RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
The book was a sheer joy to read. It was accessible yet maintained the highest rigors of scholarship. John and John Walton affirm the historicity of the conquest narrative, yet they avoid “easy” answers often given by evangelical apologists. They invite us to enter the thought-world of an ancient Hebrew. They do so by outlining 21 propositions (see below)
Walton’s propositions:
P(1) - (2) should be noncontroversial. The Bible is an ancient semitic document and it should read like one. It has different assumptions on “what is the worst that could happen?” For us, the worst that could happen in life is genocide or famine. For a Hebrew it was an improper burial and being forgotten (Ecclesiastes). Or maybe being driven from the land.
P(3) is problematic in how it is stated, though I know what they are getting at. The Bible isn’t a manual for ethics or law, but I do think it gives more detail about “goodness” than they allow. But they do raise a good point about justice and goodness: justice in the ancient world is tied to order, not so much about “getting what is owed me.”
P(4)-(8) In many cases, this is John 9. Walton’s argument is that the Canaanites aren’t simply being driven out of the land “because they are bad.” I think they are much worse than Walton makes out, but his point holds. The Canaanites are losing their land because God promised the land to Israel.
But what about God’s saying that he will expel/vomit Israel out like he did the Canaanites? True, Walton downplays that objection. ~8. “No nation other than Israel is ever reprimanded for serving other gods” (79). That kind of makes sense, since Yahweh had disinherited the nations in Genesis 10 and given them over to the beney elohim.
P(10) Good reflection against Pelagianism. Holiness (qds) Doesn’t mean my good behavior that I have accumulated. Objects and land in the OT are holy, yet they aren’t moral agents.
P(12) That might be true, but if the Canaanites were guilty of these actions, and if there were demonic Nephilim and Rephaim in the land, then full-scale slaughter was warranted.
P(13) His argument is that the Hebrew ra is relative to the covenant, and not an absolute standard. Nevertheless, one hopes that bestiality and child sacrifice is universally evil.
Demons and idolatry: demons were extraneous to the ANE ritual system.
Repahim:
“The etymology of the words enforcest he unworldly aspects of the enemy, similar to the monstrous bird-men of the Cuthean legend” (148).
“The Rephaim are most commonly associated with the spirits of dead kings, specifically” (149).
Emim: comes from the root word “ema” which would therefore mean “terrible ones” (cited in Eugene Carpenter, “Deuteronomy,” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament, I:432.
P(14) This was a beautiful chapter. The conquest narrative is much more than a typological recapitulation of creation. In being such it shows Yahweh’s victory of chaotic cthonic forces.
P(15)-(16) Herem does involve a lot more killing than modern readers are comfortable with, but that isn’t the point of herem. It was killing an identity. And it can’t mean total destruction. While gold and metals are herem, Bronze Age technology simply couldn’t destroy and un-atomize these metals.
However, Walton failed to note that most of the cities targeted were those with a heavy presence of Anakim and Rephaim.
Walton’s propositions:
- Reading the Bible consistently means reading it as an ancient document.
- We should approach the problem of the conquest by adjusting our expectations about what the Bible is.
- The Bible does not define Goodness for us or tell us how to produce goodness, but instead tells us about the goodness God is producing.
- The bible teaches clearly and consistently that affliction by God cannot be automatically attributed to the wrongdoing of the victim.
- None of the usual textual indicators for divine retribution occur in the case of the Canaanites.
- Genesis 15:16 does not indicate that the Canaanites were committing sin.
- Neither the Israelites nor the Canaanites are depicted as stealing each other’s rightful property.
- The people of the land are not indicted for not following the stipulations of the covenant, and neither is Israel expected to bring them into the covenant.
- Ancient law codes such as Lev. 18-20 are not lists of rules to be obeyed, and therefore the Canaanites cannot be guilty of violating them.
- Holiness is a status granted by God; it is not earned through moral performance, and failing to have it does not subject one to judgment.
- You can’t make a comparison between the Canaanites expulsion from the land and the Israelites’ exile.
- The depiction of the Canaanites In Leviticus and Deuteronomy is a sophisticated appropriation of a common ANE literary device.
- Behaviors that are described as detestable are to be contrasted with ideal behavior under the Israelite covenant.
- The imagery of the conquest account recapitulates creation.
- Herem does not mean utterly to destroy.
- Herem against communities focuses only destroying identity, not killing people of certain ethnicities.
- The wars of the Israelite conquest were fought in the same manner as all ancient wars.
- Rahab and the Gideonites are not exceptions to the Herem.
- The logic of the Herem in the event of the conquest operates in the context of Israel’s vassal treaty.
- The OT, including the conquest account, provides a template for interpreting the NT, which in turn gives insight into God’s purposes for today.
- The application of Herem in the New Covenant is found in putting off our former identity.
P(1) - (2) should be noncontroversial. The Bible is an ancient semitic document and it should read like one. It has different assumptions on “what is the worst that could happen?” For us, the worst that could happen in life is genocide or famine. For a Hebrew it was an improper burial and being forgotten (Ecclesiastes). Or maybe being driven from the land.
P(3) is problematic in how it is stated, though I know what they are getting at. The Bible isn’t a manual for ethics or law, but I do think it gives more detail about “goodness” than they allow. But they do raise a good point about justice and goodness: justice in the ancient world is tied to order, not so much about “getting what is owed me.”
P(4)-(8) In many cases, this is John 9. Walton’s argument is that the Canaanites aren’t simply being driven out of the land “because they are bad.” I think they are much worse than Walton makes out, but his point holds. The Canaanites are losing their land because God promised the land to Israel.
But what about God’s saying that he will expel/vomit Israel out like he did the Canaanites? True, Walton downplays that objection. ~8. “No nation other than Israel is ever reprimanded for serving other gods” (79). That kind of makes sense, since Yahweh had disinherited the nations in Genesis 10 and given them over to the beney elohim.
P(10) Good reflection against Pelagianism. Holiness (qds) Doesn’t mean my good behavior that I have accumulated. Objects and land in the OT are holy, yet they aren’t moral agents.
P(12) That might be true, but if the Canaanites were guilty of these actions, and if there were demonic Nephilim and Rephaim in the land, then full-scale slaughter was warranted.
P(13) His argument is that the Hebrew ra is relative to the covenant, and not an absolute standard. Nevertheless, one hopes that bestiality and child sacrifice is universally evil.
Demons and idolatry: demons were extraneous to the ANE ritual system.
Repahim:
“The etymology of the words enforcest he unworldly aspects of the enemy, similar to the monstrous bird-men of the Cuthean legend” (148).
“The Rephaim are most commonly associated with the spirits of dead kings, specifically” (149).
Emim: comes from the root word “ema” which would therefore mean “terrible ones” (cited in Eugene Carpenter, “Deuteronomy,” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament, I:432.
P(14) This was a beautiful chapter. The conquest narrative is much more than a typological recapitulation of creation. In being such it shows Yahweh’s victory of chaotic cthonic forces.
P(15)-(16) Herem does involve a lot more killing than modern readers are comfortable with, but that isn’t the point of herem. It was killing an identity. And it can’t mean total destruction. While gold and metals are herem, Bronze Age technology simply couldn’t destroy and un-atomize these metals.
However, Walton failed to note that most of the cities targeted were those with a heavy presence of Anakim and Rephaim.