The Religion of the Canaanites part 1
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:54 pm
Salvete
I thought this might be of some interest to some of you here to read on what kind of justification the bible has to offer for exterminating the Canaanites for their "immorality".
The Religion of the Canaanites
Was the command to exterminate the Canaanites a justifiable act on
the part of God, who ordered it, or on the part of people, who
partially, at least, obeyed it? Was the episode at variance with the
character of God and his people? That it was inconsistent and
unjustified both on God's side and humanity's has been so often
asserted, that a consideration of the moral and religious character
of the Canaanites is a question of utmost importance in solving the
supposed theological difficulties that are commonly adduced.
Professor H.H. Rowley, for example, claims that the divine command to
destroy the Canaanites in general, or Jericho and its inhabitants in
kparticular, and similar episodes in the Old Testament are contrary
to the New Testament revelation of God in Christ, and involve the
erroneous thoughts of the writers or characters in question about
God, which we can now no longer accept as true. Moreover, Rowley
claims that such incidents of wholesale destruction contain that
which is "spiritually unsatisfying" and involve "dishonoring God."
So, this divine command to exterminate from the face of the earth all
men, women, and children belonging to the seven or eight nations of
Canaan is one of the most frequently raised objections to seeing God
as just and loving in the Old Testament. How can God's fairness and
mercy be seen in such blanket and wholesale condemnation of entire
nations?
All attempts to mitigate or tone down this command to totally wipe
out the population are ruined on the clear instructions of texts like
Exodus 23:32-33, 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, and 20:15-18. The
presence of the term herem in the sense of "forced destruction"
constantly was applied to the Canaanites and thus they are marked for
extermination.
Once again we are back to the question, "Will not the judge of all
the earth do right?" It is the question Abraham asked of God, just
before He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It would seem clear that the
OT does uphold the justice and righteousness of God, even in this
command to eradicate the Canaanites. (Of course, consider the
question Job's friend asked in Job 8:3: "Does God pervert justice?
Does the Almighty pervert what is right?" Job's reply, in Job 9, is,
in essence "yes".)
To place the whole question in perspective, let the principle of
Deuteronomy 9:5 be cited:
It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you
are going in to take possession of their land; but onl account of the
wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out
before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
Therefore, there is no attempt to establish a tacit or real moral
superiority for Israel; the text informs us to the contrary in its
explicit statements and narratives. The call of Yahweh cannot be
traced to Israel's superiority in righteousness or numbers, "but it
was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to
your forefathers." (Deut. 7:6-8).
Ronald Goetz, with some justification, wonders why it is, then,
that "...Israel is helped in spite of her sins, while the Canaanites
are destroyed because of theirs?" The answer does not like, as Goetz
himself observes in the fact that Israel is vastly more righteous
than the Canaanites, for that is indeed a semi-Pelagian Pharisaism
(Pelagianism: a fifth century Christian heresy taught by Pelagius and
his followers that stressed the essential goodness of human nature
and the freedom of the human will. Pelagius was concenred about the
slack moral standard among Christians, and he hoped to improve their
conduct by his teachings. Rejecting the arguments of those who
claimed that they sinned because of human weakness, he insisted that
God made human beings free to choose between good and evil and that
sin was voluntary. Celestius, a disciple of Pelagius, denied the
church's doctrine of original sin. Pelagianism was opposed by
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, who asserted that human beings could not
attain righteousness by their own efforts and were totally dependent
upon the grace of God. Condemned by two councils of African bishops
in 416, and again at Carthage in 418, Pelagius and Celestius were
finally excommunicated in 418; Pelagius' later fate is unknown
[perhaps he changed his name to Robert Schuler]). The answer does not
lie in the righteousness of Israel, but it does lie in the increasing
degrees of guilt that Canaan accrued. Even Jesus appealed to this
principle in dealing with a comparison of cities in his day as judged
over against Sodom and Gomorrah (Mat. 10:15). There had been a
patient waiting from Abraham's time "for the sin of the Amorite...[to
reach] its full measure." (Gen. 15:16)
This is not to say that Israel was permitted or even ordered to treat
all other nations the same way, for Deuteronomy 20:10-15 odrders them
to offer conditions of peace rather than extermination to all otehrs.
However, the verses that follow, namely 16-18, disallowed the same
offer to be given to Canaan. In fact, the Hebrew wars with other
nations (except Canaan) were designed to be only in self-defense.
Why then were the Canaanites singled out for such severe treatment?
