Critic Joshua Bowen claims that the Israelites were commanded to devote to destruction<\/em> (haram<\/em>) the cities of Canaan\u2014\u201cdivine commands for violence and genocide.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a> He also claims that the book of Joshua depicts a \u201cmassive invasion\u201d by the Israelites and that this allegedly \u201ccontradicts\u201d the findings of archaeology,[2]<\/sup><\/a> But are these claims true?[3]<\/a><\/p>\n In Part I<\/a> of this series, we observed that the descriptions of the Canaanite wars utilize various forms of hyperbole, and we observed a sampling of clear parallel texts\u2014and we could have added more\u2014where we have both <\/em>\u201cannihilation\u201d or \u201cno survivors\u201d language alongside<\/em> \u201cno annihilation\u201d and \u201cplenty of survivors\u201d language referring to the same<\/em> group of people.[4]<\/sup><\/a> Bowen doesn\u2019t engage with this.<\/p>\n And what of his \u201cmassive invasion\u201d notion that allegedly flies in the face of archaeological discovery? It actually doesn\u2019t. In Part I, we discussed the attacks on Canaanite cities like Jericho and Ai; these cities of Canaan were military and administrative citadels rather than civilian centers (civilians lived in hamlets and in the hill country). These cities had a \u201cking\u201d (melek<\/em>) or military commander.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n Israel conducted disabling<\/em> raids<\/em> on cities; the Israelites raided the cities without holding them but returned to base camp at Gilgal. Also, the Canaanites far outnumbered the Israelites (Deut. 20:1; cf. 7:7). Some have estimated the Israelites were around 20,000 in number\u2014not literally two million people;[6]<\/sup><\/a> they took the land \u201clittle by little\u201d (Deut. 7:22) and destroyed only three cities; they occupied homes they didn\u2019t build (Deut. 6:10-11; 9:1); Judges 1 reinforces that the Israelites couldn\u2019t<\/em> drive out the Canaanites; and on at least three occasions the Canaanites attacked the Israelites (Josh 9:1\u20132; 10:1\u20135; 11:1\u20135)\u2014so hardly a \u201cmassive invasion\u201d or going against what archaeological discovery suggests. And Israel is \u00a0against numerically and militarily superior Canaanites (Num. 13:31), who had high-walled cities (Deut. 6:10; 9:1). Fear <\/em>would have been the natural response (Deut. 20:8; Josh. 1:9); so to drive out the Canaanites would take great trust in the Lord<\/p>\n In Part I<\/a>, we saw that the term haram <\/em>(often translated \u201cutterly destroy\u201d) does not always mean this. It can refer to consecration <\/em>(without killing), identity-removal,<\/em> exile<\/em>, decisive victory<\/em>. Even though Joshua obeyed Moses\u2019 haram <\/em>commands (Josh. 11:12, 15, etc.; see Deut. 7:1\u20136; 20:16\u201318), many Canaanites continued to live in the land. So we have a clear instance of hyperbole, not <\/em>disobedience.[7]<\/sup><\/a> John Walton and Harvey Walton insist that herem <\/em>is \u201ccommonly mistranslated\u201d as \u201cutter destruction.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> Understanding the meaning of haram<\/em> should be guided by analysing its respective contexts. To illustrate this, let\u2019s look at two key Old Testament battles: against the Amorite kings Sihon and Og and against the Amalekites.<\/p>\n The story of Israel\u2019s defeat of Amorite kings Sihon and Og was considered momentous (cf. Josh. 2:10; 9:10; 24:12; Ps. 135:10-11). Israel sought to peaceably move through their land, but these kings rose up to fight against Israel instead. Numbers 21 gives us a more straightforward account while Deuteronomy\u2019s is hyperbolized and rhetorical.<\/p>\n \u201cDo to [Og] what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.\u201d So they struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army, leaving them no survivors. And they took possession of his land (Num. 21:34\u201335 NIV)<\/p>\n We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying every city\u2014men, women and children (Deut. 3:6 NIV; see also 2:33-34).<\/p>\n Bowen claims that Deuteronomy 2 and 3 clearly refer to the annihilation of all persons, including non-combatants.[9]<\/sup><\/a>But this is mistaken. A closer analysis of Deuteronomy shows it uses intensified<\/em> rhetoric<\/em> surrounding the word haram<\/em>[10]<\/sup><\/a>compared to earlier parallel texts like Exodus 23 and 34. Deuteronomy 2 and 3 departs from the on-the-ground reportage of Numbers 21, where only male<\/em> combatants<\/em> were killed (i.e., the king, his sons, and his army); even here we have some hyperbole (\u201cleaving no survivors\u201d). We should note that when Sihon \u201cgathered all his people [et-kol-ami<\/em>] \u00a0<\/em>and went out against Israel in the wilderness\u201d (Num. 21:23), the NIV correctly renders this \u201call his forces\u201d\u2014not women and children.