Wright doesn't spiritualize Israel's Conquest of Canaan because he believes that there is a difference between any kind of violent acts that appear to be arbitrary -- like the conquest of the Canaanites, which also appeared to him as selfish -- and an act that appears to be the consequence or punishment because of an act. Wright likens it to a parent smacking their child for no good reason as compared to a person who enacts a punishment because of disobedient behavior.
What is interesting is Wright's first framework, which refers to the conquest of Canaan as being merely an act of God (p. 90) as opposed...
It was not, as Wright says, "a military achievement" (p. 90). Wright notes that it is important to look at the achievement in this way because it forces us to see the event as a one-time occurrence and not the way that God reacted normally. The Canaanites were beyond the point of any human beings helping them without the wrath of God mixed in. God did what he had to do without considering Israel and how Israel would be affected by the Canaanites destruction. There weren't any favorites that were being played. Later, of course, we see that Israel went down the same path of destruction as the Canaanites did.
The scenario of outright conquest seems unlikely because of the vast organization in a relatively short period of time that it would have taken. A fully-armed and organized mass invasion of what was to become their homeland by a returning Israelite force seems, even by modern standards of warfare, to be an arduous and gargantuan task. Would the returning Israelites have actually slaughtered anyone who got in their way? One
Many Judeo-Christina ethics are found most explicitly in the proverbs. Among them are purity, chastity, humility, and hard work. Ecclesiastes: Possibly written by Solomon, this book is a philosophical reflection; another work of poetics/wisdom (Fee & Douglas, 1993). The author reflects near the end of his life that much of his life has been meaningless. The exact reason for this despair is unclear, though it could be because it was
Introduction The God of the Old Testament has been viewed by scholars as something different from that of the New Testament. This mischaracterization is often produced by placing emphasis in the Old Testament on the God’s insistence that infidels be dealt with in a bloody manner (Deuteronomy 9:4-5), whereas God in the New Testament appears to preach mercy and charity and turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-40). Yet what the scholars
Canaanite religion refers to the group of ancient Semitic religions which were practiced by the Canaanites who were living in the ancient Levant from the early Bronze Age. Canaanite religion was polytheists and in some of the instances it was monolatristic. There are several salient features of Canaanite religion which are discussed below. Pantheon There are a large number of deities which were worshipped by those who followed the Canaanite religion. In
Old Testament books, Deuteronomy, Samuel and Kings, establishing a monarchy for Israel and Judah proved somewhat problematic. This was due both to the divinity of God and the inevitable humanity that would be part of a human king. Throughout the historical books of the Old Testament God repeatedly states that he is a jealous God, tolerating no others. Kingship then might be seen as an attempt to usurp the
Israelite history and religion from the patriarchal period to the second temple contains a number of covenants, laws, prophecies, moral lessons, relations with Canaanite culture and larger empires like the Roman Empire (which eventually tore down the second temple under Titus). The history of the Israelites is contained within the pages of the Hebrew Bible or the scripture of the Old Testament, as Christians call it. This information reveals an