John H. Walton

Summary: Explores the biblical accounts of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, looking closely at the ancient Near East context and arguing that this was not a divinely commanded genocide or Holy War.

One of the more troubling parts of the Bible are the narratives of Israel's conquest of Canaan, and the apparent genocide of the Canaanite people at God's command. Often this is justified as a judgement on the wickedness of the Canaanites. It is even more disturbing when these texts are show more appropriated to justify other "Holy Wars" or culture wars against evil in society.

In this fourth installment to the "Lost World" series, John H. Walton is joined by his son J. Harvey Walton, in a close study of the biblical texts often understood as God's command of Holy War against Canaan as divine judgement. Similar to Walton's approach in other books in this series, the authors combine careful work on cultural backgrounds with close reading of the pertinent biblical texts. Like other books, they present their study as a series of propositions, grouped into six parts.

First, they lay groundwork in asking the question of how we interpret the Bible, emphasizing that it is an ancient document and that often our problem is what our expectations of what the Bible is, which differs from its true nature. In this case the Bible is neither defining what goodness is for us nor telling us about how to produce goodness, but rather in the context of God's covenant with Israel, how God is bringing about the goodness he purposes. Thus, we must never read these texts as warranting Holy War or a kind of jihad in our own context.

Second, the Walton's argue that the Canaanites are not depicted in scripture as guilty of sin and that the usual textual indicators for divine retribution against the Canaanites are absent. Critical to their argument is showing that Genesis 15:16 does not indicate that the Canaanites were committing sin, but that God is deferring his action against the Amorites, with whom he had allied.

Third, they argue that the Canaanites are not guilty of breaking God's law because they did not partake of the covenant and its stipulations. Their expulsion from the land is not analogous to the expulsion of Israel from the land for their unfaithfulness to the covenant.

Fourth, the Waltons look at the language and imagery of the conquest and contend that the descriptions of the Canaanites follow ancient Near East conventions for describing an enemy as "invincible barbarians" Likewise, the behaviors described as "detestable" are from the framework of God's ideals for Israel under the covenant and not indictments against the Canaanites for crimes against a covenant they are not under. And finally, the language of conquest recapitulates that of creation, in which disorder (chaos) is replaced with order (cosmos). Disorder must be cleared, not as punishment against the Canaanites, but to establish God's covenant order through Israel.

The fifth part is perhaps most significant in its discussion of herem, most often translated as "utterly destroy." They argue rather that it involves the idea of removing something from use, so that a new order or use can be established. Killing people is not inherent in herem, but rather the destroying of the identity of a community, particularly the identity markers associated with idolatrous worship. Killing may happen in the course of this, as it tragically does in all ancient wars, but this is not the focus of herem.

Finally, the authors contend that this offers a template for understanding the New Testament, not in attacking those outside the community of faith, but making herem all identities in conflict with absolute allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus. What is to be attacked and removed from use is not outsiders, but our own false allegiances, false identities or any identity that competes for paramount status with our identity in Christ.

This, along with the argument that God does not command ethnic genocide in these passages is important. Yet this argument left me troubled. The plain reality is that even if this wasn't genocide, people died to set up this new order of God. If they died, not because they were guilty of sins or crimes against God (because they were outside the covenant and its stipulations), but simply as part of a process of destroying the identity of a community, this seems a distinction without a difference. The idea of retributive action at least seems to carry the sense of a just judgment, even if it does involve bloodshed. "Removing an identity from use" driving them from the land, seems more humane, except that the same number of people die, only as "collateral damage" of the conquest. There is something about this that seems more heartless. It also seems to dance around the plain sense of texts that herem in the context of the conquest does involve the destruction of lives in city after city. I did not feel the authors dealt adequately with this problem.

What I'm left with is that these are difficult texts, similar to Genesis 22 in which God commands the sacrifice of Isaac. The last minute substitution of the ram does not make this less challenging. Likewise demonstrating that these texts offer no warrant for genocide is only marginally comforting. Perhaps our difficulty is that we expect God to be nice, a "tame lion" as it were. We would rather a God who remains above the fray than one who gets involved in wars of conquest to effect his purposes. We don't like the idea of trying to justify the ways of God when they seem unseemly. We likewise are uncomfortable with a God who takes on flesh and blood and dies for us. Many Christian heresies are efforts to sanitize this event. I don't want to say that is what the authors are doing here. They obviously care deeply about scripture. But I also don't think we can soften the shocking effect of these passages, or should. These passages remind us both of the tragedy of the human condition, and that God accommodated that human condition in not remaining aloof from war and death even as God worked out redemptive purposes for humankind, first through Israel, then for all of us. show less

A challenging book. Worth reading, but challenging on multiple levels. For one, it's not the easiest read. You definitely want to follow the details and argument, and do not get confused about locution vs. illocution whatever you do.

