A Good Question But Not A Good Answer (7)

Till:
In the first six sections of my replies to Glenn Miller's attempts to justify morally the many Yahwistic massacres recorded in the Old Testament, we have seen him labor at length to try to make Yahweh's commands to destroy totally the Canaanites and to leave none of them alive to breathe to mean only that the Israelites were to destroy their "culture" by pressuring them into migrating to "northern lands," but I have shown that there is no evidential basis, either biblical or nonbiblical, for this position. Now we are going to see Mr. Miller appealing to ancient superstitions as he continues his futile attempts to make the Hebrew god Yahweh a humane, moral superdeity. I urge everyone to notice that Mr. Miller, for the most part, continues to argue by asserting, question begging, and special pleading. His so-called "arguments" are conspicuous by the lack of evidence presented to support them.

Miller:
What other general principles of God's governance might shed some light on the situation?

Here I want to survey some of the other governance structures that are present in this issue.

In the earliest promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, we read:

Till:
Mr. Miller speaks about "issues," but an issue that he never addressed in his article is whether the biblical claims that he often refers to were actual historical events or just legends or myths, typical of the times, about gods interacting with people like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, etc. In my replies to Mr. Miller, I have often referred to the inscription on the Moabite Stone in which Mesha, the king of Moab, claimed that he conversed with the god Chemosh. The prologue to the Code of Hammurabi said that the gods Anu and Bel had called Hammurabi by name "to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land" and "to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers." Inscriptions on the pavement stones of the temple of Urta in Nimrud, refer to the gods who had chosen the Assyrian king Assurnasirpal and led him to victory over his enemies. I seriously doubt that Mr. Miller believes that these communications between Mesha, Hammurabi, Assurnasirpal and their gods actually occurred, yet for some reason he believes that the many biblical references to personal communications between the god Yahweh and biblical characters like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, etc. actually happened.

He needs to explain to us his rationale for rejecting all ancient tales about personal relationships between humans and gods except for those that are claimed in the Bible. Does he know what special pleading is? I think we are going to see that he doesn't.

Miller:

Genesis 12:1-3 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. ² I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

This promise of protection for Abe and his descendants can be seen all through biblical history--and therefore in the Conquest narratives.

Till:
Mr. Miller has overlooked an important detail: Did a god named Yahweh actually make this promise to Abraham, or was it merely legendary tradition? As I asked above, did the gods of Moab, Babylon, and Assyria commune with their kings as Mesha, Hammurabi, and Assurnasirpal claimed? The Epic of Gilgamesh claims that the "great goddess" Aruru designed the body of Gilgamesh and made it beautiful and perfect, but I doubt that Mr. Miller believes this. This epic claims that when the gods decided to send a flood upon the earth to destroy mankind, the god Ea warned Gilgamesh to tear down his house and build a boat to save his family and "the seed of all living creatures." Mr. Miller, of course, doesn't believe that this happened, but he does believe a later biblical version of this legend, which attributed the flood to the god Yahweh and made Noah the hero who built an ark to save his family and all living creatures. If fabulous claims are in the Bible, Mr. Miller believes that they were actual historical events, but if they are in the religious literature of non-Hebraic people, Mr. Miller thinks that they are just quaint ancient myths.

Throughout the first part of his article, Mr. Miller tried to make Yahweh's commands to destroy totally the Canaanites and to leave none of them alive to breathe not to mean destroy or kill, so if he is going to base an argument on the biblical claim, just quoted in Genesis 12:1-3, that the god Yahweh appeared to Abraham and told him to leave his home and go to Canaan, where Yahweh would bless him, make his name great, bless those who blessed him, and curse those who cursed him, Mr. Miller must establish two things: (1) prove that this appearance to Abraham actually happened, and if he can prove this unprovable claim, he must (2) prove that Yahweh meant what he presumably said during this appearance. After all, if destroy totally and leave no one alive to breathe in Yahweh's commands to destroy totally the Canaanites and leave none of them alive to breathe didn't really mean destroy totally and leave none of them alive to breathe, how can Mr. Miller know that Genesis 12:1-3 really meant that Yahweh was going to give to Abraham and his descendants all of the land in Canaan?

Miller:

The Hivites (one of the Canaanite peoples) perpetrated rape on Dinah, the daugher of Jacob (Gen 34).

Till:
Will there be no end to Mr. Miller's constant repetition? I addressed the "rape of Dinah" in this section of Part Four, so I need only to say here that Mr. Miller is trying to justify the Canaanite massacres by referring to something that was done to the early Israelites some 600 years before the invasion of Canaan. Let's just assume that the rape of Dinah did actually occur. Is Mr. Miller arguing that an offense committed against the early ancestors of the Israelites morally justified the total destruction of the Canaanites six centuries later? Probably so. After all, he seems to believe that Saul's massacre of the Amalekites for something their ancestors had done 400 years earlier was morally justified (1 Sam. 15:1-3). When one is enslaved to a religion, nothing seems too ridiculous to believe.

By Mr. Miller's logic, if, say, the British prime minister should find evidence that a distant grandmother was raped by Vikings during an invasion of England, he would be morally entitled to send the British army into Norway and kill everyone in sight. Oh, no, wait a minute; I forgot. Destroy totally and leave no one alive to breathe actually meant just to expel from the land, so I guess our hypothetical prime minister of Britain would be entitled only to send his army to Norway and drive everyone out of the country.

Miller:

During the travels of Israel, Amorite peoples attempted two unsolicited and unwarranted attacks on Israel--once by Arad, and once by Sihon (Num 21).

Till:
This is more repetition. I replied in detail to Mr. Miller's earlier attempts in this section of Part Four and in this section of Part Five to make Amorite attacks by the king of Arad and king Sihon justifiable reasons for massacring everyone in those cities, so readers can go there to see my rebuttals in which I pointed out, among other things, that the Israelites destroyed totally even "the little ones" and left "no survivors" (Deut. 2:34). Nations certainly have the right of self-defense when foreign armies enter their territory, but even if the attacks of these kings were "unwarranted," as Mr. Miller claims, the "little ones" would have had nothing to do with the decision to attack the Israelites. In killing them, then, the Israelites killed those who were innocent of any offense against Israel. We know, however, that Mr. Miller sees nothing wrong in this, because he thinks that "children living in the households of their evil parents apparently died swiftly."

Mr. Miller seems to think that he has resolved the moral problem of the Yahwistic massacres, but in wagging Numbers 21 back into the debate, he has indicated again that his biblical knowledge is rather superficial. He referred above to "unwarranted attacks" on Israel--once by Arad and once by Sihon, so he apparently thinks that Arad was a person like king Sihon, but Arad was a city and not a person, as the quotation of the text below shows.

Numbers 21:1 When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked the Israelites and captured some of them.

Hence, Arad was an Amorite city, which had a king, and the "king of Arad" was referred to elsewhere in the Bible. In the listing of the 31 kings whom Joshua defeated, the "king of Arad" was one of them.

Joshua 12:12 the king of Eglon one the king of Gezer one ¹³ the king of Debir one the king of Geder one ¹⁴ the king of Hormah one the king of Arad one.

Eglon, Gezer, Debir, Geder, and Hormah were all cities, which had kings whom Joshua allegedly defeated, so Arad was also a city. That Arad was a place and not a person was shown in Judges 1:16, which referred to the descendants of Moses' father-in-law, who left the city of palms "to live among the people of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near Arad." If Mr. Miller is going to present himself as an authority whose biblical opinions should be respected in matters as repugnant as the Yahwistic massacres, he should at least take the time to learn what the Bible says concerning the subjects he writes about.

Miller:

but the big one was the persecution by Amorite/Canaanites while in Egypt!

Till:
I will show good reasons to believe that rather than having been persecuted by "Amorites/Canaanites" while they were in Egypt, the Israelites instead received preferential treatment from Semitic rulers who controlled the country when Joseph's brothers sold him into Egypt.

Miller:
This seems a bit odd, of course, since Israel was being mistreated by the Egyptians during this period, but nonetheless was a present factor--through the influence of the Hyksos. "A dynasty of foreign rulers known as the Hyksos established themselves in control not only of Syria and Palestine but also of Egypt itself during approximately the years 1650-1542 b.c." (MM:128).

Till:
I will let readers see most of Mr. Miller's speculations about the Hyksos with just brief interruptions before I show in more detail the absurdity of using this enigmatic ethnic group as an excuse for the Yahwistic massacres, which occurred centuries after the Hyksos had disappeared from Egypt and passed into historical obscurity. Here I will say only that Mr. Miller's date of Hyksos control in Egypt has been widely disputed, but I will address that matter later too.

Miller:
Now, if you notice something, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt during this time. I believe in the early date of the Exodus (around the 1400 BC mark), which would make the 400 year Sojourn in Egypt from 1800-1400 bc roughly. One can see then, that all of the Hyksos reign (the New Intermediate Kingdom) would fall into this period. I also understand Gen 15.13 (Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. ) to entail a 'mistreatment' period of several hundred years (as opposed to just the years right before the birth of Moses).

Till:
I am glad to see Mr. Miller's agreement that the Bible, properly interpreted, requires a recognition that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for some 400 years. In "How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?" I showed that there is really no other conclusion to reach without resorting to unlikely interpretations of biblical passages, especially Exodus 12:40, that referred to the length of the Israelite "sojourn" in Egypt, and in "The 210-Year 'Solution'" and "The Sparrow Gets His wings Clipped Again," I showed that attempts to cut the Israelite sojourn in Egypt to just 210 years cannot be harmonized with biblical passages like Exodus 12:40. On all this, Mr. Miller seems pretty much in agreement. The main problem in his chronology, as we will soon see, is that he makes the presence of the Hyksos in Egypt coincide with the time when enslavement of the Hebrews began, but as we will also see, some scholars date the Hyksos rise to power much sooner. By their dating, Joseph was elevated to his position of authority under a Hyksos king, and the Israelites were enslaved after the Hyksos were expelled and a native Egyptian king arose, who "knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:8).

Miller:
According to Exodus, after Joseph died, a new king arose that began the mistreatment. This would make perfect sense if the 'new king' was an outsider--like a Hyksos.

Till:
It would make even more sense if the king under whom Joseph rose to power was an ethnically related (Semitic) Hyksos, and the "new king" was an Egyptian, who became pharaoh after the Hyksos had been expelled. The new king's hostility toward the kinsmen of a foreign official who had been put into a high position of authority by an ethnically related king of Hyksos origin would be very understandable.

Miller:
This would mean that the long-term mistreatment of Israel was initiated (or at least intensified significantly) by the Hyksos.

Till:
As I noted earlier, the Hyksos period is cloaked in mystery because of the scarcity of records about their reign, but as I also noted, some scholars date their period much earlier than Mr. Miller to put Joseph's rise to power under a Hyksos king. In his "Introduction" to The Book of Exodus, John Gray dated the Hyksos reign as early as Joseph's entry into Egypt through the betrayal of his brothers.

I Kings 6:1 synchronizes the foundation of the temple in Solomon's 4th year (ca. 965) with the 480th year after the Exodus, pointing to a 15th-cent[ury] date (ca. 1445; cf. Judges 11:26). This fits with the theory of some scholars that Joseph rose to power while Egypt was under the Hyksos, "rulers of foreign lands" (ca. 1750-1570)--kings who came from Asia and employed some persons with Semitic names as officers, as attested by papyrus documents--and that the rise of a "new king... who did not know Joseph" (1:8) refers to the overthrow of the Hyksos by the founder of the native Egyptian 18th dynasty (The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Abingdon Press, 1971, p. 34, emphasis added).

We will see later that Gray's opinion is shared by others.

Miller:
But why would I bring the Hyksos up in this discussion?

Till:
An act of desperation? By someone who is grabbing any straw in sight to try to justify morally a presumably divine command to exterminate non-Hebraic ethnic groups?

The scarcity of records about the Hyksos period, which Egyptians may have destroyed after they had regained control of their country, has made exact dating of the Hyksos period impossible. Mr. Miller has fixed 1650 to 1542 BC as the date of the Hyksos domination of Egypt, but there is certainly no scholarly consensus on this date, as we will soon see.

Miller:

Their name (Hyksos) corresponds to the Egyptian 'rulers of foreign lands,' but was also understood to mean 'shepherd kings.' They were probably preponderantly Semitic Amorites/ Canaanites (MM:128; see also ECIAT:106-107).

So, soon after the Hebrews go into Egypt (as welcomed guests, important contributors, and leaders), the Amorites/Canaanites show up and start "enslaving and mistreating" them, even to the point of programmatic infanticide (Ex 1)!

Till:
We have seen enough now to analyze Mr. Miller's dating of the Hyksos period in Egypt, so let's look at some inconsistencies that he didn't bother to explain. Let's notice first four main points that he included in his comments above: (1) The Israelites were enslaved for some 400 years. (2) The enslavement of the Israelites began when a Hyksos king came to power after Joseph's death. (3) The Hyksos period of domination ran from 1650 to 1542 BC. (4) The exodus, which ended the Israelite bondage, happened "around the 1400 BC mark." One doesn't have to be a mathematical wizard to see some improbabilities in Mr. Miller's Hyksos scenario. We have seen above that the exodus happened 480 years before Solomon began construction on the temple, so as Mr. Gray explained, this would date the exodus at about 1445 BC. If the Israelites "sojourned" in Egypt for 430 years (Ex. 12:40), this would date the descent of Jacob's family into Egypt--or at least the sale of Joseph into Egypt--at about 1875 BC, but if Hyksos kings ruled Egypt from 1650 to 1542 BC, then the Hyksos would not have been responsible for all 400 years of the Israelite bondage in Egypt but only for 108 years (1650-1542=108), which began 225 years after Joseph's entry into Egypt (1875-1650=225). Mr. Miller's position seems to be that Joseph entered Egypt, obtained the favor of a native Egyptian pharaoh, and brought his family into Egypt, where they received preferential treatment, until a Hyksos king, who "knew not Joseph" came to power and enslaved the Israelites who were, like the new king, also ethnically Semitic. However, if the Israelites were not enslaved until 1650 BC, that would mean that their first 225 years in Egypt were not years of abuse and mistreatment, but the very text that Mr. Miller quoted above (Gen. 15:13) said that Abraham's descendants would be "enslaved and mistreated" in a land not their own for 400 years. Mr. Miller's Hyksos scenario reduces that 400 years of mistreatment to just 175 (400-225=175). Furthermore, his scenario also requires one to believe that Joseph's rise to power and the preferential treatment that the Israelites enjoyed happened under an Egyptian king and then ceased when an ethnically related Hyksos king usurped power and enslaved his kindred Israelites. Mr. Miller's scenario would also require belief that the Hyksos period ended in 1542 (about 100 years before the exodus) when a native Egyptian became king came to power and continued an enslavement that had begun under the rule of a hated predecessor king of Hyksos origin.

Everything within this scenario would have been possible but not nearly as probable as the opinion quoted above from the introduction to John Gray's commentary on the book of Exodus. The Hebrews and the Hyksos were ethnically related, so it would have been more probable that the pharaoh whose dreams Joseph interpreted was a Hyksos king, and the king that "knew not Joseph" was a native Egyptian, who after coming to power vented some of his resentment of the Hyksos rulers by enslaving the Semitic group that had been favored by the Semitic Hyksos, who had finally been deposed and run out of the country.

Putting Joseph's rise to power under the Hyksos domination of Lower Egypt is certainly not a position that originated with me. I have already quoted John Gray's dating of the Hyksos control of Egypt, but there are many others who agree with his date. "Joseph, Egypt, and the Hyksos, an article on the website of The Freeman Institute, explained reasons why one should believe that Joseph's rise to power occurred under a Hyksos pharaoh.

In a word, it appears that the biblical, historical, and archaeological data are best served by theorizing that it was a Hyksos monarch before whom Joseph stood as an interpreter of dreams (Gen. 41:14-37) and who later ceded a choice parcel of land (Goshen) to Joseph's family (Gen. 47:6). According to such a theory, the "new king" of Exodus 1:8 would have been one of the native Egyptian monarchs of the New Kingdom who, as part of his Hyksos purge, resolutely refused to recognize the validity of the Goshen land grant. Discerning in the Israelites a multitude who might very well join with his Asiatic enemies in war, this new king moreover acted quickly to enslave the Israelites.

The above-mentioned theory also fits well with the historical profile attested in the book of Genesis. The patriarchs moved in and through Palestine for some 215 years (cf. Gen. 12:4; 21:5; 25:26; 47:9), seemingly with the greatest of ease, mobility and freedom. Yet, it is inconceivable that their movements should have gone unnoticed (e.g., Gen. 14:14). That bespeaks a political climate in Palestine that would have been free from any sort of national or international domination, which is truly characteristic of that period between 1850 and 1550 B.C. The theory might also humanly explain how Joseph, a non-Egyptian, was able to rise to a position of Grand Vizier in a foreign land--the court itself would not have been Egyptian, but Hyksos. It also might explain why there is no historical mention of Joseph (emphasis added).

There are implications in the biblical story of Joseph to support the theory that the pharaoh under whom he rose to power was non-Egyptian, because the biblical text states that Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard, who bought Joseph from the Ishmaelites, was "an Egyptian" (Gen. 39:1). One would certainly expect the captain of the king's guard in Egypt to be an Egyptian, but the Genesis writer seemed to go out of his way to identify Potiphar's nationality, because he said in the very next verse that Joseph prospered "in the house of his master the Egyptian." Why was so much emphasis put on Potiphar's nationality? Well, a sensible probability would be that the writer knew that the pharaoh at this time was not Egyptian, so he emphasized that Joseph's owner and the captain of the pharaoh's guard was an Egyptian. Having a Hyksos king at this time whose captain of the guard was Egyptian would be consistent with limited records that indicate the Hyksos were tolerant rulers, who treated ethnic Egyptians with respect and honored their religion and culture.

Mr. Miller claims that the persecution of the Israelites in Egypt began under Hykos kings, but the sources cited and quoted above show that some scholars think that the Hyksos were in control in Egypt when the Israelites first went there, and so they received preferential treatment from an ethnically related pharaoh. There is also a third view of the Hyksos period. Some think that the Israelites were themselves the Hyksos or at least a part of the Hyksos establishment. "Genesis 37-50 - The Story of Joseph," an article on the website of The Institute for Biblical and Scientific Studies, presented this position by dating the expulsion of the Hyksos with the time of the exodus.

It seems most likely that Joseph rose to power during the time of the Hyksos, or just before in the 12th Dynasty when many Asiatics came into Egypt. It also seems most likely that the Exodus from Egypt should be equated with the expulsion of the Hyksos. Not all the Hyksos were Israelites. It says in Exodus that a great mixed multitude came out of Egypt with Moses (Exodus 12:38).

Obviously, then, the Hyksos period is cloaked in too much obscurity to take a definitive position on the time that it spanned, as Mr. Miller did above. For the sake of argument, however, let's just assume that Mr. Miller's dating is right on target and that mistreatment of the Israelites by Hyksos of Semitic origin began in Egypt around 1650 BC. How would that justify killing all Canaanites some 250 years later? Mr. Miller is taking a position here that is parallel to the view he has expressed about Saul's massacre of the Amalekites. The Amalekites of Saul's generation had had nothing to do with an attack on the Israelites 400 years earlier, yet Mr. Miller apparently believes that killing Amalekites around 1080 BC for something their ancestors had done around 1440 BC was morally appropriate. I can only say again that I am glad that my standards of morality are higher than Mr. Miller's.

Miller:
It is probably around the end of the Sojourn that the 'sins of the Amorites reached a full measure'--international destruction, socially-destructive religious practices, cruel enslavement of an Israelite population that reached close to two million at the time(!), and systematic infanticide.

Till:
But if, as many scholars believe, the Semitic Hyksos rulers in Egypt favored the Israelites by making one of them a leading official and giving them a land grant in Goshen, and enslavement of the Israelites happened only after the Hyksos were expelled and power was assumed by a native Egyptian king, this would kick the props right out from under Mr. Miller's broad-brush attempt to justify widespread massacring of Canaanites around 1400 BC on the grounds that ethnically related ancestors of those Canaanites had mistreated Israelites in the past (as if people of one generation should be held responsible for what their ancestors of past generations may have done), for if the Hyksos in Egypt had actually given the Israelites preferential treatment, why wouldn't Mr. Miller's "logic" work in reverse and require him to say that if ethnically related ancestors of the Canaanites of 1400 BC had bestowed favors on the Israelites in Egypt, the Israelites of Joshua's time should have returned the favor and repaid in kind the Canaanites of 1400 BC? In other words, Mr. Miller cannot argue that harsh treatment of Israelites by ancestral Canaanites justified the massacre of 15th-century BC Canaanites without agreeing that favorable treatment of Israelites by ancestral Canaanites should have required 15th-century BC Israelites to return the favor and treat the Canaanites of their time with respect. The latter should have neutralized the former. If not, why not?

