The first contribution to Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide comes from C.S. Cowles, professor of Bible and theology at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

Cowles makes the case for radical discontinuity between the warfare narratives of the Old Testament and the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New. According to Cowles, if we attribute the command for ethnic cleansing to the intention of God, we create severe problems for Christian theology, ethics, and praxis (15).

Cowles’ essay is marked by passion. His analysis cannot be accused of being expressed from the lofty tower of academia. Instead, he forcefully brings the reader face to face with the horror of mass extermination, describing in gut-wrenching detail how this killing took place, including the killing of women and children.

For Cowles, there is no synthesis between the Testaments on this matter. When it comes to the issue of divinely initiated and divinely sanctioned violence, we should acknowledge a radical discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments.

“The starting point in forming a truly Christian theology is not what the Bible teaches about God in general but what Jesus reveals about God in particular,” Cowles writes. We are to see God, “not like the first Joshua, a warrior, but like the second, the Prince of Peace” (23).

The heart of Cowles’ case against the genocide in the Old Testament is his sharp distinction between the God portrayed in the Old Testament and the God revealed in Jesus Christ.

“The God portrayed in the Old Testament was full of fury against sinners, but the God incarnate in Jesus is not” (28). Jesus reveals to us the true God who does not “engage in punitive, redemptive, or sacred violence… God does not proactively use death as an instrument of judgment in that death is an enemy…” (30).

In Cowles’ view, Jesus’ revelation of God stands over against the Word of God mediated by Moses. Perhaps because he knows this discontinuity could make his opinion theologically suspect, Cowles marshals John Wesley for his cause, affirming a quote by Wesley that Jesus came “ to destroy, to dissolve, and utterly abolish” large sections of the Torah (35).

How can we speak meaningfully about the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures if Cowles’ view is correct? Cowles answers questions about inspiration by appealing to Christological criterion. What results is a view of the Old Testament that is inferior to the New, since the understanding of God has progressed since the time in which the Old Testament accounts were recorded.

Cowles seeks to demonstrate this progression by pointing to the advanced theological reflection of the Chronicles, in comparison with the earlier writings. He focuses on the progressive understanding of Satan, so that by the time the Chronicles were written, “the Jews had begun to project some of the darker attributes of Yahweh onto a contradivine being, Satan” (38).

The New Testament unveils God to us in the person of Jesus Christ. The mission of Jesus, according to Cowles, is to “pull back the curtain and let us see the beautiful face of God.”

The people in the Old Testament did not have the capacity to gather the light of God’s truth. Christ comes to reveal the non-violent, true God. “Before he could reconcile us to God, he had to show us a heavenly Father to whom we would want to be reconciled: a God who is for us rather than against us, a God of love and grace who can be loved in return” (39).

How does Cowles’ proposal affect our view of the Old Testament accounts? The Israelites merely acted upon what they believed to be God’s will. But they were wrong. God honored their obedience, even if he despised their atrocious behavior.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at three other views on the Canaanite Conquest.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog