Was the God of Joshua a genocidal maniac?
Joshua was leader of the Israelites following the death of Moses. He was in command of the Israelite armies who invaded the land of Canaan, attacking city after city and killing all inhabitants of those cities including women and children, even all the animals in some cities. According to the Bible the “Lord God” was demanding these massacres. An observer would surely call that genocide. It raises a question:
What kind of God would promote genocide?
Well some apologists claim these were wicked people and they deserved to die, but it is a bit hard to imagine new born babies as being wicked.
That is just one issue. Quite a number of questions arise here.
If God is almighty and the sustainer of life, why did God not just withdraw life from the wicked people instead of sending Joshua out to do the deed?
Was this in fact a land grab? After all it was the premium fertile land that was being fought over.
And my favourite question: Why would you record such apparently damning information about your history and promote it as sacred?
The Jews know what genocide is like. They have been the recipients of genocide and attempted genocide a number of times and remain a target for genocide. Are they suffering that as a form of delayed retribution – a kind of national karma paying them back for the actions of Joshua?
That’s enough with the questions. Let’s get to the truth.
First of all, Joshua was not a Jew. He was of the tribe of Ephraim. And second, this Lord God was probably not who you think. He was not God Almighty. He had a physical manifestation, a fierce disposition and a demand to be obeyed. Let’s first examine exactly who he was.
There is a generic word for god in several cultures and that is El (singular) or Elohim (plural). However God does not just go under the generic name. He introduces himself in several different ways for example in Exodus Chapter 3.
The “LORD” (YHVH or Yaweh) in Exodus 3:4.
The “God (Elohim) of Abraham” in the same event (Exodus 3:6).
The “I am” (EhYeh) again in the same event (Exodus 3:14).
You would think this being with all this accreditation from scripture must surely be the most high God of the Hebrews. But No. Exodus 3:2 plainly tells us this was not God at all. It was an “angel of the LORD”.
So that raises another question. Is an angel of the LORD a puppet of God or a reflector of God? Or does he have his own independence? To cut to the chase the answer is this. There are holy angels who exactly reflect God and there are independent angels who God allows to operate within fixed guidelines and many if not all have prescribed missions. Some are evil (Psalm 78:49). However they are still constrained to boundaries and they still have missions. Even Satan has his boundaries and his missions (Job Chapter 1).
So we come back to the question Who is God?
We find a bit more of an answer in Exodus 6:3
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name the LORD (YHVH or Yaweh) I did not make myself fully known to them.
The most high God – the true God – is El Shaddai, YHVH or Yaweh but, as we have seen, the references to the LORD God (Elohim YHVH) in the Bible don’t necessarily mean God himself, an angelic manifestation of himself, or even some angel that perfectly reflects God.
Everybody seems to miss this, but Joshua was driven by a powerful angel with a testy temperament operating under the name “Elohim YHVH”. We know he was an angel of justice and an angel of death. We also know he had a specific mission to use Joshua to drive out the Canaanites by whatever means and to take no prisoners. The book of Joshua also refers to him as “the captain of the Lord’s host”.
So you might ask how an angel could get away with masquerading under the name of Elohim YHVH. The answer is simple. God assigned him the name.
Exodus 23:20-21 “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: FOR MY NAME IS IN HIM.”
Now you might argue that God releasing angels on potentially evil missions would make God himself evil. However that is exactly the same as saying if God gives me freedom to choose evil over good and I choose evil then I can blame God. I can’t.
It is actually simplistic to say God releases evil angels. The most high God, the true Elohim YHVH is a holy God. In other words He is spotless in His judgements. In order to be spotless He has to comply with perfect justice. Justice demands payment and in a broad sense God has built it in. Every action generates its own reward. Evil thoughts release evil angels. Evil actions release angels of death. The reason angels carry the name of God is that they are locked into the framework of divine justice.
What about Joshua and his men? It was them who carried out the executions. Did they have the excuse that they were operating under orders – the excuse Nazi executioners used to justify their evil actions? The truth is they seem to have had a real excuse. They were not even guilty of the crimes. Long before there was any archaeological evidence one way or the other, the signs that the book of Joshua was not pure history were obvious. The book contains allegories that are too perfect to not be deliberate. We have to be careful to discern whether a book is intended to be a historical record or an allegory or something in between. Archaeological evidence pours serious doubt on the historical detail of many of the conquests in the book of Joshua. It seems only basic information in the book of Joshua is meant to be historical.
There are strong clues that the book of Joshua is primarily an allegory. The Israelites were heading for the promised land. Moses had handed down the Law. The law gave them opportunity to prove themselves faithful to God. Moses and his generation failed under the law. Joshua (a name that can be translated "Jesus") and his generation succeeded in reaching the promised land. In fact it is more than an allegory in that it includes a matrix of threads weaving their way through the entire Bible. It contains two main stories - the overt story as printed and the main overlay.
The main overlay is an allegory that begins with a system of Law wherein there was no salvation for those who break even the least law. Everybody failed and they were prevented from entering the promised land unless they were led by a different Joshua who’s name is transliterated via Koine Greek, then English to “Jesus”. The overlay is the story of a savior – a Jesus, who does battle with evil spirits who have taken up residence in God’s territory (humanity). This Jesus is the one who has the right and power to take his people to the promised land with signs and miracles. This Jesus is the one who forms a new covenant to protect his people from the angel of death. This Jesus is the one who fights to protect his own. This Jesus is the one who lays down his life for his people and rises again on the third day. Throughout the Bible "third day" references relate to escaping from death, coming to life, being raised up and similar. It is the same with this third day reference.
The angel of death required the Israelites to destroy the all the inhabitants of the land. In one particular episode the kings of Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites decided to fight back, but the Gibeonites sought to establish a covenant with Joshua to let them live.
Joshua 9:17-18. “And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day.” “And the children of Israel smote them not”.
Joshua (Jesus) saved the Israelites from the death sentence imposed by the angel of death by means of the covenant he made with them even though they were undeserving of salvation and would have died if they had directly encountered the angel of death. Notice they overcame death on the third day.
When enemies sought to attack those under the covenant, Joshua brought his armies to destroy those who would hurt them. Joshua then went on to systematically destroy the enemies and clean the land of wicked influence. This is all an allegory of the New Testament (New Covenant) that Jesus would provide to give His protection from the angel of death.
Look again at the wording of Exodus 23:20. This is the wording given to Joshua. “Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him”
The entire Bible is about bringing Jesus to the place God had prepared for him.
There is much more to this allegory.
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