Let me say up front that there is not going to be a happy ending to this blog post. I am not going to disagree with someone else's argument merely as a prelude to displaying a solution of my own. I have no solution to the slaughter of the Canaanites. It's that simple. I don't know. As far as I can tell, the text of Old Testament Scripture indicates that God ordered the Israelites to kill children down to and including infants, and this is a problem. (Women as well, but at least one can conjecture that maybe all of the people from the age of reason on up had committed crimes worthy of death. Not the babies, though.) Prima facie, this is in direct conflict with the commandment to do no murder. Any attempt to answer the problem by saying that original sin means that no one is really innocent proves far too much, for it removes the rationale for regarding the killing of infants generally as murder.
There is no particular textual reason to take the problem passages to have been added later. It helps a little bit if one is not a strict inerrantist. But even then, what one is left with, at most, is something like, "Maybe God didn't really order that, but my only reason for thinking that is that, as far as I can tell, it is completely incompatible with divine goodness. I'll hope to have this clarified when I get to heaven." One piece of good news, as far as it goes, is that there is nothing about the slaughter of the Canaanite children that is theologically necessary to the truth of Christianity. Unlike, say, the historical existence of Adam, the killing of Canaanite children is not woven into the warp and woof of Christian theology, doctrine, or ethics. Very much to the contrary.
Lest anyone try to combine this problem with God's destroying Sodom and Gomorrah or with the tenth plague, I want to block that at the outset. God is the author of life and death. God gives life and can always licitly take life. God can take a child to Himself and into life everlasting. God knows exactly what is best for every human being and can bring that about by taking a human being's life. The category of murder applies only to the action of finite creatures. Murder is wrong, even in cases such as euthanasia,
precisely because it involves playing God, taking on the power of life and death. But it would be downright silly to call God's taking a suffering patient to heaven "euthanasia." The problem is that this answer cannot be applied to the slaughter of the Canaanites, because God is not just striking the Canaanites dead. The Israelites themselves are being ordered to put them to the sword--to hack infants and children to death. To my mind, the difference should be obvious, but I might as well state it up front so that things are made neither easier nor harder than they should be. On the one hand, Christians shouldn't make their job easier by reasoning that, since God's killing people directly seems obviously not to be a problem, this isn't either. On the other hand, skeptics shouldn't be able to overwhelm the Christian with a much larger list of allegedly problem texts in which God kills people or bamboozle Christians into treating God Himself as just a Big Man In the Sky who cannot morally take life, even by His own hand, without due process.
With all of that made clear, onward to the main subject of this post.
Paul Copan's approach to the issue of the slaughters, as represented in
Is God a Moral Monster, is quite popular right now. The impression that I think many people are getting is that Copan has come up with a way to use specialized linguistic and/or archeological knowledge to make the problem simply vanish away by showing that the Bible doesn't really say that God ordered the killing of children. Such a magic bullet would of course come as a great relief to Christians, who are constantly getting hit with the "What about the Canaanites?" question. But for that very reason, I think that Copan's proposed solution requires careful examination to discover if it can really deliver such a marvelous outcome, or indeed if Copan himself even claims that it does. (As we shall see below, he actually doesn't claim that his approach takes care of
all the problem passages.)
To begin with, in discussing this question, it's important to bear in mind just how bad the most problematic passages are. In my evaluation of Copan's answer, I will be coming back to the details of the worst passages, so let's get them before our minds before we try to discuss whether Copan has made the problems disappear. To my mind, the three absolutely worst passages are Deuteronomy 20:10-18, Numbers 31:12-18, and I Samuel 15:1-3. Slightly less bad, because descriptive (but it fits perfectly with the prescriptive passages) is Joshua 6:21. Compare also Deut. 2:34 and 3:6.
