Language for God in Patristic Tradition by Sheridan Mark.;

Author:Sheridan, Mark.; [Sheridan, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830897001
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Published: 2014-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

Wiping Out the Nations: Deuteronomy and Joshua

A major problem for early Christian writers was posed by the repeated commands attributed to God in Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges to wipe out, destroy utterly, put to the sword the inhabitants of the Promised Land. The ethnocentric in-group morality expressed in these books was in sharp contrast to the universalist outlook of the gospel. The portrait of a violent and vengeful God could not easily be reconciled with the preaching of Jesus Christ. The language itself of “utterly destroy them,” “put all its males to the sword,” “not leave any that breathed” was as shocking to ancient sensibilities as it is to modern ones, which have witnessed the genocidal horrors of the twentieth century. To appreciate the extent of the problem it is necessary to pass in review the texts in question.

Already in the book of Deuteronomy the people are prepared and taught what they must do in the future:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you—and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire. (Deut 7:1-5)

And later in the same book they are reminded of this command, “When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their towns and in their houses” (Deut 19:1):

When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here. But as for the towns of these peoples

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