Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide [Paperback]

C. S. Cowles (Author), Daniel L. Gard (Author), Stanley N. Gundry (Series Editor), Eugene H. Merrill (Contributor), Tremper Longman III (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

A discussion of various contemporary evangelical views of genocide in the Old Testament. Christians are often shocked to read that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, commanded the total destruction---all men, women, and children---of the ethnic group know as the Canaanites. This seems to contradict Jesus' command in the New Testament to love your enemies and do good to all people. How can Yahweh be the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? What does genocide in the Bible have to do with the politics of the 21st century? This book explores, in typical Counterpoints format, the Old Testament command of God to exterminate the Canaanite population and what that implies about continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The four points of view presented on the continuity of the Testaments are: * Strong Discontinuity --- C . S. Cowles * Moderate Discontinuity --- Eugene H. Merrill * piritual Continuity --- Tremper Longman III * Eschatological Continuity --- Daniel L. Gard The Counterpoints series provides a forum for comparison and critique of different views on issues important to Christians. Counterpoints books address two categories: Church Life and Bible and Theology. Complete your library with other books in the Counterpoints series.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A discussion of various contemporary evangelical views of genocide in the Old Testament

Christians are often shocked to read that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, commanded the total destruction—all men, women, and children—of the ethnic group know as the Canaanites. This seems to contradict Jesus’ command in the New Testament to love your enemies and do good to all people. How can Yahweh be the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? What does genocide in the Bible have to do with the politics of the 21st century?

This book explores, in typical Counterpoints format, the Old Testament command of God to exterminate the Canaanite population and what that implies about continuity between the Old and New Testaments.

The four points of view presented on the continuity of the Testaments are: • Strong Discontinuity –C . S. Cowles • Moderate Discontinuity –Eugene H. Merrill • piritual Continuity –Tremper Longman III • Eschatological Continuity –Daniel L. Gard

About the Author

Stanley N. Gundry is executive vice president and editor-in-chief for the Zondervan Corporation. He has been an influential figure in the Evangelical Theological Society, serving as president of ETS and on its executive committee, and is adjunct professor of Historical Theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He is the author of seven books and has written many articles appearing in popular and academic periodicals.

C. S. Cowles (STD, University of San Francisco Theological Seminary) is professor of Bible and theology at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Eugene H. Merrill (PhD, Columbia University) is distinguished professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Daniel L. Gard (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is dean of graduate studies and associate professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Tremper Longman III (PhD, Yale University) is the Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies and the chair of the Religious Studies department at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where he lives with his wife, Alice. He is the Old Testament editor for the revised Expositor's Bible Commentary and has authored many articles and books on the Psalms and other Old Testament books.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310245680
• ISBN-13: 978-0310245681
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good on the biblical material; better apologetic needed., June 17, 2003

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Richard A. Robinson "guyfromcanarsie" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Paperback)

I'd give it 3 1/2 stars actually, if that were one of the options. This book, in a format of similar volumes, consists of contributions from four scholars who each give their point of view, followed by responses from the other three. Three of the authors more or less agree with one other in the reasons God commanded what the title dubs the "genocide" of the Canaanites (the reasons being those generally advanced by evangelical authors and given in the biblical text: to preserve Israel from idolatry, to judge the sins of the inhabitants of Canaan, etc.). Where they differ is in the meaning and application of "holy war" or "Yahweh war" for today. None believes we should engage in physical holy war, but for example, one author sees it as a model for spiritual warfare in the church.

C. S. Cowles provides a lively counterpoint to the other three, as his position is essentially that God never did command the destruction of the Canaanites, nor would he; he was misconstrued or believed to have commanded it, but God is love and would never condone such a massacre. Unfortunately, his responses to each of the other authors, is simply along the same lines: God is love as revealed in Christ, and is not someone who commands the massacre of whole peoples. He chastises Eugene Merrill for a "clinical" analysis of the situation, as though there were no place for exegesis or philosophical analysis of ethics. He appears to believe in the reality of hell, and the same arguments he marshalls against "Yahweh war" could be extended to an all-embracing universalism.

Recently I read the book "The Pianist," on which the recent movie was based. At the end, they include excerpts from the diary of a German soldier who had helped the author, Wladyslaw Szpilman, to hide and to survive. In his diary, maybe 4 or 5 times the German solider says that the Germans did such horrible things to the Jews and to others, they will have to suffer, innocent and guilty alike, one and all. It was amazing to me that someone who lived through the Holocaust and participated in its machinery, could state that even innocent people will have to die as a result of Germany's wickedness -- whereas Cowles, who I take it has a fairly comfortable life (like many of us in this country) as an American professor, was quick to say, how dare anyone say that God would order the killing of "innocent" Canaanites.

The book did a better job at answer the question, why can't we destroy people today, in the church age, than at answering, how can we justify the destruction of the Canaanites in the Old Testament? I felt a stronger apologetic was needed in light of current events (Israelis/Palestinians; Tutsis/Hutus; Bosnia).

As a totally different evangelical point of view, Glenn Miller in his web site "Christian Think-Tank" argues that deportation and people movements are a better description of what took place; only a small portion of the people, those who did not re-locate, were put to death. ....