Deuteronomy 20. The passage is rather long, so I won't quote every word. This passage is directly ascribed to God, through Moses. It is part of the second giving of the Law to the Israelites. First, it tells what they are to do with cities that "are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations" (vs. 15). There, they are to leave alive the non-combatants and cattle:
[W]hen the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies. (vss. 13-14)
This policy is
explicitly contrasted with their treatment of the cities in the promised land itself:
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and Canaanites,...as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods. (vss. 16-18)
The passage could not be clearer. In geographical regions farther from the Promised Land, noncombatants and cattle (both of which are indisputably spoken of as real, not as metaphorical) may be saved and taken as spoil. In the land itself, they are to be destroyed lest contact with the people of the land lead the Israelites astray religiously. The contrast is what makes the passage so impossible to get around. The Bible is here portraying God, through Moses, as expressly envisaging the existence of women and children in the cities, expressly telling them to spare their lives (as spoil) in one geographical location, and expressly ordering that the cities within the entire Promised Land, including whole people groups, be treated differently--namely, by killing every living thing. And that difference explicitly concerns the women, little ones, and cattle, which were singled out to be spared in the farther-away cities.
The next passage that gets my nomination for "extremely bad" is in Numbers 31.
And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle...And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest,...And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord...and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Num. 31:-18)
Here Moses, purporting to speak for the Lord (and there is no reason in the text to think that he is not speaking for the Lord) expressly orders the killing of real infant boys, not to mention all non-virgin women.
We also find express descriptive statements by Moses in Deuteronomy as well as in the book of Joshua that the children of Israel did kill "the women, and the little ones..." (Deut. 2:34), "men, women, and children" (Deut. 3:6), "man and woman, young and old" (Joshua 6:21). An interesting note here, relevant to the "idiom" or "hyperbole" suggestion I will discuss below, is that in the next verses of the early Deuteronomy passages Moses says that they took the cattle as spoil, whereas in Joshua 6 it states that they also killed "ox, sheep, and ass with the edge of the sword." This shows that the animals in these passages are literal; sometimes they are taken as spoil and sometimes killed. (Which fits with the prescription put in the mouth of God in Deuteronomy 20.) This is evidence against taking the women and children to be merely metaphoric or hyperbolic.
An odd point to note in passing is that, in discussing Copan's and Hess's approach (which he does not find convincing in the end), William Lane Craig makes the extremely surprising
statement that "It is, in fact, a striking feature of these narratives that there is no record whatsoever that women or children were actually killed by anyone." Since Craig does not specify any narrow set of passages, he appears to be speaking generally of the narratives of the conquest of the Promised Land. There are actually several places where there is definitely a record that women and/or children were killed. It is difficult to understand how Craig could make such a statement.
In a later period of Israel's history we find the third impossible-to-ignore prescriptive passage. In I Samuel 15:2-3, the prophet Samuel, apparently speaking for the Lord, tells King Saul,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel...Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Again, the cattle are undeniably real, as is the order to slay them all, for Saul is punished by God for taking some of the cattle back as spoil rather than killing them (I Samuel 15:19-23). God takes away the kingdom from Saul because of this disobedience. And, of course, the words "infant and suckling" are
prima facie explicit.
Copan suggests, in the face of these texts, that virtually all of the references to killing children can be explained away as using "stereotypical" or "hyperbolic" expressions that merely refer to "everyone" who happens to be in a particular city or fort, not necessarily real women or children. He also suggests that the places where the Israelites are said to have wiped everyone out were actually military forts and that no non-combatants were actually killed. He further points out that populations of the Canaanites and others were still around after the supposed destruction, so therefore the Israelites did not literally kill everyone; hence, the references to total destruction must be hyperbolic. He manages to suggest that, because of this absence or failure of literal genocide, we should not take literally some passages that imply that the Israelites killed Canaanite infants and children by the command of God.
Copan does not even attempt to explain away Numbers 31 as hyperbole or metaphor. It is simply too explicit a command to kill children. I want to emphasize this, because anyone who thinks that Copan has taken care of everything by way of specialized knowledge should know that even he does not claim that he has done so. In fact, Copan
goes so far as to justify Moses' order to kill the Midianite infant boys in Numbers 31 on the grounds that they would have formed a future army against Israel.
