WHEN GOD SEES RED

Did the God of Love Say ‘Show No Mercy’?

MARSHALL JANZEN

An assignment submitted to ACTS Seminaries for the class

“CAP 652: The Problem of Evil” in partial fulfillment of a

Master of Arts in Christian Studies degree.

December 15, 2014; last modified January 26, 2017.

 Contents

THESIS: Israel emerged in Canaan without a violent conquest.

Exiled Israelites later compiled books like Deuteronomy and
Joshua to speak prophetically to their own situation, not give
history lessons about details they didn’t know.

Act I: A hole in one testament ...................................................................... 1

Scene 1: Reunion ....................................................................................... 1
Scene 2: Retrospect ................................................................................... 1
Defining the problem ......................................................................... 1
Inadequate answers ............................................................................ 3
Scene 3: Recovery ...................................................................................... 7

Act II: Mulligan ................................................................................................ 8

Scene 1: Facing reality .............................................................................. 8
The Canaanite reality......................................................................... 9
The textual reality............................................................................. 13
Our different reality ......................................................................... 17
Scene 2: Minding the gap ...................................................................... 20
Rehabilitating Joshua ....................................................................... 20
Transcending Joshua ....................................................................... 22

Bibliography.................................................................................................... 30

ii
 When God Sees Red 1

Act I: A hole in one testament

Scene 1: Reunion
Two weeks before Christmas. A coffee shop. A knot of customers in heavy
coats queue towards the counter while two twenty-somethings with hot
mugs scope the empty tables.
GREG: Kristin! Great to see you again! Our college and career
group at church hasn’t been the same since you moved away.
KRISTIN: Hi Greg. Yeah, actually … I didn’t move away. Not physi-
cally. But the Jesus thing stopped working for me, and I didn’t
want to fake it.
GREG: Oh. I didn’t know. Sorry.
KRISTIN: It’s okay. Life goes on.
GREG: Wait – I mean I’m sorry I didn’t know. We go back to
Sunday school with Mrs. Keys, and I let you disappear without
even calling to see what was up.
KRISTIN: Well, it’s fine. You were actually one of the people who
helped me realize something wasn’t working. Remember that
night I unloaded my doubts on you?
GREG: How could I forget!

Scene 2: Retrospect
Eighteen months earlier. A kitchen in a church basement. Counters full of
dirty dishes surround Greg and Kristin. An older woman, Joyce, exits to-
wards the tables clutching a damp washcloth. The din of guests shuffling
out to their cars gradually recedes.

Defining the problem

KRISTIN: Greg, can I get your take on something? I can’t seem to
talk to anybody about it – at least not anyone who shares my faith.
When I try, they see my doubts and back away as if I grew another
head.
GREG: Sure, I’ll listen. Hand me that tray of cups. … Thanks.
What’s the issue?
KRISTIN: Remember last January when Pastor Curtis dared us to
 2 Marshall Janzen
read the whole Bible in 2013? I took him up on it. Genesis flew by.
Exodus had some fun parts. Leviticus was dry. In Numbers, the
dull parts were better than the stories that made my skin crawl. By
Deuteronomy and Joshua, I wasn’t sure whether God was the
good guy or not. Midway through Judges, I gave up. I didn’t want
to know more about this God.
I’d read the gospels and most of the New Testament before,
and I already knew the main stories of the Old Testament – we
both made it through Sunday school, after all! But I had no idea
how violent God gets in those chapters they cut out of children’s
Bibles.
GREG: You mean the wars against the Canaanites?
KRISTIN: They’re a big part of it. Specifically, the way God desires
war and bloodshed. Yahweh hardens Israel’s enemies so they
don’t surrender and avoid extermination.1 God makes Israel into
terrorists who freak out their neighbours.2 After they enter Ca-
naan, God keeps some enemies around to serve as cannon fodder
to train the next generation of Israelite warriors.3
GREG: That’s heavy stuff. Life was brutal back then, and we’ve
done worse since—4
KRISTIN: No! Don’t even go there. If humanity once tolerated such
acts or has since topped them, that doesn’t make them right.5 Be-
sides, God orders the slaughter of everyone from babies to the el-
derly – way beyond the norms of ancient warfare.6 One time
Moses is annoyed by how many enemies are spared, so he orders

1. Deut. 2:30; Josh. 11:20; cf. Deut. 7:2.

2. Josh. 2:9.
3. Judg. 3:1–2.
4. Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008), 88, Kindle; Joshua R. Butler, The Skeletons in God’s
Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War (Nashville, TN: W
Publishing Group, 2014), 242–43, Kindle.
5. Eryl W. Davies, “The Morally Dubious Passages of the Hebrew Bible: An Examination of Some
Proposed Solutions,” Currents in Biblical Research 3, no. 2 (2005): 207–08; John J. Collins,
Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004), 194.
6. Num. 21:33–35; Deut. 2:31–34. Num. 14:3 shows Israel expected the Canaanites to spare
civilians.
 When God Sees Red 3
7
a mop-up operation to kill babies and women. God usually allows
civilians to become slave labour, but in Canaan, everyone must
die.8 God seems to know this will offend the Israelites’ conscienc-
es, so God repeatedly demands, “Show them no mercy!”9
My problem isn’t that Israel was brutal or that the Bible rec-
ords brutal acts. What I can’t get past is that God ordered the bru-
tality.10 God specifically told the Israelites to check their better
instincts, hold their collective nose, and commit what any sane
human being – modern or ancient – would recognize as atroci-
ties.

Inadequate answers11
GREG: Whoa, Kristin! You’re fixating on one part of Scripture
and missing the big picture. God has the right to bring justice, but
more often, we see God’s love and mercy.12 One of my favourite
parts of Scripture tells how Yahweh is
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children

7. Num. 31:7–17.
8. Deut. 7:2, 16; 20:10–18.
9. Deut. 7:2, 16.
10. Walter Brueggemann, Revelation and Violence: A Study in Contextualization, 1986 Père
Marquette Theology Lecture (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1986), 7; Wesley
Morriston, “Did God Command Genocide? A Challenge to the Biblical Inerrantist,”
Philosophia Christi 11, no. 1 (2009): 19.
11. In what follows, I largely avoid retreading ground covered in my class seminar, Marshall
Janzen, “Review of Paul Copan’s Defense of Old Testament Massacres” (seminar presentation,
CAP 652: The Problem of Evil, ACTS Seminaries, November 26, 2014). In that review I argue it
is inadequate to claim that the Canaanites’ wickedness justified their slaughter, that the
exaggerated warfare rhetoric was not meant to be taken at face value, or that destroying
these nations was necessary to ultimately bless all nations.
12. Wright, Don’t Understand, 77.
 4 Marshall Janzen
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.13
KRISTIN: I still remember when you earned a whole line of stickers
for memorizing that in Mrs. Keys’ class.
GREG: The reason I got so many stickers is that those words
appear, more or less, in half a dozen different places written by
different authors. Back then I was all for shortcuts in getting the
most verses memorized! But do you see God’s bias towards love in
those words? A thousand generations compared to four!
KRISTIN: Say I have a boyfriend who gives me nice gifts and sweet
compliments far more often than he hits me. Would you be okay
with him?
GREG: Of course not! The difference is that God is our creator,
not just another person. Sometimes a cop might be justified in
hitting a thug (like that boyfriend), and God is more like the cop
than the thug.14
KRISTIN: I get that God has a right to take life and dish out justice. If
I didn’t, my Bible reading plan would have derailed by Genesis 6.
What bothers me is when God gets sinful people to do the dirty
work. Even if the Canaanites deserved destruction, why didn’t
God take care of it? God dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah, and
God promised to deal with the Canaanites!15
GREG: If God can use brimstone and pestilence, why not people?
KRISTIN: People are moral beings made in God’s image. God may
have a right to wipe out whole nations, but we don’t.16 If God

