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 […]
Entries Tagged as 'Hagiography'
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part III: Two Implications of the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Account
January 16th, 2011 21 Comments
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.




