether the just destruction of the Canaanites is license for Christians to resort to killing the wicked. Who Were the Canaanites, and Why Did God Order Their Destruction? Would a governor of a state who refuses to pardon a criminal and instead hands him over to the justice system be considered a heartless cruel man? God did not order the extermination of these people to be cruel, but to prevent even greater evil from occurring in the . Consequently, we love what He hates, and we hate what He loves. However, the verses that follow, namely verses 16-18, disallowed the same offer to be given to Canaan. The tragedy of this story is that not only is idolatry an offense to Yahweh, but it fails to supply a happy ending for human communities as well. In all of these respects, Israels laws were signposts to the spiritual realities behind Christs redemptive work for us. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). In short, Israel was Canaanized. What are the major signs of the last days? The modernistic notion that Melchizedek was merely the "high god" priest of the Canaanites (e.g., Baal), worshipped in pre-Israelite Jerusalem, is absurd (Hicks 1962, 343). Therefore, Israels own mission foreshadowed Jesuss mission in a number of ways. Only when one views life through the lens of the Bible can one arrive at a worldview based on truth. What is right and moral is known to all (Romans 1:18-23), but was rejected by the Canaanites to such an extent that they cut pregnant women open and burned their children as sacrifices to their pagan gods (Leviticus 18:21, 24, 25, 27-30). Concerning sexual desire, Dawkins questions why evangelical Christians are so obsessed with private sexual inclinations.30 The apparently not obsessed Christopher Hitchens considers dangerous sexual repression so serious that he calls it one of the four irreducible objections to religious faith.31 Dawkins and Hitchens are not just encouraging a sort of sexual libertarianism per se. The Amorites had a chance to repent and be saved, just as the Assyrians in Nineveh did during in the time of Jonah. The problem with new atheist divine genocide claims is rather simple: God hates sin, but the new atheists do not.35 Consequently, they complain of divine genocide in the face of Canaanite sin! This was Gods judgment carried out on the people of Canaan using the chosen people of Israel. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. 3. This is an online articlefrom the Christian Research Journal. Permission is granted to use in digital or printed form so long as it is circulated without charge, and in its entirety. Robert has written 111 articles on What Christians Want To Know! The completely negative connotations of genocide make it hard to look at the biblical events without a jaundiced eye. 16:9; cf. He gave them the law so that they may know Him and His ways. Paul Copan, Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?, Philosophia Christi 10, no. The classic example is Rahab, the prostitute who helped the Israelite spies in Jericho and swore allegiance to the Lord (Jos. Our aim is to share the Word and be true to it. Probably the ultimate sexual depravity is intercourse with animals. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. 5:1). Moses instructions to the Israelites as they were about to move into Canaan included this: In the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded (Deut. Bernhard Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1957), 93-94; 96-103. 1 (2009): 73-92; www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=63. He holds a B.A. Yahweh has made it clear that He is willing to relent in His judgment if a nation repents of its sins and changes its ways ( Jer. Why Your Church Needs Vacation Bible School, Gods Amazing Conversions Through Dreams and Visions Part Three, Gods Amazing Conversions Through Dreams and Visions Part Two, Ice Dragon: Legend of the Blue Daisies Movie Review, Phoenix Wilder And The Great Elephant Adventure Movie Review, The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island Movie Review. God knew it would take the destruction of the nations. They had male shrine prostitutes (1 Kings 14:22), committed acts of lewdness, adultery, and incest (Jer. 6:23), and ultimately every unrepentant sinner will have to face Gods judgment. God and the Canaanities | Bible.org Israels response to Canaanite sin is a parable of how their own sinfulness empowered them to ape the sin of the Canaanites and thereby procure Gods judgment on them. Every forecast of prophecy of doom came with an implied unless attached to it: If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. God is love (1 John 4:16) and He is also just (Psalm 25:8). The story of Canaanite incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality flow out of the plot line of idolatry. Copyright 2023 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved. Servants were sent to the tenants of the vineyard, but had been mistreated, and so the owner of the vineyard sent his son, but the tenants killed the son. This again reveals that Gods motive isnt genocide, but capital punishment. Had there been repentance, there would have been no need to execute wrath on evildoers. Subsequently, God sent prophets to warn Israel of their coming destruction, but they didnt repent and God said that they became like Sodom to me and He visited destruction on Israel for committing the same sins. In Deuteronomy 20:18, God gave Israel an explicit reason why it was necessary to wipe out the Canaanites: that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God., It was merciful for God to limit the scope of the. 2:11). Under the sanctuary in the ancient city of Gezer, urns containing the burnt bones of children have been found. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Mariner Books, 2008), 51. M.G. The Canaanites are identified in Genesis as descendants of Ham, son of Noah. Tagged as: With Miller, I think they can. 4:1314; Ezek. God sent Jonah to Nineveh, and spared the nation because of their repentance towards God. Memory,. If they did not destroy them, the land would vomit them out just as it had vomited out the Canaanites (Num. Let us also remember that the problem with the Canaanite city of Sodom wasnt just sex among consenting adults: the men of Sodom, both young and old, tried to rape the visitors (Gen. 19:5). Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. 18 records briefly the moral degradation of the Canaanites. These twentieth-century examples were basically people killing people simply because they hated them and/or wanted their land. Gods first inclination is to save Canaan rather than destroy it. (3) Therefore, Christians should condemn Yahweh for commanding genocide. In phase two, God fought against Israel when it broke its side of its covenant with God (cf. God allowed Israel to become slaves in Egypt (more on this in a moment). What Happened to the Canaanites? - Biblical Archaeology Society Old Testament Mass Killings - bethinking.org They are all part of an inherently wicked culture that, if allowed to live, would morally and theologically pollute the people of Israel.[1]. 11:31; Jas. 14. In Leviticus 18 and elsewhere, for example, the Bible reveals that God punished the Canaanites for specific grievous evils. How could the Israelites intermarry with the Canaanites if they killed them all? He gave them the law so that they may know Him and His ways. in communications (radio broadcasting) from Moody Bible Institute, an M.A. (LogOut/ To answer these questions, we must understand the place of the erem laws in the history of redemption. God had warned them against that (Deut. 5. Thanks for stopping by! Paul wrote to the Ephesians, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against . If you feel an answer is not 100% Bible based, then leave a comment, and we'll be sure to review it. (972) 941-4565 Also, God made it clear in His conversation with Abraham regarding the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that He knows who would or would not repent, and in the case of those cities, not one person would heed the warning and even Lots family had to be forcibly pulled away from the coming destruction. Dawkins objects that it adds injury to insult that the unfortunate beast is to be killed too.23 But Dawkins doesnt seem to grasp that no one would want to have animals around who were used to having sex with humans.24 Moreover, this might also explain why God used a flood to destroy what Dawkins called the presumably blameless animals in the days of Noah.25 If pre-flood humankind frequently had sex with every imaginable animal, then even though it wasnt the animals fault, it would be harmful to allow these animals to be a part of Gods start-over society. Why did some rules from the Old Testament cease to exist? If I can find 50 good people will you spare Sodom God says sure. God's patience on the Canaanites The skeptics illogical arguments Skeptics have claimed that God was unjust when He ordained Israel to destroy the Canaanites. It may not be altered or edited in any way. 4:26; 7:4). Why Did God Command the Israelites to Destroy the Nations in the Land 1 (2008): 7-37; www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45. Concerning the destruction of the Canaanites, atheists especially like to exploit the Christian condemnation of genocide. The situation with Canaan was different. Copan, Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites. Thus, the Israelites could possibly have married people who werent in the cities when they were attacked. Would 45 be ok? Abraham continues to bargain down to 10 righteous people. 