13. Exod. 34:6–7 (NRSV Anglicized, passim). See also Num. 14:18; Ps. 103:6–18; Jer. 32:17–19.
14. Wright, Don’t Understand, 93.
15. Gen. 19:24–25; Exod. 23:20–33; Lev. 18:24–28; Deut. 11:23. Eleonore Stump, “The Problem of
Evil and the History of Peoples: Think Amalek,” in Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God
of Abraham, ed. Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 186–87; Butler, Skeletons, 231. Later summaries portray the conquest
as God’s gift rather than Israel’s work (e.g. Josh. 23:3; Ps. 44:1–3; Acts 13:19). Wright, Don’t
Understand, 90. A classic example of God fighting without human participation is 2 Chr. 20.
Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 154.
16. Butler, Skeletons, 223–24, 263; Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,” in Divine Evil? The
 When God Sees Red 5
commands immorality … that’s immoral!
GREG: That assumes God commanded immorality. But God is
the source of morality. Anything God commands is moral because
God is entirely good.17 Given our limitations, we should expect
some of God’s higher wisdom to be above our pay grade.18
Joyce returns and wrings out a dirty dishcloth in the sink.
KRISTIN: I believe God is good too – that’s why I have trouble ac-
cepting that God could ever command genocide. If God’s good-
ness becomes our license for calling atrocities ethical, we’ve
bought into moral relativism and added a Christian veneer.19 You
know what bugs me? One of the few ways a respected scholar can
advocate genocide in print without losing their reputation is … do
it in a Christian book dealing with the Canaanites!20
I can’t match God’s wisdom, but the Bible leads me to expect I
can grasp something of God’s love.21 It’s dangerous to say God

Moral Character of the God of Abraham, ed. Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and
Michael C. Rea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 248.
17. Ps. 135:5–12. “[I]f God is all the Bible says he is, all that he does must be good – and that
includes his authorization of genocide.” Eugene H. Merrill, “The Case for Moderate
Discontinuity,” in Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), under “Conclusion,” Kindle.
18. Daniel L. Gard, “A Response to C. S. Cowles,” in Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and
Canaanite Genocide (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), Kindle; John Calvin, Commentary
on the Book of Joshua, trans. Henry Beveridge (n.p.: Calvin Translation Society, 1854), 111,
Logos edition.
19. Thom Stark, The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and
Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It) (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), under “Yahweh’s Quiet
Reserve,” Kindle.
If the sanctity of human life “can be set aside by a supposed divine ‘authorization of
genocide’ – then all moral and ethical absolutes are destroyed, all distinctions between good
and evil are rendered meaningless, and all claims about God’s love and compassion become
cruel deceptions.” C. S. Cowles, “A Response to Eugene H. Merrill,” in Show Them No Mercy: 4
Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), under
“Canaanite genocide was a righteous and holy act,” Kindle.
20. Philip Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (New
York, NY: HarperOne, 2011), 118, Kindle. A key example, in which three of four authors call
Israel’s act genocide and yet still argue it was moral, is C. S. Cowles et al., Show Them No
Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), Kindle.
Cowles alone views genocide as fundamentally immoral.
21. I’ve covered this ground in earlier papers. See Marshall Janzen, “Under Our Skin: Clues of a
Communicative God in Widespread Transcendent Knowledge” (class paper, CAP 550:
 6 Marshall Janzen
wants us to blindly obey even when commands appear immoral.
The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda claims to be operating on
God’s orders, but we rightly condemn them as terrorists.22 If I
can’t reconcile a command with God’s goodness, I’d sooner ques-
tion whether it came from God than redefine goodness.23
GREG: I agree; we can’t redefine goodness. But are we sure what
Israel did was as horrible as it first looks? We like to say, “Those
poor Canaanites.” But they were the dominant player; they had
Egypt at their back.24 Canaan had the best weapons and strongest
fortresses. And Israel? Small potatoes – just defenceless slaves!
The story sounds different when you see how God used the un-
derdog to challenge the empire.25
KRISTIN: The Bible doesn’t describe Israel as hopelessly out-
matched. When battling Ai, they face defeat with too few fighters
but win the victory when they outnumber them.26 As I’ve checked
out books on this to find answers, I’ve come across some Chris-
tian writers who go in the opposite direction, arguing that most of
the Canaanite cities Israel fought were tiny. Richard Hess says Jer-
icho might’ve had mudbrick walls and fewer than a hundred de-
fenders.27 He claims Ai was already a ruin, so Israel faced a dozen
small fighting units who’d set up a makeshift fort.28 That’s not tak-

Apologetics in a Postmodern World, ACTS Seminaries, December 1, 2012), 4–6, 9; Marshall

Janzen, “Just One Burning Question: A Dialogue About Hell” (class paper, CAP 560:
Challenges to Christianity, ACTS Seminaries, March 29, 2014), 7–9.
22. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 43.
23. “The biblical theist needs to show how such commands are consistent with God’s nature,” or
failing that, give up their historicity or accuracy. William L. Craig, “Q & A: Argument from
Morality,” Reasonable Faith, February 8, 2010, accessed November 4, 2014,
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/argument-from-morality.
24. Butler, Skeletons, 211–12.
25. “Israel is a lone kindergartener taking on the high school senior class with a Wiffle bat.” Butler,
Skeletons, 212.
26. Josh. 7:3–5; 8:3, 25. Against the 12,000 of Ai, Israel loses with 3,000 fighters and wins with
30,000.
27. Richard S. Hess, “The Jericho and Ai of the Book of Joshua,” in Critical Issues in Early Israelite
History, ed. Richard S. Hess, Gerald A. Klingbeil, and Paul J. Ray Jr. (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2008), 37, 42.
28. Hess, “Jericho and Ai,” 45–46.
 When God Sees Red 7
ing on the empire! But whether you go with Hess’ reconstruction
or yours, both are far removed from the battle descriptions in the
book of Joshua.
JOYCE: Don’t mind me interruptin’ you two, but seems you’re
better dishwashers than Bible-readers. Yes, Israel killed many-a-
Canaanite at God’s command. No point making excuses for
God – or the Bible. And no point tryin’ to figure it out. Just accept
it.29 Fear God for who he is! He’s not your pet puppy. The same
God who judged the Canaanites will come back to kill all his foes
in a war that will drench the earth with blood.30 If you can’t handle
that, the God you believe in isn’t the God who is.
KRISTIN: Really? You thought that would help? Instead of Father
God who loves his children, you offer the Godfather. Kiss his ring
because even if he’s not good, he’s powerful. I’m ready to throw in
the towel, and this is your answer?
JOYCE: You can leave any time. Hand me your towel, dearie. I’ll
take over.

Scene 3: Recovery
Back to the present. Kristin and Greg find a table at the coffee shop.
GREG: What happened after that night? I remember breathing a
sigh of relief when you still showed up the next Tuesday for col-
lege and career. But by a few weeks later, you’d stopped coming –
though I was so self-absorbed I didn’t notice for months.
KRISTIN: That conversation shook me. I’d had other questions too,
but the violence in Joshua was the last straw. The religious an-
swers I heard and read seemed smug and overconfident. Nobody
took my questions seriously.
Then it hit me: taking these questions seriously was the death

29. Joyce’s argument echoes the sharpest thrusts from Eugene H. Merrill, “A Response to C. S.
Cowles,” in Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 2010), Kindle; Gard, “Response to Cowles”; Tremper Longman III, “A Response to
C. S. Cowles,” in Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand
Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), Kindle.
30. “The final judgement with its utter destruction of the heavens and the earth and all those at
enmity with God makes the most bloody warfare narratives of the Old Testament seem like
children’s bedtime stories.” Gard, “Response to Cowles.”
 8 Marshall Janzen
of faith. There wasn’t a good answer, so all Christians could do
was coldly deny the problem or whitewash it over with half-baked
solutions. That realization blew away whatever small pieces re-
mained of my faith. And that was the last time I wasted time
thinking about the Canaanite conquest … until today!
GREG: I’m sorry I gave you bad answers. Thanks to you, I realized
my answers were inadequate, and I spent long hours trying to find
better ones. I’m also sorry I didn’t include you in that, especially
since we were both facing the same questions.
KRISTIN: Enough with being sorry! I forgive you. It’s water under
the bridge.
GREG: Okay, thanks. … Kristin, can I ask you a favour? I know I’m
eighteen months late, but can I have a mulligan on that conversa-
tion? I’d like to run some newer ideas by you.
KRISTIN: Another round talking about genocide and God? (Sighs.)
Why not. I want to keep an open mind – but as they say, not so
open my brain falls out. I’ll hear you out, but don’t be disappoint-
ed if what worked for you doesn’t work for me.

