Jesus Loves Canaanites: Biblical Genocide in the Light of Moral Intuition

by Randal Rauser

And who is my neighbor? Christians confess the Bible as the Good Book, the perfect guide for becoming loving and holy, just like Jesus. And yet, that same book describes God commanding the Israelites to kill every Canaanite living in the Promised Land. How are we to understand the Bible as the Good Book when it depicts God commanding actions like genocide? How are we to reconcile this narrative with the God revealed in Jesus Christ, the God who taught us to love our enemies?In this bold new book, Randal Rauser defends a novel approach to the Canaanite genocide, one that remains faithful to our deepest moral intuitions even as it is guided by the conviction that Jesus calls us to love all our neighbors. And the Canaanite is our neighbor.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Randal Rauser is a systematic and analytic theologian of evangelical persuasion. He is driven by apologetic concerns and above all by the tireless pursuit of truth. The downside is that this requires him to recognize when he is wrong (which is often) for truth is complex and it offers us no guarantees that we shall always find it. At the same time, Randal does not despair of finding truth, for he believes that in a profound sense Jesus Christ is the truth.

For Randal, being like Jesus means knowing the truth, loving the truth, and living the truth. As Randal seeks to live the truth he promotes a culture of life that is anti-militaristic and pro-family, pro-environment and anti-abortion, anti-consumerist and pro-animal. A disciple on the way … alas, he is not half as smart or as good or as right as he thinks he is.

Reviews

[BJ Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, I give kudos to Randal Rauser for taking on such a difficult topic. How could God order the genocide of the Canaanites? This is one of those topics Christians rarely want to deal with or talk about, but it is also one of the first things nonChristians with even passing familiarity with the Bible will throw at us. We do need to take a closer look at this.

Rauser takes issue with three types of defenses normally used by others who have sought to tackle this issue. He calls them "genocide apologists," "just war theorists," and "spiritualizers." The first group is those who basically say, "If God commanded it, then it cannot be evil." Then they would look for ways to understand or explain how this might possibly be so. The second group would argue that fighting the Canaanites falls under the necessary conditions of the just war theory. The final group is those who would ignore, or declaim, the historicity of the event preferring instead to look for a spiritual reading.

Rauser has some legitimate issues to raise with all three groups, but in his critique, he often goes too far. He will paint an extreme, or a straw man picture of their defense in order to exploit it. there is no fair or true analysis but rather a caricature of the weakest aspects of the argument in order to easily refute it without truly taking what it has to say seriously. For example, in the Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Boyd points out where God said "I will drive them out by hornets before you." (Exodus 23:28) Boyd's argument is that God's plan was to depopulate the area but the Israelites went in before their time. (There is clearly more to the argument, but this review isn't of that book.) Rauser paints an incredibly graphic picture of little children being attacked and tortured by hornets and asks "is this what a loving God would truly do?" He doesn't mention that Exodus and similar passages are metaphorical in their language. He doesn't bring up the fact that in the late bronze age the land of Canaan actually was largely depopulated. Three of the greatest scholars of this time and area (Broshi, Bunimovitz, and Finklestein) all give estimates for the entire region at between 50 and 100 thousand, a tiny fraction of the numbers that lived there just a century earlier. Clearly, the land truly was well along the way toward being depopulated. (At this same point in time, the Achaens of Greece, along with many other late Bronze Age civilizations were completely disappearing or being greatly reduced for causes still unknown) None of this even gets mentioned in Rauser's critique. No, he just makes an extreme appeal to emotion.

And that appeal to emotion makes sense. After all, Rauser's subtitle is Biblical Genocide in light of moral intuition. What does that mean? Basically, he is saying, don't trust the Bible, trust your gut. If your gut tells you something is wrong, then it is wrong. It doesn't matter what the Bible might say on the subject. He is basically asking us to go back to a late nineteenth-century German method of biblical interpretation. But where they called it "reason," he says "moral intuition." Two world wars can tell you exactly how trustworthy and reliable this method of interpretation really is.