In any event, if one thinks that God justly commanded the killing of the Canaanites, I am not sure that "genocide" is a helpful word, as useful as it is in grabbing attention. The word carries overtones of injustice and inhumanity -- precisely what three of the authors believe was NOT involved, since it came at God's command.

The book excels at laying out the pattern and identifying marks of "Yahweh war" vs. other kinds of war.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing topic tempered by author preconceptions, October 24, 2006

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Todd Grotenhuis "tgrotenhuis" (Grand Rapids, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Paperback)

This book deals with one of the more difficult questions arising out of the OT narratives: How could a God of love, as he is described in the NT, order the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites in the OT? The answers and analyses in this book are certainly thought-provoking. I wasn't sure I appreciated the book's frequent use of the term "genocide" to describe the Israelite's warfare, as this word tends to produce a very emotional reaction in people and is often assumed to describe an inherently evil act which has no regard for the value of human life. (And all the contributors deny that God ever does evil or that he lacks respect for human life.) The word "genocide" seems more like an attempt to appeal to sensationalism and capitalize on the events of Sept.11, than a completely accurate term for what happened to the Canaanites.

Also, each of the authors' chapters is heavily based on unproven presuppositions which he simply assumes to be true. Specifically:

--C.S. Cowles assumes that parts of the OT (namely, those ordering the warfare) either are not inspired by God, or that they completely misconstrue God's true intent (Cowles doesn't specify which of these options he prefers), to the extent that they are of little if any value to modern readers.

--Eugene Merrill assumes that a dispensational interpretation of the Bible is accurate. (While I understand that many people today are dispensationalits, Merrill simply assumes this scheme without proving it).

--Daniel Gard assumes that an eschatological theme exists in 1-2 Chronicles (spending more time commenting on implications of this theme, and tracing it through the rest of the Bible, than establishing whether it even exists in the first place).

--Tremper Longman assumes that some of God's ways are inherently mysterious and impossible for finite humans to understand completely. (This allows him a very convenient excuse to what otherwise would be a major hole in his argumentation -- namely, why God orders the destruction of the Canaanites but protects the Israelites, when both groups were guilty of sin.)

Personally I was most convinced by Longman -- partly because I reject the presuppositions of Cowles and Merrill and agree with Longman's, and partly because of Longman's appeal to "intrusion ethics" (p.185 if you buy the book) as a way of linking God's OT savagery against the Canaanites w/ his future Final Judgment over all mankind. I find this a fascinating concept in explaining God's warfare-commands to Israel. Other readers are certainly free to side with other contributors of the book, but anyone who reads this will get 4 intelligent, well-argued, yet markedly different approaches toward making sense of a problem for which no easy answers exist.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative Topic, Mixed Results, June 4, 2007

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Marc Axelrod (Potter, Wi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Paperback)

Four Old Testament scholars debate the ethical issue as to how a God of love could order the genocide of the Canaanite communities. CS Cowles handles this by stating that the Israelites misunderstood what God was saying, and that Canaanite genocide is incompatible with God's love shown in Jesus Christ. His essay was the weakest in my view because he in essence rejected the authority of the Old Testament. The other three writers called him to task on this, and also called on Cowles to strengthen his commitment to the infallibility of Scripture. Yikes!

The best article in my humble opinion was the one by Eugene Merrill of Dallas Theological Seminary, He goes through every salient Hebrew Bible text about holy war (herem) and concludes that God's call for the destruction of these communites was a unique time in history when God was executing judgment on historically oppressive, repressive societies in opposition to the Noachide commandments. He gives the following reasons: 1) the stubbornness of the Canaanites in their persistence in idolatry, child sacrifice, and their opposition to the revealed will of God, 2) because this was a special time in history when the people of Israel were emerging as God's chosen instrument to bring salvation and judgment to the nations (3 to bring Israel into the promised land and to prepare them for the coming of their Messiah (4 to show them that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and 5) to remove communities that would continue to oppress God's people and to tempt them toward idolatry and sin. Never mind that Israel didn't obey God completely, the article deals with the theological reasons for OT holy war.

This satisfies the biblical reasoning more than it solves the ethical dilemna, but nevertheless, I found it to be the most compelling discussion in the book, and John Gard and Tremper Longman (two of the other contributors found themselves in substantial agreement with a number of Merrill's arguments).

John Gard (the Missouri Synod Lutheran contributor) ties this topic in with God's eschatological judgment on His enemies. And Tremper Longman says that the NT carries on the Old Testament idea of holy war in the spiritual realm (pointing out Jesus' encounter with the demon world at His first coming).

This was a good book. It satisfied me. I have never really had a problem with the idea of God judging whole civilizations. He is the Lord, He can do what is right in His own eyes. I am just glad that He has given me life and allows me to live in His world.

I should also say that I commend all four writers for noting that this was an unusual time in history and that there is no authorization or word from God to continue this sort of action today. In the book of Revelation, God pours out His wrath on the beast and his minions, but that will be at His initiative.

This is a tough subject where it will be hard to find a unanimous consent. But I commend the writers for their courage in taking up such a hot potato.