Act II: Mulligan

Scene 1: Facing reality
GREG: It’ll take some time to lay this out, so here’s my conclusion
right up front: Israel emerged in Canaan without a violent con-
quest. Exiled Israelites later compiled books like Deuteronomy and
Joshua to speak prophetically to their own situation, not give histo-
ry lessons about details they didn’t know.
KRISTIN: I see a truckload of problems with that … but I’ll bite my
tongue for now.
GREG: Thanks! (Laughs.) One thing you said that night in the
kitchen really stuck. You showed how I’d painted Israel as this
underdog up against heavily fortified cities – based on some books
I’d read – while you’d read other books where Christian scholars
suggest Israel attacked nothing more than makeshift military out-
posts. Apparently, well-meaning Christians are worlds apart on
the proper understanding of these Bible stories. Why do Chris-
 When God Sees Red 9
tians go in opposite directions on this? What’s true, and what’s
wishful thinking? These questions got me interested in archaeolo-
gy, since it provides an outside voice to determine which readings
of Scripture fit reality.
KRISTIN: I’m all for uncovering the reality behind the Bible’s stories.
So what’s this evidence?

The Canaanite reality

GREG: Archaeological evidence strongly suggests the conquest of
Canaan, dated around the 13th century BC, did not look like a
plain reading of the main biblical narratives leads us to expect. We
end up with an odd picture where the Bible doesn’t mention most
cities actually destroyed during this period, while most that are
mentioned weren’t destroyed.31
Going back before Joshua, the Bible says Israel massacred
populations in cities such as Heshbon and Dibon.32 But both were
unoccupied for centuries prior to Israel’s arrival!33 I can’t blame
these findings on some atheist conspiracy to discredit the Bible:
some of the best evidence comes from Seventh Day Adventists
and Southern Baptists!34
Moving on to Joshua’s campaign, Jericho’s fall is the one part
of the story we heard in Sunday school.35 But Jericho’s impressive

31. J. M. Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Louisville, KY:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1986), 72; Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 56; Trent C. Butler,
Joshua, Word Biblical Commentary 7 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1984), xl, Logos edition.
32. Num. 21:21–31; Deut. 1:4; 2:24–35; 29:7; Josh. 12:1–6.
33. Collins, Hebrew Bible, 187. For a hopeful spin on the same data, see Iain Provan, V. P. Long,
and Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2003), 183–84.
34. Seventh Day Adventists sponsored the Heshbon excavation of 1968–76. “Much to their
consternation, however, the town turned out to be founded only in the Iron II period – long
after any supposed conquest. There were only a few scattered remains of the 12th–11th
century B.C. (pottery, but no architecture), and no trace whatsoever of occupation in the
13th century B.C. The excavators resolutely published their results, however, and reluctantly
conceded that something was drastically wrong with the biblical story about Heshbon.”
William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites, and Where Did They Come From? (Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), 30–31. Southern Baptist biblical scholars uncovered
the Dibon findings in the 1950s. Dever, Early Israelites, 31–32.
35. Josh. 2:1–24; 4:13; 6:1–27.
 10 Marshall Janzen
walls tumbled centuries before Israel arrived.36 At the time of
Joshua, the evidence suggests only squatters called Jericho’s ruins
home.37
Next is Ai. Here the Israelites first face defeat and then, after
exposing the sin of one of their own, win a victory.38 The only
problem is that Ai fell a millennium before Israel arrived and lay
unoccupied until a small Israelite settlement in the 12th or 11th
century BC.39 The name Ai means ruin, and the city identified as
Ai would have been an impressive ruin in Joshua’s day.40
After Ai, Joshua records how Gibeon’s people trick Israel into
forging a treaty and then receive Israel’s assistance in repelling an
Amorite attack.41 While the Bible describes Gibeon as a “large
city,” it appears to have been virtually unoccupied until centuries
later.42

36. “The problem of Jericho has to do not so much with the material findings as with the dates
assigned to these findings.” Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 174. Bryant Wood
reinterpreted the dates of Jericho pottery fragments and aligned ancient Jericho’s zenith
(known as City IV) with Joshua’s conquest. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 175–
76; David M. Howard, Joshua, New American Commentary 5 (Nashville, TN: Broadman &
Holman, 1998), 178, Logos edition. This proposal undermines Hess’ view of a sparsely
populated Jericho whose fall entailed few casualties (see note 27). In 1995, radiocarbon
analysis upheld the consensus view and conclusively discredited Wood’s proposal by dating
remains of Jericho’s City IV to the 17th–16th centuries BC. Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van
der Plicht, “Tell Es-Sultan (Jericho): Radiocarbon Results of Short-Lived Cereal and Multiyear
Charcoal Samples from the End of the Middle Bronze Age,” Radiocarbon 37, no. 2 (1995).
37. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 176; Dever, Early Israelites, 45–47; Allen C. Myers,
ed., The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), s.v. “Jericho,” Logos
edition. It is possible a settlement in the correct era eroded without a trace, but such a
hypothesis is constructed to be both unfalsifiable and unsupportable by evidence.
38. Josh. 7:1–8:29.
39. Myers, Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Ai”; Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 176–
77. Suggested hypotheses to accommodate this evidence include that “Ai, with its massive
old walls, was used as a temporary stronghold by the surrounding population; but the
account points rather to an inhabited town with its own king. While it is possible that Ai is to
be located elsewhere, no completely satisfactory solution has yet been proposed.” A. R.
Millard, “Ai,” in New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. D. R. W. Wood and I. H. Marshall (Leicester,
England: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 22, Logos edition. Key evidence supporting Ai’s desolation
during the time of Joshua came from “Joseph Callaway, an American archaeologist and
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor.” Dever, Early Israelites, 47.
40. Dever, Early Israelites, 47.
41. Josh. 9:1–17; 10:1–14; 11:19.
42. Josh. 10:2. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 183–84; Dever, Early Israelites, 48–49.
 When God Sees Red 11
Hazor is the last of the key cities: here the northern Canaanites
band together and attack Israel, but Israel prevails and burns the
city, killing everyone within.43 At first, archaeology seems to sup-
port this account. In this era, Hazor was an impressive city with a
population upwards of 20,000, and enemies burned the city many
times.44 The trouble is that after the most comprehensive razing,
Hazor remained unoccupied until the 10th century BC.45 This
doesn’t fit how the book of Judges speaks of Hazor’s king a few
generations later.46
KRISTIN: Wow, information overload! I get the picture: most of
those cities didn’t exist for Israel to massacre. But if Israel didn’t
really kill scads of Canaanites, what happened to them? Next are
you going to tell me the Canaanites never existed?
GREG: No, Canaanites lived in Palestine, but by the 10th century
BC, they’re gone.47 Already by the 12th century, a new presence is
emerging in the hill country that at first is nearly indistinguishable
from the Canaanites.48 A telltale lack of pig bones around some
settlements ties these people to the Israelites.49 Many theories try
to explain how they supplanted the Canaanites, the old favourites
being conquest, peasant revolt, or peaceful infiltration.50 But since