So while difficult passages like the beginning of Joshua do need to be read carefully and interpreted properly, Rauser has the exact wrong method of doing so. The Bible is our authority, not our gut.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who Should Read this Book – Christians who are uncertain how to understand the violent parts of scripture, especially the conquest of Canaan in Deuteronomy and Joshua. While definitely a good read for pastors, Rauser’s writing style is welcoming and approachable to lay Christians as well.

What’s the Big Takeaway – Christian faith is rooted in Jesus and, as the title says, Jesus reveals that God has always loved all people, including Canaanites. From this, we can wrestle with these difficult passages, knowing Christian faith does not require us to actually believe God commanded genocide.

And a quote:


“So when you encounter cases where Christians challenge your orthodoxy for questioning the historicity of the Canaanite conquest, don’t allow yourself to be put on the defensive . . . Instead, you can turn the challenge back on your interrogator with a question: “are you saying that in order to be a member in good standing of this community, that I must believe that God commanded the Israelites to hack children and infants into pieces?” You might be thinking: Is that too blunt? I don’t think so. I don’t think we do anyone any favors when we continue to shield ourselves and others from the true horror of biblical genocide. . . They need to understand the full implications of what it is they are requiring others to believe. If they don’t, they will never truly understand why other people in good conscience cannot agree with them. . . It is quite another thing to insist that you must believe a Jewish girl who dies in Auschwitz goes to hell or that the Israelites were commanded by God to hack children and infants into pieces in order to protect the spiritual purity of the Israelite people. I believe that one of the main reasons these stark positions are allowed to proliferate in the church unchallenged year after year is because they are not reframed in precisely the forthright and honest manner that I am proposing” (284)


How could a loving God command the people of Israel to slaughter the Canaanites?

This is one of the tough sorts of questions that inevitably comes up when a person seriously engages with scripture. Some Christians try to avoid it – intentionally or unintentionally – focusing on the love and self-sacrifice of Jesus. Other Christians, recognizing it is a question that is not going away, seek to provide some kind of answer.

Answering questions such as this often falls under the heading “apologetics.” When I was in college, in the midst of doubting and questioning, I discovered Christian apologetics. Initially this was incredibly helpful as I realized you could love Jesus and study philosophy, history and science. But the thing with studying and learning is, if you’re curious you tend to keep going. Over time, I became kind of disillusioned with the tactics and arguments of many apologists because they seemed more interested in making a case than in pursuing truth.

To put it another way, they seemed to defend things that seemed indefensible because they were part of a Christian worldview with the assumption being that any lost argument on the edges would result in a collapse of the entire thing. Sometimes the standard Christian apologetic answer is weak, poor or just defending something that should not be defended.

I think this is the case with many of the usual answers about how God could command violence. The common arguments seem to either be that since God commanded this violence, its okay (“Genocidal Apologists” as Rauser calls them). This is basically a “might makes right” argument – the normal rules do not apply to God so if God commands genocide then it must be okay. Other arguments tried to say the violence was not quite as bad as it first appears (“Just War Interpreters” as Rauser calls them) yet they basically end up in the same place, having to defend how a loving God can sometimes command the extermination of children.

Randall Rauser is, as his Twitter handle states, a “tentative apologist.” He writes with honesty in such a way that you know he’s presenting what he actually thinks. Thus, he does not try to defend how God could command genocide, instead argues that God did not command it.

Rauser’s argues that our moral intuition tells us that some things are always morally wrong. We know that child sacrifice, rape and genocide are always wrong. None of these acts would somehow become morally right if we think God commands them. Rauser spends a good bit of time arguing in support of trusting our moral intuition, recognizing that a common response from Christians will be that humans ought not judge God. If its a choice between God’s commands and our moral feeling, most Christians would say it is our feelings that are untrustworthy.

In response, Rauser’s argument is both complex and readable, which demonstrates his skill both as a writer and a philosopher. He deftly uses examples, illustrations and stories to convincingly show that any of us with a funcioning moral compass will recognize genocide is always wrong. But he is not setting our moral intuition against scripture, just against certain interpretations of scripture. Rauser affirms inerrancy but (and I think Beth Allison Barr made the same point in her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood) the problem becomes when people make their interpretations of the text inerrant. The big question, before we get to the specifics of the Canaanite genocide, is how do we interpret scripture? Rauser offers five guidelines for interpreting scripture which, essentially, argue that the revelation of Jesus is the center of scripture and the standard against which we hold all other scripture. There are plenty of echoes of Greg Boyd’s work here, though I’d say orthodox Christianity has always sought to interpret the whole of scripture through Jesus.

