About the Canaanites and the Orders for their Destruction

     Today, I felt like I needed to write about something in the Scriptures which is, at best, difficult to understand and reconcile with a God who is love. I am speaking of the invasion of Canaan and the orders by God to totally destroy the Canaanites, that is, for the people of Israel to commit genocide against the Canaanite tribes and nations; as it is written, every man, woman, and child. Why would a God who is pure love order what is, from our perspective, such a horrific thing? To understand this, there are several things someone needs to know about the Canaanites and the world of the middle of the mid second millennium B.C.E.
     The ancient Near East of around 1500 B.C.E. was different than it is today. There were two or three major powers which dominated the region, the Egyptians from North Eastern Africa, the Minoans from Crete and the Aegean, and the Hittites from Asia Minor. But it is the Minoans more than anyone who had the most cultural impact on the coastal territory the Bible calls Canaan.
     In Hebrew, the island of Crete was called Kaftor, and its people, the Kaftorim. In Egyptian, Crete and its civilization were called “Kefchu.” The Kaftorim were a heavily sea faring people, and they established colonies and extended their power through this colonization across the Mediterranean. The Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur reflects Kaftor’s domination over the coastal Greek Mycenaean cities and towns, and its fairly well established that the ancient Philistines, also referred to as Kaftorim in the Hebrew Scriptures, also started as colonies from Kaftor and carrying their culture, civilization, and practices with them. Kaftor’s relationship with Egypt was marked both by trade and by warfare at different periods of time.
     Part of Kaftor’s religious practices, as well as the Canaanites’ religious practices, had to do with child sacrifice. There is good archaeological evidence to support this, as well as mention of it from the record of the Scriptures. What is less well known, is that in the ancient Near East, a sacrifice wasn’t considered complete until it was eaten from. There is evidence from Minoan and Canaanite digs of children’s bones and remains which had been eaten from. Another part of their religious practices had to do with priestesses offering themselves sexually to bulls (though this would be practiced in Egypt as well). Aside from this, the Kaftorim became exceedingly militarily aggressive, and there are records of “sea peoples” raiding coastal towns and cities during the period of their operations. Further, the Canaanites, heavily influenced by Kaftorim culture, were known for molesting and even raping travelers that passed through the lands they controlled by the mid second millenium. They saw themselves as superior and everyone else as cattle.
     It was around 1500 B.C.E. that the sacred Minoan island of Thera (Santorini) exploded as a near supervolcano, effectively destroying Kaftor’s empire from its very head and heart. The effects of this eruption were felt as far away as Egypt on the other side of the Mediterranean, and there is a good argument for its effects being used to create the plagues which fell upon Egypt during the Exodus. Forty years later, around 1540 or 1550 B.C.E. The people of Israel invaded Canaan with orders to destroy every last remnant of the Canaanite culture and civilization, and in so doing, they would be erasing every last living trace of the Minoan civilization in the region as well.
     What does God do when an entire civilization, an entire group of souls, have gone so far from simple love and kindness that they will mistreat themselves, each other, and everyone else as only existing for their abuse and amusement? What does God do when even their young are not spared, and are either burned alive and eaten, or raised to be just as much of a monster as their elders? What does a God who is love do when such a civilization becomes a threat to the well being, both spiritually and physically, to every other people and civilization in the region? He removes their immortal souls from Earth to where they can no longer do any harm or harm others, and begins to work on their rehabilitation if possible. God is love, patience, and mercy. But within the stream of time, there comes a point where action must be taken out of love for the souls of both those causing harm and being harmed. And sometimes, that means removing those souls from the physical world. Not destroying those souls, but just removing them.
     No one said God enjoys doing this, but if there is to be any hope of redeeming and rehabilitating such souls, sometimes they have to be pulled out of the context they are in altogether and the “reset” button hit for them. This answer on this subject may not satisfy everyone or anyone for that matter, but it is in character for the God whom the Holy Scriptures say is love.