As with Israel’s lifelong enemies, the Amalekites (cf. Deut. 25:17–19), the Midianites also posed a serious threat to Israel. Whereas Amalek endangered Israel’s very existence, Midian profoundly threatened Israel’s spiritual and moral integrity as the people of God. With the help of the devious pagan prophet Balaam, the Midianites devised a plan to lead Israel into pagan worship. This involved ritual sex, feasting before their Baal, and bowing and sacrificing to him (Num. 25:1–2; 31:16). When he couldn’t bring a curse down on Israel (Num. 22–24), he sought another way.
This is why Moses gives the command, “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man” (Num. 31:17–18 NIV). This command must be understood in the context of Numbers 25. At Peor, the Midianite women deliberately seduced the Israelite men into orgiastic adultery as well as Baal worship.
The death sentence for all males is unusual. However, males were the potential enemy army to rise up against Israel.
What Copan does not seem to realize is that the indisputable reality of the women and children in this passage calls deeply into question the entire idea that the Israelites were attacking only forts and encountering only combatants as they moved forward. To be sure, this encounter with the Midianites occurred before they actually entered the Promised Land (since Moses himself did not enter the Promised Land), but the entire picture hangs together extremely well--a picture of conquest that includes real women and children and conquerors who believe themselves entirely justified in killing non-combatants and, indeed, required to do so by religious command.
Where does Copan get the claim that the death sentence for all the infant males in Numbers 31 is unusual? We have seen several passages that appear to indicate that all children, male and female, were targeted at various points in the conquest of the land. Perhaps Copan means that this passage is "unusual" in being so utterly specific and explicit and in dealing so clearly with real, undeniable infants that he cannot explain it away as hyperbole. Or perhaps he means (comfortless thought) that it is unusual in targeting male infants, specifically. Either way, he is apparently quite ready to justify the killing of infant boys as a matter of military expediency when he cannot get around it some other way. This shows, if nothing else does, that Christians have a difficulty here for which no simple remedy exists, not even a scholarly remedy.
Bearing in mind, then, Copan's capitulation to the unavoidable interpretation in Numbers 31,
here are some typical passages from Copan regarding other texts:
When reading the text of 1 Samuel 15:3, we are led to believe that 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 2:34 states that “we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. 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 sweeping words like “all,” “young and old,” and “man and woman,” however, are stock expressions for totality — even if women and children were not present. The expression “men and women” or similar phrases appear to be stereotypical for describing all the inhabitants of a town or region, “without predisposing the reader to assume anything further about their ages or even their genders."
[snip]
This stereotypical ancient Near East language of “all” people describes attacks on what turn out to be military forts or garrisons containing combatants — not a general population that includes women and children. We have no archaeological evidence of civilian populations at Jericho or Ai (6:21; 8:25).8 The word “city [‘ir]” during this time in Canaan was where the (military) king, the army, and the priesthood resided. So for Joshua, mentioning “women” and “young and old” turns out to be stock ancient Near East language that he could have used even if “women” and “young and old” were not living there. The language of “all” (“men and women”) at Jericho and Ai is a “stereotypical expression for the destruction of all human life in the fort, presumably composed entirely of combatants.”9 The text does not require that “women” and “young and old” must have been in these cities — and this same situation could apply to Saul’s battling against the Amalekites.
[snip]
Remember Moses’ sweeping commands to “consume” and “utterly destroy” the Canaanites, not to “leave alive anything that breathes”? Joshua’s comprehensive language echoes that of Moses. Scripture clearly indicates that Joshua fulfilled Moses’ charge to him. So if Joshua did just as Moses commanded, and if Joshua’s described destruction was really massive hyperbole common in ancient Near East warfare language and familiar to Moses,then clearly Moses himself did not intend a literal, comprehensive Canaanite destruction.
[snip]
Any conquest of Canaan was far less widespread and harsh than many people assume. Consider Joshua 10:40: “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. 10:40–42; 11:16–20). 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 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 23:7,12,13; cp. 15:63; 16:10; 17:13; Judges 2:10–13).