43. Josh. 11:1–15.

44. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 178; Dever, Early Israelites, 66–68.
45. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 179.
46. Judg. 4:2–3. Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 179–81; Dever, Early Israelites, 44.
47. Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Books, 2011), 183, Kindle. When looking in Scripture, “Canaanites do not appear
after 1 Kings 9:20–21 in the historical literature.” Richard S. Hess, Joshua: An Introduction and
Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 6 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
1996), 37–38.
48. Patrick Mazani, “The Appearance of Israel in Canaan in Recent Scholarship,” in Critical Issues
in Early Israelite History, ed. Richard S. Hess, Gerald A. Klingbeil, and Paul J. Ray Jr. (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 98; Miller and Hayes, History, 72; Collins, Hebrew Bible, 188; John
M. Monson, “Enter Joshua: The ‘Mother of Current Debates’ in Biblical Archaeology,” in Do
Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern
Approaches to Scripture, ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway, 2012), under “The Background of the Debate,” Kindle.
49. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 60; Collins, Hebrew Bible, 189.
50. Mazani, “Israel in Canaan,” 95; Provan, Long, and Longman, Biblical History, 139–43; Myers,
Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Conquest.”
 12 Marshall Janzen
there’s no sign of a mass wave of foreigners entering the land dur-
ing this period, the consensus is for a gradual emergence.51
Here’s a typical reconstruction. During a time of constant un-
rest in the Palestinian lowlands, waves of Canaanites withdraw to
the hill country. While they continue to battle neighbouring
tribes, sometimes with extreme violence, they also swell their
ranks through marriages and treaties. In particular, they absorb a
band of escaped Hebrew slaves from Egypt.52 The story told by
these Hebrews inspires one large group to turn their backs on
their Canaanite past and claim a new identity.53 They continue to
make Canaanite pottery, use Canaanite weapons, and speak a de-
rivative of a Canaanite language, but now they worship the He-
brew God – Yahweh.54 These Canaanites become Israelites: not by
force, but by choice.
This reconstruction goes beyond what the evidence demands,
but it makes sense of that evidence far better than the traditional
models. This general model has largely displaced the others – ex-
cept by those who require a closer fit with a plain reading of the
biblical text.55
KRISTIN: I admit … this is interesting. I assumed the Bible’s stories
were historically accurate. My problem was that they betray a piti-
ful morality. But even if all you’ve said is true, this only shifts the
problem. Maybe Israel didn’t do all those awful things – they just
made up stories saying they did and claimed those stories came
from God! How’s that better?56

51. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 57; Collins, Hebrew Bible, 190; Dever, Early Israelites, 153–54.
This model differs from peasant revolt in not basing the division on class warfare.
52. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 58.
53. Myers, Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Conquest.”
54. Collins, Hebrew Bible, 191. On Hebrew as a Canaanite language, see Gary A. Anderson, “What
About the Canaanites?” in Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham, ed.
Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013), 271; Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 60.
55. Monson, “Enter Joshua,” under “The Background of the Debate.”
56. Louise Antony, “Comments on ‘Reading Joshua’,” in Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the
God of Abraham, ed. Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 260.
 When God Sees Red 13
GREG: There’s a big difference between genocide and bragging of
genocide – especially if you’re claiming to have eradicated your
own people.57 And we need to know what a story is trying to ac-
complish before we judge its historical accuracy. … But I’m getting
ahead of myself. This is only the first piece of the puzzle. We have
two more to get on the table.
KRISTIN: Let me grab a refill first. Then let’s see these other pieces.
Kristin approaches the counter at a lull and quickly returns with her drink.

The textual reality

GREG: This next one’s even more controversial: the books of
Deuteronomy and Joshua came into their current form around
the time of the exile, at least 500 years after the events they de-
scribe, and each combined a pastiche of earlier oral and written
traditions with new material.58
KRISTIN: I think everyone who studies the Old Testament who’s not
a fundy already accepts that.
GREG: Well, mostly, but among evangelicals there’s still a lot of
59
debate.

57. Luke Muehlhauser, “Matt Flannagan on the Genocide of the Canaanites,” Common Sense
Atheism, September 3, 2010, under “Parting Thoughts,” par. 4, accessed December 10, 2014,
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=10992.
58. “I take it to be a near-consensus among Old Testament scholars that the text of Joshua as we
have it today was intended as a component in the larger sequence consisting of
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. […] It is also a near-
consensus that this sequence of writings received its near-final form during the reign of King
Josiah and reflects the religious reforms that he initiated; and that it received its final form
during the Exile in Babylon.” Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,” 249. Similarly, see Walter
Brueggemann, Deuteronomy, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon Press, 2001), 18; John Goldingay, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth for Everyone, Old
Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 4; Gordon
Matties, Joshua, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2012),
405–06, Logos edition; Butler, Joshua, xlii, xxiii; Alexander Rofé, “The Laws of Warfare in the
Book of Deuteronomy: Their Origins, Intent and Positivity,” Journal for the Study of the Old
Testament, no. 32 (1985): 23; Richard D. Nelson, “Josiah in the Book of Joshua,” Journal of
Biblical Literature 100, no. 4 (1981): 531–40; Collins, Hebrew Bible, 64, 162, 184; Miller and
Hayes, History, 63; Dever, Early Israelites, 8, 38; Mazani, “Israel in Canaan,” 96; Jenkins, Laying
Down the Sword, 50–53; Eric A. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament
Images of God (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 107.
59. “Noth’s thesis of a Deuteronomistic History was to capture the imagination of almost all
 14 Marshall Janzen
KRISTIN: Do I sound like an evangelical fundy?
GREG: No. … Okay, I guess I don’t need to convince you about
this one. Now if Pastor Curtis were here, I’d need to go through all
the supporting detail …60
KRISTIN: Spare me. Didn’t I suffer enough during your archaeology
lesson? Let’s keep moving.
GREG: Right. Just let me mention another way you helped set me
on the right track in our last conversation. Remember how you
said God promised to wipe out the Canaanites for Israel, but later
texts show Israel doing the fighting? As I’m sure you know, that’s
just one of many examples where the biblical accounts don’t speak
with one voice.
Some parts of Joshua claim Israel took all the land at one time,
while earlier and later texts say God will or did give them the land
slowly.61 Different parts of Joshua disagree over whether Hebron
and Debir fell to Joshua or to Caleb and his brother.62 Right within
the same story, there are different descriptions of a monument of
twelve stones.63
KRISTIN: Hey, I’m already convinced. I know there are contradic-

non-conservative scholars, although important details of his argument were challenged by

many followers.” A. G. Auld, “The Former Prophets,” in Hebrew Bible: History of Interpretation,
ed. John H. Hayes (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2004), 75. See also Myers, Eerdmans Bible
Dictionary, s.v. “Joshua, book of”; Hess, Joshua, 27–39.
60. An especially compelling pointer to an exilic date for Deuteronomy (and by consequence, its
sequel Joshua) is how the book’s structure mirrors the form of an Assyrian political treaty
more closely than earlier Hittite treaties. Collins, Hebrew Bible, 160–61; Brueggemann,
Deuteronomy, 19. Parts of Deuteronomy strongly advocate one centralized shrine for worship
for all of Israel (e.g. Deut. 11:31–12:7, 13–14), yet Israel worshipped at local high places with
God’s approval before and after the temple’s construction (e.g. 1 Sam. 7:15–17; 9:9–25; 1 Kgs.
3:2–5; 15:11–14; 18:30–38; 19:14; 2 Kgs. 12:2–3). This only stopped due to the reforms of
Hezekiah and Josiah (1 Kgs. 13:1–5, 32; 2 Kgs. 18:1–4, 22; 23:8–9, 15–20), suggesting these
parts of Deuteronomy date to Josiah’s era or later.
61. Compare Josh. 10:40–42; 11:21–23; 21:43–45 with Exod. 23:29–30; Deut. 7:22–23; Josh. 13:1–
7; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12–13; Judg. 1:27–36; 2:20–23. Butler, Joshua, xl; Seibert, Disturbing Divine
Behavior, 99–100.
62. Josh. 10:36–37; 15:13–17. See Miller and Hayes, History, 61–62; Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,”
250.
63. Josh. 4:2–8, 9, 20. For various attempts to make sense of this, from emending the text to
acknowledging contradictory sources, see Hess, Joshua, 120; Howard, Joshua, 138; Butler,
Joshua, 41, 49.
 When God Sees Red 15
tions. But how does that help your case? It just shows the Bible is
confused!
GREG: I think it shows that the Bible preserves a conversation
with God and about God where different parties disagreed.64
When compilers and editors placed different traditions together,
they didn’t smooth every wrinkle.65 Rather than silencing or alter-
ing a divergent voice, the editors often subtly challenged it, some-
times through how they arranged the material.66
For example, on the surface the book of Joshua seems to show
how Israel did what Deuteronomy ordered. But if you look closer,
Joshua redefines what Deuteronomy meant.67 The texts ordering
the conquest in Deuteronomy didn’t have a category for a good
Canaanite. The seven nations in the land were hopelessly corrupt,
validating the command to exterminate them to prevent them
from ensnaring Israel through intermarriage.68 In Joshua, the first
and most extended story about the conquest jumbles these previ-
ously clear categories. Now Canaanites like Rahab and her family
are insiders and pureblooded Israelites like Achan and his family
get devoted to destruction.69 The book of Joshua undermines the
earlier tradition that mandated a strict ethnic division. Yet even as
it deviates, Joshua claims to totally fulfill Deuteronomy, not turn-
ing from it to the right hand or the left!70 While parts of Deuter-