With these guidelines in place, we recognize its not that sometimes God commands genocide and other times God commands love. Instead, God is assumed to always be the same, fully revealed in the love and self-sacrifice of Jesus. Or, as the title of the book states, Jesus loves Canaanites. Near the end of the book, Rauser discusses the story of the Canaanite woman approaching Jesus. He writes:

“The lesson is not simply that the Canaanites can, at long last, be included as part of God’s plan. Rather, I would submit the real revelation is that the Canaanites have always been a people who were part of God’s benevolent care. The lesson is that Jesus truly loves all people: Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans, and yes, Canaanites too. So perhaps the next question is this: who are the Canaanites in our time and place? And how can we begin to read from the margins with them?“ (267)

Its not that God changed in Jesus, its that Jesus revealed what God has always been like. From this, we do not need to defend God commanding genocide for we know the God revealed in Jesus commands love of Canaanites (and all our enemies), not their destruction.

After Rauser spends plenty of time building his argument and assumptions, he evaluates other apologists who have attempted to defend the Canaanite genocide and shows the many ways such arguments fail. He even offers a helpful evaluation of Greg Boyd’s work Crucifixion of the Warrior God. This is helpful because there are many of us who found Boyd’s book paradigm shifting. Yet its not perfect, and Rauser shows how Boyd unintentionally endorses God using violence. Boyd argues God was going to send “the hornet” to remove the Canaanites which would have been gentler than the Israelites massacring them. Rauser points out a divine plague of hornets would be incredibly painful and torturous.

Another place where Rauser is helpful in critiquing Boyd is that Rauser is more open to the findings of archaeology. Archaeology calls into question the historical reality of these stories and there is no reason we should ignore that. Again, this is why Rauser is the sort of apologist Christians need to read – he is honest and open to the findings of scholarship in ways other apologists are not.

Rauser ends the book with advice on how Christians can engage with each other. To adopt Rauser’s view is to open yourself to criticism if you are in more conservative Christian circles. I’ve known people to say that if any sentence of the BIble is not historically accurate, its all worthless. Rauser encourages us to ask questions (see the quote I shared above). Is belief in God commanding genocide on Jericho as central to Christianity faith as resurrection? Is belief in the historicity of this story as central as the historicity of Jesus?

For those of us looking for a Christianity that does not major on the minors, Rauser is a theologian, writer and thinker we can be grateful for.

[Stephen Bedard · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most difficult part of the Bible is the invasion of Canaan, and especially the killing of noncombatants. Many people of faith struggle with these passages. Randal Rauser tackles this head on. He starts with moral intuition. If such acts are wrong today, then they would have been wrong then. He then takes a look at different attempts to deal with the passages, showing why he disagrees. Rauser concludes that not only did God not command the Israelites to kill those people, those events never happened in history. While I am not convinced by his conclusions, Rauser forces us into a conversation that needs to take place.

[James Boyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic and very contentious book. I had read Pete Enns' The Bible Tells Me So a few years ago and appreciated his insight about the issues around the historicity and ethical implications of the Caananite genocide. However, that was one chapter in a fairly short book and though I found it very helpful and got my mind thinking, Dr Rauser approached this specific issue clearly, implicationally, and intuitively in a readable and clear book.
The book spends the first half or so looking at the ethical implications of the commands and actions in Deuteronomy and Joshua. This section is tough on the stomach but helpful in terms of clearly showing the implications of the commands and the narrative.
Next, he spends a few chapters discussing the importance of moral intuition and common sense when reading the Bible. He interacts with 5 principles of reading that should guide the Christian's reading of the Bible.
The final section of the book interacts with different ways that Christians have interpreted the genocide and ethnic cleansing accounts and shows the shortcomings of the "genocide apologists", the "just war" perspective, shows how spiritualizing the text does not adequately deal with the horrific moral implications, and then discusses "Providential Error" in light of progressive revelation.
The book is full of helpful examples, fascinating discussions, painful stories, and implicational thinking about one of the most difficult moral quandaries in the Christian faith. I highly recommend it and have been impacted through reading this book. What we believe matters, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus must impact the way that we read, interpret, and understand the Biblical story.