At any rate, the bottom line--to borrow a phrase from Mr. Miller's ally Robert Turkel--is that Mr. Miller claims that the Hyksos control of Egypt ended in 1552 BC, some hundred years before the exodus, so if his chronology is correct, the Hyksos--whom Mr. Miller strains to make "Amorites"--who mistreated the Israelites in Egypt would have been dead by the time of the Israelite invasion of Canaan, so Mr. Miller again seems to be saying that it is morally proper to kill people for offenses that were committed by their ancestors.

Mr. Miller's dating of the Hyksos period also nullifies his "systematic-infanticide" quibble. He claims that the new king in Egypt, who "knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:8) was a Hyksos who seized power in 1650 BC, which Mr. Miller fixed above as the beginning of the Hyksos period, but since, as just noted above, the Hyksos period, by Mr. Miller's dating, ended in 1552 BC, right at 100 years before the exodus, the pharaoh who ordered the "systematic infanticide" would not have been a Hyksos (Amorite?) but a native Egyptian king.

The Bible, properly interpreted, can lead to no other conclusion.

As already noted, the Israelites were enslaved when a new king "who knew not Joseph" assumed power (Ex. 1:8-14). Mr. Miller claims that this new king was a Hyksos.
Whoever he was, this new king ordered the midwives in Egypt to kill every male child born to the Hebrews (Ex. 1:15-22) in an apparent effort to stop the rapid reproducing of the Israelites.

The plan didn't work, of course. For one thing, it was an idiotic idea to begin with, because population growth could not have been controlled by killing males, since females are the sex that gives birth. The males born before pharaoh's edict could have easily impregnated hundreds or even thousands of Hebrew females exempted from pharaoh's command to kill Hebrew newborn, and the population growth would have continued. Killing the newborn females would have been the most effective way to control population growth. At any rate, this edict is evidently the "systematic infanticide" that Mr. Miller referred to above, but it happened in the lifetime of Moses, because Exodus 2, in a page taken right out of Akkadian mythology, tells the story of how the parents of Moses set him adrift in an ark of bulrushes to save him from being killed in accordance with pharaoh's edict. Moses, however, was 80 years old at the time of the exodus (Ex. 7:7), which Mr. Miller thinks didn't happen until "around 1400 (roughly)," and that would mean that Moses had been born around 1480 (roughly), which, according to Mr. Miller's own chronology presented above, would have been 62 years after the Hyksos period ended in 1542 BC. In other words, if the pharaoh who "knew not Joseph" issued a decree to kill all Hebrew males and if Moses was born while this decree was in effect, somewhere around 1480 BC, then this pharaoh could not have been the one who "knew not Joseph" and came to power in 1650 BC, some 170 years before Moses was born.

There are other holes in the chronology of Mr. Miller's Hyksos scenario, but I have opened enough of them to show that his attempt to justify the Canaanite massacres around 1400 BC by claiming that ethnically related Hyksos may have mistreated the Hebrews some 250 years earlier is too ridiculous to warrant serious consideration. Any morally sane person knows that there is nothing moral about killing people for something that was done by distant ancestors.

Miller:
And the Abrahamic principle--"I will curse them that curse you"--probably started kicking in here...

Till:
Probably? Yes, it is about as probable as all the other straws that Mr. Miller has tried to grab. His entire defense of the Yahwistic massacres is based on "probablies" that he could never establish as historical facts.

As I have repeatedly done, however, let's just assume that this "Abrahamic principle" did "kick in" by some divine decision made at that time (as Mr. Miller theorizes). If that were the case, then we would be right back at square one, where a deity was ordering the punishment of people for something that their ancestors had done, because the Canaanites at the time of the Israelite invasion had done nothing to "curse" the Israelites. How could Canaanites living in Canaan have "cursed" Israelites living hundreds of miles away in Egypt?

Miller:

The principle of "lex talionis"--"an eye for an eye"

This was a principle of law and justice that said that punishment must match/not exceed the crime--in kind (e.g. Deut 19.21). It was not unique to Israel; it shows up in the code of Hammurabi as well (P.197). It was strictly a legal motif for the legal system, and not necessarily to be the rule in personal matters or attitudes.

Till:
The inclusion of the eye-for-an-eye "principle" in the Code of Hammurabi, which was written at least three centuries before the god Yahweh presumably gave the "law of Moses" to the Israelites, would indicate that this principle was simply a custom that had developed into "law" in that region, unless, of course, Mr. Miller wants to accept the claim in the prologue of this Akkadian code that Marduk and other Babylonian gods called Hammurabi to "bring the rule of righteousness to the land." Otherwise, the eye-for-an-eye principle would be no more divine in its orgin than the part of the code that required the hands of a physican to be cut off if he made an incision that caused the death or blindness of the patient (p. 218) or the part that required a veterinary surgeon to pay one fourth the value of the animal if he performed an operation that killed it (p. 225). These were simply ancient laws that were adopted because of "felt needs" of the time, but they were no more divine in origin than that part of the "law of Moses" that required retribution if injury to a pregnant woman caused miscarriage (Ex. 21:22-24), a law that appealed to the lex talionis principle and also had its precursory counterpart in the code of Hammurabi (p. 209-214). Instead of stating, as the Bible does, that the man striking the woman would give "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," etc. if harm came to the woman, the Akkadian code allowed for the daughter of the offender to be put to death if the pregnant woman died from an inflicted injury, so this ancient "principle" that Mr. Miller is now appealing to was certainly barbaric in many respects. What would have been just about killing a daughter who probably wasn't even present when her father inflicted an injury on a pregnant woman that resulted in her death? When Mr. Miller argues, as he does below, that since ancestral Amorites had driven earlier ethnic groups from Canaan, it was morally proper to treat their descendants in kind by taking the land from them, he shows that he does indeed have a strange sense of morality, which is based in a belief that it is morally just to punishment people for offenses that they didn't commit.

What Mr. Miller is defending is also contrary to fundamental New Testament principles. Jesus taught that one should do to others what he would like for others to do to him (Matt. 7:12), but Mr. Miller is saying that one is entitled to treat others according to what they have done to others. Jesus also taught that if someone takes away one's coat, he should give him his cloak also (Matt. 5:40), but Mr. Miller is saying that if someone takes land from others, his land should be taken from him. Hence, Mr. Miller is trying to defend the Yahwistic massacres of the Canaanites by vacating very basic moral principles taught by the founder of his religion.

Miller:
How would that show up in the Amorite/Canaanite judgment?

They drove out cultures before them, in the early Amurru invasions; so they were driven out.

Till:
The so-called "early Ammuru invasions" had happened centuries before the Israelite entry into Canaan, so let's look at some parallels to see exactly what Mr. Miller is trying to justify. The land on which all homes in the United States now sit was once occupied by native Americans, some of whose descendants are presently making demands that this land be given to them. Those demands are both unrealistic and unfair, because the wrongs that were admittedly done to ancestral native Americans were perpetrated in most cases centuries ago by people no longer living, so why should the present owners of this land, who may themselves be unrelated to those who took it, be penalized for what early European settlers did to native Americans ancestors, who themselves had very likely driven away predecessor tribes in order to acquire the land they are now claiming should be theirs? Should we try to determine who the very first occupants of any given tract of land were and then look for descendants and let them have the land despite the investments in time, work, and money that the present owners may have put into making improvements on the land? Mr. Miller can go anywhere in the world he wants to, and when he gets there, whoever lives on the plot of land he stands on in all probability would not be direct descendants of the original occupants of that land, because the history of the world is a history of tribal migrations that resulted in one ethnic group displacing another group. That is just an unfortunate fact of history, which although unjustifiable by modern standards of morality, is nevertheless historical reality. I find it morally archaic for Mr. Miller to argue that the ancestors of the Amorites had driven away earlier occupants of Canaan, so it was fitting and proper to drive them out. According to this logic, Mr. Miller would have no basis to complain if someone should drive him away from his land and take possession of it.

Miller:

They caused whole cities to be abandoned; they were forced to abandon their cities in flight.

Till:
So do unto others as they have done unto others seems to be Mr. Miller's argument. Jesus probably wouldn't agree with him.

Miller:

They won their battles on military strength; they were defeated by a greater military strength--YHWH.

Till:
As I have pointed out several times now, Mr. Miller frequently engages in argumentation by asserting and question begging, and he is doing both here. He begged the question of whether the Hebrew god Yahweh exists and then asserted that this god fought for the Israelites as a "greater military strength." What he said, therefore, carries no more weight than the claim of king Mesha on the Moabite Stone that the god Chemosh led him to victory over the Israelites or the claim of king Assurnasirpal of Assyria that the gods Sin, Anu, and Adad had chosen him to be "a mighty one among the gods." Mr. Miller probably doesn't understand that just because he happens to believe in ancient superstitions is no indication that everyone else does too.

I must cynically add here something that I mentioned earlier: this "greater military strength" that fought for Israel was unable to defeat armies that had chariots of iron (Judges 1:19). So much for Yahweh's "greater military strength"!

Miller:

They destroyed urban centers; their urban centers were destroyed.

Till:
So once again Mr. Miller is arguing that it was morally right to do unto others as they had done unto others. I wonder if Mr. Miller entertains the same longings as Christian Reconstructionists, who want a return to the days of Old Testament morality when those who worshiped gods other than Yahweh were stoned to death (Deut. 13:6-10; Deut. 17:2-7), and an eye-for-an-eye was a way of life adhered to by all good Yahweh-fearing people.

Miller:

They were unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate (Num 21.21ff);

Till:
Mr. Miller has talked a great deal about how news of the Israelite coming had spread rapidly before them into Edom, Moab, nonexistent Philistia, and Canaan, so if he had been a Canaanite king living back then, I wonder if he would have tried to negotiate with an army that was totally destroying everyone in its path and leaving no one alive to breathe. I wonder too how he could have negotiated when the god Yahweh--that "greater military strength" mentioned earlier--was "harden[ing] the hearts" of those kings "to come against Israel in battle" so that Yahweh might totally destroy them (Josh. 11:20). How could Mr. Miller have negotiated when a "greater military strength" like Yahweh was controlling his actions and leaving him no freedom to choose?

Miller:
God did not allow Israel to negotiate with them (except the Gibeonite deception in Joshua 9--against His will).