64. Matties, Joshua, 18.

65. “It is typical of biblical literature that these tensions in the text were not smoothed out by a
final editor, but were allowed to stand, allowing us to see some of the diverse perspectives
that shaped these books.” Collins, Hebrew Bible, 185.
66. Matties, Joshua, 30–31.
67. Similarly, Deuteronomy itself restates many of the events in Genesis to Leviticus, but with
shifting emphases. The books of 1–2 Chronicles likewise take the history in Samuel–Kings
and revise it through restatement. Jens B. Kofoed, “The Old Testament as Cultural Memory,”
in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern
Approaches to Scripture, ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway, 2012), under “Circular Reasoning,” Kindle.
68. Deut. 7:1–4; 20:10–18 (cf. Lev. 27:28–29). The tradition in Deut. 20 does not include the
Girgashites.
69. Josh. 2; 6:15–25; 7:10–26 (cf. Matt. 1:2–6). Douglas S. Earl, “The Christian Significance of
Deuteronomy 7,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 3, no. 1 (2009): 47; Matties, Joshua, 29.
70. Josh. 1:1–9; 8:30–35; 11:15, 23. Similarly, see Copan, Moral Monster, 182.
 16 Marshall Janzen
onomy seem racist on their own, their placement in a wider ca-
nonical context encourages us to read them differently.71
KRISTIN: Back when I was doing my through-the-Bible reading
thing, I remember thinking it was a bit rich for the Israelites to tell
Joshua, “Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey
you.”72 They didn’t seem that obedient during all their wandering
in the wilderness. So you’re saying the book of Joshua is revising
the past like they did? It claims to toe the line while really redraw-
ing the line in a new place?
GREG: In some parts, yes. Other parts of Joshua simply
acknowledge that Israel didn’t drive out the Canaanites, so they
lived together.73 Still other parts retain the focus on ethnic lines,
but recast Israel’s duty as separating rather than killing.74 But
whether through victorious Israelites welcoming in Rahab’s family
or deflated Israelites living alongside the people they couldn’t dis-
place, both ways Joshua portrays a racially and ethnically mixed
Israel75 – which is much closer to the picture from archaeology
than what you’d get from a flat reading of just one part of Joshua.
KRISTIN: That’s cool, but it doesn’t erase all the violence. Israel still
massacres the rest of the people in Jericho – and how they treat
Achan’s wife and kids is evil.
GREG: I promise I’m not going to ignore that, but first there’s one
more puzzle piece.
KRISTIN: Can you make it quick? My bladder can give you five
minutes tops.

71. In other words, this strand within Joshua encourages us to read Deuteronomy the way Copan
does, in which “The ban allowed – and hoped for – exceptions,” and God was “more
concerned about the destruction of Canaanite religion and idols than Canaanite peoples.”
Copan, Moral Monster, 175, 178. The difference is that Copan believes this was also the
original – though sadly unstated – intent of passages such as Deut. 7:1–4 and 20:10–18. I
believe this strand of Joshua calls us to a reading that rehabilitates these problematic texts
even though on their own they are truly problematic.
72. Josh. 1:17 (emphasis added).
73. Josh. 13:1, 13; 15:63; 16:10; 17:12–13.
74. Josh. 23:4–13. This is also the direction followed by Ezra–Nehemiah (e.g. Ezra 9:1–2). Earl,
“Christian Significance,” 45.
75. See especially Josh. 8:33, 35.
 When God Sees Red 17
Our different reality
GREG: I’ll try! The last piece is that we live in a radically different
world from both the one Joshua depicts and the one in which it
was written. This seems obvious, but it was a watershed idea for
me – so many insights flow from it. Taking it seriously diverts us
from ethnocentric streams of thinking. It showers—
KRISTIN: Yeah, funny with the fluid imagery … but not helping.
You’re down to four minutes.
GREG: Right. To keep this short, I’ll speak in generalities without
making a bunch of qualifications. Today, history is king. We have
respectable vocations such as historian and archaeologist to un-
cover what happened in the past. When we read a story, often our
first thought is, “Is it true?” We want the facts, the unvarnished
scientific truth.
KRISTIN: Some of us like poetry, historical fiction, and period mov-
ies that completely mess with the past, but yeah, I get what you’re
saying.
GREG: Fair enough. Since this is what we generally value, we
assume a Bible inspired by God must provide it.76 Historical rec-
ords in Scripture should meet, if not exceed, our standards of ac-
curacy, drawing on God’s omniscient view to fill in the pieces
people didn’t witness.77 We don’t pass judgement when the Bible’s
psalmists write of their raw emotion or even evil desires – better
they take it to God than keep it bottled up – but we have no leni-
ency for human weakness in the Bible’s historians.78 And modern
Christians tend to view Joshua to Esther (and even the Penta-
teuch) as historical books compiled by God’s inspired historians.
Some parts may provide enduring lessons or moral principles, but
primarily these books reveal what happened in an unrepeatable

76. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior, 92.

77. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior, 117.
78. For instance, the violent wishes within the imprecatory psalms are often excused by
highlighting how the psalmist makes their request to God to bring vengeance, rather than
seeking it personally.
 18 Marshall Janzen
past.79 They give us the historical facts that set the stage for the
main event in the New Testament.
The authors, editors, and original audiences of books like
Joshua inhabited a very different world. Beyond enduring monu-
ments and ruins, they had no way to uncover the past – archaeol-
ogy was not a viable career path.80 Instead, they relied on memory
preserved in stories.81 They extrapolated unknown aspects of the
past from the present, using creativity to flesh out the story and
give their characters speeches that conveyed the story’s meaning.82
They shaped and selected stories of the past to speak to the pre-
sent.83 When they heard a story, their first thought was likely to
be, “How does this alter how I should live?” The stories that en-
dured, whether orally or in writing, preserved the cultural
memory – the identity – of their society.84 As Israel canonized
Scripture, Joshua headed the collection of Former Prophets. They
understood its central function to be speaking prophetically to the
present.
KRISTIN: I’m seeing a repeated theme here. Each puzzle piece says,
“Don’t expect a history lesson from these texts!” First, we have ev-

