Richard Hess: Did God Command Joshua and Israel to Commit Genocide?

From "To Everyone an Answer: 10th Annual EPS Apologetics Conference"

[m_n__e_e_.]

And now, a lesson on how to justify genocide.

[glurp]

There is a lot of other evidence against the genocide allegation, too. One book that covers this is Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? I'm not sure if all of Copan's analysis is correct, but it does have a lot of useful points.

[BiolaUniversity]

It's available for download from our Open Biola site (open.biola.edu). Search for the talk, and then download it under the "Media Options" tab directly below the video.

[ebonypegasus]

He has made more sense than anyone else whose tried to explain this to me, Plus God himself, explained some things as I listened.

[levantinian]

Not only did Yahweh command them to commit genocide, he also punished any of their leaders who showed mercy on the peoples he deemed enemies.

[undoubting_god]

A truly educational lecture. Thank you Dr. Hess! What about in chapters 12 to the end of Joshua? Is there any evidence for the same line of thinking that genocide did not occur?

[greginfla_]

its been 9 years, has anyone found the slides?

[djb]

It would be great to see what he's looking at - power point slideshows, etc.

Thanks.

[zacdredge]

I found this very unsatisfying. I'm guessing whoever titled the video either didn't listen to it first or was fine clickbaiting. Hess himself clearly isn't interested so much in the Command from God but what was carried out or done by the Israelites irrespective of whether this fulfilled God's own indictment. He says as much at 35:53.
The problem is this virtually doesn't matter in terms of the critique. If God commanded and Joshua failed to fully obey then that can easily just mean Joshua is incompetent at genocide rather than at all indicating Yahweh wasn't calling for such. The reason people struggle with this, myself included, is what it says about God, not what it says about humanity which I already know is flawed and capable of evil.

[TheSupermanny]

This video is a example of beating around the bush.
The question presented was, did God order the killing? It’s an easy yes or no question but yet this individual takes a full hour to blow smoke up everybody’s behind.

[robanddawnramcharan]

If the question is, "Did God command Joshua and Israel to commit genocide?", it's intellectually dishonest to change the topic and start talking about whether they actually did it. He can't bring himself to say, "Yes, He did", so he has to say that the text doesn't mean what it says. He's got nothing.

[xaindsleena]

This apologist strategy seems to be arguing that the number of babies that were slaughtered could have been a small number.... in which case, it wasn't really that evil

[ChipsAplentyBand]

This is an important topic and I'm grateful that Biola has allowed comments on this video. Another college's panel discussion of this same topic posted by one of the panel discussants, who is a brilliant and well-spoken gentleman, did not allow comments (for whatever reason and I have no accusations here). Ironically, a close friend of mine has comparable training to that gentleman—both are Bible scholars with their Ph.D.s from Harvard—but is much more plainly a theological conservative in his approach to topics such as this one. Theological positioning is both a product of one's training and one's own thinking as the result of that training in whatever environment one operates within; I myself was raised in a neo-orthodox/theologically liberal mainline church environment but moved to a thoroughly conservative position beginning in my college years due to various areas of Christian apologetics that were unanswerable except by the explanation that the Bible authors were indeed 'moved by the Holy Spirit' to write words that not only they chose (or quoted verbatim from God), but which were divinely superintended. That evidence takes the form of striking correct geophysical cosmogony in Genesis 1, strikingly correct sanitation and other medical practice in the Torah, hundreds of examples of strikingly fulfilled prophecy, including the timing of Messiah's coming. If I had to name just one published title that's a central hub for presenting and referencing such evidence, it would be EVIDENCE FOR FAITH/DECIDING THE GOD QUESTION, ed. by John Warwick Montgomery. Many ancillary publications are accessible in the various chapter footnotes of that particular work, including Robert C. Newman's THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY.

So that's the background I bring to the discussion of this topic, and indeed it is not merely an academic or side issue for me as I know of another brilliant scholar/author, who is also something of a personal acquaintance and personal friend online, for whom this topic is rather a stumbling block when it comes to his view of biblical veracity and authority. His professional training is in patristics, an area in which I have a merely marginal background, though the question of God and OT genocide itself lies outside of that specialization except of course where the church fathers themselves commented upon it. So this is a topic over which not only Christian laymen, but also Bible/theology scholars themselves, are divided.

What I would like to suggest and offer here, at least for those professing Christians who accept at least SOME degree of biblical authority upon the premise that God inspired the Bible authors as they themselves claimed was true and as Jesus reportedly approached the scriptures Himself. For those who only accept the devotional or other 'usefulness' of scripture, but think that its historical and theological veracity and reliability is hopelessly wrong and has been long-since abandoned by anyone whose opinion about such things matters at all, I refer them back to the large body of published Christian apologetics evidences that undermines that perspective and leads to a contrary conclusion about the authority of scripture. For those who accept the authority/veracity of the Bible, at least in principle, there is more to work with here by way of discussion.