Till:
Curious, isn't it? Mr. Miller called the Canaanites "unreasonable" for not negotiating with the Israelites and then immediately went on to say that "God" didn't allow Israel to negotiate with them [Canaanites], so I guess to Mr. Miller the Canaanites were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

Miller:

The old adage "you reap what you sow" was certainly true in this case...

Till:
Mr. Miller has yet to prove that what the Canaanites "sowed" was any worse from a moral point of view than what was being sown by other ethnic groups of that time. The Israelites, for example, destroyed totally their enemies and left none of them alive to breathe. How could the Canaanites have "sown" anything worse than that?

That aside, the "old adage" that Mr. Miller appealed to is patently contrary to reality. People do not necessarily "reap" what they "sow." Has Mr. Miller ever bothered to look around him? How many good people experience tragedy, and how many morally corrupt people enjoy lives that are relatively free of adversity and hardship? Even Mr. Miller's own "inspired, inerrant word of God" disagreed in places with the apostle Paul's warning that a man will reap what he sows (Gal. 6:7).

Ecclesiastes 9:11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. ¹² Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Anyone whose understanding has not been blinded by allegiance to religious idealism knows the truth that the writer of Ecclesiastes stated here. We live in an indifferent universe, in which there is no indication at all that a benevolent deity is "up there" somewhere pulling strings; consequently, adversity and misfortune often befall good people, and luck and good fortune happen to the scum of the earth. It's a pity that those who have put their hope in ancient superstitions can't see what the writer of Ecclesiastes expressed above and elsewhere in his book of wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 9:1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. ² All share a common destiny--the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. ³ This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. ⁴ Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! ⁵ For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. ⁶ Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun. ⁷ Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. ⁸ Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. ⁹ Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun--all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 8:14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 7:15 In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

Mr. Miller thinks that people will reap what they sow, so he has apparently not opened his eyes and looked at the reality around him as the writer of Ecclesiastes obviously did. His wisdom continued.

Ecclesiastes 6:1 I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: ² God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. ¹⁹ Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. ²⁰ All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. ²¹ Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" ²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Ecclesiastes 2:14 The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. ¹⁵ Then I thought in my heart, "The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?" I said in my heart, "This too is meaningless." ¹⁶ For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die! ¹⁷ So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Time and chance are the most likely explanations for why nations rise and fall. Circumstances favorable to the Amorites gave them success when they overran the land of Canaan. There were no gods pulling strings for them. If the Israelites took control of Canaan as claimed in the book of Joshua--and many scholars doubt that they did--they succeeded because of time and chance. With rare exceptions that are explainable by superior military strategy, "God" is on the side that that has the largest army or the most military strength, so Mr. Miller's claims about a god named Yahweh, who gave victory to the Israelites and made the Amorites "reap" what they had "sown," may appeal to the gullibly superstitious, but they will not sway those who can look at life realistically as the writer of Ecclesiastes did.

Miller:
God is not unfair, partial,

Till:
Then why did he select the Israelites from "all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession" (Deut. 7:6)? Is that Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality? If "God" is "not unfair, partial," why did he exempt David and Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12:13) from that provision of the law that required death for committing adultery (Lev. 20:10)? Is exempting a king and his paramour from punishment prescribed by law that is extracted of those of lesser social stature Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality? A son was born as a result of David's and Bathsheba's adulterous relationship, but although David and Bathsheba were exempted from the law that required death for adultery, Yahweh killed their infant son (2 Sam. 12:14-19), who could not by any logical standard of morality have been considered responsible for the "sin" of his parents. Is that Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality?

Why did Yahweh declare, after David had "sought his face," that seven descendants of Saul had to be put to death for something that Saul had done (2 Sam. 21:1-9)? Is this Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality? In the matter of killing Saul's descendants for something that Saul had done, the life of Jonathan's son Mephibosheth was spared on this occasion because of an oath of friendship that Jonathan and David had made (2 Sam. 21:7). Is that Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality?

Miller:
and does not hold double standards of ethics.

Till:
We will see below that Mr. Miller's god Yahweh did have "double standards of ethics" or else the Bible is not inerrant.

Miller:
We saw above that Israel was warned explicitly not to become like the Canaanites; they did, and suffered the same fate--deportation.

Till:
But, as we have repeatedly seen, the Canaanites didn't suffer "deportation." Their fate was extermination or else the Bible is not inerrant.

Deuteronomy 7:1 When Yahweh your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you--² and when Yahweh your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

Deuteronomy 20:16 However, in the cities of the nations Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. ¹⁷ Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as Yahweh your God has commanded you.

Joshua 10:40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as Yahweh, the God of Israel, had commanded.

Joshua 11:10 At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword. (Hazor had been the head of all these kingdoms.) ¹¹ Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself. ¹² Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded.

Joshua 11:14 The Israelites carried off for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities, but all the people they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed. ¹⁵ As Yahweh commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that Yahweh commanded Moses.

Joshua 11:20 For it was Yahweh himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as Yahweh had commanded Moses. ²¹ At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns.

What part of destroy totally, leave no one alive to breathe, and exterminate without mercy does Mr. Miller not understand? I have quoted and quoted and quoted these passages, which clearly say that the god Yahweh ordered the Israelites to destroy totally the Canaanites, but Mr. Miller has yet to show us texts that say that Yahweh just wanted the Israelites to "deport" the Canaanites. He has cited or quoted texts that spoke of "driving out" or "casting out" or "subduing" or "defeating" the Canaanites, but in every case I showed that the broader contexts of these statements clearly show that those expressions were being used synonymously with destroy or leave no one alive to breathe. For the sake of argument, let's just suppose that Mr. Miller could find a text that said, "You shall force the Canaanites to migrate to other lands." He can't find such a text, but let's just suppose that he could. All he would accomplish is to show that the Bible is not inerrant, because there would be no way to harmonize that text with the ones that ordered the total destruction of the Canaanites.

You must totally destroy the seven nations in Canaan, show them no mercy, and leave none of them alive to breathe.

You must force the seven nations in Canaan to leave the land and migrate to other countries.

If the Israelites had done the latter, they could not have obeyed the former, and if they had done the former, there would have been no Canaanites to force into other countries.

Miller:
Not only this, but at the very second battle in the land--that of AI in Joshua 7--an Israelite kept some of the forbidden sacred images and God judged him, his family, and the entire nation for this breach of covenant--

Till:
Sacred images? Images were forbidden by the law of Moses, so I think that Mr. Miller meant booty that was devoted to Yahweh. Anyway, we have already looked at this incident, which Keil and Delitzsch cited as an example of how the ancient custom of cherem was practiced. According to this story, Achan had kept for himself a Babylonian mantle and some silver and gold, which he had found during the sacking of Jericho (Josh. 7:20-21), so Achan, his sons, his daughters, and all his livestock were stoned to death and burned with fire (vs. 24-26). If Mr. Miller was hoping to prove that his god Yahweh isn't "unfair and impartial," he could hardly have selected a worse example to make his case, because, as this story was told, no one in Achan's family besides him had had anything to do with keeping some of the booty from the battle of Jericho, but his sons and daughters were killed anyway. Certainly none of his livestock had participated in keeping the "devoted" objects, but they were killed too. Is this Mr. Miller's idea of fairness?

I mentioned above the case of Yahweh's double standard in the matter of David's and Bathsheba's adulterous relationship. The law, as noted earlier, required the death penalty for this offense, but it was not carried out here. The entire story of David and Bathsheba includes several events that would be considered immoral by our standards of morality. Voyeurism started the whole chain of events. From the roof of his palace, David saw Bathsheba bathing (2 Sam. 11:2). David inquired about the woman's identify, learned that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a soldier fighting in his army, and then sent messengers to bring her to him (vs. 3-4). This began an adulterous relationship, which resulted in Bathsheba's pregnancy (vs. 4-5). When David learned of the pregnancy, he had Bathsheba's husband brought home for the obvious purpose of having him spend time with Bathsheba so that he would think that he was the father of her child (vs. 6-8). When the conscience of Bathsheba's husband wouldn't allow him to dally with his wife while the men in his unit were fighting in war (vs. 9-12), David sent him back to the battle front with a letter ordering his general to put him in a place where furious fighting was occurring and then to withdraw the other soldiers so that he would be killed (vs. 14-15). This planned retreat resulted in the death of Bathsheba's husband (vs. 16-17), but it also caused other men in his unit to be killed too (vs. 18-24). Upon receiving this report, David sent back to his general a message that said that he should not let the matter "displease" him, because "the sword devours one as well as another" (vs. 25). When the period of Bathsheba's mourning was over, David sent for her and added her to his harem (vs. 26-27).

David did all of this, and his god Yahweh disregarded the laws that required the death penalty for his offenses, yet Achan and his family, were killed for a comparatively minor offense, which had caused no personal harm to anyone. This is Mr. Miller's idea of fairness and impartiality?

Miller:
just like He was judging the Canaanites... no double standard here/then, or later in the Northern and Southern kingdoms.

Till:
Keep in mind that Mr. Miller is claiming that Yahweh didn't really want the Israelites to kill the Canaanites, that all that he ordered was their "deportation," and so he treated them fairly and impartially, because he also "deported" the Israelites later when they engaged in some of the same practices, but as I have repeatedly shown, Yahweh didn't order the deportation of the Canaanites. He clearly and unequivocally ordered their total destruction, so before Mr. Miller can expect us to buy his claim that Yahweh treated the Israelites exactly as he had treated the Canaanites, he will have to show us where Yahweh commanded that the Israelites be totally destroyed and that none of them be left alive to breathe. Needless to say, he can't do that.

Before I leave Mr. Miller's claim that Yahweh had no "double standard here, then, or later," I will ask readers to keep in mind that according to the Old Testament, the god Yahweh routinely appeared to and visited with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, etc. If this god of Mr. Miller was indeed "fair and impartial," he would have done the same to all other people. In other words, if Yahweh had appeared to Sihon, Og, Jabin, and other Canaanite/Amorite kings and leaders to tell them that his plan was for their land to be possessed by the Israelites, and so the Canaanites would have to move on to other places, perhaps they would have complied, and all of the bloodshed described in the book of Joshua could have been avoided. Likewise, if Yahweh had gone before the Canaanites/Amorites in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21-22; Ex. 14:19-20) and routinely dropped into their temples to chat with them (Ex. 33:9-11; Num. 12:5-8) to let them know what he had in mind for the land of Canaan, maybe they would have "migrated" as Mr. Miller claims was Yahweh's plan for them all along. If Yahweh had fairly and impartially revealed himself to them, as he routinely did to the Israelites, I doubt that the Canaanites would have treated Yahweh as disrespectfully as the Israelites did, who constantly bellyached and complained even though Yahweh was traveling right in their midst. Mr. Miller's only hope of convincing anyone that the god Yahweh was "fair and impartial" is that those who read his article will be too biblically ignorant to know better than to believe something that is so obviously contrary to what the Bible says.

