The Joshua Delusion?: Rethinking Genocide in the Bible

Description: Many Christians wrestle with biblical passages in which God commands the slaughter of the Canaanites-men women and children. The issue of the morality of the biblical God is one of the major challenges for faith today. How can such texts be Holy Scripture? In this bold and innovative book Douglas Earl grasps the bull by the horns and guides readers to new and unexpected ways of looking at the book of Joshua. Drawing on insights from the early church and from modern scholarship Earl argues that we have mistakenly read Joshua as a straightforward historical account and have ended up with a genocidal God. In contrast Earl offers a theological interpretation in which the mass killing of Canaanites is a deliberate use of myth to make important theological points that are still valid today. Christopher J. H. Wright then offers a thoughtful response to Earls provocative views. The book closes with Earls reply to Wright and readers are encouraged to continue the debate. Endorsements: There is no doubt that the Bible-and the God of the Bible-are saturated with reams of violence . . . and nowhere more frontally than in the book of Joshua. Douglas Earl wades boldly into the problem of reading Joshua theologically. He brings to the task the rich resources of the Christian tradition and the best of current hermeneutical possibilities. The outcome is a rich suggestive approach that invites deep rethinking of how we read such texts responsibly. His book is a welcome voice in an important vexed unfinished conversation. --Walter Brueggemann Columbia Theological Seminary USA This sophisticated but plainly written study is eye-opening even for highly practiced readers and teachers of Scripture. Taking on one of the most difficult cases in the Bible Earl offers guidance for discovering the truth of Scripture without sacrificing critical acumen on historical and ethical matters. --Ellen Davis Duke Divinity School USA Douglas Earl aims to revive spiritual or symbolic readings of Joshua going back to Origen but refined in the light of modern anthropological understandings of myth and symbol. This is a timely and illuminating book written with the highest regard for Scripture and I commend it warmly to all who are exercised by the problem of violence in the Old Testament. --Gordon McConville University of Gloucestershire UK About the Contributor(s): Douglas Earl did his PhD on the book of Joshua at the University of Durham. He is author of Reading Joshua as Christian Scripture. Christopher J. H. Wright is an Old Testament scholar and the Director of the Langham Partnership