<\/p>\n Deuteronomy, however, uses totalizing language of women <\/em>and children <\/em>(3:6) and piles on further merisms: \u201cno survivors\u201d (v.\u00a03), \u201call his cities\u201d (v.\u00a04), \u201cnot one of the sixty cities\u201d (v.\u00a04 ), \u201cthe whole region\u201d (v.\u00a04), \u201ccompletely destroyed\u201d (v.\u00a06), and so on. Non<\/em>-combatant language appears in Deuteronomy even though the Numbers 21 refers only to a defeated male army<\/em>.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Sihon and his army\u2014with military gear\u2014marched about twenty miles<\/em>\u2014\u201cfrom the Arnon [River] to the Jabbok [River]\u201d into Ammonite territory (vv. 23\u201324 NIV). This obviously excludes <\/em>women, children, and the elderly.[11]<\/sup><\/a> Joshua and the 1 Samuel picks up on this kind of rhetoric as well, even though non-combatants are absent. Upon examination here, we don\u2019t have anything like genocide.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen that haram<\/em> (or its noun form herem<\/em>\u2014\u201cutter destruction\u201d) can refer to decisive defeat, consecration (without killing), exile, and identity-removal. Yet war texts like this drip with hyperbole and merism. In this account, we\u2019ll see another rhetorical exaggeration device: localized battle plus universal conquest<\/em>. But let us back up a bit to give context.<\/p>\n The Amalekites attacked Israel (1 Sam. 14:48), and then in 15:1 the prophet Samuel issues a command to Saul, utilizing the totalistic war rhetoric language (v. 3): men, women, young, old, cattle, sheep, and donkeys. It turns out to be like the language of Deuteronomy and Joshua (e.g., Josh. 6:21): while male armies fight, the rhetoric thrown in includes non-combatants.<\/p>\n Bowen says that God demanded \u201ccomplete wholesale destruction\u201d of Amalek. And \u201cbecause Saul did not slay everyone\u2014including the king\u201d of Amalek, he is rebuked by the prophet Samuel for not killing choice animals and king Agag. [12]<\/a><\/sup> As we\u2019ll see, Bowen fails to make his case for haram<\/em>\u2019s meaning utterly destroy<\/em> or annihilate<\/em>. Consider the following:<\/p>\n 1) Bowen\u2019s phrasing \u201cdid not slay everyone\u201d ignores something important: the narrator<\/em> tells us that, except for king Agag, Saul had <\/em>indeed \u201cutterly destroyed all the people\u201d (v. 8)\u2014or whatever haram<\/em> turns out to mean.<\/p>\n 2) Bowen misses the fact that women and children can be included in the hyperbolic language even if they are not present, as we compared Numbers 21 with Deuteronomy 2-3.<\/p>\n 3) There simply wouldn\u2019t have been women and children present in a pitched battle against the Amalekites. <\/em>The choice animals from a \u201cthe city of Amalek\u201d (v. 5) were not killed but should have been, but there just weren\u2019t any women or children there; Bowen misses or obscures this.[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n So why think there were no non-combatants there? Clearly, Saul was fighting a combatant<\/em> battle at \u201cthe city of Amalek\u201d (v. 5). After all, Saul sent word to the Kenites there, who were Israel\u2019s friends; he asked them to leave the anticipated battle scene\u2014something Bowen acknowledges; so they \u201cdeparted\u201d (v. 6).\u00a0 Now if the Kenites left the anticipated battle scene, surely women and children would not be present either. Saul kept choice animals after defeating Amalekite soldiers at the localized battle at \u201ca city of Amalek.\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n 4) Hyperbole becomes even more obvious in 1 Samuel 27 and 30, where David fights the Amalekites\u2014again<\/em>! Saul\u2019s haram<\/em> is merely a limited military victory over Amalek, not obliteration.<\/p>\n 5)\u00a0 Still more hyperbole occurs with a rhetorical device commonly used in the ancient Near East: localized battle plus universal conquest<\/em>. Both Saul and David fought against the Amalekites in (a) a localized battle followed by (b) rhetorical language of universal conquest.<\/p>\n Saul:<\/p>\n Localized battle: \u201c<\/em>Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley\u201d (v. 5)<\/p>\n Universal conquest: <\/em>\u201cSaul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt\u201d (v. 7). This region is vast, extending from Arabia to Egypt.[15]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n David:<\/p>\n Localized battle:<\/em> In sweeping language similar to 1 Samuel 15, David \u201cdid not leave a man or a woman alive\u201d (1\u00a0Sam. 27:8\u20139). Clearly this was not literally so. We read that the Amalekites then raided David\u2019s camp, and he and his men \u201cslaughtered\u201d them, and \u201cnot a man of them escaped,\u201d except four hundred Amalekites (30:10, 17).<\/p>\n Universal conquest: <\/em>After the initial fighting, David was said to have fought in the same vast (exaggerated) territory as Saul did\u2014\u201cas far as Shur, to the land of Egypt\u201d (27:8).