Miller:

Individual actions always affect the fortunes of others--for good or ill.

Till:
That is certainly true, but this is because we live in an indifferent universe. If someone drinks and drives, others will likely suffer unfortunate consequences if he has a wreck due to his impairment. I could give many examples to illustrate the truth of Mr. Miller's statement above, but I will let just one more suffice. If a president who dodged combat when he was military age manufactures reasons to start a war, young men and women who have no control over their lives will die in military ventures much in the same way that Uriah the Hittite died in David's plan to get rid of Bathsheba's husband, while the president who sent them to their death continues to enjoy life and the trappings that go with his position of authority. Untold millions of people have suffered tragedies and misfortunes caused by the actions of others, but if there really were a loving, caring, benevolent deity "up there" somewhere looking over us, such would not happen.

Miller:
The nature of historical community and "cause/effect" is such that the actions of one member of a group always affects the others.

Till:
True--absolutely true--so what is Mr. Miller's point? Well, let's look at how he strains below to find in this unfortunate fact of life a far-fetched justification of Yahweh's alleged command to destroy totally the Canaanites.

Miller:
The decisions of a parent have consequences for a child--for good or ill. The decisions of a civic leader have consequences for the citizens--for good or ill. The decisions of an army commander have consequences for his soldiers--for good or ill.

Till:
Absolutely! David's orders to his front-line general had fatal consequences for Bathsheba's husband and the other soldiers who died with him, just as the decision of the U. S. "president" to take our country to war in Iraq, without sufficient reasons to justify it, has caused the deaths of over two thousand American soldiers, the permanent crippling, of some 17,000 others, and the deaths of an estimated 70,000 Iraqi civilians.

How does the unfortunate fact that innocent people suffer from the decisions of others justify the commands of a presumably omnibenevolent deity to destroy totally seven non-Hebraic nations? If this deity were also omniscient and omnipotent, as most believers in him claim, he could have easily devised a plan for the liberation of the Israelites that would not have necessitated taking land that was already occupied by other nations. If not, why not?

Miller:
This 'system' was set up for good--that we might bless the lives and fortunes of others--but anything good can be twisted into something destructive.

Till:
Why would an omnibenevolent deity "set up" a "system" that is inherently unjust and unfair? Let's suppose that a fundamentally good person, who lives his life in accordance with the conventions of recognized morality, contracts a disease while he is traveling abroad and that upon his return this disease is unknowingly and unintentionally transmitted to others, who all die. Why would this constitute twisting a "system" that was set up for good into "something destructive"? If any blame is to be affixed, why shouldn't it be put onto the benevolent deity who created the organisms that cause diseases?

Miller:
In the case of parents who had the good sense to migrate, the children benefited.

Till:
I will challenge Mr. Miller again to show us evidence, either biblical or extrabiblical, that would prove that any of the Canaanites migrated. For some time now, Mr. Miller has been begging the question that Yahweh just wanted the Canaanites to "migrate" to other lands and that some of them "had the good sense" to do that, but he has yet to present any evidence that would corroborate this claim. He hasn't cited a single case of a Canaanite family that escaped destruction by migrating to another land.

I will repeat my question. If Yahweh had really intended only the "migration" of the Canaanites to other lands, then why did he tell the Israelites to destroy them totally and to leave none of them alive to breathe?

Miller:
In the case of those parents who chose to stay and fight, their children died too. In the case of city members who decided to act independently of what their 'civic leaders' recommended(!), sanity saved lives. In the case of those who simply 'followed the leaders' instead of the information about YHWH and the Israelites, lives were lost.

Till:
So did everybody get that? You see, it was all the fault of the Canaanites. They didn't immediately abandon their fields, vineyards, wells, and homes and high tail it to other countries, so they had only themselves to blame when they and their children were killed.

Mr. Miller spoke above of "city members who decided to act independently of what their 'civic leaders' recommended" and thereby saved their lives. He has cited the example of Rahab the harlot, but I will show below that she cannot be claimed as an example of a parent who "had the good sense to migrate" to another land. I defy Mr. Miller to cite a single verifiable example of any "city members" who saved their lives by packing up and leaving for other lands when the Israelite invasion came. I know of one example of a Canaanite collaborator, whose family was spared when the Israelites destroyed Bethel, but, as I will show later, this family, like the family of Rahab at Jericho, was spared because of his collaboration with the Israelites. Mr. Miller needs to show us examples of Canaanites, who saved their lives by leaving Canaan in advance of the Israelite invasion, and I don't think he will be able to do that.

Miller:
The case of Rahab the prostitute is instructive. She 'rebelled' against the civic authority and saved her life and the lives of those who came into her household (Josh 6.23). The decision of one worked for the good of others--how the system is supposed to work.

Till:
Rahab and her family didn't save their lives by "migrating" to another land. They were spared because Rahab had helped the spies whom Joshua had sent into the city. As this tale was spun, after the battle was over, Rahab lived among the Israelites (Josh. 6:25) and allegedly became the mother of Boaz, the great-grandfather of David (Matt. 1:5). Hence, Rahab saved herself and her family in the same way that many have done when their countries were being overrun by foreign invasion: she collaborated with the enemy.

Rahab was not the only Canaanite who collaborated with the Israelite enemies. Judges 1:22-26 tells the story of the collaborator whom I mentioned above. When Israelite spies went to Bethel, they met a man coming out of the city who agreed to show them a way into the city in exchange for a promise to spare his family. After the city had been destroyed, this man and his family were allowed to leave and go into the land of the Hittites, but he saved his family not by having the good sense to get out before the Israelites invaded but by collaborating with the enemy after the Israelites had arrived. There is a big difference. To corroborate his claim that there were Canaanite parents who had the good sense to "migrate" elsewhere before the Israelites attacked their cities, Mr. Miller needs to cite specific examples, but for some reason he hasn't done that. Could it be that he hasn't cited such examples, because there are none to cite?

Miller:
It is always difficult to deal with the complex relationships/ dependencies within the human family, and although we rarely complain about how 'unfair' it is for a child to be benefited by the integrity and resources of a good parent, we often complain about how 'unfair' it is for a child to be disadvantaged by abuse or poverty of a parent. The two go together--for good or ill.

Till:
I assume that Mr. Miller is claiming here that Canaanite children benefited from the decisions of "good" parents who had the sense to "migrate" elsewhere in advance of the Israelite invasion. If so, he is still arguing by assertion. I assume that he thinks that if he says this enough, some will believe that it actually happened. I, however, intend to keep pressing him for evidence that any such Canaanite migration happened. Where does the Bible say anything about Canaanite families who escaped destruction by pulling up stakes and going to other countries? What extrabiblical evidence does he have to confirm that a mass migration of Canaanites occurred to escape the Israelite invasion? In the absence of any such evidence, Mr. Miller is simply arguing by assertion.

Miller:
You cannot even have a parent-child relationship without a significant level of real and meaningful (and therefore, potentially really damaging) dependencies. It is simply inconceivable.

Till:
I'm not sure that I even understand what Mr. Miller is trying to say here, but considering the context in which he said it, I assume that he is still begging the question of a Canaanite migration to other lands and assuming from that assumption that Canaanite parents who didn't join the migration were responsible for any children who were killed, so I will say only what I have said and said and said and said earlier: where is the evidence that any such Canaanite migration happened?Miller:
And, frankly, the alternative to 'dying swiftly with your parents' is not "obviously better"--its a close call.

Till:
So once again Mr. Miller seems to be trying to justify the massacring of children on the grounds that they died "swiftly." I know of no biblical passages that so claim, and even if the Bible did claim that children were always killed "swiftly" in the Canaanite massacres, so what? There are many ways that children could be killed swiftly, but killing a child swiftly would not make it a moral thing to do.

I will say again that I am glad that my standard of morality is higher than Mr. Miller's.

Miller;
In this case, let's suppose the children under fighting age (around 12) were spared but all the adults and livestock killed, and the homes and foodstock taken.

Till:
Mr. Miller again shows just how superficial his knowledge of the Bible is. Fighting age in biblical times was 20 (Num. 1:2-3,20,22,26,28,30,32,34, 36,38).

Miller:
With an average age of six, homeless, without shelter, in shock, without food, without nurture, in grief, in terror, without protection from the wild animals, without protection from marauding bands of slave-traders, without protection from each other, without any adult guidance--how long could they last in the wild?

Till:
In this section of Part One, I replied in detail to this same rationalization, which Mr. Miller introduced early in his article to try to make Yahweh's command to kill children seem morally right, so I don't need to rehash those same rebuttals here. I will quote here one paragraph from that section in which I showed that Mr. Miller's argument that killing the children was a humane thing to do is inconsistent with his belief that an omniscient, omnipotent deity was directing all of these events.

This kind of quibbling ignores completely a fundamental principle of the nature of "God" as he was presented in an allegedly inerrant Bible. He was presumably omniscient and omnipotent, and if that is so, there would have been nothing that Yahweh did not know and nothing logically possible that he could not have done. Such a deity, then, could easily solve the problem of how to keep children alive and simultaneously protected from starvation, exposure, disease, and wild animals. Hence, what Mr. Miller is, in effect, arguing is that it would have been impossible for a deity who could speak the universe into existence, part the Red Sea, stop the mouths of lions, enable men to walk through a fiery furnance unharmed, resurrect the dead, etc., etc., etc. to find a way to keep orphaned children alive, and so he had to kill them. This is the kind of extreme that biblical inerrantists have resorted to when they had no logical arguments on their side. I regret to see that Mr. Miller has followed in their steps.

Keep all this in mind when I show immediately below that Mr. Miller's claim that the Israelites wouldn't have had the "resources" to care for Canaanite children if they had spared their lives is just another baseless rationalization of repugnant barbarism. What he is arguing is that an omniscient, omnipotent deity was powerless to do anything to save the lives of children, and so he had them killed "swiftly." That is the kind of desperation that one has to resort to when he undertakes to defend the inerrancy of the Bible.

Miller:
The Israelites had no resources to care for them, or to route them to other nations around there.