They were cut off to prevent Israel and the rest of the world from
being corrupted (Deut. 20:16-18). When a people starts to burn their
children in honor of their gods (Lev. 18:21), practice sodomy,
bestiality, and all sorts of loathsome vice (Lev. 18:23, 24, 20:3),
the land itself begins to "vomit" them out as the body heaves under
the load of internal poisons (Lev. 18:25, 27-30). Thus, "objection to
the fate of these nations ... is really an objection to the highest
manifestation of the grace of God." Green likens this action on God's
part, not to doing evil that good may come (though that does seem
often to be God's methodology: the ends justify the means), but doing
good in spite of certain evil consequences, just as a surgeon does
not refrain from amputating a gangrenous leg even though in so doing
he cannot help cutting off much healthy flesh.
But there is more. Green observes that "...We may object to God's
doing immediately and personally what we do not object to his doing
mediately, through providence. Now nothing is more certain than that
providence is administered on the principle that individuals share in
the life of the family and of the nation to which they belong; and
that, consequently it is right that they should participate in its
punishments as in its rewards....Though many innocent persons could
not but suffer, it was right, because of the relation in which they
stood to the guilty, that this should be so."
One more observation must be made here. Every forcast or prophesy of
doom, like any prophetic word about the future except those few
promises connected with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic and New
Covenants (which are unconditional and dependant solely on God's work
of fulfillment), had a suppressed "unless" attached to them. At that
moment that nation turns from its evil way and repents then at that
time the Lord would relent and cease to bring the threatened harm
(cf. Jer. 18:7-10). Thus Canaan had, as it were, a final forty-year
countdown as they heard of the events in Egypt, at the crossing of
the Reed Sea, and what happened to the kings who opposed Israel along
the way. We know that they were aware of such events, for Rahab
confessed that these same events had terrorized her city of Jericho
and that she, as a result, had placed her faith in the God of the
Hebrews (Josh. 2:10-14). Thus God waited for the "cup of iniquity" to
fill up -- and fill up it did without any change in spite of the
marvelous signs given so that the nations, along with Pharaoh and the
Egyptians, "might know that he was the Lord."
The destruction of the Canaanites was on the same principle as the
whole world was judged (except for eight persons) in the Deluge or
the five cities of the plain (including Sodom and Gomorrah), or
Pharaoh's army. Usually those who object to these events are those
who deny any compatibility of the doctrine of eternal punishment of
the wicked with the mercy and love of God.
God's character and the acts he requires are fully consistent with
everything that both testaments would lead us to expect in our God.
The problem usually centers in a deficiency in our view of things and
our ability to properly define terms or grasp the whole of a subject.
Canaanite Morality (an oxymoron)
Despite the paramount import of Canaanite morality and religion in
the realm of theology and general Biblical studies, little was known
about the subject 70 years ago except taht which, on the one hand,
could be gleaned from the Bible, which, however, was ample enough for
faith and on the other hand, that which was preserved in the Graeco-
Roman authors, which was meager enough from the scholar's viewpoint.
Philo of Byblos
The main source of knowledge about Canaanite religion before the new
sources became available after 1930 (primarily the Ugaritic
materials) was Philo of Byblos, the Greek name of ancient Gebal on
the Mediterranean (Josh. 13:5, 1 Kings 5:18), forty-two miles north
of Sidon. Philo lived around 100 AD. He was a native Phoenician
scholar and gathered data for a historical work called Phoenikika
or "Phoenician Matters", designated "Phoenician History" by later
Greek scholars. According to Porphery and Eusebius, Philo translated
the writings of an earlie Phoenician named Sanchuniathon, who was
supposed to have lived at a very remote age, whom W. F. Albright
placed between 700 and 500 BC. Sanchuniathon in turn supposedly got
his material from one Hierombalus under Abibal, king of Berytus, who
is said to have flourished before the Trojan War.
Ugaritic Poetry
The abstract of Phoenician mythology which has been preserved from
Philo through Eusebius (like biblical notices on the same subject)
used to be commonly regarded with suspician by critical scholarship
and considered as mostly an invention by Philo, without any
independent value as a source of knowledge of Phoenician religion.
This skeptical attitude as disappered as a consequence of the
recovery of religious epic literature of Ugarit on the north Syrian
coast (1927-1937).
These significant poetical texts discovered by D.F.A. Schaefer in a
series of campaigns have shown that the gods of Philo bear names in
large part now well-known from Ugarit as well as from other sources.
The Philo myths are characterized by the same moral abandon and
primitive barbarity with fondness for descriptive names and
personifications that are found at Ugarit.
The new sources of knowledge indicate little change in the content of
Canaanite mythology between c. 1400 BC and 700 BC. Many details of
Philo's account, not only in the matter of the names of deities, but
in the mythological atmosphere as well are in complete agreement with
the Ugaritic myths and late Phoenician inscriptions. Scholars are,
therefore, justified in accepting, at least provisionally, all data
preserved by Philo that do not involve subjective interpretation on
his part.
valete
Quintus
I thought this might be of some interest to some of you here to read on what kind of justification the bible has to offer for exterminating the Canaanites for their "immorality".
