| ALSO SEE Can God Kill The Innocent
How is it that God could allow the annihilation of thousands and thousands of people, whether that annihilation was through war or natural disaster? In fact, how is it that God could even command such a thing in the Old Testament if it is immoral to take the life of an innocent human being? And isn’t the fact that God ordered the killing of thousands of people an open and shut case for hypocrisy? Why Did God Allow The Killing of All The First Born of Egypt? 
Joshua's Conquest: Did It Happen?
Good reasons for us to accept as historical fact the Biblical account of the Israelites' conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua. In an article called Joshua's Conquest: Was It Justified?, Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Prominent Christian apologist and director of the Institute for Religious Research, deals with the fact that many critics “argue that the idea that God authorized the Israelites to conquer the people of the land and kill not only men but, in some instances, women and children, is immoral, and therefore evidence that the Bible is not inspired”. In the article he makes a number of critical points regarding the extreme depravity of the people of Canaan (which most readers do not seem to be aware of). However there is one other factor that he has not mentioned and which is more than likely to be the overriding reason God ordered the annihilation of certain people. However the first point to consider is brought up by Mr. Bowman in a paragraph entitled … The Wickedness of the People of Canaan
Critics of the Old Testament's claim that God ordered the killing of whole tribes in Canaan typically neglect the reason expressly stated in the Old Testament: those tribes were depraved beyond redemption (Genesis 15:16; Leviticus 18:21-30; 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 12:29-31; etc.). [See Footnote for These Bible Verses] According to the Old Testament, the Canaanites and other tribes in the land widely practiced child sacrifice, incest, bestiality, and other behaviors that almost everyone in history, including today, rightly regard as unspeakably, grossly immoral. If this explanation is even acknowledged, critics often claim that it is a later theological justification for Israel's displacing those peoples from the land. Even many mainstream biblical scholars make this claim. I have already questioned the conventional wisdom that the wickedness of the peoples of Canaan was an after-the-fact rationalization. However, even if the passages were all composed after the fact, such a response really skirts the issue, which is whether that theological justification was true. If the people of Canaan were akin to the peace-loving, civilized folks of different religions living in our suburban neighborhoods and working in our colleges, hospitals, and fire departments, then the Israelite claim that God had condemned those peoples as hopelessly degenerate would be rightly questioned. On the other hand, if the Canaanites and other peoples in the land were a degenerate society widely practicing bestiality and publicly burning their children to Molech, might not the Old Testament writers have had a point? In this regard an obvious question to ask is whether these horrifying Old Testament descriptions of Canaanite culture were at all accurate. Not surprisingly, our extra biblical sources of information are still very meager and fragmentary. Archaeology provides much more information about the classical period of antiquity, which corresponds roughly to the biblical postexilic and intertestamental periods, than it does for the second millennium BC. Moreover, the further back in time one goes the more disparate interpretations one gets from the archaeologists themselves. Still, some aspects of the Old Testament descriptions of Canaanite culture, including its religion, have been verified. One point of special interest is the Canaanite deity Molech, to whom, according to the Old Testament, the local pagan peoples sacrificed their children in burnt offerings. It was fashionable during much of the twentieth century to assert that the Old Testament had this completely wrong. Molech was said not to have been the name of a foreign deity at all, but a ritual term of some sort, and the children were not burned to death but were living participants in harmless rites (perhaps akin to those in modern neopaganism and other forms of nature worship). Several studies in the 1970s and 1980s put this revisionist theory to rest. The scholarly tide began to turn with Morton Smith's 1975 article debunking the fanciful theory that the references to children in the fire were spiritual metaphors. [1] John Day's study, published by Cambridge University Press, argued convincingly that Molech was the name given in Canaanite religion to the god of the underworld. He showed that the same deity is mentioned in the Ugaritic writings (MLK), the Mari tablets (Muluk), and in Akkadian records. [2] Meanwhile, evidence is trickling in that supports the Old Testament claim that the indigenous peoples of the region were engaged in the practice of child sacrifice. In 1978 an Egyptologist reported that relief pictures on an Egyptian temple showed Canaanite children being sacrificed while their cities were under attack. [3] That the Phoenicians, who at one time controlled Canaan, sacrificed children to their gods is well documented. "Archaeologists have recovered the gruesome evidence not only at the great Phoenician city of Carthage (in modern Tunisia), but also in Sicily, Sardonia, and Cyprus" (King and Stager, 361). [4] The evidence is not yet a "smoking gun" but is consistent and indirectly supportive of the biblical picture. [5]
Archeological discoveries in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria confirm the Bible's descriptions of ancient Mideast society. As Wayne Jackson says regarding the 1929 discovery of Ras Shamra (“Fennel Head”) a sixty-five foot mound in northern identified as the ancient Phoenician city of Ugarit. The digging on level 1 (dated from 1600-1200 B.C.) unearthed fortifications, a scribal school and library that adjoined a temple, and a palace that contained numerous cuneiform documents “Funerary jars have been found with the bodies of young children distorted by suffocation as they struggled for life after having been buried alive as a sacrifice to Canaanite gods. Such young children have been found in the foundation pillars of Canaanite houses, and sometimes religious ceremonies were associated with their sacrifice.” (Wilson, 1973, p. 85). [6]
Fertility cults institutionalized male and female prostitution. Child sacrifice was used as a way of pleasing the gods, the chief of which was the sun-god, generally known as Baal or "lord." Additionally “The Canaanite religion was a horribly brutal system as well. For instance, the goddess Anath is pictured as killing humans by the thousands and wading knee-deep in blood. She cut off heads and hands and wore them as ornaments. And in all of this gruesomeness, the Baal-epic says that her liver was swollen with laughter and her joy was great.” [6]
Were The Israeli’s More Righteous?
