The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest Review

The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest,John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: Explores the biblical accounts of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, looking closely at the ancient Near East context and arguing that this was not a divinely commanded genocide or Holy War.

One of the more troubling parts of the Bible are the narratives of Israel'south conquest of Canaan, and the apparent genocide of the Canaanite people at God's command. Ofttimes this is justified every bit a sentence on the wickedness of the Canaanites. It is even more disturbing when these texts are appropriated to justify other "Holy Wars" or culture wars against evil in order.

In this fourth installment to the "Lost World" series, John H. Walton is joined by his son J. Harvey Walton, in a close study of the biblical texts often understood as God's command of Holy War against Canaan as divine sentence. Similar to Walton's approach in other books in this series, the authors combine careful work on cultural backgrounds with close reading of the pertinent biblical texts. Like other books, they present their study as a serial of propositions, grouped into half-dozen parts.

Start, they lay groundwork in asking the question of how we interpret the Bible, emphasizing that information technology is an ancient document and that often our problem is what our expectations of what the Bible is, which differs from its true nature. In this case the Bible is neither defining what goodness is for us nor telling us about how to produce goodness, but rather in the context of God'southward covenant with State of israel, how God is bringing nearly the goodness he purposes. Thus, we must never read these texts as warranting Holy War or a kind of jihad in our ain context.

Second, the Walton's fence that the Canaanites are not depicted in scripture equally guilty of sin and that the usual textual indicators for divine retribution against the Canaanites are absent. Critical to their argument is showing that Genesis 15:16 does not indicate that the Canaanites were committing sin, merely that God is deferring his activeness against the Amorites, with whom he had centrolineal.

Third, they argue that the Canaanites are not guilty of breaking God's law because they did not partake of the covenant and its stipulations. Their expulsion from the land is not analogous to the expulsion of Israel from the land for their unfaithfulness to the covenant.

Fourth, the Waltons look at the language and imagery of the conquest and contend that the descriptions of the Canaanites follow ancient Near Eastward conventions for describing an enemy as "invincible barbarians" Also, the behaviors described as "detestable" are from the framework of God's ideals for Israel under the covenant and not indictments against the Canaanites for crimes against a covenant they are not under. And finally, the linguistic communication of conquest recapitulates that of cosmos, in which disorder (chaos) is replaced with society (creation). Disorder must be cleared, not as punishment against the Canaanites, but to establish God'southward covenant order through State of israel.

The fifth role is perhaps most pregnant in its discussion ofherem, nigh often translated as "utterly destroy." They argue rather that it involves the idea of removing something from use, so that a new order or use tin be established. Killing people is not inherent inherem,but rather the destroying of the identity of a customs, particularly the identity markers associated with idolatrous worship. Killing may happen in the class of this, equally it tragically does in all aboriginal wars, simply this is not the focus ofherem.

Finally, the authors contend that this offers a template for understanding the New Testament, not in attacking those exterior the community of organized religion, only makingherem all identities in conflict with absolute allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus. What is to exist attacked and removed from use is not outsiders, but our ain false allegiances, simulated identities or any identity that competes for paramount status with our identity in Christ.

This, along with the argument that God does not command indigenous genocide in these passages is of import. Yet this argument left me troubled. The plain reality is that fifty-fifty if this wasn't genocide, people died to set up up this new order of God. If they died, not because they were guilty of sins or crimes against God (because they were outside the covenant and its stipulations), merely simply as function of a process of destroying the identity of a community, this seems a stardom without a deviation. The idea of retributive action at least seems to carry the sense of a but judgment, even if it does involve bloodshed. "Removing an identity from use" driving them from the state, seems more humane, except that the same number of people die, only every bit "collateral damage" of the conquest. There is something virtually this that seems more heartless. It also seems to trip the light fantastic around the plain sense of texts thatherem in the context of the conquest does involve the destruction of lives in metropolis after city. I did not feel the authors dealt adequately with this problem.

What I'thousand left with is that these are difficult texts, similar to Genesis 22 in which God commands the sacrifice of Isaac. The last minute exchange of the ram does non make this less challenging. Likewise demonstrating that these texts offering no warrant for genocide is simply marginally comforting. Maybe our difficulty is that nosotros look God to be nice, a "tame lion" as it were. Nosotros would rather a God who remains above the fray than i who gets involved in wars of conquest to effect his purposes. We don't like the thought of trying to justify the means of God when they seem unseemly. We too are uncomfortable with a God who takes on mankind and blood and dies for usa. Many Christian heresies are efforts to sanitize this issue. I don't want to say that is what the authors are doing here. They plain care deeply well-nigh scripture. But I also don't think we can soften the shocking upshot of these passages, or should. These passages remind united states both of the tragedy of the human condition, and that God accommodated that human condition in not remaining aloof from state of war and expiry fifty-fifty equally God worked out redemptive purposes for humankind, first through Israel, then for all of us.

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Source: https://bobonbooks.com/2018/12/06/review-the-lost-world-of-the-israelite-conquest/

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