The Religion of the Canaanites
Was the command to exterminate the Canaanites a justifiable act on
the part of God, who ordered it, or on the part of people, who
partially, at least, obeyed it? Was the episode at variance with the
character of God and his people? That it was inconsistent and
unjustified both on God's side and humanity's has been so often
asserted, that a consideration of the moral and religious character
of the Canaanites is a question of utmost importance in solving the
supposed theological difficulties that are commonly adduced.
Professor H.H. Rowley, for example, claims that the divine command to
destroy the Canaanites in general, or Jericho and its inhabitants in
kparticular, and similar episodes in the Old Testament are contrary
to the New Testament revelation of God in Christ, and involve the
erroneous thoughts of the writers or characters in question about
God, which we can now no longer accept as true. Moreover, Rowley
claims that such incidents of wholesale destruction contain that
which is "spiritually unsatisfying" and involve "dishonoring God."
So, this divine command to exterminate from the face of the earth all
men, women, and children belonging to the seven or eight nations of
Canaan is one of the most frequently raised objections to seeing God
as just and loving in the Old Testament. How can God's fairness and
mercy be seen in such blanket and wholesale condemnation of entire
nations?
All attempts to mitigate or tone down this command to totally wipe
out the population are ruined on the clear instructions of texts like
Exodus 23:32-33, 34:12-16, Deuteronomy 7:1-5, and 20:15-18. The
presence of the term herem in the sense of "forced destruction"
constantly was applied to the Canaanites and thus they are marked for
extermination.
Once again we are back to the question, "Will not the judge of all
the earth do right?" It is the question Abraham asked of God, just
before He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. It would seem clear that the
OT does uphold the justice and righteousness of God, even in this
command to eradicate the Canaanites. (Of course, consider the
question Job's friend asked in Job 8:3: "Does God pervert justice?
Does the Almighty pervert what is right?" Job's reply, in Job 9, is,
in essence "yes".)
To place the whole question in perspective, let the principle of
Deuteronomy 9:5 be cited:
It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you
are going in to take possession of their land; but onl account of the
wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out
before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
Therefore, there is no attempt to establish a tacit or real moral
superiority for Israel; the text informs us to the contrary in its
explicit statements and narratives. The call of Yahweh cannot be
traced to Israel's superiority in righteousness or numbers, "but it
was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to
your forefathers." (Deut. 7:6-8).
Ronald Goetz, with some justification, wonders why it is, then,
that "...Israel is helped in spite of her sins, while the Canaanites
are destroyed because of theirs?" The answer does not like, as Goetz
himself observes in the fact that Israel is vastly more righteous
than the Canaanites, for that is indeed a semi-Pelagian Pharisaism
(Pelagianism: a fifth century Christian heresy taught by Pelagius and
his followers that stressed the essential goodness of human nature
and the freedom of the human will. Pelagius was concenred about the
slack moral standard among Christians, and he hoped to improve their
conduct by his teachings. Rejecting the arguments of those who
claimed that they sinned because of human weakness, he insisted that
God made human beings free to choose between good and evil and that
sin was voluntary. Celestius, a disciple of Pelagius, denied the
church's doctrine of original sin. Pelagianism was opposed by
Augustine, bishop of Hippo, who asserted that human beings could not
attain righteousness by their own efforts and were totally dependent
upon the grace of God. Condemned by two councils of African bishops
in 416, and again at Carthage in 418, Pelagius and Celestius were
finally excommunicated in 418; Pelagius' later fate is unknown
[perhaps he changed his name to Robert Schuler]). The answer does not
lie in the righteousness of Israel, but it does lie in the increasing
degrees of guilt that Canaan accrued. Even Jesus appealed to this
principle in dealing with a comparison of cities in his day as judged
over against Sodom and Gomorrah (Mat. 10:15). There had been a
patient waiting from Abraham's time "for the sin of the Amorite...[to
reach] its full measure." (Gen. 15:16)
This is not to say that Israel was permitted or even ordered to treat
all other nations the same way, for Deuteronomy 20:10-15 odrders them
to offer conditions of peace rather than extermination to all otehrs.
However, the verses that follow, namely 16-18, disallowed the same
offer to be given to Canaan. In fact, the Hebrew wars with other
nations (except Canaan) were designed to be only in self-defense.
Why then were the Canaanites singled out for such severe treatment?