Till:
Mr. Miller believes that an omniscient, omnipotent deity was directing the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan and intervening whenever necessary to provide them with manna from heaven (Ex. 16:14-35), water from rocks (Ex. 17:1-7; Num. 20:10-12), and meat from huge coveys of quails (Num. 11:31-35), but for some reason, he thinks that even with this omniscient, omnipotent deity traveling with them and intervening on their behalf, the Israelites just didn't have the "resources" to care for Canaanite children, and so they killed them all—swiftly, of course.

Perhaps Mr. Miller can explain how the Israelites, before they had even entered Canaan, had had the "resources" to care for the 32,000 Midianite virgins whom the Israelite soldiers had kept alive for themselves after the invasion of Midian.

Numbers 31:1 Yahweh said to Moses, ² "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people." ³ So Moses said to the people, "Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the Lord's vengeance on them. ⁴ Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel." ⁵ So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. ⁶ Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. ⁷ They fought against Midian, as Yahweh commanded Moses, and killed every man.... ⁹ The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. ¹⁰ They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. ¹¹ They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, ¹² and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. ¹³ Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. ¹⁴ Moses was angry with the officers of the army--the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds--who returned from the battle. ¹⁵ "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. ¹⁶ "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from Yahweh in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck Yahweh's people. ¹⁷ Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸ but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

As I said above, this invasion of Midian had happened before the Israelites had crossed into Canaan, so the fact that they brought back so many captives would indicate that they didn't think that they lacked the "resources" to care for them, even though they were not yet settled into the land that Yahweh was presumably leading them to. That these captives would have numbered in the thousands can be determined by verse 35, which claimed that the virgin girls who were kept alive for the soldiers numbered 32,000. If there were that many virgin girls—however the Israelites were able to determine virginity—there were surely that many male children who were killed—humanely and "swiftly," of course—in compliance with Moses' instructions. The nonvirgin women were also killed, so if this story is historically accurate, we are talking about captives who would have numbered probably 90 or 100 thousand or more. Would the Israelites have brought that many captives back from Midian unless they had thought that they had the "resources" to care for them? Why wouldn't people who were getting manna from heaven and had taken 675,000 sheep, 72,000 oxen, and 61,000 donkeys (Num. 31:32-34) as spoils from their venture into Midian have thought that they could care for the captives they had brought back? In addition to these huge herds of Midianite livestock, the Israelites also had their "large droves of livestock" (Ex. 12:38), which they had had with them ever since leaving Egypt (Ex. 17:3; Num. 20:19; Num. 32:1), so meat for the diet of the captives should not have been a problem.

If the Israelites were not concerned about "resources" to care for captives taken while they were still trekking toward Canaan, why would they have not been able to assimilate captive Canaanite children into their population after they had entered the promised land? I have referred to manna, which Yahweh was sending down to them, and the passage that told of when this bounty from the omniscient, omnipotent one began said that it continued to be sent to the Israelites "until they came into the borders of the land of Canaan" (Ex. 16:35). Yahweh evidently thought, then, that once the Israelites were in Canaan--which he had described elsewhere as a "land flowing with milk and honey" (Ex. 3:8,17; Ex. 13:5; Ex. 33:3)--there would be adequate "resources" for them to have plenty of food without his intervention being necessary. Joshua 5:12, in fact, says that "the manna ceased on the morrow after [the Israelites] had eaten of the produce of the land" and that "they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year."

The description of Canaan as a land flowing with milk and honey was certainly not intended to be understood literally but to denote a bountiful land. One of the missions of the spies whom Moses sent into Canaan was to determine if the land was poor or fertile and to bring back samples of the fruit that grew there, so when the spies returned from Canaan, they brought back with them a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes that was so large that two had to carry it "on a pole between them" (Num. 13:23). This is exaggeration, of course, but there are biblical passages that described the fertility and abundance of Canaan in more believable terms.

Deuteronomy 6:10 When Yahweh your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, ¹¹ houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, ¹² be careful that you do not forget Yahweh, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Deuteronomy 28:8 Yahweh will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. Yahweh your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. ⁹ Yahweh will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of Yahweh your God and walk in his ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will fear you. ¹¹ Yahweh will grant you abundant prosperity--in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground--in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you. ¹² Yahweh will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.

These passages certainly sound as if Yahweh was promising the Israelites that they would have an abundance of "resources" in the land of Canaan. Mr. Miller may quibble that these promises were contingent upon the righteousness of the Israelites, but he is claiming that the Israelites had to kill Canaanite children (humanely and "swiftly," of course), because they lacked the "resources" to care for them, so he is saying that the Israelites would not have had the means to care for orphaned Canaanite children immediately after the total destruction of their parents, which would have been a time when the Israelites were allegedly respecting the will of their god Yahweh. Just before his death, Joshua elicited an oath from the Israelites that they would keep their covenant with Yahweh (Josh. 24:21), and the book of Joshua ends with a claim that the people respected that oath.

Joshua 24:31 Israel served Yahweh throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything Yahweh had done for Israel.

The land of Canaan was described as a bountiful land, which flowed with milk and honey, and Yahweh promised that if the Israelites did not forget him and violate his covenant, he would grant them prosperity and make their land bear in abundance, and the text just quoted claimed that the Israelites served Yahweh "throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him"; hence, if the Bible is inerrant, as Mr. Miller apparently believes, then during the conquest of Canaan, the Israelites should have had ample "resources" to care for Canaanite children who had been orphaned by the massacring of their parents. If not, why not?

Since Mr. Miller believes in biblical errancy, he needs to explain to us why the Israelites, after having crossed into a land of such fertility and abundance, would not have had the "resources" to care for Canaanite children if they had been left alive and adopted into Hebrew society.

There is no explanation, of course. Mr. Miller is simply straining to try to justify the morally unjustifiable. According to the Old Testament, Yahweh himself killed children and babies, as in the case of the Genesis flood, and ordered the Israelites to kill Canaanite children and babies, and the best that Mr. Miller can say in defense of this is, "Well, the children died 'swiftly,'" as if death by drowning and piercing with swords would have been swift, merciful deaths. Let's just assume for the sake of argument, that these were merciful deaths. Is Mr. Miller arguing that killing children and babies is morally acceptable as long as it is done "swiftly"?

Miller:
What kind of a slow-death would that be?

Till:
Well, I have shown that a people entering a land "flowing with milk and honey" under the guidance of an omniscient, omnipotent deity who could provide manna from heaven, bring forth water from rocks, and send quails to eat would not have condemned Canaanite orphans to "slow deaths" if they had spared them. They would have had ample "resources" to assimilate them into their society. This "slow death" is just something that Mr. Miller has manufactured as a desperate excuse for the Yahwistic barbarism depicted in the Old Testament.

Miller:
Of course, this 'alternative' scenario is only a theoretical exercise,

Till:
I am happy to see that Mr. Miller has the integrity to admit that his "alternative scenario" is entirely theoretical. His scenario is apparently too far-fetched even for him to accept.

Miller:
and only meant to show that the issue is very, very complex as to 'what is best'. [sic]

Till:
What was so complex about it? The Israelites were presumably the "chosen people" of the creator of the universe, who could send down manna from heaven, bring forth water from rocks, and send quails to provide his chosen ones with meat. Why couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who knows everything and can do anything logically possible, have freed the Israelites from bondage and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey without shedding a single drop of blood? If Mr. Miller thinks that such was not possible, he will be arguing that his god Yahweh was not omniscient and omnipotent.

If he would care to hear it, I would be glad to tell him how an omniscient, omnipotent deity could have achieved a bloodless liberation and resettlement of the Israelites.

By the way, if Robert Turkel reads this, he should keep in mind that saying that Till's problem is that "God" didn't kiss his patoot would be begging the questions of (1) "God's" existence and (2) divine involvement in the liberation and resettlement of the Israelites, as well as evading the obvious fact that if an omniscient, omnipotent deity really had been overseeing the exodus and resettlement of the Israelites, he could have easily done both without resorting to killing.

Miller:
God chose a different path in most of history.

Till:
He did? How does Mr. Miller know that? We have reached a point in his article where he can hardly write a sentence without resorting to question begging, asserting, and special pleading. I would love to see him prove that this entity he calls "God" had anything to do with the exodus and resettlement of the Israelites (assuming that either one actually happened).

Miller:
The power of parents--for good or ill--is consistently maintained, and always displayed before the eyes of us who are parents. We must take this responsibility seriously--there are real consequences and no 'magic escapes' for those whose lives we touch--family, friends, followers.

Till:
So, you see, it was all the fault of the Canaanite parents for not pulling up stakes, abandoning the homes they had built, the fields and vineyards they had planted and maintained, and high tailing it out of the country on the claim that some god named Yahweh wanted the invading Israelites to have their land. I have repeatedly noted that this god Yahweh routinely appeared to Hebrew leaders like Moses and Joshua to tell them about all the great things he was going to do for them, but the omniscient one was appearing to the wrong people. If he had dropped in on Canaanite leaders to tell them of his plan to give their land to Israelites, maybe the Canaanites would then have left the land, but he didn't do that. Instead, he "fought" for the Israelites (Josh. 10:42) as they were totally destroying the Canaanites, and he hardened the hearts of the Canaanite kings so that he could totally destroy them (Josh. 11:20). This is what Mr. Miller is trying to defend, and apparently the best excuse that he can offer in "justification" of an ancient superstitious belief that a god chose an insignificant ethnic group in the ancient Near East to be his "chosen people" and then led them in wars to exterminate all other ethnic groups is that those darned, stubborn Canaanites just wouldn't abandon their homes and land and go somewhere else.

Miller:
Now, let's restate our opening questions and try to summarize the above material in response...

Did God actually command Israel to do this, or did they just invent this divine sanction to justify territorial greed or genocidal tendencies?

Till:
Well, of course, only someone gullibly naive would believe that a god named Yahweh routinely appeared to biblical characters like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Joshua and led the last two in military ventures intended to take the land of Canaan away from its inhabitants. That any of this really happened is no more credible than king Mesha's claim inscribed on the Moabite Stone that a god named Chemosh communicated personally with him and led him to victory over the Israelites, or the claim of king Assurnasirpal of Assyria that the gods had chosen him to be a "mighty one among the gods," or the claim of king Hammurabi of Babylon that the gods had chosen him "to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land" and "to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers." These were only superstitious beliefs that reasonable people in more enlightened times no longer believe, but, unfortunately, many people like Mr. Miller cling to a belief that the god Yahweh was somehow different from all of his contemporary gods and that he is the "real thing." Those who so believe lack the courage to look reality in the face and accept it as it is.