10 Biblical Steps Towards Restoration After Sexual Sin, Baptism Quotes: 27 Inspirational Christian Sayings, 25 Encouraging Bible Verses About Strength, Words of Encouragement: 30 Uplifting Quotes. When angels arrive, however, the men of the city try to rape them and not only does Lot not find anyone who will repent, Lot himself tarries so long that the angels take Lot and his family by the arms and all but drag them out of the city. A special thanks to Joseph Gorra for his many helpful suggestions and to my wife, Jean E. Jones, for her extensive reading of ANE primary and secondary sources and for years ago explaining to me much of the Old Testament. The second goal of the conquest was the judgment of the Canaanites. In fact, the Hebrew wars with other nations (except Canaan) were designed to be only in self-defense (Toward Old Testament Ethics, Walter Kaiser, Jr., p, 267, Zondervan, 1983). But no one repented so all but Noah and His family were destroyed. The non-believer has no objective authority. What Do the Four Soils in the Parable of the Sower Represent? The peoples of the land did not repent, just as the survivors of God's plagues will not repent. In Ezekiel 18:23 we read, Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (see also Ezek. Theeremlaws of the OT were an example of this intrusion. This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 44, number 2 (2021). Later Lots own daughters get him drunk to have sex with him and so even Dawkins, in a surprising moment of moral clarity, writes, If this dysfunctional family was the best Sodom had to offer by way of morals, some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone.28. Cf. They made a religion of lust. Robert believes that the Bible contains the truth that God wants us to base our lives upon. Similarly, the southern tribes (usually referred to as Judah) were deported when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem beginning in 586 BC. Who is more qualified than the Creator to decide how long one lives? Bible Based.We believe in solo-scriptura. If Ananias and Sapphira were new Christians/immature Christians then we might have asked why they did Not have a chance to repent( i.e., some kind of gracious period of time to repent). God knows what is best for humankind, but He allowed free creatures to rebel and find out on their own that He is right. The fertility of the land was believed to be directly connected to the sexual relations of the gods and goddesses. Although Abraham was Gods friend and the Lord wanted to give to him the land of Canaan for an inheritance. THE CANAANITES- God's Justness in Perspective It's clear from history, God gave them ample time to repent, but they refused (Gen. 15:16; Deut. Later when Israel disobeys God and allows the Canaanites to continue to live among them, the corruptive and seductive power of Canaanite sin results in the Canaanization of Israel. For the story of Baal having sex with Asherah, see: El, Ashertu and the Storm-god, trans. The law given in Deuteronomy provided regulations for the people of Israel. The Canaanites were descendants of Noah. Looking a four outcomes of the resurrection, Dr. Zukeran shows us that the greatest defense of the deity of Jesus was made by Jesus Himself. Peter Singer Heavy Petting: Review of Midas Dekkers, Dearest Pet: On Bestiality (London, 2000), Nerve.com, 2001, http://www.nerve.com/opinions/singer/heavypetting/main.asp. All reproductions of this document must contain the copyright notice (i.e., Copyright 2023 Probe Ministries) and this Copyright/Limitations notice. A Clear Christian Perspective, The Apologetics of Jesus: A Defense of His Deity, Bridging to Common Ground: Communicating Christ Across the Cultural Divide, How I Know Christianity Is True A Defense of the Gospel, Yahweh War and the Conquest of Canaan A Biblical Worldview Perspective, Personal Development/Relationships Emails, Trusting God on the Other Side of Bizarre, Cohfessions of a Missionary Addicted to Porn. (Judges 2:1-3; 1 Kings 11:5; 14:24; 2 Kings 16:3-4). Israel was warned not to let the Canaanites live in their land, but to completely destroy them (Exod. Bring biblical wisdom to the confusing issues across the world by making a gift to our international work. I consider Jesus the be the perfect example of how to be good, Jesus would never hurt anyone. Just as God had demonstrated his knowledge of who would repent in the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, before he destroyed Jerusalem He told Jeremiah that if He could find even one righteous person He would spare the entire city (Jer.
Africentric Basketball, Hem Kaur Saroya Date Of Birth, Articles D