[snip]
We read in Joshua (and Judges) that, despite the “obliteration” language, there were plenty of Canaanite inhabitants who Israel did not “drive out”; rather, they lived in the areas where Israel had settled.
Most of Copan's arguments here are heavily dependent upon Old Testament scholar Richard Hess. It is therefore necessary, in order to evaluate Copan's arguments, to evaluate both Copan's representation of Hess and Hess's own arguments. Before I turn to that analysis, let me dispose of the argument that runs, approximately, "There were still lots of Canaanites around after this, so the references to killing everybody, including noncombatants, are hyperbolic and needn't concern us."
The problem with the slaughter of the Canaanites is not chiefly a problem of body count. In other words, this is not about the quantity of Canaanites killed but about the quality of Canaanites killed. If 100% of all Canaanite soldiers were killed in obedience to God but not a single infant, young child, or woman was killed in obedience to a real command from God, and if we could know that, we would have no problem. For that matter, we'd have far less of a problem if only adults were killed in obedience to God, or at least only those of an age to be morally responsible, including (non-pregnant) women, for then all the historical information we can gather about the depravity of Canaanite culture would become directly relevant. But the hyperbole response by itself, bolstered by later Biblical reference to the continued presence of Canaanite populations, simply tells us nothing at all about whether God really ordered the Israelites to target children and/or women. It is not as though the later Canaanite populations were composed of adults who had been carefully taken up and raised by the Israelites as babies and who later turned against them! The idea that this language is hyperbolic and that total destruction didn't really occur applies, as far as it goes, equally to combatants and non-combatants, to adults and children, and to men and women. It is orthogonal to the really important concerns about these passages.
Even if the statement that
everyone was destroyed is hyperbole in the sense that a substantial number of inhabitants of unspecified ages and genders survived (perhaps by running away or being driven out of the land), there are nonetheless passages that appear to indicate that God commanded that women and children,
inter alia, be killed. There are also passages that seem to indicate that the Israelites took that command in that way and attempted to carry it out. The "hyperbole" response, based on later Canaanite presence, is a simple evasion of this point.
Now, to turn to Hess: First of all, a problem arises in that, with a combination of summaries and footnotes, Copan implies that Hess makes and defends stronger statements than Hess actually defends. For example, Copan says that the cities the Israelites destroyed (such as Jericho) "turn out to be" military forts or garrisons.
Here is Hess's argument. The reader can see for himself that, on the contrary, Hess's argument is for conclusions such as "could have been," "may have been," and the like. Hess merely shows that Jericho, for example,
could have been a military fort. (Nor is his argument for that conclusion very strong, but I will resist the temptation to a digression.) Similarly with the word
'ir. Hess does not argue that the word
did mean a military garrison
rather than a city with civilian inhabitants, but merely that a military garrison is
one of its possible meanings. So with the "military king" Copan refers to. Hess spends pages arguing merely that a military commander is
one possible meaning of the word used for the king of Jericho. But the more ordinary meanings of "city" and "king" are also possible! So the statement that it "turns out" that Israel is said to have utterly destroyed only military forts is far too strong even as a representation of what Hess is arguing.
In essence, what Hess is doing throughout is arguing that, if you are
determined to conclude that the Israelites didn't kill any civilians by the command of God in Jericho and Ai, you aren't pressed to that conclusion by the text. Even on that point, Hess's argument is weak to the point of being bizarre. At one point he argues from silence that, since no non-combatants
other than Rahab and her family are named as living in the city of Jericho, they may have been the only ones! (pp. 38-39) Faced with the uncomfortable fact that Rahab and her family are, after all, there in the story, Hess turns to the
ad hoc hypothesis that they are the exception that proves the rule: "Rahab, as an innkeeper, may have been an exceptional non-combatant who, with her family, lived in what was otherwise a militarized camp." (p. 39)
Then we come to the statement in Joshua 6:21 that they destroyed "man and woman, young and old," which seems on the face of it to refute, by express statement, Hess's entire thesis that Jericho may have been a military fort at which no civilians were killed. Hess's treatment of this bit of the text is worth taking time over, because Copan gets such a wholesale return of conjecture out of Hess's argument. From what Hess does on this point, Copan concludes that time after time in the Old Testament (except for Numbers 31), when it says that the Israelites killed men, women, and children, believing themselves to be fulfilling God's command, or when the text says that God actually commanded this, such language is Ancient Near Eastern literary convention that could easily refer to killing only male warriors. Copan even goes so far as to apply this type of literary dismissal to the destruction of the Amalekites in I Samuel 15 where "infants and sucklings" are listed by Samuel.