79. The “spiritual use of Old Testament narratives is secondary and derivative. Their primary
form is simply historical narrative.” Wright, Don’t Understand, 84.
80. Philip R. Davies, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and
Modern (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 142.
81. Davies, Memories, 105.
82. “While the use of direct speech is not acceptable in today’s modern canon of history writing
unless it is a quote, in ancient history writing direct speech was quite common.” Even a work
intending to recall actual events could use creativity in its speeches, since without it the story
would be fragmentary and incoherent. K. L. Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study
in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing, Journal for the Study of the Old
Testament Supplement Series 98 (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1990), 36–37, e-book. See
also Matties, Joshua, 22, 26. The poetic soliloquies of Job’s friends provide an extreme
example of creativity with speeches.
83. “[C]ultural memory is the result of an ongoing negotiation or struggle between competing
individual and collective memories, which involves amnesia, distortion, perspectivation, and
recall.” Kofoed, “Cultural Memory,” par. 1. See also Davies, Memories, 111, 122; Younger,
Ancient Conquest Accounts, 31–33.
84. “Cultural memory provides a better conceptual tool than history, myth, or tradition for
classifying the biblical narratives about the past because it better reflects the ways in which
the past was understood and utilized in ancient societies.” Davies, Memories, 122. Likewise,
Kofoed, “Cultural Memory,” under “Conclusion.”
 When God Sees Red 19
idence the conquest didn’t happen as Joshua describes it, but in-
stead Canaanites became Israelites. Second, books like Joshua
were written way after the fact, and they preserve different views
about the past. And now, you’re saying these weren’t so much
competing histories, but stories that expressed different ideas
about who God and Israel were and what Israel needed to do next.
GREG: Wow, you were really listening! The stories had some
measure of connection to events in the past, but not at the level of
modern history. When we realize they weren’t trying to compile
our kind of history, the contradictions between stories aren’t as
big of a deal.85 When Jesus spoke about the shepherd seeking the
lost sheep, the woman finding the lost coin, and the father wel-
coming the lost son, we know better than to mash all the details
into a single picture. God isn’t literally a shepherd, woman, and
father rolled into one!
Similarly, when we view all the strands of story in Joshua as
mainly trying to speak to the present while taking liberties in how
they use spotty knowledge of the past, we won’t fixate on compil-
ing them into a cohesive view of Israel’s past. We won’t expect a
story spun around the enduring ruins of Jericho and Ai to line up
with modern archaeology. Who really cares whether Joshua or
Caleb took Hebron, or in which century Jerusalem came into Isra-
elite hands? Those details faded into the mists of time while the
storytellers grappled with explaining their very real deportation
from the land in their own day.86
KRISTIN: That’s useful, but it doesn’t make all the problems go
away. When I get back, show me why I should view Joshua as
more than a flawed and immoral ancient text.

85. “Ancient people knew how to tell and use stories. Many of us, however, because of our
exposure to scientific ways of thinking, have an impaired ability to read and interpret stories
as stories.” Wilma A. Bailey, “Thoughts on Eric Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior,” Direction:
A Mennonite Brethren Forum 40, no. 2 (2011), accessed November 8, 2014,
http://www.directionjournal.org/40/2/thoughts-on-eric-seiberts-idisturbing.html.
86. Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,” 250; Collins, Hebrew Bible, 204; Brueggemann, Deuteronomy,
19.
 20 Marshall Janzen
Scene 2: Minding the gap
KRISTIN: Greg, I’ve learned a lot tonight. I wouldn’t call the book of
Joshua evil anymore – just misguided and easy to abuse. I’m still
wondering how you can view it as Holy Scripture.

Rehabilitating Joshua
GREG: I’m not entirely at peace with Joshua either, and before we
leave I want to show how other writers of Scripture seem to feel
the same way. But first, I want to make sure we realize how that
stuff we talked about really changes things. The gaps matter,
whether between archaeology and Joshua’s depiction, between the
writing of Joshua and its setting, or between our cultural expecta-
tions of stories and theirs. When we mind the gap, we’ll see Joshua
in a new light. Just compare how we think of Tolkien: was he vio-
lent and immoral for writing The Lord of the Rings? The novels
contain plenty of violence, some of it verging on genocide. Those
poor orcs get decimated!
KRISTIN: No, not the same thing. Tolkien made up the orcs.
GREG: And Canaanites didn’t exist in the time Joshua was writ-
ten! Or more accurately, they existed as different people groups,
including some people who called themselves Israelites.87
I’m a Mennonite by birth and upbringing, but I’ve since de-
fected to the Evangelical Free Church. I’ve left some key markers
of being Mennonite behind, but I still make perishki in the sum-
mer and wareneki every now and then. More to the point, I still
sometimes tell Mennonite jokes. I’m allowed; it’s my heritage.
KRISTIN: Are you implying the Israelites still have the right to tell
Canaanite jokes, and the conquest stories are their biggest punch
line?
GREG: Israel seems to use Canaanites as punching bags more
than punch lines, but yes, I think they have more right to do so
than someone smearing an outside, still-existing group. But this
goes deeper than jokes or insults. Whether it intends to or not,
Joshua reveals a huge insight when read in light of archaeology.

87. Canaanites also became assimilated into other groups, such as the Philistines.
 When God Sees Red 21
The people of Israel needed to kill their inner Canaanite to retain
their identity as Yahweh’s people and have a hope for the future,
even after exile.88 The seven nations they were commanded to de-
stroy didn’t exist anymore, but Israel still found polytheistic cul-
tures seductive, whether in the Babylonians around them or in
their Canaanite heritage.89
KRISTIN: Yeah, a figurative reading is better, but nobody would
have read the text that way before we discovered that things didn’t
happen like a straight reading claims.
GREG: Not so. Until the last few centuries, figurative or typologi-
cal readings of Joshua dominated.90 In the early church, the
strongest voice for taking Joshua historically was Marcion – and
he wanted to reject the Old Testament because it made God look
repulsive and immoral.91 People like Gregory of Nyssa and Origen
countered that Marcion’s reading was childish: we need to go be-
yond a flat interpretation to understand God’s revelation through
these texts.92 Joshua’s story had violence, just as The Lord of the
Rings does, but these stories teach us about a different kind of

88. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 222.

89. Brueggemann, Deuteronomy, 18.
90. “For most of the history of interpretation, the book of Joshua has been a source of reflection
on the character of the Christian life. Apart from a few commentators, like Calvin, it was not
until the modern era that the book of Joshua came to be interpreted in the light of literary
and historical analysis.” Matties, Joshua, 426. As for Deut. 7 and its command to exterminate
the seven nations, until the modern era the church tended to ignore this text or equate the
seven nations with the seven chief vices. Earl, “Christian Significance,” 50–52.
“Whilst allegorical interpretation is often regarded as lacking hermeneutical control, it is
interesting to note how ‘stable’ and consistent the allegorical readings of Joshua were – for
example with regard to Rahab and to Jericho. This suggests that Joshua was read within a
tradition that in fact offered a hermeneutical control and guide to its ongoing significance.
Joshua was not read in isolation from the remainder of what emerged as Christian Scripture,
and its reading was guided by the developing Christian tradition.” Douglas S. Earl, Reading
Joshua as Christian Scripture, Journal of Theological Interpretation Supplements 2 (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 10–11.
91. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior, 57–58.
92. “It is not the words of the book of Joshua that are authoritative for Origen, but the words as
they resonate with the Scriptures as a whole. […] Origen used a figural reading to offer an
alternative to those who would have discarded these texts entirely.” Matties, Joshua, 427. See
also Auld, “Former Prophets,” 72; Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 193; Seibert, Disturbing
Divine Behavior, 61–63; Earl, Reading Joshua, 9–10.
 22 Marshall Janzen
struggle that goes on within us.93 Origen saw the need for all of
us – Israelite or not – to exterminate our inner Canaanite.94
KRISTIN: It certainly sounds better when Joshua’s rhetoric is turned
against the reader, but too often it’s been used by colonists and
other people with power to view those in their way as nothing but
Canaanite scum.95
GREG: Sadly, yes. When people want to justify bad things, they’ll
grab on to anything that people value and twist it to their own
ends. Without the Bible, they’d easily find other ideals to inspire
violence.96 If people viewed The Lord of the Rings as Holy Scrip-
ture, it would probably have a shameful history of abuse too.
Joshua wasn’t written for powerful people. Its first readers and
hearers were marginalized exiles who thought God had aban-
doned them. The book has inspired and challenged many genera-
tions of suffering people, from those exiles under the thumb of
Babylonia to Africans enslaved in the United States.97 Among
these people, Joshua doesn’t provide a justification to kill the op-
pressors. Its stories expose the impermanence of evil and fuel
hope that better things are coming – in this world and the next.

