Archaeological Evidence:
- Contrary to what some scholars might say, there is abundant evidence for the conquest of the Promised Land. Once again, issues of chronology are important here: many scholars have assumed a relatively late date for the exodus, and when looking in that time-range, they dismiss the abundant evidence earlier in the chronology.
- Jericho, like many of the other Caananite cities of the period, experienced a dramatic and catastrophic destruction during the period of Joshua, as evidenced by their archaeological remains. Jericho provides many intriguing clues as to what happened in its destruction: the city's walls appear to have fallen outward, tumbling down the embankment to the lower wall; the granaries remained filled (indicating a very short siege); one small portion of the inhabited wall remained standing (as in Joshua, at the site of Rahab's house); and a massive burn layer stretches across most of the city.
- Further, there is a clear archaeological record of a new settlement pattern in the area over the following three centuries: the appearance of a people group who built villages in the hill country, used a new style of house (thus they were not Caananites), who built altars of uncut stones, and did not leave any pig bones in their food refuse. All of these things are exactly what one would expect to find in a new population influx of biblical Israelites.
The Genocide Question:
- First, it's useful to remember the context of the conquest of Canaan. The Caananite city-states were violent and aggressive, themselves practicing genocidal warfare on their opponents. (It would not be a stretch, in terms of the moral character of their civilization, to equate them with modern analogs like Nazi Germany.) Their rituals included truly horrendous practices, like child sacrifice. Further, the Bible makes clear that God had not simply destroyed them outright; rather, he had given them four centuries to repent and reform their ways while Israel was in Egypt; yet they had not.
- Second, the war has an important theological context: it is God's war of judgment, and he is portrayed as the primary actor, not Israel. God, as creator, has it as his prerogative to bring judgment on such civilizations (as he will later do to his own people in the Assyrian and Babylonian periods). This context of divine war cannot be equated to any set of circumstances in our present experience, and so a claim of genocide (by modern definitions) against the conquest of Canaan rather misses the point.
- Third, while some aspects of Joshua's recounting sound like a genocidal war, the whole witness of the Bible makes it clear that Joshua only gives one angle on the events and that it doesn't show the whole picture. Joshua is a conquest narrative, dealing with the capture of a few cities, but even within itself it shows the ability of repentant Canaanites to escape judgment (Rahab) and of others escaping judgment by making truces with Israel. Further, other books of the Bible--like Judges--show that the conquest of Canaan was not a genocide, because many, many Canaanites persisted and held positions of great strength in the land.
- Fourth, one of the ironies of history is that we now know that not only did many Canaanites survive, but many of their descendants later became followers of God in the first wave of Christian expansion during the apostolic age. DNA evidence shows high Canaanite ancestry in Lebanon, which still today has one of the largest Christian populations in the entire Middle East. This would seem to show that God's ultimate plan for the Canaanite people was not wholesale eradication, but redemption.