Prima facie, this is implausible, and there is surely a pretty stiff burden of proof for anyone who wants to argue this. Moreover, as I shall point out later, even if there were evidence that such an expression was
sometimes used when there were no women or children present, it would scarcely follow that this is how the phrase is being used in the relevant Biblical passages. In fact, there is clear evidence to the contrary regarding those particular passages.
In fact, though, Hess gives the reader almost nothing in the way of an argument that a statement that women and children were killed was
ever used when no women and children were killed. Here is what Hess says, in full (pp. 38-39):
There is...an important verse, 6:21, that states:
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.
This text appears to include women, children, and the aged in this mass destruction. However, is this really the case? The actual expression is translated "men and women," literally, "from man (and) unto woman." The phrase occurs elsewhere seven times, referring to the inhabitants of Ai (Josh 8:25), Amalek (I Sam 15:3, here without the waw), Nob (I Sam 22:19), Jerusalem during David's time (2 Sam 6:19 = I Chr 16:3), Jerusalem during Ezra's time (Neh 8:2), and Israel (2 Chr 15:13). In 2 Sam 6:19 (= I Chr 16:3) it describes the joyful occasion of David's entrance into Jerusalem with the ark of the covenant and his distributing food to all the onlookers. Except for Saul's extermination of the inhabitants of Nob in I Sam 22:19, where children are specifically mentioned (unlike the texts about Jericho, Ai, and elsewhere), all other appearances of the phrase precede or follow the Hebrew kol "all, everyone." Thus, the phrase appears to be stereotypical for describing all the inhabitants of a town or region, without predisposing the reader to assume anything further about their ages or even their genders. It is synonymous with "all, everyone."
It would be easy to get lost in the welter of details and Hebrew words here, but this is actually an extremely poor argument, particularly for the use Copan wishes to make of it. It is important to note that, when Hess refers to "the phrase," he is
not talking about the entire phrase "men and women, young and old" but only about the portion "men and women." The majority of his examples do not include any reference to age and thus aren't even directly relevant to the entire phrase he wants to explain away in Joshua. On the other hand, Hess errs when he says that
only in the case of Saul's destruction of Nob are children expressly mentioned (as if to imply that there are no other places where sweeping phrases about killing children create a problem to address), since the very text he is discussing mentions "young and old" and since children are expressly named in I Samuel 15, where it appears that God is commanding their destruction.
Importantly, this argument does not contain a
single case where the phrase "men and women" is used and where we have independent evidence that women were not present! Not one. For example, in I Samuel 6:19 it says that David distributed food to everyone, both men and women. Do we have any reason to believe that David did not distribute food to women on that occasion? No reason whatsoever. Nor does Hess give a
single instance where "children" or "young" are mentioned and where we have independent evidence that children were not present. Let that sink in for a moment. This is supposed to be a biggie--a scholarly argument from ancient textual literary convention that a sweeping expression like, "Kill all men, women, and children" or "we killed all men and women, young and old, infants and sucklings" could be used merely to mean something like, "Fight hard" or "We really wiped out that army." And Hess does not give a
single example of a case where such a phrase is being used in that way!
Not one.
