Guilty of Not Being Innocent

How Theists Justify the Final Solution of the Canaanites

Theists will try to show that our moral principle that it is wrong to “deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing”, is either inapplicable to the situation or that they present exceptions which would absolve God of violating it. Raymond Bradley

No sooner said than done!

“God on rare or highly unusual occasions allows exceptions to a general rule against killing (women and children) for the sake of some greater good. Therefore, the killing of innocents can be overridden in rare circumstances of “supreme emergency”. Copan and Flannagan

In this blog we’ll explore the validity and problems with Copan and Flannagan’s (supreme emergency) exceptions to Bradley’s non-negotiable moral principles. It should be noted before we begin that C&F’s book “Did God Really Command Genocide” was most likely written for a christian audience, who needs reassurance that God did not command genocide. They repeatedly reference the bible (66 times in chapter 5) and treat it as an authoritative resource whose validity is not to be questioned. However, a careful reading of their book reveals that many of their proposed ideas, in defense of Yahweh, are the product of false assumptions and unsubstantiated beliefs based on ancient religious writings.

Also, C&F employ the expression “Bradley’s Crucial Moral Principle”. I have changed that innocuous phrase to more closely match Bradley’s original moral principle. See my previous blog for a further explanation.

With that said, let’s see how they defend the reputation of Yahweh.

Does the Bible Portray the Canaanites as Innocent?

This is the title and topic of chapter 5 of C&F’s book. We can already see where their argument is going.

Atheist Raymond Bradley says that ‘it is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing”. In addition, Bradley says that Yahweh, as portrayed in the bible, does indeed command others to violate that objective moral principle, therefore, according to Bradley, the god of the bible is immoral.

Copan and Flannagan counter by saying, “At best, Bradley’s argument shows that at one point in history God commanded Joshua to exterminate every single Canaanite man, woman, and child in the land he had given his people. What should be clear, however, is that God does not command us to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.”

Wait, what? God commanded Joshua to exterminate every single Canaanite man, woman, and child, but “God does not command us to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing”?

Those two statements appear to be not coherent with each other. How could C&F say that God commanded the extermination of the Canaanites, and in the next sentence say that God does not command the deliberate slaughter of men, women, and children. I struggled with these conflicting statements, but then I got it. I had been focusing on the first half of the moral principle; the “extermination and slaughter” part, but C&F are focused on the second half; the “innocent of any serious wrongdoing” part. For theists, this changes everything.

“Merciless slaughter is not how the biblical text portrays the situation.”

Blaming the Victim

C&F continue, “merciless slaughter is not how the biblical text portrays the situation. While it may be plausible to suggest that some Canaanite individuals, particularly Canaanite children, are innocent of any crime, the Bible does not portray the Canaanites in general as innocent of… wrongdoing.”

By saying that the Canaanites were guilty of not being innocent, C&F can state, (apparently in good conscience) that slaughtering them did not violate any objective moral principle. Atheists like Raymond Bradley and Dan Barker would disagree, and so do I.

To support this “they deserved it” justification, C&F present what they call “three features of the (biblical) narrative” which, according to them, will clearly show that the Canaanites (children included) were not innocent. Let’s be perfectly clear here. When C&F use the innocuous phrase, “three features” it really means “three justifications”. Changing the wording doesn’t change the fact that they are justifying the deliberate and merciless slaughter of men, women, and children, and using the bible to do so.

We saw in a previous blog that some christians use New Testament theology to justify Old Testament genocide, however C&F use Old Testament narratives to the same end.

So, what exactly were the “supreme emergency exceptions for the greater good” that C&F use to negate the general rule against killing innocents? Just how were the Canaanites guilty of not being innocent? It’s not as complicated nor as ancient as you might think.

• Justification 1: Israel’s Legal Ownership of Canaan: (i.e. We want your land. It’s our land that was given to us by our god and you’re trespassing.)
• Justification 2: Israelite Refugees and the Sins of the Amorites (i.e. We are refugees who experienced hundreds of years of oppression in a foreign land, and we need a place to live. The Canaanites are a people of unrepentant wrongdoers.)
• Justification 3: Corrupting Influences and the Risk of Assimilation (i.e. We cannot risk assimilating with “those people”. Whatever threatens the purity and integrity of our race should be taken with utter seriousness.)

By presenting exceptions to rule against killing innocents, C&F have done exactly what Bradley predicted in his essay. They are attempting to absolve Yahweh of the annihilation of the Canaanites as found in the Old Testament. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at C&F’s first justification, which according to them, supports the idea that the Canaanites were guilty of not being innocent.

Justification 1: Israel’s Legal Ownership of Canaan

“Hence, when Isreal is commanded to attack these nations, they are not… conquering or attacking an innocent nation and stealing their land; rather Israel is repossessing land that already belongs to them and evicting people who are trespassing on it and refusing to leave.”