<\/p>\n Egyptologist James Hoffmeier notes that \u201clofty assertions of universal conquest side by side with sober statements about taking individual cities\u201d are hyperbolic indicators in ancient war texts.[16]<\/sup><\/a> Another scholar observes: \u201cit is impossible to imagine the battle actually traversed the enormous distance from Arabia almost to Egypt.\u201d[17]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n What have triple-decker hyperbole in 1 Samuel 15: (a) exaggeration by merism<\/em> (\u201cman and woman, child and infant\u201d) plus (b) exaggerated \u201ctotal-kill language<\/em> (\u201cutterly destroyed\u201d) plus (c) exaggerated \u201cuniversal conquest\u201d rhetoric<\/em>following a localized battle.<\/p>\n We could speak of other texts such as Deuteronomy 7 and 20 as well as Numbers 31, in which similar principles could be applied. But I will have to leave readers to look at my other books, especially Is God a Vindictive Bully?<\/em>, which goes into a good deal of detail on these passages.<\/p>\n We can conclude, though, that the more closely we look at war texts in the Old Testament, the less we see anything resembling genocide or ethnic cleansing. What we do see is a good deal of hyperbole and other exaggeration rhetoric\u2014a common feature in the ancient Near East\u2014except the biblical record at least mentions plenty of survivors.[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Joshua Bowen, \u201c\u2018Your Eye Shall Have No Pity\u2019: Old Testament Violence and Modern Evangelical Morality,\u201d in Misusing Scripture What are Evangelicals Doing with the Bible? <\/em>ed. Mark Elliott, Kenneth Atkinson, and Robert Rezetko (London: Routledge, 2023), 183.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Bowen, \u201c\u2018Your Eye Shall Have No Pity,\u2019\u201d 178.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> In both parts of \u201cViolence and the Bible,\u201d I am drawing from a forthcoming essay, \u201cViolence and the Bible\u201d in Christianity Contested<\/em>, eds. Paul Copan and Stewart Kelly (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, forthcoming).<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> For more such parallel verses, see Copan, Is God a Vindictive Bully?<\/em>, 202.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Richard Hess\u2019s argument in appendix 2 of Douglas Groothuis, Christian Apologetics<\/em>, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021).<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Some derive this from Exodus 12:37, but the word eleph <\/em>(\u201cthousand\u201d) is imprecise and needs paring down. See Colin J. Humphreys, \u201cThe Number of People in the Exodus from Egypt: Decoding Mathematically the Very Large Numbers in Numbers I and XXVI,\u201d Vetus Testamentum<\/em> 48 (1998): 196\u2013213, esp. 203\u20134.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Hawk, Violence<\/em>, 26.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> See John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: Covenant, Retribution, and the Fate of the Canaanites<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 167\u201394.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Bowen, \u201c\u2018Your Eye Shall Have No Pity,\u2019\u201d 178-179.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> On the ramped-up rhetoric in Deuteronomy compared to Exodus 24 and 32, see Copan, Is God a Vindictive Bully?<\/em>, 214-216, 219-221.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> William Webb and Gordon Oeste, Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? <\/em>(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 196\u201397 (see footnotes also).<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> Bowen, \u201c\u2018Your Eye Shall Have No Pity,\u2019\u201d 184.<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Bowen, \u201c\u2018Your Eye Shall Have No Pity,\u2019\u201d 184.<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Firth, 1 & 2 Samuel<\/em>, 173.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> The fact that Amalekites were nomads doesn\u2019t undermine the hyperbole bound up in the \u201cuniversal conquest\u201d motif, contra William\u00a0J. Webb and Gordon\u00a0K. Oeste, Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? Wrestling with Troubling War Texts<\/em>(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 210\u201311.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> See James\u00a0K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt<\/em>: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition <\/em>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1\u201342.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel<\/em>, Word Biblical Commentary 10 (Waco: Word, 1983), 150.<\/p>\n\u201cUtter Destruction\u201d?<\/h3>\n
Sihon and Og (Numbers 21 with Deuteronomy 2 and 3)<\/h3>\n
The Amalekites (1 Samuel 15)<\/h3>\n