I continue my exploration of the conquest of Canaan; this issue is all about the book of Joshua. If taken at face value, Joshua may be the most violent book in the Old Testament (OT). What do we make of this book today? What did God command? And what does that highly peculiar Hebrew word herem mean that plays such a key role in Joshua?
At least the application of Joshua is clear. I don’t think we find it too hard to take something away from this book to apply to our own lives. Fortunately, and rightly, it does not seem to inspire today’s Christians to acts of violence. Instead, this book:
Builds up our faith
Challenges us to pursue God’s goals for us
Empowers us to ‘conquer’ our destiny and ‘take possession’ of our inheritance. The land stands for our life
Teaches us not to compromise; we readily understand the Canaanites and relationships with them as the equivalent of giving room to sin, the devil, and evil in general
This translates into the New Testament (NT) equivalent of putting off the old self and putting to death the works of the flesh
So far so good. But at the time of Joshua, the Israelites were killing real people, not fighting sin; what do we make of this? In dealing with this question, one thing tops everything else in importance: context is everything. First, we need a thorough reading of the relevant passages (the literary context). Second, we need an understanding of the world in which this book was written (the historical and cultural context).
The Conquest Account in Joshua
When we turn to the actual battle accounts in Joshua, it stands out how repetitive and formulaic they are. Certain phrases keep reappearing. It also stands out how absolute and complete these statements are; words like all, every, and none abound. Here is a sample of repeated and stereotypical phrases:
The Lord has given/is giving you the land (Joshua 1:2, 13, 15; 2:9, 24).
The inhabitants of the land melt in fear (Joshua 2:9, 11, 24; 5:1; 10:2; cf. 7:5, where it is the Israelites who melt in fear).
I have given/will give … into your hand (Joshua 6:2; 8:1, 18; 10:8; 11:6, 8).
They gathered together as one (Joshua 9:2); they came out with all their troops (Joshua 11:4).
Devoted for destruction (literally herem; Joshua 6:17, 18; 7:1; 7:11-14; 8:26; 10:1 and numerous other references in Joshua 10 and 11; as we will see below, the addition “for destruction” is questionable). Also:
Herem applied to “both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21, ESV).
They burned the city with fire and everything in it (Joshua 6:24; 11:11)
“And Israel struck them down, until there was left none that survived or escaped” (Joshua 8:22, ESV; cf. Joshua 10:33, 40; 11:8).
“When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 8:24, ESV).
Struck them with a great blow (e.g. Joshua 10:10, 20; ironically, in verse 20 they were “wiped out,” yet “the remnant that remained” entered the fortified cities).
“Joshua captured it on that day and struck it, and its king, with the edge of the sword. He devoted to destruction [herem] every person in it; he left none remaining. And he did to the king of Makkedah just as he had done to the king of Jericho” (Joshua 10:28, ESV; cf. 10:30, 32, 35, 37, 39f).
“Joshua … captured Hazor and struck its king with the sword … And they struck with the sword all who were in it, devoting them to destruction; there was none left that breathed. And he burned Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua captured, and struck them with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded … And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the people of Israel took for their plunder. But every person they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed” (Joshua 11:10-14, ESV).
“According to the word of the Lord, which he commanded Joshua” (Joshua 8:27, ESV; cf. 10:40; 11:12, 15, 20; this, of course, is the stumbling block, to which I will return below: did God order indiscriminate slaughter? Judging by the level of hyperbole, the answer must be no).
Also worth noticing (as pointed out in Kitchen 2003:169-171): the first account (Jericho) is told in great detail. Later battles are recounted with decreasing detail. This also applies to the southern campaign in Joshua 10 and to the northern campaign in Joshua 11. Both accounts start off with a relatively detailed description, even if not as detailed as the one on Jericho. Later episodes in the southern campaign are briefly summarized; for the remainder of the northern campaign only a general summary is included. This has a clear parallel in the campaign account by Pharaoh Thutmose III for ca. 1458-1438 BC (Id.: 170).
One more feature of this account: it finishes with a list of kings that have been defeated in Joshua 12.
All of this is remarkably like other conquest accounts we have from the ancient world.
The Other Side of the Coin
The campaign accounts that we have in Joshua may be characterized as follows: they are formulaic, repetitive, stereotypical, and hyperbolic. That we are dealing with – by our standards – rather exuberant and extravagant hyperbole becomes clear when we pay attention to certain details elsewhere in the book of Joshua and even more so when we compare the conquest accounts in Joshua and Judges.
In the second half of Joshua, there is clear evidence that the Canaanites have not been driven out or destroyed: Joshua 13:1; 14:12; 15:13-19; 16:10; 17:12-13, 16-18.
A quick scan through Judges 1 reveals even more clearly the continuing presence of the Canaanites in strength.
Copan and Flannagan, quoting Kitchen, summarize:
Kenneth Kitchen … notes that, when one takes into account the rhetorical flourishes common to ancient Near Eastern war accounts of this sort, a careful reading of Joshua 1-12 makes it clear that it does not portray Israel as actually occupying or conquering the areas mentioned. Kitchen notes that after crossing the Jordan, the Israelites set up camp in Gilgal “on the east border of Jericho” (Josh. 4:19). He points out that after every battle in the next six chapters, the text explicitly states that they returned to Gilgal:
“The conflict with Canaanite city-state rulers in the southern part of Canaan is worth close observation. After the battle for Gibeon, we see the Hebrews advance upon six towns in order, attacking and capturing them, killing their local kings and such of the inhabitants as had not gotten clear, and moving on, not holding on to these places. Twice over (10:15, 43), it is clearly stated that their strike force returned to base camp at Gilgal. So there was no sweeping takeover and occupation of this region at this point. And no total destruction of the towns attacked …
What happened in the south was repeated up north. Hazor was both leader and famed center for the north Canaanite kinglets. Thus, as in the south, the Hebrew force defeated the opposition; captured their towns, killed rulers and less mobile inhabitants, and symbolically burned Hazor, and Hazor only, to emphasize its end to its local supremacy. Again Israel did not attempt to immediately hold on to Galilee; they remained based at Gilgal (cf. 14:6) …”
He concludes, “These campaigns were essentially disabling raids: they were not territorial conquests with instant Hebrew occupation. The text is very clear about this.” (Copan & Flannagan 2014: 89, quoting Kitchen 2003: 161f; emphasis in original)
Important to keep in mind here: cities were small, their inhabitants counted in the hundreds of perhaps, in some cases, thousands. We should not bring our concept of ‘city’ to the text; these were small villages. Besides, they were probably military and administrative centres, inhabited by the king, his army, and his staff. The bulk of the population lived in small villages spread out in the countryside around each city. It therefore made sense to target the cities; it would be the equivalent of marching into Somalia or Afghanistan and taking out the warlords and their power bases.
Look beyond the formulaic hyperbole, and the campaigns seem to have been relatively modest affairs.
Conquest Accounts in the Ancient World
How did other nations communicate military successes? Lawson Younger (1990) published a thorough study of conquest accounts from the ancient world. It documents numerous parallels between these accounts and the one we have in Joshua. A few examples.
A stele describing a campaign by Pharaoh Merenptah (reigned 1213-1203 BC) that included Canaan; it famously mentions Israel:
The Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe:
Ashkelon has been overcome;
Gezer has been captured;
Yano’am is made non-existent.
Israel is laid waste and his seed is not;
Hurru is become a widow because of Egypt. (Merenptah Stele)
The Gebal Barkal Stele, describing a campaign by Thutmose III (reigned 1479-1425 BC):
The great army of Mitanni,
it is overthrown in the twinkling of an eye.
It has perished completely,
as though they had never existed. (Younger 1990: 227)
Kitchen’s (2003: 174) response to this claim:
In the later fifteenth century Tuthmosis III could boast “the numerous army of Mitanni, was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) non-existent” – whereas, in fact, the forces of Mitanni lived to fight many another day, in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries … It is in this frame of reference that the Joshua rhetoric must also be understood.