The inaccuracies of this statement are simply astounding. You’ll notice that C&P didn’t say that “God commanded” the Israelites to attack these nations. They instead use a passive phrase, “when Isreal is commanded”. This is a significant difference. In my previous blog we saw that in chapter one C&F write that it wasn’t God who commanded the deliberate and merciless slaughter of men, women, and children, it was some “secondary (unnamed) human author”, thus relieving Yahweh of culpability.

What’s amazing with C&F’s first justification is that they never question the validity of the stories in Genesis where Yahweh supposedly gives the land to Abraham. For them, Genesis (all of Genesis) is historically accurate. They write, “Israel’s title to the land is reiterated several times in the proceeding narrative. In Genesis, God makes a covenant with Abraham and his descendants.”

 

 

‘The whole land of Canaan… I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.’ The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, and the Creator promises a portion of that earth – the land of Canaan – to Abraham and his descendants, then they are the rightful owners of the land.”

 

 

But is that narrative an actual event or mere folklore? C&F treat it as an actual historical event, so it’s not surprisingly, they use expressions like “the Israelites had ‘legal title’ to the land”, and the Canaanites were “trespassers” who did not acknowledge the Israelite’s claim to the land and refused to leave. The Israelites were simply “evicting people” who were trespassing on their land. C&F frequently use modern concepts to explain ancient events. So, let’s look at the modern definition of “legal title” to see if it applies to the biblical narrative.

Legal title: Absolute ownership of real property that is evidenced by a written deed that is recorded in the public records and enforceable in a court of law.

It’s nothing short of silly to say that the concept of “legal title” applied in ancient times. Did the Israelites present the Canaanites with a 400-year-old written document, (signed by Yahweh and Abraham) as evidence for their “legal title” to the land? Did the Israelites serve the Canaanites with an eviction notification that was approved by some ancient court? Had there been some sort of ancient court of law, would the Israelites been able to prove that the Canaanites, who had inhabited the land for 400 years, were actually trespassing?

C&F’s “legal title” defense gets even more implausible. They say that Abraham took possession of the land by walking across it. They write that Yahweh allegedly told Abraham to, “arise, walk about the land through its length (500 kilometers) and breadth (100 kilometers); for I will give it to you”. Gary Anderson, a professor of catholic thought, notes that “walking across a piece of territory in such a fashion has often been understood as the legal custom of formally taking possession; hence, in this passage, by divine decree, Abram gains legal possession of Canaan.”

So, are we to believe that Abraham gained possession of Canaan by walking on all of its 50,000 square kilometers of land? So, let me see if I got this right. According to C&F, the Israelites were the true owners of the land because their patriarch allegedly walked through the land some 400 years earlier. And when the current occupants of the land refuse to acknowledge the Israelites right to the land, the Israelites “evicted the trespassers” by exterminating them.

Would this mean that if someone, by walking across my front lawn could “gain legal possession” of my property? Or better yet, what if they said that their grandfather had walked on the lot before houses were built there and therefore his family had legal title to my property? And if I refused to leave, they had the right to kill me and take what they said was rightfully theirs? This scenario is ridiculous, I admit, but it is the basis for C&F’s argument.

For C&F’s proposition to merit any kind of validity the historicity of the Genesis narrative must be proven. It’s one thing to say that according to the bible Yahweh gave the land to Abraham, it’s quite another to provide evidence for it from sources outside the bible. This is important.  Since christians are using this story to justify acts of genocide, it would be nice if their justification for slaughtering men, women, and children, was based on the truth and not folklore.

Since it is clear that the bible, and specifically the book of Genesis, is the only reference used by C&F to support their claim of divinely gifted land, we must conclude that their argument is based solely on false assumptions and unsubstantiated ancient religious writings and thus invalid.

This sums it up pretty well.

“Theists will try to show that our moral principle is either inapplicable to the situations or they will present exceptions which would absolve God of violating it. Anyone who condones, the ‘deliberate and merciless slaughter of men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing’, …should be regarded with abhorrence.” Raymond Bradley

“While it may be plausible to suggest that some Canaanite individuals, particularly Canaanite children, are innocent of any crime, the Bible does not portray the Canaanites in general as innocent of wrongdoing. Hence, when Israel is commanded to attack these nations, they are not… conquering an innocent nation.”  Copan and Flannagan

In the end, Copan and Flannagan’s attempts to discredit atheist Raymond Bradley have failed. What has become clear, however, is that by holding onto the belief that it is wrong to slaughter men, women, and children, atheists hold the moral high ground. Theists, on the other hand, by saying that sometimes it’s okay to slaughter men, women, and children, have claimed the moral low ground. All they have to do (to ease their conscience), is to show that the Canaanites were guilty of not being innocent.

Coming next:

 The bible doesn’t condemn divinely commanded violence, so Copan and Flannagan don’t either.  Not only are they letting Yahweh off the hook for genocide, but they are also providing their readers with an escape clause to the moral principle that it is wrong to kill innocent men, women, and children. Is this inadvertent or on purpose?

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum