Show them no mercy - The Bible genoicide?
aYou must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Do not feel sorry for them, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you. Deut.7.16 I recently read Charlie Trimm’s book The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation (Eerdman’s 2022). Let me say right away that this particular post does not in any sense constitute a specific response to that book, and is not a review: that is for another day. (I’ll just say here that it would be a great text for classroom use). Rather, Professor Trimm’s book set me thinking about the broader issues involved, which I covered in my own book Laying Down The Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore The Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperSanFrancisco 2011). The problem is easily stated. In the Old Testament, a sizable number of verses show God commanding not just the defeat of a people, but also their total annihilation, every last man, woman, child, and dog (literally). These passages involve the im...