Transcending Joshua
KRISTIN: I can see how Joshua would look different to those on the
outside. But still, the violence is there within it. Many Christians
who read Joshua are on the inside. Many believe the slaughter it
describes really happened – without exaggeration and with God’s

93. Matties, Joshua, 165.

94. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 194.
95. Wright, Don’t Understand, 74. “The book becomes dangerous when it falls into the hands of
those in power, especially those engaged in colonizing. Colonists are strongly tempted to
read it as authorizing violent conquest in the name of God. That’s how some of the American
colonists read it, that’s how some of the Afrikaner colonists read it, that’s how some Israelis
today read it, as they attempt to dispossess the Palestinians.” Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,”
256. For documented examples and analysis, see Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, chaps. 4–5.
96. Paul Chamberlain, Why People Don’t Believe: Confronting Seven Challenges to Christian Faith
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 58–64, Kindle; Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 244.
97. Wolterstorff, “Reading Joshua,” 256. The significance and enduring relevance of Joshua for
enslaved African Americans reverberates in many Negro Spirituals, such as “Get Away Jordan,”
“Stand Still Jordan,” and “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.”
 When God Sees Red 23
approval. While they may not advocate violence now, it’s not hard
to imagine a set of threatening circumstances that would lead
them to take that small step from “this was once God’s will” to
“this is again God’s will.”98
Further, while the figurative reading sounds better, viewing
Joshua as literal history is central to the story of the Bible. The
Pentateuch leads up to it: God promises to give the land, then
God punishes Israel when they don’t rush in to conquer it.99 This
doesn’t make sense if the conquest just meant killing their inner
Canaanite. Apart from the exodus, the conquest is the major ex-
ample of God’s power and favour towards Israel. The supposed
“history” in Joshua is essential to making sense of the Bible’s larger
story of Israel.100
GREG: I think it’s more complicated than that. Some passages
before Joshua speak favourably of Israel’s role in violently taking
the land from foreigners, especially the texts in Deuteronomy that
command it. But when we get to the actual conquest, the lines
blur as Israel brings Canaanites like Rahab into the fold. Midway
through Joshua, we discover that the repeated mantra of “all Isra-
el” is not an ethnic term: it includes foreigners as well.101 As the
bravado of the first conquest stories fades into the reality that the
natives could not be dislodged, the Canaanites shift into a murky
position between the enemy to be exterminated and the natural-
ized foreigner the law commands them to protect.102 Joshua is al-
ready nuancing what had earlier been black and white.
Other streams of thought in the Old Testament go even fur-
ther. Some texts undermine the morality of the conquest, insisting
that God does not approve of killing children for the sins of their

98. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 184.

99. Gen. 15:18–21; Exod. 6:6–8; Num. 13:25–14:38; Deut. 7:1–6. Wright, Don’t Understand, 83.
100. Wright, Don’t Understand, 83.
101. Josh. 8:33–35; earlier, see 3:7, 17; 4:14; 7:24–25; 8:15, 21.
102. On Israel’s duty to believing foreigners, see Exod. 12:47–49; 20:9–11; 22:21; 23:9, 12; Lev. 16:29;
19:9–10, 33–34; Deut. 5:12–15; 10:17–19; 14:28–29; 24:17–22; 26:12–13; 29:10–13; 31:12.
Wright, Don’t Understand, 103–04.
 24 Marshall Janzen
parents.103 Others undermine the reality of the conquest, such as
by showing how the Jebusites – one of those seven nations God
promised to wipe out – become a cliché for a people folded into
Israel.104 Still others question the uniqueness of what God did for
Israel, paralleling it with Edom’s conquest of Amorite land or how
the Philistines and Arameans received their land from God.105
KRISTIN: So God told the Edomites to wipe out the Amorites?
GREG: I doubt it, but they probably spoke about it as if God did,
and Israel believed God was behind everything that happened. We
distinguish between what God commanded and what God per-
mitted, but the ancients didn’t.106 Israel’s belief in God’s sovereign-
ty over all nations meant that everything that happened was God’s
doing. Rather than reading the speeches of God as somehow pre-
serving actual conversations from half a millennium prior, I think
they preserve Israel’s belief that God was behind everything – in-
cluding their deportation by the Babylonians.
KRISTIN: I don’t know. If you’re willing to take liberties like that
with Joshua, why trust anything the rest of the Bible says?107
GREG: I still trust Joshua and learn from Joshua, even though I
don’t take it as flatly historical. I have good reason to view the
gospels differently. They were written decades instead of centuries
after the events they describe, they used different genres, we have
four corroborating accounts, and they’re generally supported by

103. Deut. 24:16; Ezek. 18.

104. Wright, Don’t Understand, 102; Copan, Moral Monster, 187. God promises to wipe out the
Jebusites (Exod. 23:23–33; 33:1–2; Deut. 7:1; Josh. 3:10). Some texts appear to show that they
are eliminated (Josh. 9:1–2; 11:1–14; 24:11). Alongside notes of their oppression, other texts
show they were treated like citizens by the time of David (2 Sam. 24:14–25; 1 Chr. 21:14–28;
2 Chr. 3:1). Ultimately, the term “Jebusite” describes a foreign people grafted into Israel (Zech.
9:7).
105. Deut. 2:10–12, 18–23; Ps. 87; Amos 9:7. Wright, Don’t Understand, 96–97, 103; Reed Lessing,
“Upsetting the Status Quo: Preaching like Amos,” Concordia Journal 33, no. 3 (2007): 288.
106. Wright, Don’t Understand, 97.
107. “If the Bible is in error when it says that God ordered genocide, then how do we know that
it’s not in error when it says that Jesus rose from the dead?” Ken Pulliam, “Grasping at Straws
Part Three: Evangelicals Defend Genocide,” Why I De-Converted from Evangelical Christianity,
February 26, 2010, accessed December 14, 2014,
http://formerfundy.blogspot.ca/2010/02/grasping-at-straws-part-three.html.
 When God Sees Red 25
108
external evidence. Besides, my faith doesn’t rest on Joshua. Paul
says my faith is in vain if Christ is not raised, not if Jericho was not
razed!109
KRISTIN: But doesn’t the conquest turn up in the New Testament as
well?
GREG: Not like you’d expect. Deuteronomy is the third-most
quoted book in the New Testament.110 The gospels reference
chapters 6 and 8 repeatedly, but the whole New Testament ig-
nores the chapter between that commands the conquest.111 Acts
includes two perfunctory summaries of the conquest, both of
which gloss over Israel’s involvement by picturing the removal of
the nations as God’s work.112 In Hebrews, the writer rejects the
repeated idea in Joshua that violent conquest led to rest for the
people.113
KRISTIN: What about all the predictions of destruction in the New
Testament?
GREG: They never use the language of the conquest texts. In-
stead, the coming judgements are often natural consequences
(such as what Jerusalem would face for provoking the Romans),
and people are never ordered to carry them out.
Further, the main character drawn from Joshua in the New
Testament is Rahab.114 This is especially significant because Josh-
ua and Jesus are related names in Hebrew and identical names in
Greek, the language of the New Testament.115 The New Testa-

108. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior, 119.