The Mesha Stele, ca. 840 BC, set up by the king of Moab. I hesitated to include this example because it dates from long after Joshua. However, nothing suggests the literary form of campaign accounts and the underlying outlook changed much during these centuries:
I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-gad, king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I have reigned after my father. And I have built this sanctuary for Chemosh in Karchah, a sanctuary of salvation, for he saved me from all aggressors, and made me look upon all mine enemies with contempt. Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Chemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said, Let us go, and I will see my desire upon him and his house, and Israel said, I shall destroy it for ever [Younger 1990: 227 and others translate: “Israel has utterly perished forever;” this version would make an even stronger parallel (obviously, Israel did not perish forever); however, considering that Mesha did not attack the heartland of Israel, it seems unlikely he would have made this claim; other than this, I have no way of knowing which translation is more likely]. Now Omri took the land of Madeba, and occupied it in his day, and in the days of his son, forty years. And Chemosh had mercy on it in my time. And I built Baal-meon and made therein the ditch, and I built Kiriathaim. And the men of Gad dwelled in the country of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth. I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and I removed from it all the spoil, and offered it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed therein the men of Siran, and the men of Mochrath. And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel, and I went in the night and I fought against it from the break of day till noon, and I took it: and I killed in all seven thousand men, but I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh … And as to Horonaim, the men of Edom dwelt therein, on the descent from old. And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and take it. And I assaulted it, And I took it, for Chemosh restored it in my days. (Mesha Stele; emphasis added)
Joshua 9 (the deceit by the Gibeonites) does not have an exact parallel in other accounts but there are examples of nations responding to the threat of a superior power about to attack in clever and sometimes misleading ways, for instance by sending old people to beg the attacking king’s mercy (Younger 1990: 202f).
There are parallels to night campaigns (Id.: 207) and other strategies used by Joshua as well. There are also parallels to miraculous events. Where Joshua 10:11 speaks of hailstones, other accounts speak of hail as well or even of a meteor (Id.: 208-211).
To summarize this:
Younger’s study shows quite conclusively that Joshua is written in accord with the rhetoric and conventions of ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts. Such accounts narrate history in a highly rhetorical, stereotyped, figurative fashion and utilize substantial hyperbole, narrating battles in terms of total annihilation of everyone. To read these accounts as though the author were literally affirming that total extermination had taken place is simply to misread them. Younger states, “It is evident that the syntagms . . . (‘they completely destroyed it and everyone in it,’ ‘he left no survivors’), etc. are to be understood as hyperbole. Just like other ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts, the biblical narrative utilizes hyperbolic, stereotyped syntagms to build up the account.” (Copan & Flannagan 2014: 99)
The book of Joshua has to be read as a theologically oriented narration, stylized and hyperbolic at important points, of Israel’s early skirmishes in the promised land, with the story of these battles being framed by descriptions of two great ritualized events. The story as a whole celebrates Joshua as the great leader of his people, faithful to Yahweh, worthy successor of Moses. If we strip the word “hagiography” of its negative connotations, we can call it a hagiographic account of Joshua’s exploits. The book is not to be read as claiming that Joshua conquered the entire promised land, nor is it to be read as claiming that Joshua exterminated with the edge of the sword the entire population of all the cities on the command of Yahweh to do so. The candor of the opening chapter of Judges, and of Yahweh’s declaration to Joshua in his old age that “very much of the land still remains to be possessed,” are closer to a literal statement of how things actually went. (Wolterstorff 2010: 252f)
Thus both the basic formulaic layout and its variations in Joshua reflect commonplace ancient Near Eastern usage as found in original and unitary works. This was how such militarily reports were customarily written, and these structures and others are the common coin of the second millennium already, long before Neo-Assyrian times. (Kitchen 2003: 173; emphasis in original).
The Difference
Younger’s study convincingly proves that these accounts were not intended as straightforward and factual historical records. The accounts are ruled by conventions that were familiar to the readers; different from us, they would not have misunderstood these texts.
This is the equivalent of “we slaughtered the other team.” None of these statements is untrue because everyone knows how they are to be understood.
Somewhat surprisingly, Younger does not point out what to me seems significant differences between Joshua and other accounts. The aim of the Assyrian conquest accounts is intimidation: to instil fear and trembling. The Hittite accounts complain about betrayal and unfaithfulness, and aim for vengeance and punishment. The Egyptian accounts glorify Pharaoh, at times beyond human likeness. So what is the point of the Hebrew account? How is it different?
The Israelite account celebrates God’s faithfulness in keeping and fulfilling his promise. It does not establish a king but a nation. It also builds faith as it sets the standard for what God’s people (all of them, not merely the king!) can do if they are obedient. Different from many other accounts, Joshua is not in the I-form. The narrative does not elevate Joshua nor does he boast in the way the kings in other conquest accounts do.
What Did God Command?
In the previous issue, I searched for God’s command to practice herem in the Torah – and found very little. Only once (!) does Moses state that this is God’s command (Dt. 20:16f); there is no instance where God is described as giving this command directly. The situation in Joshua is not very different.
And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city, behind it. (Joshua 8:2, ESV; this is not very explicit, but it is there)
So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining but devoted to destruction all that breathed, just as the LORD God of Israel commanded. (Joshua 10:40, ESV; but when and where remains a question)
And the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give over all of them, slain, to Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.” … And Joshua did to them just as the LORD said to him: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. (Joshua 11:6, 9, ESV; here God commands a lot less than killing every human)
And all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua captured, and struck them with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. (Joshua 11:12, ESV; this is Moses, not the LORD)
And all the spoil of these cities and the livestock, the people of Israel took for their plunder. But every person they struck with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed. Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses. (Joshua 11:14f, ESV; again, occasion unknown)
For it was the LORD’s doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the LORD commanded Moses. (Joshua 11:20, ESV; I won’t repeat myself again)
Am I going too far when I suspect God of being reluctant to order herem and destruction? Maybe, because the narrator does not appear to show any such reluctance. Still, the rarity of any direct command compared with its abundant practice seems significant.
What does it mean that other conquest accounts, like Joshua, also speak freely of their god’s involvement in battles, warfare, and killings? Was it so normal to see one’s god’s involvement in everything that the Israelites could not think of their conquest in any other way, thus perhaps ascribing to God more than he wanted or had ordered?
I hesitate to go this far, because the text does, however infrequently, make God speak of herem and destruction; it is not in every case Israel’s initiative.
Instead, I turn once again to accommodation: God is adjusting to the world as it was in order to enter it and – eventually – change it from the inside out. Before I say more about this, a word on herem.
The Meaning of Herem
Conceptually, the Israelites lived in a world completely different from ours. Most of us consider war as something secular, not a religious activity, except for special cases of ‘holy war’. In the Ancient Near East, war was never secular. It was an activity in which the gods fully engaged.
The rationale for war was entirely different from the rationale of modern warfare. Carl von Clausewitz, the famous Prussian theoretician of war, coined the aphorism that war is the continuation of politics by other means. Not so back then. War was the continuation of religious devotion by other means. Like it or not (and I suspect God did not; there are hints in the OT that imply a negative view of war, e.g. Is. 2), this was the world of Moses and Joshua and David. This was how the Egyptians and Assyrians and Hittites viewed the world.
War was fully integrated with religion and therefore with the conceptual world of holiness and ritual purity – another concept that is difficult for us to grasp. We simply don’t understand the world this way, within a matrix of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’. It is in this matrix and in the ancient, fully religious outlook on life (and war) that herem has its place.
This makes it impossible for us to fully comprehend herem. We are too far removed from this world. Two things may help: an improved definition, and a look at the practice of other nations.
Definition. This is the definition given by Walton & Walton (2017: 170; emphasis in original):
[T]he removal of something from human use. The emphasis is not on the object but on everyone around the object; “no one shall make use of this.” … Destruction, when it occurs, is a means to an end.
This makes a lot of sense. Defined like this, herem can be applied to gold and other things but also to people and locations. The execution of herem may at times require destruction through fire or the sword. At other times it may simply mean setting something apart, devoting it to the Lord. This definition of herem has the strength of covering all the different examples of its use. In the words of Del Monte (2005: 22), although I have doubts about the idea of propitiation in the second half of his definition:
In Hebrew in general herem is the status of that which is separated from common use or contact either because it is proscribed as an abomination to God or because it is consacrated [sic!] to Him, be it a town, an object or a human being, in the latter case evolving towards the concept of “excommunication”, but the earliest references to it typify it as a votive proscription of an aggressive enemy made under the stress of war or for revenge to propitiate God; the populace was to be put to the sword, the town burned down, but booty also of livestock was occasionally permitted.
To remove something from human use, when applied to the Canaanites, meant first and foremost not to engage in relationships with them. Its essence is separation, not extermination. In case of resistance, it might become necessary to kill. But herem is not a call to extermination.
To put this in perspective, let me state what herem is not. It is not punishment for crimes or sins; nothing in Joshua suggests this. Neither is it prevention, that is, assuring the Israelites will not be polluted or seduced by the Canaanites.
For these reasons, translating herem as ‘devote for destruction’ misses the point. ‘Placing something under a ban’ comes closer to the original sense.
In addition to all this, Walton & Walton (2017: 179ff) argue that herem is not so much directed against individuals but against their community identity. This is why there is such a focus on kings and cities, even though only a small portion of the population lived in cities, because these are the carriers and backbone of such identities. Take out the kings and their cities, and the identity collapses. Herem, therefore, does not require Israel to pursue individual Canaanites (and kill them).
Practice. As I argued in the previous issue, Israel had a concept of herem before God ever spoke of it (in fact, God spoke very little of it, as I have tried to demonstrate). We find something like this concept among other nations as well. This is because Israel did not live in a vacuum but was influenced by these nations. On many points, it shared their worldview and understanding.
Wars were fought for and with the gods (or God). In this context, it made sense to devote booty or gains, such as a city, to them (or him). Or perhaps more accurately, it made sense to acknowledge that it was his from the beginning, and not a gift, since it was his war and his victory. The spoils were therefore legitimately his as well. Here is a crucial quotation that summarizes what we know about this practice among the Hittites in Asia Minor:
It seems that the worst treatment the enemy city could experience was complete destruction followed by the prohibition of resettlement, which was reinforced by cursing the future inhabitants and sanctioned ritually through the consecration of the territorial by offering it to the Stormgod. (Roszkowska-Mutschler 1992: 1; cf. Joshua 6:26; she lists four Hittite documents that refer to this practice)
In 2 Kings 19:11, the term is used by the Assyrian official to describe what the Assyrian kings had done to numerous other nations, destroying them (2 Ki. 19:12). And Mesha, king of Moab, states:
I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and I removed from it all the spoil, and offered it before Chemosh in Kirjath … And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel … and I took it: and I killed in all seven thousand men, but I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh. (Mesha Stele)
Progressive Revelation and Accommodation
One of my questions in the previous issue was whether Israelite practice resembled that of other nations at the time. If so, that would open the door to a solution but, as I wrote, I wanted to see evidence for this. I think the evidence is there. The Israelites lived in a world in which all wars were divine wars, fought for and with the respective god(s) of a nation. Other nations occasionally practiced their own form of herem. Admittedly, the amount of evidence is limited, but it exists. This was not an isolated practice, but an integrated part of looking at the world – with different eyes.
Therefore, unlike today, no one in the ancient world would have been shocked reading the conquest account in Joshua (including herem). It fitted right in. This was normal. As a result, the ancient reader would have recognized the hyperbole and would have known how to understand it. What Moses envisioned and Joshua executed was a whole lot less than a campaign of extermination.
