Bad Theology

Text for today: Joshua 11 i-xx

Hearing of Joshua's genocidal rampage across Canaan, several of the country's remaining kings form an alliance. With God's help, Joshua's army defeats them and kills every inhabitant of every city except for one which makes peace, because God has hardened the hearts of all the others in order to keep them from receiving any mercy.

As theologians, we are not concerned with the likelihood that the historical Hebrew migration into Canaan was a far more gradual and less warlike affair than its Scriptural depiction. We are concerned only with justifying the ways of God as revealed through the word of the Bible. Since God is the foundation of goodness, it is not the historical but the moral aspect of Joshua's various genocides that must be considered, and on this matter the Scriptural source is fortunately quite clear. As in the cases of Pharaoh during the plagues and the sons of Eli, God's responsibility for the slaughter is explicitly stated. He hardens the hearts of the Canaanites specifically in order that the master race need show them no mercy.

Despite some superficial sales-talk about a new covenant, this position was enthusiastically endorsed by Joshua's later namesake, the reactionary fundamentalist and rabid xenophobe who proclaimed that all things are possible for God, but not for human beings. God could redeem us all from the flaws He has given us; but He chooses not to, and orders us to love Him for it.