Were the Cananites evil or were they simply destroyed for their land?

jambon1

From the JW's/bible standpoint, was there good reason for 'god' to wipe out the Cananite nation or was it just to give the jews the promised land? Please help me with this one if you can. Thanks.

LouBelle

well they were pagan worshipers for one, thereby making them the absolution of ebil. I'll go do a bit of research to actually post something intelligent.

Gill

There's always an excuse for 'ethnic cleansing'.

My understanding is that the Cananites and the Jews were at one point more or less the same group of people all worshipping Baal / Yahweh. The Habiru / Hebrews / Jews tribes wandered around causing trouble everywhere they went including Egypt and finally returned to ethnically cleanse Canaan by wiping out their 'brothers'. Much the same as we saw in Rawanda with their tribal masacres between the Hutu and the Tutsis.

They were masacred for their land.

Still makes me smile (though sadly ) that because an ancient group of people called themselves 'God's Chosen People', simply to excuse their atrocities, other races are still not willing to call a spade a spade and genocide is still genocide.

Will one day people read Hitler's rantings claiming Germany was the superior race and believe that simply because he claimed that, they must have been so!

The lack of basic critical thinking and intelligence that people CHOOSE to exercise is pathetically sad!

In the same way that Hitler had to demonise the Jewish peoples to excuse his murder / genocide of them, the ancient Jews used propaganda against the Canaanites, accusing them of all kinds of evil. But in the end, who did the real evil?

The more things change......the more they stay the same!

OnTheWayOut

From the JW's/bible standpoint

From the JW standpoint, anyone who did not worship Jehovah (actually the ancient Hebrew
equivalent to that name) was worthy of destruction and those that worshipped anything
or anyone other than Jehovah could be considered evil.

JW's teach that the entire Bible was written for "God's People" and that is why major
cultures outside of God's People are ignored. It writes nothing of the Mongolians, Japanese,
etc.. Any culture that does encounter God's People is viewed as either evil or ignorant.
They remain in the evil category if they have an opportunity to learn "the truth" and choose not
to. This bolsters today's JW's who put householders in the "evil" category after they reject the
magazines.

stillajwexelder

Destroyed for their land - the practices they engaged in were common in the general area of the world at that time

5go

Yep, I agree with the others. Using a godly mandate to wipe out a people to take their land is as old as the gods are.

outofthebox

My question is: Why the Israelites didn't preach to Canaanites? Some sort of warning would have been good. Even the people from Nineveh got a Jonas.

Blueblades

It is a fictional account. Isrealite history story telling. The reason I say that is that when they say that they had a mandate from Yah. Jah, their hebrew God to kill, murder, men woman and children, old and young along with the animals and then later in another account save the virgins for themselves.....you get my drift?

Blueblades

WTWizard

They were murdered mostly for their land. The flimsy excuse was that they were practicing "idolatry". However, I cannot find it believable that it was totally vile and evil from an absolute viewpoint that these people just were not giving God the credit for their own hard work, and they did not sacrifice to Jehovah. That they sacrificed their children is extremely questionable, since I do not trust the God that has murdered so many for just not giving Him credit for their work, and He could have easily trumped up something to scare others into worshiping Him.

VM44

"Kill them, kill them all!"

Were the Cananites evil or were they simply destroyed for their land?

Share this