"Genocide" and the Bible Part 1

Is Genocide condoned in the OT?

Most things considered, genocide typically involves groups internal to the country in question, and they were either killed outright by their own government (sometimes slowly through torture and abuse) or deported to a place of sure-to-kill-them environment. Academic definitions of genocide exclude combat deaths and noncombatants that die as a by-product of military action. It generally denotes the deliberate killing of someone solely because of their indelible group membership (indelible is the term used for race, ethnicity, nationality etc.--those characteristics that are 'indelible'). [For one of the major authorities on this subject, see the work of R.J. Rummel at

www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel

Notice how extremely different this definition is from the case of the Canaanites, Amalekites Midianites:
1. They are NOT an internal group
2. They are NOT a minority group
3. Canaanites are NOT targeted because of their Canaanite-ness
4. They are never under the government control of Israel.
5. They are not pursed and hunted in other countries for extermination.

Credits and Sources:

Glen Miller: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/
James Patrick Holding: http://www.tektonics.org/

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