How, then, does Hess get to the "thus" in his conclusion? What, exactly, does his argument even amount to? The entire force of his case as given here apparently rests on what one might call the sing-song nature of binary pairs such as "men and women" and "old and young," together with the fact that the phrase "men and women" is usually combined with some Hebrew expression like "all" or "everyone." Hess is probably thinking of (though he does not mention) the fact that Hebrew, like English, does have idioms that are merely emphatic ways of saying "all" or "everything." For example, I am told that the Hebrew translated as "neither good nor evil" is an idiom for "nothing." A near English equivalent to what Hess wants us to envisage would be the phrase "everything from A to Z," where "from A to Z" is merely a way of emphasizing "everything." From these slight indications Hess concludes that all of this sounds conventional, sounds like it is just an idiomatic way of saying "everyone," and from that derives the quite strong conclusion that the reader wouldn't have been disposed to think
anything whatsoever about the ages or genders of the people present from a phrase like "men and women, old and young."
So Hess's argument for the "possible literary convention" conclusion regarding such phrases is exceedingly weak. But more can be said: Suppose that Hess
had provided
some examples where some Ancient Near Eastern text says that all men, women, and children were killed and where there is independent evidence that only men were present. It would have to be fairly strong evidence, not just something vague like, "Well, it looks like this was a military fort, so maybe there were no women or children there." But just suppose. While that would be somewhat interesting as showing that such an expression could be used in that way, how much would that help with the problem passages?
Not much. The problem passages are just too clear. Even aside from Numbers 31 (where Copan himself gives up and callously suggests that killing baby boys is okay because they are a future army), Deuteronomy 20 gives us, as already pointed out, an express contrast between cities where real women, children, and cattle
are expected to be present and can be taken as spoil and cities where they are not to be taken as spoil but where, instead, everything is to be killed. This passage cannot be fit into the "idiomatic expression" concept at all. Where women, little ones, and cattle are listed, they are separated out rather than being part of some sweeping reference to "all" or "everything." And where "everything that breathes" is ordered for destruction in the cities of the Promised Land itself, the only possible thing it can refer to, by way of contrast, is those very women, little ones, and cattle who are, in those cities, not potential spoil or prisoners but must be killed instead. What could such a contrast even mean if killing everything that breathes is merely a reference to fighting really hard or killing a lot of soldiers? That the Israelites are to fight less strongly against the armies farther away from the Promised Land than in the Promised Land? That they are to destroy only some of the male combatants far away but all of them within the land? Any attempt to make such conjectures constitutes a
reductio of the application of the "ancient near eastern literary convention" idea to Deuteronomy 20.
Moreover, in Deuteronomy 20 the prescription is for an entire geographical area and for entire people groups. God does not tell the Israelites in Deuteronomy 20 merely to go to such-and-such a named city (which might be a fort, for all we know) and kill everything that breathes in that location. That would be simple enough to dismiss, because who knows whether any non-combatants were breathing in that particular location? But the command isn't like that at all. Whatever one may say about Jericho, surely in the entirety of the land of Canaan there were some women and children! Surely among all the Hittites, Amorites, and Canaanites some non-combatants were to be found. And what about that rationale--that they should not teach the Israelites to do according to their abominations? Is the idea that the
soldiers, if left alive, would be teaching the Israelites false religion? No, that seems to be an allusion to the women and to intermarriage with the civilian population.
Similarly with the Amalekites in I Samuel 15. Saul is not sent against some named and possibly entirely military location. He is sent to wipe out a group
qua group. It seems reasonable to think that that is
why infants, sucklings, women, and cattle are named--to emphasize the destruction of all that pertains to the tribe. One can even go farther: Suppose that Hess had succeeded (as he certainly has not) in arguing that such pairs as "man and woman, infant and suckling," etc., were the literary equivalent of the English "from A to Z." If one said, "Go and kill everyone in that tribe, from A to Z," that would be an extremely bloodthirsty order on its face. To say that these are emphatic ways of saying "everyone" gets one in trouble all on its own when "everyone" refers to an entire tribal group!
And, as I have already pointed out, the animals in these passages are shown to be entirely literal, even when they are listed in pairs ("ox and sheep, camel and ass") and even when they are part of a larger list of types of entities. The literary form does not, it turns out, mean that the animals are merely hypothetical bookends in an idiomatic expression that "would not have predisposed the reader to assume" that there were any real animals present! If the cattle and their destruction are real, why are the women and children not real?
