“The Rumors of Canaanite Destruction”

Friday, December 20, 2024

The Rumors of Canaanite Destruction by Joshua Cleveland

In 2017, the Internet was flooded by news reports that greatly exaggerated the results of a study.  The remains of 4 Canaanite bodies, some 3,700 years old, were shown to have DNA connections with modern-day Lebanese. These results sparked a whirlwind of articles and news reports that all claimed that the biblical account of Joshua has been soundly disproven because there are descendants of the Canaanites still alive today. Here are a few examples of the titles to these reports:  

• “Study disproves the Bible’s suggestion that the ancient Canaanites were wiped out” (The Telegraph)
• “Bible says Canaanites were wiped out by Israelites but scientists just found their descendants living in Lebanon” (The Independent)
• “Bronze Age DNA disproves the Bible’s claim that the Canaanites were wiped out: Study says their genes live on in modern-day Lebanese people” (Daily Mail)

The problem with these articles is that they show a lack of understanding about the actual biblical account of Joshua and the book of Judges. At Joshua’s death, the people had taken a good portion of the promised land, however they had failed to take all of it. Thus, when Joshua died the people asked YHWH, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” (Judges 1:1) It was Judah that YHWH chose to go up against the Canaanites, and for a time Judah and the other tribes were successful at destroying the nations of the land.

The problem arose later when in Judges 1:27-36 each of the tribes failed to fully destroy the nations of the land. This led to the people of Israel living in the land with many of the very people God condemned, “…so the Canaanites persisted in living in that land. It came about when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely.” (Judges 1:27b-28) So, unlike many of the articles claim, this DNA testing has resulted in confirming God’s word to be true.

But more than giving us further confidence in the truth of God’s word, this whole event should be a moment for us to consider the dangers of half-measures in our service to God. Israel failed to fully drive out the nations of the land, and this resulted in them adopting their customs and idolatry. When we only remove sin from our lives with half-measures we are only setting ourselves up to fail God and fall prey to worldly propaganda. We must serve the Lord fully, and not fail to bring about the obedience of faith in our lives.

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