Genocide and Redemption

"When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged strait in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men, women, young, old, sheep and donkeys." - Joshua 6:20-21

First let's get it out in the open: this is biblical genocide! Please let's not try and sugar coat this passage. Let's not stick to our cheesy felt-board Bible class images. If this event happened, it was a bloodbath of the kind that they can't show in rated R movies. We have here the report of God-sactioned genocide, killing not just men, but women, infants, and elderly without exceptions. Not only this, but also the livestock that would allow any escapees to start over. Not only this, but realize this is considered God's will! Israel is chosen (though in reality not considerably holier than those of Jericho) by God, and so, justified in committing horrendous attrocities of which Rwanda was a close parallel.

What does this say about God? I am repulsed by the shallow, fundamentalist interpretation that this was just. Killing an infant is never just. In the history of the world it never has been, nor will be just. I am likewise sickened by the triumphalist attitude that dehumanizes the Canaanites in this story. I don't care if it's in the Bible, it's wrong. This story is a story of shame. In my opinion it is a mythical depiction of all the lowest points in human history.

So, how is this God's will???

One thing I think we forget, is that this system of warfare was characteristic of the time period. The sad reality is that it was typical for any side to commit genocide in this time. The sad fact too, is that these groups were culturally and ethnically of extreme similarity. Most likely they shared very similar languages and customs. Historically it appears that the Israelites were so similar to Canaanites that they cannot accurately be distinguised from them in most cases. Again the parallel to Rwanda is shocking: the differences were not truly ethnic, but in most appearances just superficial labels between social groups vying for political/economic power. In all likelihood Jericho would have happened in this situation whether God had been involved or not. Genocide was going to occur with or without God.

Funny then that God actually plays the role of the protagonist all the way through Joshua and Judges. What is going on here?

I think that human history is one of becoming aware of the subtle God that transcends the messed up world we live in. Let's keep in mind that Joshua is not one of the "five books of Moses", and therefore is of lesser status. It is not the core of Judaism. In Joshua we see Israelites writing a mythic history of a God they are only gradually becoming aware of. It is biased. This book, like most of the OT, is written from a very ethnocentric, racist perspective. But, before we condemn it, let's consider what other perspectives were there at the time among this area of the world?

. . . And here is the amazing, untold story of the Bible: The process of Humanity's salvation!

Where else could God have entered into the bleak history of ancient Palestine? Should he have waited until there was peace? If so he never would have come. And, what would that say of God, to wait until things were perfect to show up? No, God is willing to start with a people even as they betray their own humanity. In the moments where we become less than animals, God is still present.

I would blame no one for rejecting Judeo-Christian religion based on the contents of Joshua . . . were that the end of the story. Yet, what does God do from there? He proceeds to call this people to a higher morality and a truly unique ethic. He demands it of them. He continually reveals and re-reveals his true character to them. The misconceptions and fanatacism of Joshua give way to the charitable call of justice, mercy, and redemption in Isaiah. The Bible begins to uncover the way in which God is mending humanity.

And here in is where I see a Divine Beauty: we are given the story of Israel, but we begin to see the story of Humanity as a whole. In this story we don't find God entering into a fleeting moment of peace to reveal his will. No, God's story begins in Palestine, a seething backwater of ethnic hatred and inhumanity. In essence, God gets to work cleaning up the s**t of our world. Of course his name is invoked for evil; had the Jerichoites been on the offensive they would have invoked their gods for the same purposes. The difference is the way in which YHWH transforms this people. Where other gods served their people, He redeems his.

This is what I find so completely unique to Jesus. In one man, God displays his character. Jesus does not invoke God to aid in a Jewish campaign of Roman genocide. Rather, he suffers inhumanity to make us human. God's work is finished in that he finally reveals what he intended from the start: to see hatred quenched, and us working toward Eden.

I find it challenging to read Joshua and say the Bible has no errors. Genocide is wrong regardless of what book it is recorded in. Yet, the authors of Joshua were seeing, if only dimly, who the main character of history is, and perhaps just beginning to grasp that this subtle, eternal being, had a will. There in the record of humanities darkness, we gain partial understanding of He who we most desire. The whole Canon proceeds in revealing Him more, and clearer. It reveals his dealings in and through us. The Bible records the process of Humanity's salvation: it gives us a history of God freeing our hearts to absorb evil, overcome it, and rebuild the Glory our spirits know has been lost.