Every week William Lane Craig answers a question on his website; this week’s question of the week is entitled “The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited”. The questioner asked what Craig thinks of the Canaanite Conquest account. I got a mention in Craig’s reply: “The topic of God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was the subject […]
Entries Tagged as 'Canaanites'
Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part I
August 11th, 2011 6 Comments
Tags: Atlanta · Canaanites · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Genocide · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Question of the Week · Society of Biblical Literature · William Lane Craig
Madeleine on Unbelievable?
May 5th, 2011 7 Comments
Recently we posted a link to an episode from Justin Brierly’s Unbelievable? show on the UK station Premier Christian Radio which featured a podcast of Paul Copan and Norman Bacrac discussing Is God a Moral Monster? Yesterday we were alerted to the fact that at the end of the Unbelievable? episode of 23 Apr 2011, “Rob Bell […]
Tags: Canaanites · Christian Premier Radio · Hermeneutics · Justin Brierley · MP3 · Norman Bacrac · Paul Copan · Podcast · Unbelievable?
Unbelievable? Is God a Moral Monster? Paul Copan & Norman Bacrac
April 11th, 2011 7 Comments
Paul Copan recently debated Norman Bacrac on the topic “Is God a Moral Monster?” on a recent episode of Unbelievable? on the UK station Premier Christian Radio. Matt and I just listened to it and we both thought it was worth sharing as Copan really handled himself well and very clearly articulated his position on the […]
Tags: Canaanites · Christian Premier Radio · Is God a Moral Monster? · Justin Brierley · Norman Bacrac · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Richard Dawkins · Unbelievable?
Thom Stark on Wolterstorff and Hagiographic Hyperbole
April 7th, 2011 36 Comments
Earlier this year I finished a forthcoming article in which I defended Nicholas Wolterstorff’s take on the Canaanite massacre recorded in the book of Joshua. Wolterstorff argues that the Book of Joshua is a highly figurative, hagiographic and hyperbolic account of Israel’s early skirmishes and it is not intended to be taken literally in its details.[1] […]
Tags: Canaanites · Douglas S. Earl · Genocide · Hermeneutics · Joshua · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Thom Stark
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part III: Two Implications of the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Account
January 16th, 2011 21 Comments
This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In a recent Conference at Notre Dame Alvin Plantinga suggested that the commands to wipe out the Canaanites, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, might be hyperbolic; they should be understood more like how […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Christopher J H Wright · Genocide · Gordon Wenham · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · J McConville · J P U Lilley · Joshua · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II: Ancient Near Eastern Conquest Accounts
January 10th, 2011 14 Comments
This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In my previous post, God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation, I expounded and adapted Nicholas Wolterstorff’s argument for a hagiographic hyperbolic reading of the book […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · J Van Seters · James K. Hoffmeier · John Goldingay · Joshua · K Lawson Younger · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Richard Hess · Thomas Thompson · Ziony Zevit
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation
January 7th, 2011 42 Comments
Around this time last year I wrote two posts Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites I and Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites II. These posts attracted a fair amount of attention and debate. I got offers to publish my ideas in several upcoming books and present them before both the Evangelical Philosophical […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · Joshua · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Selection

A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.