Miller:
We really didn't go into this side of the question, but we have enough clues in the above data to take a stab at this:

Till:
Mr. Miller may not have gone into this side of the question, but I did. If he has any kind of credible evidence that his god Yahweh was the "real thing," let him present it. I would love to see him try to prove that even though the gods Adapa, Bast, Anshar, Bel, Marduk, Dagon, Anu, Sin, Baal, Adad, Enlil, Enki, Ea, Ishtar, Merodach, Moloch, Nabu, Tammuz, and so on ad infinitum were not real, the god Yahweh of all of the hundreds of deities worshiped back then was a real, rootin' tootin' god. Having once got caught up in the same religion, I can understand how Mr. Miller came to believe in this god Yahweh, but I can't understand how a person of his age has not yet outgrown such nonsense.

Miller:
Israel didn't really want to do this at all,

Till:
This is more argumentation by assertion, so I assume that everyone noticed that Mr. Miller didn't offer a shred of evidence, either biblical or extrabiblical, to support his claim that the Israelites really didn't want to "do this." All I can say is to ask Mr. Miller why the Israelites did massacre Canaanites--as the Bible claims they did--if they didn't "really want to do this at all."

Miller:
so why would they make it up?! [sic]

Till:
Mr. Miller may as well have asked why king Mesha of Moab claimed that the god Chemosh communed personally with him or why king Hammurabi claimed that the gods had chosen him to "bring the rule of righteousness to the land" and "to destroy evil-doers." It wasn't that they just made all this stuff up. They were products of their time when people seriously believed that gods were active in every piddling event in their lives. They were conditioned by the culture in which they grew up to believe this, just as Mr. Miller was conditioned by his culture to believe that a god impregnated a virgin, who gave birth to a son, who went about performing all kinds of amazing deeds, such as walking on water, calming storms, healing the blind and the lame, resurrecting the dead, and then eventually being raised from the dead himself. Mr. Miller didn't make all this up. It evolved over time long before he was born, and he just had it instilled into him. In the same way, the Hebrews were conditioned over time to believe that they were the specially chosen people of the god Yahweh and that they had been led by him out of Egypt and into Canaan. As years passed, these traditions were no doubt embellished and then eventually written down as "history" of a glorious past. Probably no one involved in this embellishment process thought that they were "making up" any of it. They no doubt believed that it had all happened.

I have mentioned the inscription attributed to the Assyrian king Assurnasirpal, which was engraved on pavement stones of a temple of Urta at Nimrud. Although the link above will take readers directly to it, I am going to quote it here to show that this king believed that the gods wanted him to massacre his enemies brutally.

At that time, I received tribute of the land of Isala--cattle, flocks, and wine. To the mountain of Kashirari I crossed, to Kinabu, the fortified city of Hulai I drew near. With the masses of my troops and by my furious battle onset I stormed, I captured the city; 600 of their warriors I put to the sword; 3,000 captives I burned with fire; I did not leave a single one among them alive to serve as hostage. Hulai, their governor, I captured alive. Their corpses I formed into pillars; their young men and maidens I burned in the fire. Hulai, their governor, I flayed, his skin I spread upon the wall of the city of Damdamusa; the city I destroyed, I devastated with fire.

And now at the command of the great gods my sovereignty, my dominion, my power, are manifesting themselves; I am regal, I am lordly, I am exalted, I am mighty, I am honored, I am glorified, I am preeminent, I am powerful, I am valiant, I am lion-brave, and I am heroic! Assur-Nasir-Pal, the mighty king, the king of Assyria, chosen of Sin, favorite of Anu, beloved of Adad, mighty one among the gods, I am the merciless weapon that strikes down the land of his enemies... (Crane Brinton, A History of Western Morals, Harcourt, Brace, & Co., p. 48).

I seriously doubt that Assurnasirpal was just making all this up. He no doubt believed that he had been chosen by the gods, who he claimed had led him to the victories described in his inscription. Mr. Miller cannot sweep the Yahwistic massacres in the Old Testament under the rug by saying, "Well, Yahweh didn't really want to massacre the Canaanites; he just wanted them to 'migrate' to other lands, and the Israelites really didn't want to kill any of the Canaanites." This spin on the problem of the Yahwistic massacres is patently inconsistent with what the Bible says in the many passages, already quoted several times, where Yahweh allegedly ordered the Israelites to destroy totally the Canaanites and to leave none of them alive to breathe. Mr. Miller has not cited or quoted a single passage from the Old Testament that said that Yahweh told the Israelites that they were to force the Canaanites to "migrate" to other lands. Even if he could find such a text, he would then have the problem of explaining why the Bible said in some places to destroy totally the Canaanites and to leave none of them alive to breathe but said in another place that the Israelites were to force the Canaanites to migrate to other lands.

Miller:
The post-Exodus Israel was a 1 (e.g. Num 11.1; Ex 16.2-3), grumbling (e.g. Ex 15.24; 17.3), bunch of folks who wanted to go back to Egypt (Num 14.1-3)! They were constantly afraid of the inhabitants of the Land (e.g. Num 14; Deut 7.19).

Till:
I couldn't have said it better myself. Yahweh protected the Israelites from the plagues that he sent upon the Egyptians (Ex. 9:4-7,26; Ex. 10:23), he saved them from the Egyptian army by parting the Red Sea so that they could cross on dry land (Ex. 14:21-31), he traveled before them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21-22; 14:19-20; 33:9-10), he gave them manna from heaven during all of their wilderness years (Ex. 16:35), he brought forth water from rocks as they needed it (Ex. 1-7; Num. 20:8-13), he sent them incredibly large coveys of quails when they wanted meat (Num. 11:31-32), etc., etc. etc., but despite these almost daily manifestations of Yahweh's presence among them and the power he used on their behalf, the Israelites, just as Mr. Miller noted above, constantly whined and grumbled and complained. Whenever they did, Yahweh usually sent a plague among them to kill off a few thousand (Num. 11:33-34; 14:37; 16:46-50; 25:9). As the wilderness tales were spun, the people would murmur, complain, and rebel against Moses, even though they had tangible evidence that Yahweh was traveling in their midst, and Yahweh would send a plague or open the earth to swallow the rebellious (Num. 16:31-33), yet the people would continue to grumble and complain. As I argued in "How Likely Is It?" no rational person could believe that the Israelites would have bellyached and complained as the wilderness tales claim they did if they really had had an omniscient, omnipotent deity right in their midst each day working amazing miracles on their behalf and sending plagues to punish those who murmured and complained. Those aspects of the wilderness tales are clear evidence to reasonable people that at least many of those stories are fiction. Mr. Miller and his admirers will pooh-pooh the mere suggestion of this, but I am addressing these comments to "reasonable people" and not to those who think that an omniscient, omnipotent deity from whom all standards of objective morality emanate actually ordered the massive slaughtering of people who had land that the Israelites wanted.

Miller:
They never even finished the job (Judges 1.1-3.5).

Till:
Well, why would have finished the job? Mr. Miller claims that they "really didn't want to do this at all."

Miller:
And besides... what good would a forged passage or two in their sacred literature be?!

Till:
Well, there are more than one or two "forged passages" in the "sacred literature" of the Israelites. If Mr. Miller would care to dispute that, I will make this website available for a debate on the issue.

Miller:
It wouldn't be useful to 'appeal to' in disputes over land.

Till:
Well, the descendants of Israelites are still appealing to "forged passages" in their "sacred literature" as they continue to believe that "Moses" sat down and wrote the entire Pentateuch during the wilderness years to tell the story of how a god named Yahweh had chosen the Israelites to be his special people, above all other nations on the earth (Deut. 7:6), and had given the land of Canaan to them and their descendants forever. The book of Deuteronomy, for example, is an exilic/postexilic work, yet both Jews and Christians quote it as if it were an authentic work written by a guy named Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan. I realize that these are assertions, but supporting them with textual evidence would require more space than I have already taken to reply to Mr. Miller's repetitious appeals to questionbable authority, so I will just say here that if Mr. Miller would care to debate the authenticity of the so-called Mosaic books of the Bible, I will make this website available to post the exchanges if he will agree to reciprocate on his website.

Miller:
It couldn't have been written centuries later and 'inserted' into the text to give some kind of legitimacy to Israel, because the land descriptions and details are too ancient/obscure to have even be [sic] known/made up that later.

Till:
Here is another argument by assertion for which Mr. Miller didn't give a shred of supporting evidence. He didn't give even one example of a description or detail that was "too ancient/obscure" to have been "inserted" into the biblical text later. I am at a complete loss to understand how "land descriptions and details" could be too "ancient/obscure" to have been inserted into a text written long after the events claimed in that text. Like his admirer Robert Turkel, Mr. Miller talks a great deal about "oral tradition" and its reliability, but now he seems to be claiming that "land descriptions and details" could not have been passed along by oral traditions for long periods and then written down later. Mr. Miller, then, seems to have an apologetic method similar to Turkel's, which is to say today what needs to be said in support of whatever doctrine du jour is being defended and not to worry if that is inconsistent with what has been said in the past or will be said in the future. At any rate, I cannot reply to an assertion that is so generalized, as this one is, that it states nothing specific. I certainly don't believe that "oral tradition" was as reliable as Turkel and Miller apparently do, but I see no reason at all why one could not think that a "land description" or "detail" could have been passed down for long periods, even centuries, and then later written down. Mr. Miller needs to explain why he thinks that some "land descriptions and details" were too "ancient/obscure" to have been written down "later."

Before I leave this point, I will say too that Mr. Miller's position here seems to ignore the widespread belief that the Pentateuch was put together centuries after the facts by a compiler or compliers who interwove different--and sometimes conflicting--accounts of the same written and/or oral traditions, but presenting arguments and evidence in support of this view of authorship would take too much space here, so I will wait to see if Mr. Miller has any interest in discussing that issue separately.

Miller:
No, the data all indicates [sic] that in spite of Israel, the land-grant orders were authentic and ancient.

Till
What data was Mr. Miller referring to here? Again, he didn't say. He just made his assertion and then hurried on. I, on the other hand, have quoted from ancient documents like the Moabite Stone, the Code of Hammurabi, and inscriptions on the pavement stones of the temple of Urta at Nimrud to show that belief that tribes and nations were chosen and favored by the gods was as common as dirt in biblical times, so Mr. Miller needs to show us logical reasons why we should think that all such ancient beliefs were erroneous except for the ancient Hebrew one.