To be particularly noted is that Moses was very clear that God drove out the pagans not because the Israelites were so righteous that they deserved the land, but because the Canaanites then inhabiting the land were so corrupt. In fact Moses referred to the Israelites as a “stiffnecked people” who had nothing to brag about regarding their own virtue (this was brought up many times in the Old Testament). However the salvation and future of mankind rested in this tiny nation that God had chosen to birth the Messiah…
Speak not thou in thy heart, after that Jehovah thy God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness Jehovah hath brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart, dost thou go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may establish the word which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know therefore, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people. [Deuteronomy 9:4-6]
Was Human Sacrifice An Accepted Part of The Worship Of Yahweh?
Liberal critics of the Bible do not concede that “the Israelites, even at their best, could not have been all that different from their neighbors in Canaan” and that the religion of Israel's lawgiver and prophets was, both morally and spiritually, of a radically superior character to the religions of the surrounding cultures. In other words “if child sacrifice was happening then everyone must have been doing it.” [5]
However what these liberals base their opinions on is anyone’s guess since the Bible itself tells a very different story, making no effort to hide the fact that there were times that the Israelites did follow the detestable ways of the nations around them, in spite of strict instructions to the contrary. And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah … Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you; And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep my statutes and mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you; (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled); that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For whosoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people. [Leviticus 18:21-29] When Jehovah thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest in to dispossess them, and thou dispossessest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself that thou be not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto Jehovah thy God: for every abomination to Jehovah, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods. [Deuteronomy 12:29-31
In what amounts to a blatant disregard for God’s instructions, two of Israel’s kings imitated the practices of the heathen nations, including sacrificing their own children to pagan gods. But, by doing so, both of them incurred the Lord’s wrath. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign; and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem: and he did not that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah his God, like David his father. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations, whom Jehovah cast out from before the children of Israel. [2Kings 16:2-3] And he (Manasseh) made his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury, and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. [2Kings 21:6]
The people of Israel were just as guilty as their kings and were just as soundly condemned. The following are some examples. [Also See Jeremiah 19:5-6; 32:35 and Ezekiel 23:36-39] ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the harlot…. ye that inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; that slay the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks? [Isaiah 57:3, 5] For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith Jehovah: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be called Topheth, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury. And the dead bodies of this people shall be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away. [Jeremiah 7:30-33] Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Were thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children, and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire unto them? [Ezekiel 16:20-21]
Israel's Rules of Engagement
Because we are many centuries removed from the events of those days it is more than troubling to imagine the Israeli soldiers executing not only the men, but also the women and children of what we imagine to be helpless and innocent peasants. Could what happened be called genocide, defined as the deliberate killing of a large group of people, just because they belonged to a particular race or nation? In other words did the Israeli soldiers wipe out other nations, not only because they were wicked, but because they were different?
However the Bible no where teaches that if a nation is wicked enough another group is justified in wiping out, or attempting to wipe out, the general population and take over the land. While it may not make us feel a whole lot better, what the Old Testament does say is that it was only certain indigenous people that had to be exterminated. The rules of engagement which determined when, where, and how much force was used were very definitively laid out. As Robert Bowman points out … [Emphasis Added] the "rules of engagement" for these conquests did not give the Israelites carte blanche to do whatever they wished. The rules restrained the greed and lust typically exhibited by victors in ancient warfare (and in far too much modern warfare as well) in ways that were far ahead of their time. God's law in the Pentateuch actually distinguished at least four different categories of non-Israelites and required Israel to act in markedly different ways toward each group. [5]
To make it easier the author divides the people into four categories calling them “indigenous peoples, border peoples, protected peoples, and sojourners”. He says [All Emphasis Added] By Indigenous Peoples I mean the people groups that inhabited the land of Canaan, specified in various texts as the Amorites, Hittites, Girgashites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Genesis 15:19-21; Exodus 3:8, 17; 13:5; 23:23, 28; 34:11; Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 7:1; 20:17; Joshua 3:10; 9:1; 11:3; 12:8; 24:11; Judges 1:3-5; 3:5;1 Kings 9:20-21; Ezra 9:1; Nehemiah 9:8). The dominant tribe or nation among these peoples was the Canaanite people, which is why the land was called Canaan and why the Canaanites are mentioned more than any of the others. Israel was required to exterminate the peoples of these tribes, men, women, and children—and in most cases, livestock as well (Numbers 21:33-35; Deuteronomy 2:32-34; 3:1-7; 20:16-18; Joshua 6:21; cf. Joshua 8:22-29). The Israelites were explicitly forbidden to take wives from any of these peoples (Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Now, if Israel's claim that God commanded them to conquer Canaan was merely a theological pretext for their own wars of aggression, why did they not allow themselves to take women from those peoples? Why, in most cases, were they not allowed to take and keep livestock? The best explanation for their restraint in these matters was that they believed that God had forbidden them to take women or livestock from the peoples they conquered in the land. Such restraint—remarkable in that ancient culture—is evidence that their belief that God had ordered the conquest was quite sincere. We might note that the command to wipe out these peoples did allow for exceptions. The obvious example is that of Rahab and her family, who were residents of Jericho. In return for her help, and in response to her plea for mercy, Joshua's two spies promised Rahab that she and her whole family would be spared when the Israelites destroyed Jericho (Joshua 2:8-21), a promise Joshua honored (6:17, 22-23, 25). Border Peoples lived in cities and villages on the outer edges of Canaan, who were not part of the seven or so indigenous tribes of Canaan. Cities outside the region inhabited by the Canaanites and other condemned peoples, but within the land designated as belonging to Israel, were first to be offered terms of peace, in which its people would become forced labor and serve the Israelites. If a city refused, Israel was to make war against it, kill all its men, and allow the women and children to live (Deuteronomy 20:10-15). The distinction drawn between the outlying cities of the land and the cities of the Canaanites and other peoples clustered within the land reflects the belief that the indigenous peoples were too far gone to be shown any mercy, while other people groups were not deemed similarly degenerate. The Protected Peoples were tribes or nations in the region that Israel was to leave alone. The most significant of these was Edom. When Israel sought to pass through the territory of Edom—even promising to pay for the use of its water—and Edom refused, Israel simply went another way (Numbers 20:14-21). Yet when Sihon, the king of the Amorites, refused to grant the Israelites safe passage, Israel conquered and possessed the Amorite cities (Numbers 21:21-32), destroying every man, woman, and child (Deuteronomy 2:32-34). The reason for the differing treatments was that Israel considered the Edomites (who were descendants of Jacob's brother Esau) brothers (Numbers 20:14). Sojourners were individuals or families whose tribal origins were from outside the land but who had immigrated into the land of Canaan. The Old Testament refers to such persons as sojourners, aliens, or strangers (the terms are roughly if not entirely synonymous). Israelites were forbidden to wrong a stranger or oppress him (Exodus 22:21; 23:9). Anyone who took the life of any human being was to be executed; this standard applied for the stranger as well as the native (Leviticus 24:17-22). Sojourners were to be permitted to offer sacrifices to the Lord; again, the point was made that the law was to be the same for the Israelites and the sojourners (Numbers 15:14-16). Israelites were to love the alien, remembering that God loves aliens and that they were aliens in Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). Israelites were not to pervert justice due to an alien (Deuteronomy 24:17-18). Clearly, the Mosaic Law was not xenophobic (expressing fear or animosity toward people of other races). Since such sojourners were not part of the degenerate culture of Canaan, they were to be welcomed into Israelite society and placed under the same laws as Israelites. [5]
Note that under the heading of Protected People above, Robert Bowman says the reason the Israelites spared the Edomites was because Israel considered the Edomites, descendants of Jacob's brother Esau, brothers, which may be true. However the Edomites were also not inhabitants of the land of Canaan and not one of the tribes that God wanted exterminated.