But more importantly, the content is challenging. For those of us with a particular view of how scripture works and where its authority lies, you really have to wrestle with the implications. I come from a background that more-or-less assumes that Isaiah sat show more down one day and wrote sixty-some chapters (with near dictation from the Holy Spirit), signed his name at the end, and sent it off to the publisher, without any errors. There had been cracks in that model showing for a while, and this book systematically dismantles it.

A few major insights: There's a whole lot less writing going on, and a whole lot more speaking. There's also some amount of editing and variation. Authority is tied to the aut-, uh, excuse me, *speaker*'s intent and not to the words or style themselves. And the style of the words needs to be interpreted from the way that style worked in that time, not the way it works in ours.

And let's be clear that this is not an excuse to throw out scripture. The authors take a high view of scripture. They are not heretics. Scripture remains God's communication to humanity and is without error in what it affirms. They just use a whole lot more nuance than normal in saying that, including the importance of figuring out what is or is not being affirmed (the intention or "illocution") and observing that generating scripture was a much longer process than is often assumed (i.e. years of oral repetition, transcription, editing, and not just Samuel writing a book one afternoon).

It was badly needed, but uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, I want my view of scripture be based on reality rather than what is most comfortable. I'm not sure exactly what the implications will be over the long term, but I very much appreciate the adjustments coming from authors who still hold to the value of scripture even with the changes. show less

There is always significant interest in what the Bible teaches about demons and evil spirits. People either find it immensely attractive or incredibly repugnant; as a result, people justify their interest or repugnance with elaborate frameworks and conversations.

The Waltons would claim to transcend such a binary in their Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology: Reading the Biblical Text in Its Cultural and Literary Context. They imagine they stand between the extremes of mythologization and show more the spiritual warfare perspectives. In truth, they fall on the repugnance side, and this book is a testimony to the lengths they will go to rationalize their position.

The book begins with an explanation of various guidelines for Biblical interpretation (always a red flag in a book like this). The authors then go through Biblical texts systematically in comparison and contrast with mythologization or spiritual warfare perspectives, but mostly spiritual warfare perspectives. The authors are really hot under their collar about the popularity of Greg Boyd, Michael Heiser, and Walter Wink, and their explorations into the powers and principalities.

Even in those places in which one might agree with the Waltons in their exegesis of a given text, it’s not very comfortable. They are more than happy to rely on linguistic and grammatical arguments to attempt to argue against certain ways of interpreting the text. And these are their strongest arguments.

I’m not quite sure who would be in the same camp as the Waltons. Their textual forms of argumentation would be seen as too pedantic by many in the academic cohort, and their flippancy with Biblical inerrancy and ability to draw conclusions about truth from the Bible based on inference would be repellent to most conservatively minded Christians.

The Waltons do provide some good warnings about how far and thoroughly one should press the ideas regarding spiritual warfare in light of the great power of God. That they consider demons like viruses may have something to it. But they also might prove a bit too over-confident about what they can conclude about spiritual domains beyond our understanding which might be glimpsed in the witness of the Biblical text.

If you’re looking for the rationalist case maintaining repugnance at any and all considerations of spiritual warfare and the demonic, this is your book. But I remain unsure about who would really find it that satisfying beyond the authors themselves. show less

The quote that is worth the purchase price for me & has triggered much contemplation:
"We must take care not to attach the authority of the text to things it never intended to teach. For example, it is very possible to learn much about leadership from a study of Nehemiah. In the end, however, there is no indication that the author of Nehemiah was preserving and presenting his material so that readers could be instructed in leadership. That being the case, when leadership is taught from the show more book and life of Nehemiah, the authority of Scripture is not being tapped. Leadership is an important quality and one that is worth learning about, but one may just as well learn about it from the lives of Abraham Lincoln or John Calvin. There is no special merit in learning it from Nehemiah simply because his story is in the Bible while the others are not. The presence of Nehemiah's story in the Bible does not necessarily endorse his style of leadership or approve his leadership decisions. What makes the Bible unique is the things that it teaches with the authority of God. In the case of Nehemiah, the teaching of the book would concern such things as God fulfilling his promises of restoring the city of Jerusalem and his sovereignty in the way his plan was carried out through the yieldedness of Nehemiah. Although many of the principles interpreters derive may be sound, the book of Nehemiah is not God's authoritative guide for leadership."

I have realized that this is the problem with many Christian literary products today. When you create multiple full-length books based upon 1 verse like 1 Chronicles 4:11-12, you should not expect that any of those books' content is authoritative. Another set of authors has used just one verse (1 Corinthians 11:3) to completely rewrite orthodox trinitarian theology and created mounds of books to support this, just for the purpose of maintaining their own power.

I very highly recommend this book. I believe that it was developed as a textbook for Christian colleges, but it is very easily accessible to high school students and would also make a great book for a Bible study or Sunday School class. Nearly every two-page spread has at least one photo or chart or graphical depiction that directly aids in understanding the concept being taught there. I wish that this textbook had been available when I was in college, though I will say that A Survey of the Old Testament by the same authors was the textbook that I did have and it is not nearly as developed as this book. show less