Let me suggest that a place to start, proceeding from the premise that Bible is historically and theologically reliable and true, is with enlarging our contextual thinking about this topic (of God in the OT commanding genocide) to recall the nature and attributes of God:

Eternal/Time-Transcendent
Creator/Owner/Ruler of everything
Omniscient
Omnipotent
Loving/merciful but also righteous
Just, and so will not permit evil to continue unstopped and unjudged indefinitely
The Apostle Paul's Potter/clay analogy
Divinely-appointed civil law which is a reflection of God's loving/righteous character (e.g., the Ten Commandments)

At the same time, let me remind my fellow Bible readers that the everyday context of our lives is that of human beings living in human society governed by laws, rules, regulations, ethics, and sensibilities that may or may not be based upon God's nature and attributes. Thus our thinking as Christians is dually conditioned by:

What we know of God from the Bible
What we culturally think is right, as discerned from societal standards we imbibe and from our personal sense of conscience

These kinds of considerations alone will not detail a quick resolution of the question at hand—Did God command genocide in the Bible?—but I think they will provide the necessary, fuller context for approaching the question in a more fair and thoughtful way, and that in turn can lead to a better, more biblical, and more satisfying answer in the longer run. What I urge against here is drawing any hasty conclusion upon insufficient consideration of all the operant conditions that bear upon it; this is an area where people often do draw hasty, emotional, and even snide and flip conclusions, especially if they already have an axe to grind against the idea of God or against the notion that the Bible is bonafide revelation from Him. For example, an quip I often hear is: 'The ancient Jewish priest class wrote the Bible to give themselves power over the people and to harness them to enlarge Israel's geopolitical influence and so of course God's' command to commit genocide is included and evil because it's merely a front for the power-tripping priest class.'

Another consideration I would like to emphasize has several steps:

1. Double-checking the 'genocide' passage(s) itself for STATED REASONS why the prescribed action is to be taken (i.e., look for phraseology like "LEST YOU…") Such contextual clues are surely some of the most direct ethical information we have about the reason for God's commanded actions.

2. Reviewing those passages of scripture where the more generalized question 'Why should I accept God having a 'right' to do or command anything that to me seems unfair or unjust?' That question comes up more than once in scripture, and not only in the book of Romans, but by all means go back and re-read the extended passage in Romans too.

3. Make a side-by-side comparison of the best scriptural reasons vs. the best opposing 'societal sensibility' reasons. Sharpen the question as much as possible and make the contrast as vivid as possible. For example:

Biblical perspective: Nothing a righteous God ever commands as Creator and Ruler is ever unrighteous or unfair, even the execution of capital criminals or the extermination of sufficiently corrupted societies. Judgment is coming for everyone anyway, and so 'earlier' judgment of individuals and even of whole societies that have become sufficiently corrupt, is sometimes warranted in this life. Judicial execution of criminal behavior upon God's direction is not murder, but is both punishment of evildoing and preservation of the welfare of others, and is therefore not murder, whether it be focused upon an individual or upon a mutually-agreed, corrupt community/nation.

Societal perspective: By mutual agreement of humans, , only civil authority has the right to kill humans under prescribed circumstances (e.g., criminal behavior warranting capital punishment), but nations are never permitted to engage in the killing of entire communities/nations because we have historical examples of truly evil societies that did so. And surely not EVERYONE—i.e., children and even domesticated animals!—can be guilty or corrupted by the evil of their adult parents and neighbors. Also, claiming that 'God told us to wipe them all out' is an all-too-convenient claim for what I suppose to be merely power-tripping people to make; plus I don't believe in YOUR God or in YOUR religious book that God supposedly revealed, or that God gives new information/commands directly to the people YOU claim are His prophets anyway.

Note that in the worldview juxtaposition I've created above there are truth-claims made that are either supported by, or undermined by, tangible evidence that is available and can be examined. These kinds of component questions need to be addressed as well:

-Is Postmodernism 'legit? 'Are there 'separate truths' that are individualized, or is genuine truth absolute (true for all and regardless of who does/doesn't believe it)?
-Does God actually exist and has God actually communicated His nature and moral will to us, or does God not exist and so only there is only human ethical consensus available to guide and self-govern us? How can we tell?
-Is a particular religion only 'true' in the mind of its believer(s), or does it have objective validity? And how can we tell?
-What are 'rights?' Does God have any 'rights?' If so, what are they? Why should humans not judge God instead of God judging humans?
-Is the preservation of all human life at any cost and without regard to any consideration of morality/accountability the highest priority ethical good? Is the execution of criminals for capital crimes murder of the criminal?
-What exactly is the difference between 'killing' and 'murder' of humans? Is there a difference?
-What exactly is the difference between 'genocide' and 'justified (though regrettable) war'--?
-Wasn't World War II a 'justified war' because it served at least in part to help STOP a horrific genocide?
-Are humans responsible for our own behavior? Are we answerable to God or to other humans for any of our behavior? Is there any such thing as ultimate individual culpability? Is there any such thing as GROUP culpability?

[ReasonsForOurFaithMinistries]

To the people saying, God is evil, you done bumped your head. If God is real, you never die you were born immortal you just change locations and if God wishes to change you from where he put you; too bad he’s God and guess what? You’re going to get your wish one day you will not have to hear about God ever ever ever again.

[baronsecuna]

So the masses of women and children where not in the forts ...so therefore no innocent women and children were ....that’s the ticket ....

[LightningJackFlash]

Great presentation and as it should be. It reminds me of constitutions writings, for example the fact that it says that every man is equal, then thieves are equal to righteous... I mean then this is one interpretation, isn't it?... So what he explains simply has a deeper meaning than straight taking the writings. This is reading between the lines as they said.

[johnlaurie]

The most incredibly inept and sad attempt at the justification of the unjustifiable.

[christopherjimenez]

how religion turn a man into a pshycopath

[maddi]

Crazy. The problem with this is that it tries to present God’s orders as some thought out legal document where you can pick over the words and define exactly what was meant. The command to kill every man, woman and child is a statement filled with emotion. Man, woman, child; man-to-woman. Meh! Spot the difference.

Unleash fury!!! That’s what was meant, let’s not kid ourselves. Thank God, or whoever, they didn’t have nukes, because then it would simply read “nuke ‘em”

[avus-kwf]

10:10 all cities did

Would you say the same about Jerusalem in 70 AD ?