Notice how often it refers to the utter destruction of the different people groups (emphasis mine).Ģ8 Now Joshua captured Makkedah on that day, and struck it and its king with the edge of the sword he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it. We need to take this whole picture into consideration as we evaluate what he means by “utterly destroy.” Ancient Near Eastern Exaggeration RhetoricĬopan argues that Joshua describes his battles using “ancient Near Eastern exaggeration rhetoric… Like his ancient Near Eastern contemporaries, Joshua used the language of conventional warfare rhetoric.” įor example, Joshua 10-11 makes it sound like the inhabitants of the land have been completely annihilated, which Joshua later acknowledges wasn’t the case. This describes God’s decision to provide a much more gradual possession of the land than the earlier verses in this chapter seem to indicate. In other words, destroying Canaanite religion was more important than destroying Canaanite people.” Ģ2 “The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you.Ģ3 “But the LORD your God will deliver them before you, and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.Ģ4 “He will deliver their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven no man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. 7:3, 5 – Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them… But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire.Ĭopan raises a good question: “If the Canaanites were to be completely obliterated, why this discussion about intermarriage or treaties? The final verse emphasizes that the ultimate issue was religious: Israel was to destroy altars, images, and sacred pillars. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.ĭeut. 7:2 (emphasis mine) – when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. Deuteronomy 7įirst of all, Copan points out that in Deuteronomy 7 there are indications in the text that “utterly destroy” refers to the false religion of the Canaanites.
Since I think his ideas are relevant to our understanding of the ban I have summarized the pertinent portions of it along with my own commentary and conclusions. Copan argues that the language of the ban may be “ancient Near Eastern exaggeration rhetoric.”Īt first I was skeptical, but found myself more open to his position as he argued his case from clues within the text itself. Many Christian authors have tried to put the ban into perspective for modern readers, but Paul Copan sheds new light on the subject in his book Is God A Moral Monster.
Dawkins asks “Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn’t, and I won’t.” Richard Dawkins, for example, refuses to debate William Lane Craig until Craig abandons his belief in the ban. This command, known as “the ban,” is a major objection cited by critics of the Bible. In the book of Deuteronomy God orders the Israelites to “utterly destroy” the people living in the land of Canaan.
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