They were cut off to prevent Israel and the rest of the world from
being corrupted (Deut. 20:16-18). When a people starts to burn their
children in honor of their gods (Lev. 18:21), practice sodomy,
bestiality, and all sorts of loathsome vice (Lev. 18:23, 24, 20:3),
the land itself begins to "vomit" them out as the body heaves under
the load of internal poisons (Lev. 18:25, 27-30). Thus, "objection to
the fate of these nations ... is really an objection to the highest
manifestation of the grace of God." Green likens this action on God's
part, not to doing evil that good may come (though that does seem
often to be God's methodology: the ends justify the means), but doing
good in spite of certain evil consequences, just as a surgeon does
not refrain from amputating a gangrenous leg even though in so doing
he cannot help cutting off much healthy flesh.
But there is more. Green observes that "...We may object to God's
doing immediately and personally what we do not object to his doing
mediately, through providence. Now nothing is more certain than that
providence is administered on the principle that individuals share in
the life of the family and of the nation to which they belong; and
that, consequently it is right that they should participate in its
punishments as in its rewards....Though many innocent persons could
not but suffer, it was right, because of the relation in which they
stood to the guilty, that this should be so."
One more observation must be made here. Every forcast or prophesy of
doom, like any prophetic word about the future except those few
promises connected with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic and New
Covenants (which are unconditional and dependant solely on God's work
of fulfillment), had a suppressed "unless" attached to them. At that
moment that nation turns from its evil way and repents then at that
time the Lord would relent and cease to bring the threatened harm
(cf. Jer. 18:7-10). Thus Canaan had, as it were, a final forty-year
countdown as they heard of the events in Egypt, at the crossing of
the Reed Sea, and what happened to the kings who opposed Israel along
the way. We know that they were aware of such events, for Rahab
confessed that these same events had terrorized her city of Jericho
and that she, as a result, had placed her faith in the God of the
Hebrews (Josh. 2:10-14). Thus God waited for the "cup of iniquity" to
fill up -- and fill up it did without any change in spite of the
marvelous signs given so that the nations, along with Pharaoh and the
Egyptians, "might know that he was the Lord."
The destruction of the Canaanites was on the same principle as the
whole world was judged (except for eight persons) in the Deluge or
the five cities of the plain (including Sodom and Gomorrah), or
Pharaoh's army. Usually those who object to these events are those
who deny any compatibility of the doctrine of eternal punishment of
the wicked with the mercy and love of God.
God's character and the acts he requires are fully consistent with
everything that both testaments would lead us to expect in our God.
The problem usually centers in a deficiency in our view of things and
our ability to properly define terms or grasp the whole of a subject.
Canaanite Morality (an oxymoron)
Despite the paramount import of Canaanite morality and religion in
the realm of theology and general Biblical studies, little was known
about the subject 70 years ago except taht which, on the one hand,
could be gleaned from the Bible, which, however, was ample enough for
faith and on the other hand, that which was preserved in the Graeco-
Roman authors, which was meager enough from the scholar's viewpoint.
Philo of Byblos
The main source of knowledge about Canaanite religion before the new
sources became available after 1930 (primarily the Ugaritic
materials) was Philo of Byblos, the Greek name of ancient Gebal on
the Mediterranean (Josh. 13:5, 1 Kings 5:18), forty-two miles north
of Sidon. Philo lived around 100 AD. He was a native Phoenician
scholar and gathered data for a historical work called Phoenikika
or "Phoenician Matters", designated "Phoenician History" by later
Greek scholars. According to Porphery and Eusebius, Philo translated
the writings of an earlie Phoenician named Sanchuniathon, who was
supposed to have lived at a very remote age, whom W. F. Albright
placed between 700 and 500 BC. Sanchuniathon in turn supposedly got
his material from one Hierombalus under Abibal, king of Berytus, who
is said to have flourished before the Trojan War.
Ugaritic Poetry
The abstract of Phoenician mythology which has been preserved from
Philo through Eusebius (like biblical notices on the same subject)
used to be commonly regarded with suspician by critical scholarship
and considered as mostly an invention by Philo, without any
independent value as a source of knowledge of Phoenician religion.
This skeptical attitude as disappered as a consequence of the
recovery of religious epic literature of Ugarit on the north Syrian
coast (1927-1937).
These significant poetical texts discovered by D.F.A. Schaefer in a
series of campaigns have shown that the gods of Philo bear names in
large part now well-known from Ugarit as well as from other sources.
The Philo myths are characterized by the same moral abandon and
primitive barbarity with fondness for descriptive names and
personifications that are found at Ugarit.
The new sources of knowledge indicate little change in the content of
Canaanite mythology between c. 1400 BC and 700 BC. Many details of
Philo's account, not only in the matter of the names of deities, but
in the mythological atmosphere as well are in complete agreement with
the Ugaritic myths and late Phoenician inscriptions. Scholars are,
therefore, justified in accepting, at least provisionally, all data
preserved by Philo that do not involve subjective interpretation on
his part.
valete
Quintus