The entire "literary convention" idea simply falls to pieces when one makes the attempt to apply it to the details of the worst of the problem passages.
So after looking into Copan's argument, we are left with the unfortunate conclusion that he has not made the problem go away after all. It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to draw this conclusion. In fact, I have hesitated for some time to say anything about the matter, because I have no desire to weaken anyone's Christianity nor to dismiss publicly an argument that I do not understand. But when the scholarly argument simply will not give what many hope for from it, and when this can be discovered fairly directly by a careful investigation of the relevant texts, it is quite certain that some atheist will do that investigation and will be ready to mop the floor with a Christian apologist (or a Christian student) who tries to use Copan's argument as a magic bullet. After gradually realizing the influence that this attempted response is coming to have, I decided that I needed to write something public on the topic. It is tempting, if one does not have the relevant problem texts clearly before one's mind, to think that perhaps there is some esoteric information out there that fixes everything. I am sorry to have to say it, but that does not at all appear to be the case.
Finally, let me emphasize an important point where I agree with Paul Copan. He
says,
Despite our remaining questions, we need to look at God’s clear revelation in Jesus Christ — especially His incarnation and atoning death. A concerned, relational God — who made himself known to ancient Israel — showed up on the scene in flesh and blood. He entered into first-century life in Palestine, stooping to share our lot to enduring life’s temptations, injustices, sufferings, cruelties, and humiliations. However we view the Canaanite question, God’s heart is concerned with redemption. Christ’s dying naked on a barbaric cross reveals how very low God is willing to go for our salvation. As Michael Card sang about those who scorned and spurned God’s salvation in Jesus of Nazareth:
They mocked His true calling
And laughed at His fate,
So glad to see the Gentle One
Consumed by their hate—
Unaware of the wind and the darkening sky,
So blind to the fact that it was God limping by.
Since God was willing to go through all of this for our salvation, the Christian can reply to the critic, “While I cannot tidily solve the problem of the Canaanites, I can trust a God who has proven His willingness to go to such excruciating lengths — and depths — to offer rebellious humans reconciliation and friendship.”
However we interpret and respond to some of the baffling questions raised by the Old Testament, we should not stop with the Old Testament if we want a clearer revelation of the heart and character of God. In fact, the New Testament clearly reveals a God who redeems His enemies through Christ’s substitutionary, self-sacrificial, shame-bearing act of love (Romans 5:10). Though a Canaanite-punishing God strikes us as incompatible with graciousness and compassion, God is also light (1 John 1:5) — a God who is both good and severe (Romans 11:22). Yet this righteous God loves His enemies, not simply His friends (Matthew 5:43–48). Indeed, He allows himself to be crucified by His enemies in hopes of redeeming them: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34, NASB).
Philosophers of science are well aware that a theory does not need to have answers to all anomalies in order to be well-supported and rationally accepted. We have ample, to my mind overwhelming, evidence, quite independent of our response to the question of the Canaanite slaughters, that God exists, that He is loving and all-good, that His goal is to redeem mankind, and that Jesus is God the Son who reveals the loving Father to us. That means that we can handle points where we do not know the answer while still retaining a robust confidence in the truth of Christianity. It is a brittle and irrational approach that says, "You must have an answer to everything or else your faith is vain and not founded on fact." Being an evidentialist, as I am, does not
at all mean having to have all answers to all questions. On the contrary, it means viewing the
totality of the evidence one has and trying, to the best of one's ability, to come to an intelligent and judicious conclusion. I believe that any fair-minded inquirer who investigates the evidence for Christianity will come to believe it to be true. This means believing that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one true God and is a necessarily good and perfect God, worthy of all worship.
Someday, in heaven, I hope to know the answer to these problem passages. If I don't, it will be because I don't need to know. Meanwhile, we endure as seeing Him who is invisible, knowing that He loves us better than we can properly love ourselves and knowing, too, that He loves every Canaanite child far better than we, with our questioning minds on the child's behalf, could have loved him.