Description: A Counterpoints book that discusses various contemporary views held by evangelicals on God’s command to the Israelites to destroy utterly the Canaanites and how each view sees the relationship between this God of the Israelites and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has commanded us to love our enemies.

A discussion of various contemporary evangelical views of genocide in the Old Testament.

Christians are often shocked to read that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, commanded the total destruction—all men, women, and children—of the ethnic group know as the Canaanites. This seems to contradict Jesus’ command in the New Testament to love your enemies and do good to all people. How can Yahweh be the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? What does genocide in the Bible have to do with the politics of the 21st century?

This book explores, in typical Counterpoints format, the Old Testament command of God to exterminate the Canaanite population and what that implies about continuity between the Old and New Testaments.

The four points of view presented on the continuity of the Testaments are:

Other Titles in This Series:

Author Information: C. S. Cowles (S.T.D. University of San Francisco Theological Seminary) is professor of Bible and theology at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Eugene H. Merrill (Ph.D., Columbia University) is distinguished professor of Old Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Daniel L. Gard (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is dean of graduate studies and associate professor of exegetical theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Tremper Longman III (Ph.D., Yale University) is the Robert H. Gundry professor of Biblical Studies and the chair of the Religious Studies department at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA. He is author of many articles and books including An Introduction to the Old Testament (with Raymond Dillard), How to Read the Psalms, Old Testament Commentary Survey, Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation, and God is a Warrior (with Daniel Reid). He is the Old Testament editor for the revised Expositor's Bible Commentary and has written a number of commentaries including Daniel in the NIV Application Commentary series (Zondervan) and Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Eerdmans). Tremper and his wife Alice reside in Santa Barbara, CA and have three grown sons.