The Problem of the Conquest
No portion of the Old Testament generates more sustained ethical discomfort than the conquest narratives of Joshua. The command to utterly destroy the Canaanite populations—expressed through the Hebrew term ḥērem, often translated "devoted to destruction"—has troubled readers from Origen to Marcion to contemporary ethicists. K. Lawson Younger Jr. demonstrated in Ancient Conquest Accounts (1990) that the hyperbolic language of total destruction in Joshua closely parallels ancient Near Eastern conquest rhetoric, where claims of complete annihilation were conventional literary expressions of military victory rather than literal descriptions of every individual killed.
Marten Woudstra's commentary in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (1981) situates the conquest within the broader framework of Yahweh's covenant with Abraham: the land was promised, and its possession required the removal of those whose sin had reached the point of divine judgment. This is not ethnic cleansing in any modern sense; it is the execution of divine judgment through human agents, a pattern that appears elsewhere in Scripture (Genesis 15:16; Leviticus 18:24-25).
The Theology of Ḥērem
The ḥērem—the "ban" or "devotion to destruction"—is not arbitrary violence but a specific theological category. In its Israelite form, ḥērem means the total consecration of something to Yahweh, removing it from ordinary human use. Tremper Longman III and Daniel Reid situate the conquest within the broader biblical theme of divine warfare in God Is a Warrior (1995), arguing that Yahweh's battles against Canaan are continuous with his battles against chaos at creation and his eschatological battle against evil at the end of history.
The ḥērem also functions as a safeguard against Israel's own corruption. The Achan episode (Joshua 7) demonstrates what happens when the ban is violated: the entire community suffers the consequences of one man's greed. The theological logic is precise—what is devoted to Yahweh cannot be appropriated for human benefit without catastrophic consequences. This is not primitive superstition but a rigorous theology of divine holiness and human accountability.
Canaanite Sin and Divine Judgment
The biblical text itself provides a theological rationale for the conquest: the Canaanites' sin had reached a point of divine judgment. Genesis 15:16 anticipates the conquest by noting that "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." Christopher Wright argues in The God I Don't Understand (2008) that the conquest narratives function within the canon as a warning about the seriousness of sin and the certainty of divine judgment, not as a template for Christian political action. The conquest was a unique, unrepeatable act of divine judgment executed through a specific people at a specific moment in redemptive history.
Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? (2011) addresses the ethical objections directly, noting that the conquest texts must be read within their ancient Near Eastern context and within the canonical narrative of redemption. The same God who commands the conquest also commands Israel to love the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:19) and provides for the inclusion of Rahab and her family—a Canaanite household—within the covenant community.
New Testament Transformation of Holy War
The New Testament does not simply abandon the holy war tradition; it radically transforms it. The warfare of the new covenant is not against flesh and blood but against "the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). Jesus himself, the true Joshua—the name "Jesus" is the Greek form of "Joshua" (Yēšūaʿ)—conquers not by killing enemies but by dying for them. The conquest points forward to a greater conquest: the defeat of sin, death, and the devil through the cross and resurrection.
L. Daniel Hawk's Joshua in 3-D (2010) reads the conquest narratives through the lens of narrative theology, attending to the gaps, ambiguities, and moral complexities that the text itself preserves. The book of Joshua is not a triumphalist celebration of violence but a theologically nuanced account of how a holy God works through deeply flawed human agents to accomplish his redemptive purposes. That nuance is itself a form of theological honesty that the church needs to recover.
Implications for Ministry and Credentialing
Preachers and teachers who engage the conquest narratives honestly will find that congregations are hungry for thoughtful engagement with difficult texts. The ḥērem theology, properly understood, speaks to the seriousness of sin and the certainty of divine judgment—themes that are as urgent today as they were in Joshua's time. For those seeking to develop their capacity for canonical biblical theology, Abide University offers graduate programs that equip ministers to handle the full range of Scripture with both scholarly rigor and pastoral wisdom.
For ministry professionals seeking to formalize their expertise, the Abide University Retroactive Assessment Program offers a pathway to academic credentialing that recognizes prior learning and pastoral experience.
References
- Younger, K. Lawson. Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing. Sheffield Academic Press, 1990.
- Longman, Tremper. God Is a Warrior. Zondervan, 1995.
- Wright, Christopher J. H.. The God I Don't Understand. Zondervan, 2008.
- Hawk, L. Daniel. Joshua in 3-D: A Commentary on Biblical Conquest and Manifest Destiny. Cascade Books, 2010.
- Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Baker Books, 2011.
- Woudstra, Marten H.. The Book of Joshua. Eerdmans (NICOT), 1981.