[Rachel Turner-Poteet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t like this book but I needed to read it. The author’s Christology is pretty seriously messed up, and he puts forward some interesting interpretations. I most appreciated his spiritualisations and the permission that he defended to really wrestle with these texts. Ultimately I think he gives up too much in the person and authority of Jesus but I greatly appreciated the courage and time dedicated to this work.

[Jens Hieber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciated Rauser's approach to the topic and felt his clarity around a complex topic really helped. He spent a good amount of time setting up his framework, presented both the strengths and weaknesses of various positions, and made a compelling argument for where he's ended up. Not sure I'm fully where Rauser is and I certainly still have questions, but this was ultimately a worthwhile read and helped clarify a number of things for me. Well worth it.

[Derek Kreider · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised and impressed at how thorough this book was. The author does a great job anticipating rebuttals and dealing with them head on. He doesn’t claim more than he can prove and acknowledges that this isn’t an airtight case but one that we have to take cumulatively.

I will say that the critique of the genocide defenders is very strong, but the positive position of how to then handle the text is still difficult - which the author acknowledges.

[Ian Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite some reservations which I'll outline below, this was probably the most engaging book I've read over the past year or so. Rauser's positive views, which come at the end of the book, and his discussions of the purpose and functions of the Scripture, especially vis-a-vis problematic passages, represent real, viable, and plausible options for Christians today.

What keeps me from giving this book five stars is how he gets to his views, specifically his arguments against opposing views, especially the groups he calls "Genocide Apologists" and "Just War Interpreters". Although I don't belong to either group myself, it's important to note that his rejection of these doesn't always rest on the best reasoning. A regrettably large amount of the argument, for instance, hangs on a purely semantic dispute over the terms "genocide" and, to a lesser extent, "ethnic cleansing". This, to me, seems a pointless red herring. Let me elaborate.

Human categorization under labels proceeds largely with paradigms in mind - that is, in using a label, particular paradigmatic instances are called to mind and used in our thinking, feeling, reacting, and so on. Thinking under labels largely thus proceeds in terms of these paradigms.

Due to how labels work, it is possible to exploit these workings to influence how others see things. People can effectively turn others against (or for) someone or something by basically bypassing their reasoning or reaction to these particulars by applying a label which has paradigms evoking negative (or positive) reactions (depending on whether they want others to think negatively or positively about their target). The feelings or opinions associated with the paradigm are then transferred onto the target by way of applying this label, disregarding the particulars of the case. One can then get people to think something is, e.g., bad, wrong, good or right by this semantic transfer from the paradigm to the target - again, ignoring at least somewhat what that target is in fact like. This works best when there is some at least superficial similarities that can be drawn between the target and the paradigms, which helps the transfer occur.

This fallacious use of labels in effect short-circuits actual thinking or reasoning about the case and its particulars as this is covertly replaced by reactions to the paradigms instead. Let's call this the Labelling Fallacy. You can see this sometimes in people's use of pejorative (or pejorative-to-them) terms such as "racist", "socialist", "Marxist", "supersessionist", "legalist", "heretic", and, more recently, "woke".

As already intimated, a regrettably large amount of the book revolves around Rauser's use of this Labelling Fallacy with the terms "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing", when the focus should instead be on the particulars of the biblical case (similarly with the use of "Genocide Apologists" for those who defend a literal interpretation of the Canaanite-destruction passages, as if they are apologists for genocide as such as opposed to this one and only unique case). Ultimately, it shouldn't matter what we want to call a literal Conquest, what matters, to repeat, are the particulars of this particular case and this is what Rauser should have been solely focusing on (and by this I mean the particulars actually present in the text, not the hypothetical and potentially dubious particulars made up by Rauser based on what he personally thinks must or probably would have happened if the "Genocide Apologists" are correct about the history here).