We are dealing, then, with accommodation. God entered the world of the Israelites and related to them within their conceptual framework – in order to change it. As a further illustration of this, consider David in the book of Samuel. David fights many wars, first as an outlaw and later as king. God is consistently with him. This doesn’t necessarily mean God approves of everything he does. Take this episode, for instance:
Now David and his men went up and made raids against the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. And David would strike the land and would leave neither man nor woman alive, but would take away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the garments, and come back to Achish. When Achish asked, “Where have you made a raid today?” David would say, “Against the Negeb of Judah,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Jerahmeelites,” or, “Against the Negeb of the Kenites.” And David would leave neither man nor woman alive to bring news to Gath, thinking, “lest they should tell about us and say, ‘So David has done.’” Such was his custom all the while he lived in the country of the Philistines. (1 Sam. 27:8-11, ESV)
I don’t think this is commendable; God merely condoned it. 1 Chronicles 22:8 perhaps provides an indication of this:
But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth.”
God entered David’s world, which was a world of warfare, and he adjusted to this world. Similar to what he did with Joshua.
Longman III & Reid (1995: 17) propose a five-stage model for the progressive revelation that begins with the exodus and develops the theme of God as the divine warrior.
God is “a warrior who fights on behalf of this people Israel against their flesh-and-blood enemies” (Id.: 17). This truth is established through the exodus and conquest.
God fights against and judges unfaithful Israel.
God will come as warrior: the prophetic expectation of the day of the Lord and deliverance in the future.
Christ comes as paradoxical conqueror who defeats principalities and powers on the cross.
Christ will return as warrior and judge. (Strictly speaking, in terms of revelation, 4 and 5 are one stage.)
Recognizing progressive revelation and divine accommodation enables us to move beyond an OT understanding to a fuller, NT understanding of God without discarding or condemning the OT record. But neither do we have to embrace the earlier stages as if they reveal God’s standard.
This developing understanding of God as a warrior is intimately connected with an unfolding revelation of the true war story, which enables us to pinpoint the real enemy: not the nations but Satan.
God starts concrete, in a world full of real, flesh-and-blood warfare. God reveals himself as a warrior. Later in the story, he will reveal what kind of war he is fighting, and thereby redirect the war effort of his people.
Recognizing progressive revelation and accommodation enables us to move to a NT understanding of God without discarding or condemning the OT record.
Joshua Fought of the Battle of Jericho …
… and the walls came tumbling down. Thus celebrates the text of a so-called Negro spiritual that has inspired millions.
The book of Joshua is a brilliant story brilliantly told with a powerful message of empowerment. Obviously, considering the origins of the song, this message was greatly appreciated precisely by those without power. It is a shame my whole effort here is geared toward, well, the dark side of this book and largely ignores its positive message. But then, in today’s world people ask serious questions about Joshua (questions that previous generations perhaps didn’t ask) and, as Francis Schaeffer taught us, serious (or honest) questions deserve serious answers.
Still, don’t let these questions rob you of the enjoyment of this book and of the benefits of its message.
Bergmann, Michael, Murray, Michael J., and Rea, Michael C., eds (2010), Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (New York: Oxford University Press)
Del Monte, Giuseppe F. (2005), “The Hittite Ḥērem,” in Kogan et al. 2005: 21-46
Kitchen, Kenneth (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans)
Kogan, L. et al., eds (2005), Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff, Babel und Bibel 2: Annual of Ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic Studies, Papers of the Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies VIII (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns)
Longman III, Tremper, & Reid, Daniel G. (1995), God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan)
Roszkowska-Mutschler, Hanna (1992), “‘… and on its site I sowed cress …’: Some Remarks on the Execration of Defeated Enemy Cities by the Hittite Kings,” Journal of Ancient Civilizations 7: 1-12
Standard Bible Society (2001), The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Standard Bible Society)
Wolterstorff, Nicholas (2010), “Reading Joshua,” in Bergmann et al.: 236-256
Younger, Jr., A. Lawson (1990), Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 98 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press)
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