The "herem" commands are God's instructions to the Israelites to place all living things under the "ban" (Heb. herem), which is typically understood to include the destruction of not only men, but also women, children, and even at times livestock (all are mentioned specifically as falling under herem). Many Christian apologists consider this an embarrassment, so they seek to limit herem to Canaanite soldiers by interpreting the commands as mere literary devices, such as hyperbole. I consider this explanation implausible textually, and ultimately, inadequate to the problem they are attempting to solve, aside from raising problems for the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture. Here is a short series of articles in which I challenge a leading proponents of what I call the"hyperbole" thesis, Paul Copan (Palm Beach Atlantic).
First, the original article by Paul Copan, which defends the "hyperbole" thesis, that is, that God's command to the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites was far more limited than is commonly assumed: https://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/p/ezekiel-96-do-not-spare-anyone-literal
Here is my response to Paul, which I dub the "literal" interpretation of the herem passages: https://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/p/save-alive-nothing-that-breathes
Here Paul reiterates his view, and attempts to deal with the passages I cite in support of the literal interpretation: https://worldviewbulletin.substack.com/p/no-its-actually-hyperbole-a-response
Finally, I wrote this comment to Paul's response, which I may expand at some point:
Wholly apart from the question as to whether it is supported by scripture, the hyperbole thesis is a solution in search of a problem that it adequately addresses. Paul concedes that corporate judgment claims the lives of innocents, e.g., women and children, such as the judgment against Jerusalem in 597 BC, and I assume he doesn’t deny there is far more to come when Christ returns (Rev. 19:11-21). So even if the herem commands are hyperbolic, a conjecture I continue to find improbable, it would only address a very limited number of instances in which the innocent suffer judgment alongside the guilty. Why indeed wouldn’t God use the Israelites as an instrument of his judgment together with more typical punishments such as famine, plague, or fire from heaven? Or are these hyperbole, too? I wish Paul had addressed my theological explanation — that the herem command is an instrument of corporate divine judgment, which is typically indiscriminate — rather than merely rehearse textual arguments based on what can only be described as speculation.
Paul’s citations of Old Testament scholars obscures the fact that there is no consensus on the hyperbole thesis. Contemporary OT scholars who find alternatives to or outright reject the hyperbole thesis include G. K. Beale, Eugene Merrill, Daniel Gard, Tremper Longman, Charlie Trimm, and L. Daniel Hawk. In addition, we have the witness of Old Testament scholars going back centuries who have indeed taken the herem command “at face value.”
For those interested in specific responses to Paul’s textual arguments by contemporary Old Testament scholars, I recommend G. K. Beale, The Morality of God in the Old Testament (P&R Publishing, 2013), 33-42; and Charlie Trimm, The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, genocide, and biblical interpretation (Eerdmans, 2022), 89-93.
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