Moving on, it's also unfortunate that Rauser's main argument against the "Genocide Apologists" (and, to some extent, the Just War Interpreters as well) is basically that God wouldn't (or couldn't?) have given such commands, but at the same time he more or less completely ignores the reasons why they think God did command (or could have commanded) these actions in this particular unique case in the first place. Rauser doesn't really deal with, for example, divine command theory or "God has the right as the author of life" arguments apart from brief mentions, or with the relevant theological or hermeneutical arguments for reading and believing the biblical accounts in the ways his opponents do.

By contrast, what I think Rauser should have done is to focus on the actual textual evidence for or against interpreting the relevant passages as teaching literal, exact history. Instead, he seemed too focused on what he wants the texts to mean or do as opposed to looking at the actual concrete, historical, cultural, genre-specific and inner-textual evidence for the function of these texts in their actual contexts.

This leads us to the next problem, which is Rauser's hermeneutical principles he outlines at the beginning of the book. Let's look specifically at his Love Principle, according to which "all texts should be interpreted in such a way that they increase the love of God and neighbor; consequently, any reading of a text which diminishes love of God and/or neighbor [...] should be rejected as an incorrect reading of the passage."

There are multiple problems with this principle, at least from my vantage point. First, I find it deeply problematic, before actually examining Scripture, to assume particular theological principles about what Scripture *must* be like or what it *must* say or do and then to impose these on the text and our interpretation of it. Instead, I would argue that, all things being equal, we should find out what the text is saying and *then* use that to determine what it's like or what it can or cannot say. I realize not everyone will agree with this, of course. As an aside, it's a bit funny that Rauser holds it against his opponents when they bring in theological beliefs that determine what the text must say or be like before looking at it when he's doing much the same!

Second, the principle wants us to use interpretations that "increase love" and not use ones that "diminish" it. The problematic question that remains unanswered, of course, is "Increases it in or for whom? In what context(s)?"

Third, following along the same line of thought as the previous problem, it seems a big difficulty in applying the Love Principle that no interpretation actually increases or diminishes love on its own - its mere existence doesn't necessarily have any effect whatsoever on anyone, no matter what it is. Three people, for instance, can accept the same interpretation and one goes on to be more loving, another stays the same, and another becomes less loving. None of these changes (or lack thereof) may have anything to do with the interpretation itself; if they do, we won't necessarily be able to tell and, if we can, we won't necessarily be able to pin the blame squarely on the text or interpretation itself as opposed to some other combination of contributing factors.

Attitudes, character, wisdom, personal choices, and more all effect how (or whether) someone will react to or use some bit of information, including a text and its interpretation. In other words, this will likely have more to do with the person encountering the interpretation than the interpretation itself. And, ultimately, none of this will really tell us whether an interpretation is correct or not.

I could also mention a continuing equivocation between moral perception and moral intuition (these are not the same thing), a lack of sufficient discussion of the theory-ladeness of both perception and intuition (and, indeed, their culture-ladeness) and the dubious claim that the assertion that all genocide is necessarily wrong is somehow intuitive bedrock (I also find it intuitive but is it really as rock bottom foundationally structured into our intuitions or practical reasoning as something like "Seek good, avoid evil"?). But that would add to an already over-long review!

In sum, while there's a lot that could have been improved in this book, as noted above, the positives I listed at the beginning are enough for me to just barely tilt it into the four star range, though I could have just as easily settled on three stars. All in all, I still think it's worth reading, despite the potential drawbacks detailed here.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking look at the Biblical Violence Problem

Rauser provides a compelling examination of the apparent biblical divine sanction of genocide (against the Canaanites). I appreciate his relentless honesty, in that, while seeking to uphold the Christian faith, he is willing to ask hard questions and propose creative answers. He is also willing to critique fellow Christians when he believes their arguments don't hold up. His ability to identify and navigate between biblical, theological, and philosophical matters related to the larger issue is impressive.

The above approach is used in this book to interrogate the perennial problem of God's apparent command to ancient Israel to eradicate the Canaanites. Rauser proposes that if we find this morally reprehensible, that should be a strong indicator that it in fact is, and therefore it should dramatically reshape the way such texts are interpreted. He argues that common Christian explanations are unsatisfactory, including the proposals that the Canaanites were uniquely deserving of genocide, or that this was a "just war" (and so not a genocide).

Rauser does find support in the Christian tradition for rejecting violence attributed to God in the spiritualization of such Scriptures. But while these indicate that Christians have often struggled with violent texts, spiritualized application doesn't resolve the reason for the existence of such texts.

Ultimately he proposes an interpretive approach emphasizes God's accomodation to the cultures to which he was revealing himself. This means that the perfect God intentionally permits errors into Scripture, which he believes is inevitable given the accommodation process. Since human understanding of the world and morality is never perfect and is historically embedded, any revelation must be comprehensible to those receiving it -- which entails being comprehensible within erroneous worldviews. In short, God allows for "error" in his communication, in order to communicate something more significant, and to bring about his greater purposes. Scripture, then, will accomplish what God perfectly designed it to accomplish (guiding God's people to grow in love of God and neighbour), even while containing the errors of accomodation.

Rauser comes close to adopting Gregory Boyd's approach to discerning what can be understood to be errors in morality in the Bible, in that he upholds Jesus as the moral standard. Any action apparently attributed to God in the Bible must correspond to the morality of the words and works of Jesus (and specifically, in Boyd's case, demonstrated through Jesus' crucifixion). In short, any action attributed to God in Scripture that contradicts the morality revealed through Jesus (and innate human moral sense) must be understood as not, in fact, being an action of God, but rather a misattribution of immoral actions upon God. Rauser doesn't believe Boyd is fully consistent in his application of this moral principle in his interpretation of the Canaanite genocide, but overall their views are fairly close.

In sum, for Rauser, God did not command genocide. This contradicts human moral sensibilities and the NT revelation of Jesus. But Rauser knows that there are still difficult questions remaining. Is the inclusion of such violent texts in the Bible, for example, really the best way to bring about God's purposes? Rauser believes so, but in the basis of faith in the author of Scripture being the perfect God, who knows what he's doing even when we do not.

Again, I appreciate Raiser's willingness to be very honest with the best of Christian responses to this difficult issue, and even with his own limitations. He doesn't claim to have resolved every question but invites the reader into the dialogue. Whatever one thinks of his conclusions (and I find them compelling, although I'm still processing them), Rauser clearly lays out the key questions and issues that Christians should not ignore.

[Squire Whitney: Hufflepuff Book Reviwer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We don’t give a moment’s consideration to apologists of the genocides of Armenia, Nazi Germany, or Rwanda. So why do we do so in this one exception, that of Canaan? . . . Is it plausible to believe that the Jesus who scandalized his audience by stressing one’s obligation to love all, including those from the most hated outgroups like Samaritans, tax collectors, lepers, and adulterers . . . would add, ‘but not the Canaanites. They are truly beyond redemption and should be slaughtered totally?’”

“Failure to engage with a moral critique of the text . . . could reflect a failure to read in the tradition of Israel, who honestly wrestles with God. What if the spiritual formation of the reader into being a disciple of Christ is brought about precisely as they engage with troubling moral content? . . . What if the reader is supposed to wrestle with the text as Jacob wrestled the angel? What might that wrestling look like as the reader seeks to wrest the meaning from texts that are meant to invite precisely an engaged moral critique from the reader?”

More so than any book on Old Testament violence that I have read thus far, Jesus Loves Canaanites jars the reader, forcing them to come to grips with an innate moral knowledge of how horrific genocide truly is and how we as Christians must not excuse it. Rather than providing concise, cookie-cutter answers, Rauser leads the reader on a journey—examining genocides throughout history, discussing all the ways that the Biblical texts involving divinely-sanctioned Genocide have been interpreted, and reviewing the strengths and shortcomings of every reading strategy. Ultimately, Rauser seems to come to the conclusion that these texts were included in scripture largely for the purpose of jarring readers and showing them the inherent danger of scapegoating a people group under the guise of divine sanction and supposed moral justification. And I think that Rauser is likely onto something here. Perhaps, when even God’s own chosen people of Israel began glorifying the ideals of Genocide, God needed to warn humanity of how horrible this tendency within mankind is and how easy “othering” a people group can be to excuse. Perhaps merely warning people directly would not have had the same kind of effect.

