The document discusses the moral implications of violence described in the Old Testament, particularly regarding the treatment of the Canaanites by the Israelites. It presents contrasting viewpoints from authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who criticize the biblical narratives as examples of divine-sanctioned atrocities. Additionally, it includes responses that argue for a contextual understanding of the texts, suggesting that the descriptions of battles and destruction should be interpreted as hyperbolic rhetoric rather than literal endorsements of genocide.

1. Genocide in the
Old Testament?

2. ‘ethnic cleansing’

3. ‘bloodthirsty massacres’

4. ‘xenophobic relish’

5. ‘morally indistinguishable from
Hitler’s invasion of Poland’

6. What makes my jaw drop is that people
today should base their lives on such an
appalling role model as Yahweh – and even
worse, that they should bossily try to force
the same evil monster (whether fact or
fiction) on the rest of us.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

7. God is morally inferior

8. The OT is morally
inferior

9. [The Canaanites] were pitilessly driven out
of their homes to make room for the
ungrateful and mutinous children of Israel.
Christopher Hitchens
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

10. [The OT contains] a warrant for trafficking
in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery,
for bride-price, and for indiscriminate
massacre . . .
Christopher Hitchens
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

11. OT law and OT narratives

12. protection for the weak . . . justice for the poor;
impartiality in the courts; generosity at harvest
time and in general economic life; respect for
persons and property, even of an enemy;
sensitivity to the dignity of the debtor; special
care for strangers and immigrants; considerate
treatment of the disabled . . . even care for
animals, domestic and wild, and for fruit trees.
Chris Wright

13. The informed inhabitant of the ancient
Near East would have thought, Quick, get me
to Israel!
Paul Copan

14. Some responses

15. Israel’s unique situation

16. God can have good
enough reasons

17. In the fourth generation your descendants
will come back here, for the sin of the
Amorites has not yet reached its full
measure.
Genesis 15:16 NIV

18. not an ethnic matter

19. After the LORD your God has driven them
out before you, do not say to yourself, “The
LORD has brought me here to take
possession of this land because of my
righteousness.” No, it is on account of the
wickedness of these nations that the LORD
is going to drive them out before you.
Deuteronomy 9:4 NIV

20. Do not defile yourselves in any of these
ways, because this is how the nations that I
am going to drive out before you became
defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I
punished it for its sin, and the land vomited
out its inhabitants. . . .

21. But you must keep my decrees and my
laws. The native-born and the foreigners
residing among you must not do any of
these detestable things, for all these things
were done by the people who lived in the
land before you, and the land became
defiled. And if you defile the land, it will
vomit you out as it vomited out the nations
that were before you.
Deuteronomy 18:24–28 NIV

22. The scale of the destruction

23. They devoted the city to the LORD and
destroyed with the sword every living thing
in it – men and women, young and old,
cattle, sheep and donkeys.
Joshua 6:21 NIV

24. cities or garrisons?

25. Jericho and Ai were forts

26. We know that many of these ‘cities’ were
used primarily for government buildings, and
the common people lived in the
surrounding countryside.
Richard S. Hess

27. Hess adduces inscriptional, archaeological,
and other such evidences that Jericho was a
small settlement of probably 100 or fewer
soldiers. This is why all of Israel could circle
it seven times in one day and then do battle
against it. So if Jericho was a fort, then ‘all’
those killed therein were warriors.
Paul Copan
‘Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites’,
Philosophia Christi 11, no. 1 (2009)

28. hyperbolic language

29. When the LORD your God has delivered
them over to you and you have defeated
them, then you must destroy them totally.
Make no treaty with them, and show them
no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do
not give your daughters to their sons or
take their daughters for your sons, for they
will turn your children away from following
me to serve other gods, and the LORD’S
anger will burn against you and will quickly
destroy you.
Deuteronomy 7:2–5 NIV

30. ‘every living thing’

31. Total obliteration? Not 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 under-
stood what was going on. In fact, if we read
the text closely, we see this is exactly right.
Paul Copan
‘How Could God Command Killing the Canaanites?’

32. At the sound of horsemen and archers
every town takes to flight.
Some go into the thickets;
some climb up among the rocks.
All the towns are deserted;
no one lives in them.
Jeremiah 4:29 NIV

33. Do not defile yourselves in any of these
ways, because this is how the nations that I
am going to drive out before you became
defiled.
Leviticus 18:24

34. There is no indication in the text of any
specific noncombatants who were put to
death.
Richard Hess

35. [We] are not talking about genocide or
ethnic cleansing, but a kind of corporate
capital punishment that was deliberately
limited in scope and restricted to a specific
period of time.
Paul Copan
‘Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites’

36. God’s promises

37. I will make you into a great nation, and I will
bless you; I will make your name great, and
you will be a blessing. I will bless those who
bless you, and whoever curses you I will
curse; and all peoples on earth will be
blessed through you.
Genesis 12:2–3

38. God is God

39. www.damaris.org
www.culturewatch.org
www.tonywatkins.org
twitter.com/tonywatkins_
facebook.com/tonywatkinspage