The Sticking Point... The Children
However while many valuable and very relevant points have been made so far, all of them fail to answer the question of why the youngest and, supposedly, most innocent of the Canaanite society were also executed along with the adults. While very little is specifically said about this in the Old Testament accounts, but is clearly implied by the verses that tell us that Israel, obviously following orders, left no survivors.
But of the cities of these peoples, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth; [Deuteronomy 20:16] and Jehovah delivered it also, and the king thereof, into the hand of Israel; and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining in it; and he did unto the king thereof as he had done unto the king of Jericho. [Joshua 10:30] And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed: and he burnt Hazor with fire. [Joshua 11:11] And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any that breathed. [Joshua 11:14]
Regarding Joshua 6:21 … And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
…Robert Bowman says “The book of Joshua states that Israel destroyed the people of Jericho, "both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and donkey" (6:21), which may imply the killing of the babies, depending on how "young and old" is interpreted. So, it does seem that Israel killed young Canaanite children in these battles, though little or no attention is given to that aspect, assuming that is the correct understanding of the above passages”.
Is It Left To Us To Figure It Out?
Many believe that the Bible gives absolutely no explanation for the extermination of young children which, if true, would leave the critics justified in believing that these actions were morally reprehensible and that the Jews, their religion and their God were no better than every one else. And if no explanation is provided we, as Christians, are left with little choice but to poke around and come up with some logical reasons this should have happened.
Which is why I completely understand the reasoning given behind Mr. Bowman’s theories. The two suggestion that he puts forward are, in a nutshell, 1) are that perhaps the children were “beyond civilizing”. Perhaps so “abused and forced to participate in obscene conduct they would have grown up psychologically and spiritually scarred”. And 2) that “the STDs and other infectious diseases that must have pervaded those cities may well have been carried by the smallest children, and if so, they may have posed a grave danger to the physical health of the Israelites.” He also suggests that perhaps “that infectious diseases were also ravaging the domestic animals in these cities, which would also explain why they were destroyed”. However I can not completely buy this explanation and I doubt that very many thinking persons will either. While it may very well be true that many of the children could have been psychologically scarred, it is yet entirely possible for abused children to be rehabilitated with long term love and care. Besides which there had to be any number of new born and infants among the population, perhaps some of them just a few days old. Was this enough time for this baby to become scarred or to carry an infectious disease? The whole thing sounds suspiciously like we are making excuses for our God. However perhaps the Bible is not quite as silent on the topic as some think. Perhaps with a little digging we will find the underlying reason that these people had to be mercilessly exterminated, and was the right thing to do. In fact what is often overlooked, but very telling, is that this discrimination against the Canaanites started much much earlier than the time of Joshua. For instance, Abraham made his servant swear that he would not pick a wife for Isaac from among the Canaanites [Genesis 24], and Isaac in turn instructed his son Jacob to not choose a wife from the daughters of Canaan [Genesis 28:1]. Both men very specifically mentioning staying away from the Canaanites. Why? What was so wrong with the Canaanites that no association was to be made with them and they were later to be completely exterminated? Who or What Were The Inhabitants Of Canaan? See As It Was In The The Days Of Noah 
End Notes
[1] Morton Smith, "A Note on Burning Babies," Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 477-79. [2] John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4-14, 29-71. [3] A. Spalinger, "A Canaanite Ritual Found in Egyptian Reliefs," Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 8 (1978): 47-60. [4] Philip J. King and Laurence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, Library of Ancient Israel (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 361. [5] Joshua's Conquest: Was It Justified?. Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Manager, Apologetics & Interfaith Evangelism. North American Mission Board.
http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.3226507/k.515A/Joshuas_Conquest_Was_It_Justified.htm [6] Wayne Jackson, M.A. Old Testament events and the goodness of God
http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/467-old-testament-events-and-the-goodness-of-god Footnote
And thou shalt not give any of thy seed to make them pass through the fire to Molech; neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am Jehovah. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. And thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast, to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out from before you; And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye therefore shall keep my statutes and mine ordinances, and shall not do any of these abominations; neither the home-born, nor the stranger that sojourneth among you; (for all these abominations have the men of the land done, that were before you, and the land is defiled); that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For whosoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep my charge, that ye practise not any of these abominable customs, which were practised before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am Jehovah your God. [Leviticus 18:21-30] Moreover, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I also will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people at the land do at all hide their eyes from that man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and put him not to death; then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that play the harlot after him, to play the harlot with Molech, from among their people. [Leviticus 20:2-5] When Jehovah thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest in to dispossess them, and thou dispossessest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself that thou be not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto Jehovah thy God: for every abomination to Jehovah, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods. [Deuteronomy 12:29-31]
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