109. 1 Cor. 15:14. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior, 125.
110. After Psalms and Isaiah. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 102.
111. Quotations from Deut. 6 or 8 are found in Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; 22:37; Mark 12:29–30; Luke 4:4, 8,
12; 10:27. Direct quotes of Deut. 7 (and 20) are absent in the New Testament. “In the NT,
there is no explicit development of Deut 7.” Earl, “Christian Significance,” 48.
112. Acts 7:45; 13:19. Similarly, see Heb. 11:30–31.
113. Heb. 4:1–8. Hebrews points to the failure of the generation before Joshua, but also suggests
that Joshua’s generation did not receive the promised rest, even though the book of Joshua
claims they did (Josh. 1:13, 15; 11:23; 14:15; 21:44; 22:4; 23:1). Matties, Joshua, 32–33.
114. Matt. 1:5; Heb. 11:31; Jas. 2:25. Matties, Joshua, 32.
115. Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword, 102. “The NT takes no explicit opportunity to exploit the
 26 Marshall Janzen
ment praises Rahab as a model of faith, but Joshua only appears as
a chronological footnote and a negative example.116
KRISTIN: So the rest of the Bible tends to ignore Joshua – except for
Rahab. That’s better than glorying in it, but it seems inadequate. If
Scripture tends to overlook Joshua’s violence, I don’t think that’s
enough.
GREG: Kristin, I really admire your fire for justice and mercy.
Nothing seems to get you more agitated than seeing someone else
wronged. Even back in Mrs. Keys’ Sunday school class, you were
the first to memorize the beatitudes and fruit of the Spirit. It’s ob-
vious how you try to live by those values. I see now why the injus-
tice of the conquest passages caused you to question your faith.
The church needs people like you who aren’t afraid to listen to
their conscience. I needed to hear your challenge back in our first
conversation on this. I was willing to hold off evaluating the con-
quest’s morality and just accept it as biblical truth. You weren’t –
and you got me thinking enough to follow your lead.
What I’d like you to consider, though, is where you got that
moral drive. When we were kids, I only saw you in Sunday school,
but it sure seemed like you drank up what Jesus taught about the
right way to live. I think you judge Joshua through the lens of
what Jesus taught you.117 Joshua fell short, so you rejected Jesus as
well. I’m asking you to reconsider, because Jesus walked away
from Joshua too.
KRISTIN: Wait, we just finished looking at how the New Testament
deals with Joshua. You said it doesn’t say much. Did Jesus dis
Joshua sometime when the mic wasn’t on?
GREG: No, the mic was on, and Matthew’s gospel records it the
clearest. Right in the first chapter, Matthew begins with a geneal-

fact that Joshua and Jesus share the same name – a feature prominent in patristic
interpretation.” Auld, “Former Prophets,” 71–72.
116. Acts 7:45 uses Joshua’s name to indicate the timeframe (similar to saying “In the day of King
Herod”). Heb. 4:8 reveals that Joshua did not bring the people rest.
117. “These stories offend our moral sensibilities. […] The Bible itself inculcates the values which
these stories seem to violate.” William L. Craig, “Q & A: Slaughter of the Canaanites,”
Reasonable Faith, August 6, 2007, accessed November 4, 2014,
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/slaughter-of-the-canaanites.
 When God Sees Red 27
ogy that includes Rahab, pointing out that Jesus shares her Ca-
naanite blood.118 So much for maintaining a separation between
Canaanites and Israelites as Deuteronomy and later Ezra insisted!
Matthew emphasizes that the very Messiah of Israel, God in the
flesh, was part Canaanite. Later on, Matthew tells of Jesus meeting
a Canaanite woman—119
KRISTIN: I thought the Canaanites were long gone by this time!
GREG: They are. Mark calls the woman a Syrophoenician, so
Matthew is making a point by instead calling her a Canaanite.120
Matthew invites us to view this woman as one of those people
God apparently wanted exterminated along with their children.121
And what does Jesus do? After an awkward conversation, he
praises her great faith and heals her child!122
Matthew also draws out how Jesus is like a new-and-improved
Moses.123 The whole book is structured around five collections of
Jesus’ teaching, much like the Pentateuch with its five books of
Moses. Jesus echoes Moses’ life as he eludes a royal edict to kill
male children by finding safety in Egypt, goes up a mountain to
give his keynote, fasts for forty days, and glows during a heavenly
mountaintop experience.124
But Jesus doesn’t merely imitate Moses; he goes beyond him.
Remember how Joshua claimed to fulfill Moses’ words while shift-
ing their meaning? Jesus takes this to the next level. I didn’t see
this until I started balancing my Scripture memorization with a
few more of the red letters, such as in Matthew’s version of the
Sermon on the Mount. Jesus first claims to completely fulfill the

118. Matt. 1:5.

119. Matt. 15:22.
120. Mark 7:26.
121. David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary, Reading the
New Testament (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1993), 163.
122. Matt. 15:28.
123. “One of the main things Matthew wants to tell us is that Jesus is like Moses – only more so.”
Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, New Testament for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2004), 80,
Logos edition.
124. Compare Exod. 1:22–2:10 with Matt. 2:13–18; Exod. 19:3 with Matt. 5:1; Exod. 34:28 with
Matt. 4:2; Exod. 34:29–35 with Matt. 17:1–8.
 28 Marshall Janzen
earlier Scriptures – then he launches into overturning much of
what they taught about divorce, oaths and vows, and retribu-
tion.125 Finally, he challenges the conquest mentality directly:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour
and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of
your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and
on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unright-
eous.126
The conquest texts said to show no mercy, but Jesus says, “Blessed
are the merciful.”127 Those texts saw strength and courage as the
prerequisites to taking the land, but Jesus promises the meek that
they will inherit the land.128 Jesus was not afraid to challenge
whether some texts correctly portrayed God’s will. Elsewhere, Je-
sus takes words that Deuteronomy presents as Yahweh’s com-
mands and calls them Moses’ on-the-fly legislation!129 Jesus shows
us God far more clearly than those texts.130 Rather than a God
who sees red and commands genocide, Jesus reveals a God who
sees red as his own blood pours – for us.
Both Moses and Joshua have extended farewell speeches to Is-
rael prior to their deaths. They acknowledge that they will no
longer be with the people, but urge Israel to be faithful in dispos-

125. Matt. 5:17–18, 27–42. Compare the Old Testament texts on divorce (Deut. 24:1–4), oaths
and vows (Deut. 6:13; 10:20; Num. 30), and the commands to exact retribution (Deut. 19:21;
Lev. 24:19–20; Exod. 21:23–25).
126. Matt. 5:43–45.
127. Deut. 7:2, 16; Matt. 5:7.
128. Josh. 1:6; Matt. 5:5 (the same word refers to either land or earth) ; cf. Ps. 37:11. Matties, Joshua,
33–34.
129. Jesus states, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce
your wives, but at the beginning it was not so” (Matt. 19:8, emphasis added). The legislation
about divorce (Deut. 24:1–4) is in the section enclosed by 12:1 and 26:16: “This very day the
LORD your God is commanding you to observe these statutes and ordinances; so observe
them diligently with all your heart and with all your soul.”
130. “Any theological construct, no matter how many biblical texts may be lined up in its support,
that does not have the cross at its center is not only anti-Christ but dangerous.” Cowles,
“Response to Merrill.”
 When God Sees Red 29
131
sessing and separating from the nations before them. Jesus’ last
commission to his disciples could not be more different.132 It
comes after his death – and resurrection. He speaks with authori-
ty, promises to be with them always, and commands this hand-
picked team of Jewish followers to make disciples of all nations.133
In these words, he rebukes the path attributed to Moses and Josh-
ua and shows himself to be the better way.
Please, Kristin, don’t give up on Jesus because of Joshua. I
think Jesus shared – and inspired – the moral sensibilities that
lead you to reject a face-value, historical reading of Joshua. As I
said earlier, there’s plenty within Joshua itself to lead us beyond
that kind of reading. But whenever anyone tries to reduce Joshua
to a flat history lesson revealing how God commanded Israel to
deal with their enemies, Jesus provides a far clearer image of God.
Our churches need more people like you willing stand with Jesus,
even if that means standing against Joshua.

— fin —

131. Deut. 1:37; 11:22–25, 31–32; Josh. 23:1–16.

132. Kenton L. Sparks, Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority and the Dark Side of Scripture
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), chap. 7, par. 11, Kindle.
133. Matt. 28:16–20.
 30 Marshall Janzen

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