Miller:
Why would God use a nation as questionable as the post-Exodus Israelites to deliver His "judgment" on the Canaanites?

Till:
Why would Mr. Miller assume that "God" used the postexodus Israelites to deliver his judgment on the Canaanites? As I just noted, belief that tribes and nations were chosen or favored by the gods was commonplace in biblical times, so Mr. Miller needs to give us some logical evidence that all ancient documents that expressed this belief were erroneous except for those that originated with the ancient Hebrews. Like so many other would-be biblical apologists, Mr. Miller can hardly write a sentence without resorting to the fallacies of argumentation by asserting, question begging, and special pleading.

Why should we believe that this entitity that Mr. Miller calls "God" really did "use" the ancient Israelites to "deliver his judgment on the Canaanites"? Proving that is Mr. Miller's mission should he agree to accept it.

Miller:
(Why not just use natural disasters, such as earthquakes [Num 16], volcanic-type phenomena [Gen 19], or plague [2 Kgs 19.35]?)

Till:
Mr. Miller is still resorting to question begging and special pleading. Just because the Bible claims in the passages just cited that these natural disasters were sent from "God" as punishment is no proof that they really were divine in their origin. Mr. Miller just can't seem to understand that the biblical documents originated in a time when people superstitiously believe that the gods were involved in every piddling event that happened, whether good or bad. If an event was fortuitous, they saw it as evidence that they were pleasing their gods. If an event was calamitious, they saw it as evidence that they had displeased their gods. If Mr. Miller doesn't know that these were almost universally believed concepts in biblical times, then he needs to do some research in ancient documents. I doubt seriously that Mr. Miller believes king Mesha's claim inscribed on the the Moabite Stone that Omri, king of Israel, had oppressed Moab "many days, because Chemosh was angry with his land," but when the Bible says that Yahweh delivered the Israelites into the hands of other nations because they had done "that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh," Mr. Miller swallows that hook, line, and sinker.He needs to give us logical reasons for his special pleading.

Miller:
Well, first of all, since the land was supposed to be a 'present' to the descendants of Abe, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have it ravaged by large-scale, ubiquitous earthquakes, or totally scorched by volcanix, or covered in rotting, disease-infested corpses!

Till:
But if Yahweh was the creator of the universe, as Mr. Miller no doubts believes, why wouldn't this omniscient, omnipotent one have been able to have "ravaged" Canaan with earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, or whatever and then with a wave of the same all-powerful hand that had brought down the destruction clear the land of all signs of destruction? I even have a better idea. Why couldn't the omniscient, omnipotent one have taken the Israelites from Egypt into some other land where there were no inhabitants and let them "inherit" it? That would have eliminated the need to kill people or force them to "migrate" elsewhere. He could have done this by creating new land, either island or peninsula, and miraculously transporting them there without injuring or killing anyone. Mr. Miller has apparently bought the age-old Israelite claim that there was just something so special about the Levant that Yahweh had to give them that land, but believing this amounts to nothing more than accepting claims that originated in highly superstitious times when people generally believed that gods gave people the land they lived on.

As for the "rotting corpses," if the Bible is inerrant where it claimed that the Israelites totally destroyed the Canaanites and left none of them alive to breathe (Josh. 10:40; Josh. 11:8,10-14,19-20), there would have been rotting corpses lying around unless the Israelites had exceptionally efficient burial details. After all, even Mr. Miller has estimated the "base population" of the Canaanites at two million, so if the "total destruction" of the Canaanites, claimed in the texts just cited, was overstated and only 20% of them had been killed, that would have left 400,000 corpses lying around. However, if my population estimates, presented in the same section of Part Six linked to above, is accepted, killing 20% of the Canaanites would have left 3.4 million corpses. I readily admit that estimating the Canaanite population at 17 million is unrealistic but nevertheless consistent with the biblical claim that the seven nations in Canaan were "larger and stronger" (Deut. 7:1-2) than the 2.5 to 3 million Israelites, so Mr. Miller will have to deal with what is taught by necessary implication in a book that he thinks is inerrant.

Miller:
Second, we have seen that God intended for most people to simply leave... He didn't want to kill them all.

Till:
We have seen no such thing, and Mr. Miller can cite no biblical texts that support this claim. I rebutted this same assertion in detail in this section of Part Six, so there is no need for me to rehash those rebuttals here. I will, however, drop another reminder here that we would like to see Mr. Miller cite or quote biblical texts that clearly say that "God intended for most people to simply leave" and to cite or quote examples of Canaanites who did pull up stakes when confronted with the Israelite invasion and "migrate" to other lands.

Miller:
Finally, He didn't give it to them because they were righteous at all--He gave it to them because of His promise to Abe...

Till:
Yes, that is what "Moses" said in a speech in Deuteronomy 9.

Deuteronomy 9:4 After Yahweh your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "Yahweh has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is going to drive them out before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, Yahweh your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. ⁶ Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Before Mr. Miller gets excited and claims this as a passage that shows that Yahweh's intention was to "drive out" the Canaanites and make them "migrate" to another land, I will remind him that I have already analyzed this passage to show that "drive out" was used interchangeably with "destroy" in its broader context. The verse immediately before where I began the quotation clearly indicated this: "But be assured today that Yahweh your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as Yahweh has promised you" (v:3).

A major problem that Mr. Miller's own proof text presents is the illogical claim that the land had to be taken from the wicked Canaanites and given to the "stiff-necked" Israelites. Stiff-necked was a term that meant stubbornly obstinate, and it accurately described the Israelites of the wilderness years, who, as Mr. Miller himself pointed out above, constantly whined, grumbled, and complained about every little hardship that they experienced, even though their omniscient, omnipotent deity was presumably traveling in their midst. What made Yahweh think that hordes of stiff-necked complainers and bellyachers, who at times engaged in the same "detestable practices" that Mr. Miller has talked about at length, would be more worthy residents of the land than the Canaanites of that time were? Mr. Miller has acknowledged above that the Israelites turned in droves to the same detestable practices of the Canaanites, and that this, presumably, was the reason that Yahweh "deported" them into foreign captivities, so why wouldn't this omniscient deity have known that his "chosen ones" would turn out that way? What sense did it make to rid Canaan of people who worshiped idols, engaged in incest, practiced human sacrifices, supported cultic prostitutes, etc. and replace them with people who worshiped idols, engaged in incest, practiced human sacrifices, and supported cultic prostitutes?

Miller:
Plus, He had plans to 'grow them' into righteousness once they got into the Land.

Till:
I assume that everyone noticed that Mr. Miller didn't cite or quote any textual evidence to support this assertion. I have to wonder, then, just how he came to know this. Is he claiming to know the mind of his "God"? Furthermore, even Mr. Miller's inspired, inerrant "word of God" admits that the Israelites turned en masse to the same "detestable practices" that so angered Yahweh about the Canaanites, so his plan to "grow" the Israelites into righteousness "once they got into the land" didn't pan out. Why didn't the omniscient one know that his plan would fail?

Doesn't Mr. Miller ever logically analyze his rationalizations before he makes them?

Miller:
What about all the innocent people killed in this "holy war"--families, "good" Canaanites, etc.?

Till:
That's an excellent question. I find it incredible that any civilized person would think that it is morally right to kill "good, innocent people," but Mr. Miller apparently thinks that it was morally acceptable in the cases of Old Testament massacres attributed to the god Yahweh. Mr. Miller can't claim that all of the "good Canaanites" migrated before the battles began, because we have seen numerous texts that claimed that Canaanite children were killed. According to the Bible, children don't know the difference in good and evil (Deut. 1:39), so they would have been "good" Canaanites. Yahweh, however, killed them anyway.

Miller:
Even if it is 'okay' for God to execute judgment on nations within history, why didn't He only kill the evil-doers?

Till:
Mr. Miller hasn't indicated yet whether he believes that morality is objective or not, but most biblical inerrantists believe that it is. If he shares this belief, let him explain to us how even "God" could kill people without violating his own objective standard of morality. As for why "God" didn't kill only "the evil-doers" in Canaan, I would love to see Mr. Miller prove that the Canaanites in general were any more "evil" than the Israelites were.

Miller:
There is a strong possibility that most of the 'innocent' people left the country before the actual battles began in each local turf.

Till:
If this was such a "strong possibility," there must be some kind of evidence that led Mr. Miller to this conclusion. Why didn't he cite that evidence? The fact is that he has not cited a single biblical writer who ever made any claim that the "innocent" Canaanites left the country before battles on their turf began. This is something that Mr. Miller has perhaps rationalized himself into believing, but he certainly hasn't cited any evidence that would support it.

Actually, the textual evidence disputes Mr. Miller's claim that most of the innocent people left the country. Earlier, he claimed that the number of Canaanites who were killed was no more than 70,000, a figure that he arrived at by assuming that the population of Canaanite cities at this time averaged only 2,000, but he did not state the evidence that he thinks supports this claim. Although a reconnaissance report of spies whom Joshua sent to Ai claimed that the inhabitants there were "only a few" (Josh. 7:2-3), the account of Israel's defeat of this city claims that the people living there--who were totally destroyed, of course--numbered 12,000, both men and women (Josh. 8:24-26). If the spies considered a population of 12,000 to be just a "few," then the populations of other royal cities like Jericho, Bethel, Hebron, Hazor, Eglon, etc. would surely have been more than Mr. Miller's estimated 2,000. Even if we accepted Mr. Miller's indefensible estimate that Canaanite cities averaged only 2,000 in population, in just the 31 royal cities listed in Joshua 12, which were allegedly destroyed totally, there would have been 62,000 inhabitants, not counting those in the villages that belonged to these cities.

I am now going to show that what I will call the "Jericho factor" disputes both Mr. Miller's average-population estimate and his claim that most of the "innocent people" left Canaan before the battles began. I call this the "Jericho factor," because the writer of Joshua often used Jericho as a sort of measuring rod to communicate what the Israelites did to other cities and their populations. Yahweh, for example, commanded Joshua [snicker, snicker] to do to Ai what he had done to Jericho.

Joshua 8:1 Then Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. ² You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city."

Well, what did Joshua do to Jericho and its king? The biblical text claims that he totally destroyed them except for the collaborator Rahab and her family.

Joshua 6:16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the people, "Shout! For Yahweh has given you the city! ¹⁷ The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to Yahweh. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.... ²⁰ When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. ²¹ They devoted the city to Yahweh and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. ²² Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, "Go into the prostitute's house and bring her out and all who