Jesus, Genocide, and the Canaanites
Philip Jensen I have been writing about the alarming Bible passages in which God commands the destruction of the older peoples of the land of Canaan, ordering what by any common sense understanding we would call genocide. Early Christians were not too troubled by such texts, because they mainly saw them as allegorical, and they saw no need to confront the moral dilemmas in their writings, particularly in the New Testament. But here is one exception, and a significant one. It appears in a devious and quite sneaky way in the Gospel of Matthew. Am I allowed to call gospels sneaky? I have been writing about the alarming Bible passages in which God commands the destruction of the older peoples of the land of Canaan, ordering what by any common sense understanding we would call genocide. Early Christians were not too troubled by such texts, because they mainly saw them as allegorical, and they saw no need to confront the moral dilemmas in their own writings, particularly the New Testament. B