From time to time, I do feel that Rauser takes his stances too far—arguing, for instance, that for God to even drive the Canaanites off of their land by means of hornets (as Gregory Boyd suggests was God’s initial plan) would have been excessively cruel. I also do not think that the author pays sufficient attention to all of the times that Jesus seems to have subtly challenged Old Testament violence, as this provides necessary connective tissue in any book on the topic for me. Nonetheless, despite shortcomings, Jesus Loves Canaanites makes for essential reading in exploring Old Testament violence. After Gregory Boyd’s theological tome The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, this work shines as the second-best piece of scholarship on the subject that I have encountered thus far.

[Zachary Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Challenging, provocative, in great need of editing. This book reads like maybe a second or third draft. The great irony of editorial mistakes and typos present in a work that includes discussion of intentional errors...Nevertheless, Rauser provides helpful tools for engaging the difficult question of the Canaanite conquest as well as insightful critiques of common treatments. I found his critiques of the Spritualizers most helpful in illuminating concerns I hadn't previously considered. The one nagging issue I have with Rauser's approach is that he essentially reasons from "this event is morally unconscionable, therefore, it is historically implausible". That line of reasoning just doesn't track at all; again, something that could be addressed with editing. Overall, 3/5. Decent content, too much meandering and too many examples that inflate the page count. Core insights useful.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not 100% sure if I can put myself agreeing to everything Rauser has to say about this issue, but he does have a point and it is an important book to read and a topic to familiarize with. In the end he opens up for the idea of Universal salvation, and I think it needs more work to make a good case for it - more than simply our own intuition and feeling that some things are wrong, and that they thus are in the right to have eternity in heaven.

Rauser uses too much of the book on describing the horror scenes in order to awaken disgust and emotions in us in order to make his case stick, and I do not think that is the best approach, and it makes the book a disservice of being a bit out of focus.

The author is clearly trying to be honest, but for me it seems like he is too invested to be totally honest here, but that said - it is a good book worthy of a read.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on a difficult topic. He takes on the most difficult of Bible passages, total destruction of the Canaanites by the Israelites as God commanded. He explores questions like: was this action genocide (yes)?, can we trust our moral intuition that this act was completely wrong (yes)? He provides a very thorough analysis of genocide, digs into the modern example of the Rwandan genocide. He explores how three groups attempt to explain this a just and explains how these are inadequate: Genocide Apologists, Just War Interpreters, Spiritualizers. His answer: providential errantists who say we need to understand these passages as part of scripture but are morally in error - I agree. He ends with tackling an interesting question: Why isn’t God (in scripture) clearer?

[JACKIE LEE DISPENNETT · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overall summary

Rauser gives a good overview of the moral problems inherent in genocide/ethnic cleansing and a fair representation of the four different schools of thought available to interpret the texts. What he does not go into much (that would have been helpful) is the psychology of the peoples of the Ancient Near East, and how they would have thought about violence, war, ritual purity, and cults of worship. However, this lack does not detract much from the book’s main thesis, which is that it is morally problematic for Christians in our day to continue defending a literalistic reading of the Biblical genocide accounts.

[Letícia Lyria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stopped at 261. Since the conquest of Canaan seems morally impossible, author’s solution is to deny its historicity. Lot of good arguments to build up his major points, but author needs to revise the archeological “evidence” that the timeline of the fall of the walls of Jericho doesn’t align biblically. Especially because of the layers that have been dug up are in support of the conquest as described in Joshua.

[April Khaito]

Read in preparation for a rebuttal against Rauser’s wholly unbiblical understanding of this issue.

[Ken Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only criticism is the just war chapter. I think total war that ends in genocide deserves distinction.

[Caleb Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It did not answer as many questions as I hoped but it was edifying. A good step forward.
-A recovering fundy Calvinist / southern Baptist

[Marlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masterfully argued, but a redemptive movement hermeneutic seems a better option.