they were commanded to be wiped out but never where completely - Judges 3:1 & 2
In fact couldn't the WT could use this DNA-thingy to 'prove' the above account?--------- darkspilver
Here's an article about Judges 3:1 & 2:
http://www.skepticfiles.org/skeptic/land1.htm
YAHWEH'S FAILED LAND PROMISE by Farrell Till
On several occasions prophetic statements were made in the Pentateuch about the land that Yahweh, the tribal god of the Israelites, had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These were clearly stated promises that Yahweh would give the land of the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Periz- zites, Hivites, and Jebusites to the seed of Abraham. In Deuteronomy 7:17- 24, for example, Yahweh presumably made this emphatic promise:
"If thou shalt say in thy heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: thou shalt well remember what Yahweh thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; the great trials which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby Yahweh thy God brought thee out: so shall Yahweh thy God do unto all the peoples of whom thou art afraid. Moreover Yahweh thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee. Thou shalt not be affrighted at them; for Yahweh thy God is in the midst of thee, a great God and a terrible. And Yahweh thy God will cast out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But Yahweh thy God will deliver them up before thee, and will discomfit them with a great discomfiture, until they be de- stroyed. And he will deliver their kings unto thy hand, and thou shalt make their name to perish from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them," (ASV with Yahweh substituted for Jehovah).
The substance of this prophecy was repeated in such places as Exodus 23:20- 33; Deut. 4:33-39, Deut. 7:1-2, and Deut. 31:1-8. In some of these pas- sages, the names of the "seven nations greater and mightier than thou" to be driven out of the land were also specified as they were above: the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the Perizzites. When Joshua assumed the leadership of Israel after the death of Moses, 1 the land promise was renewed in very specific terms:
"Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh that Yahweh spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses. From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hit- tites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of good courage; for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them" (Joshua 1:1-6, ASV, Yahweh substituted).
Just before crossing the Jordan, Joshua repeated the promise:
"And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of Yahweh your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hit- tite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into the Jordan," (Joshua 3:9-11).
To stress the emphatic nature of parts of the land promises that Yahweh made to Israel, I have underlined certain statements. So when all of the passages I have quoted and listed are considered, we see that the prophecies included all of the following:
Without fail, God would drive out of the land beyond the Jordan ALL of the people then possessing it. No man among these people would be able to stand before the Israelites all the days of their lives. The Israelites would drive out the nations possessing the land and utterly destroy them and the memory of their name under heaven. They were to make no covenants with the nations in this land or show mercy to them (Deut. 7:2). Every place that the sole of their feet would tread upon, God would give to them. Their empire would stretch from the Red Sea unto the river Eu phrates and from the great sea (Mediterranean) toward the going down of the sun.
To circumvent obvious contradictions that result when Yahweh's promises are compared to biblical history recorded later, inerrantists contend that the land promises made to the Israelites were conditional on their good behavior, but there is no support for that dodge in the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 9:3-7, another prophetic passage relating to the land promise, specific notice was taken of the fact that the Israelites of the then present generation were themselves undeserving of the land but that it would be given to them for the sake of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:
"Know therefore this day, that Yahweh thy God is he who goeth over before thee as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will bring them down before thee: so shalt thou drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Yahweh hath spoken unto thee. Speak not thou in thy heart, after that Yahweh thy God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness Yahweh hath brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wicked- ness of these nations Yahweh doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart, dost thou go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh thy God doth drive them out from before thee, AND THAT HE MAY ESTABLISH THE WORD WHICH YAHWEH SWARE UNTO THY FATHERS, TO ABRAHAM, TO ISAAC, AND TO JACOB. Know therefore, that Yahweh thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff- necked people."
So here is another clear statement. God was not giving the land to the Israelites because of their righteousness; in fact, he considered them a stiff- necked, undeserving people. (See also Exodus 33:1-6). He was giving the land to them because of the unconditional promise that he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Unless he did this, he would have reneged on a promise made to the patriarchs with no strings attached, (Gen. 12:7; 13:14- 16). The unconditional nature of Yahweh's land promise was restated in Leviticus 26:42-45:
" Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my cove- nant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remem- ber; and I will remember the land. The land also shall be left by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths, while it lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected mine ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God; but I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am Yahweh."
So time and time again, it was specifically said that the Israelites would be given the land of Canaan, REGARDLESS OF THEIR OWN CONDUCT, so that Yahweh could fulfill the promise that he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Inerrantists who deny this are denying biblical statements worded just as plainly as anything ever said on the subject of creation, the resurrection, baptism, final judgment, and other important Christian doctrines. As proof that the land promise was dependent on the good behavior of the Israelites, inerrantists like to cite Exodus 23:20-33 where a conditional suggestion was attached to the promise:
"But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice (the angel that was to go before them, FT) and do all that he speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary unto thine adversaries."
In emphasizing the if in this verse, they overlook an im- portant point. If Yahweh said that he would fulfill the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob regardless of the wickedness of the generation that went in to possess the land, he could not turn around later and say that he would make good his promise only if the people were obedient. That would put a contradiction into the scriptures that the inerrantists would have to explain, because the land promise could not have been both conditional and unconditional at the same time. And clearly the passages cited earlier were unconditional in promising the land to the Israelites. So after Yahweh had unconditionally promised to the Israelites that they would be given the land beyond the Jordan, under Joshua's leadership they went in to possess it, and initially the Bible claims that they succeeded. The claim, in fact, was that Joshua thoroughly and completely subdued the land:
" So Joshua smote ALL the land, the hill-country, and the South, and the lowland, and the slopes, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but he utterly destroyed all that breathed, AS YAHWEH, THE GOD OF ISRAEL, COMMANDED. And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because Yahweh, the God of Israel, fought for Israel. And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal" (Joshua 10:40-43, ASV, Yahweh for Jehovah).
