Sermons
Modern Canaanites
Modern Canaanites?
I. Introduction
Tonight I have a very different kind of sermon. There was a story in the news a couple of weeks ago, related to the Canaanites of the Bible. It’s not every day that you see the Canaanites in the news, and there are some interesting things that came to light in that story. So that will be the main focus of our lesson, comparing the news story with what the Bible says and drawing some conclusions.
II. Drive them out
You’ll remember that the land of Canaan was promised to Abraham:
Gen. 17:7-8 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
But it would be many years later before the descendants of Abraham received this inheritance. After 400 years of slavery in Egypt, Moses led them out, and then they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. Joshua would lead the next generation into the land of Canaan, but before Moses died, he told them what to do with the inhabitants of the land:
Deut. 20:16-18 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
Wipe them all out. Nothing that breathes shall be left alive. Moses died before they crossed into the land, so the leadership fell on Joshua. The book of Joshua records their battles and conquests. Around the middle of the book, before the land was apportioned to the tribes, there is this summary statement:
Josh. 11:23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war.
Thus the people of Israel inherited the land, as God had promised to Abraham. Of course, this is just a summary, but that’s the basic idea. The background story that most people are probably vaguely familiar with. Hopefully.
III. And now, the news
The news story comes from a report in the August, 2017, edition of The American Journal of Human Genetics. The report gives the results of a study by 15 researchers titled, “Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences.”
Or in regular English, a study of the genetic connection between present day Lebanese and ancient Canaanites who lived thousands of years ago.
What these scientists did was examine the DNA in bones of skeletons from the city of Sidon, dated to around 3700 years ago. That would be about 300 years before Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan. Then the scientists compared the genetic profile of those five ancient people with 99 present-day Lebanese people, who live in the same general area.
The results of their study? “We show that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in the Levant since at least the Bronze Age.”
Ok, so that’s pretty neat. Modern day Lebanese people are descended from the ancient Canaanites.
This probably wouldn’t have caught anyone’s attention, except for a brief reference to the Bible in the report:
Uncertainties also surround the fate of the Canaanites: the Bible reports the destruction of the Canaanite cities and the annihilation of its people; if true, the Canaanites could not have directly contributed genetically to present-day populations. However, no archaeological evidence has so far been found to support widespread destruction of Canaanite cities between the Bronze and Iron Ages: cities on the Levant coast such as Sidon and Tyre show continuity of occupation until the present day.
Ah, so the researches claim their results contradict the Bible account that the Canaanites were destroyed. If they were destroyed, they reason, there’s no way the modern Lebanese would be descended from them.
And that’s the part that the news media jumped on. Check out these headlines (cited from this story):
- “Study disproves the Bible’s suggestion that the ancient Canaanites were wiped out” (The Telegraph)
- “Bible says Canaanites were wiped out by Israelites but scientists just found their descendants living in Lebanon” (The Independent)
- “Bronze Age DNA disproves the Bible’s claim that the Canaanites were wiped out: Study says their genes live on in modern-day Lebanese people” (Daily Mail)
- “Scientists Find Evidence That Ancient Canaanites Survive Today: Was The Bible Wrong?” (Tech Times)
- “New DNA study casts doubt on Bible claim” (Mother Nature Network)
- “The Bible was WRONG: Civilisation God ordered to be KILLED still live and kicking” (Express)
- “Genetic evidence suggests the Canaanites weren’t destroyed after all” (Ars Technica)
- “Canaanites Weren’t Annihilated by Ancient Israelites After All” (Newser)
- “Study disproves the Bible’s claim that the ancient Canaanites were wiped out” (Click Lancashire)
- “Canaanites survived Biblical ‘slaughter’, ancient DNA shows”(ABC Online)
- “DNA vs the Bible: Israelites did not wipe out the Canaanites” (Cosmos)
- “The Bible got it wrong: Ancient Canaanites survived and their DNA lives in modern-day Lebanese” (Pulse Headlines)
The Bible got it wrong! Bible proven wrong by scientists!
Well, that would be news, if there were any truth to it. But of course, this isn’t true at all. Can you think of why?
IV. Canaanites not driven out
Let’s go back to the record of Joshua. Remember our summary statement? Let’s look again.
Josh. 11:21-23 And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. 22 There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain. 23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war.
So some of the people were not driven out. In fact:
Josh. 13:1 Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess.
There was much more fighting to do. So Joshua gave them the land in a general sense. They did conquer it. But they by no means drove out all the people or destroyed them completely. What about the Canaanites?
Judges 1:27-32 Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. 28 When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely. 29 And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them. 30 Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol, so the Canaanites lived among them, but became subject to forced labor. 31 Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, 32 so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.
Ok… So they didn’t drive out all the Canaanites. In fact, as I’m sure you’re aware, the people they didn’t drive out would be a thorn in their side all down through the years. So it isn’t surprising at all to find modern people descended from the Canaanites.
Also, remember where they found these Canaanite bones? In the city of Sidon. Sidon was never part of Israel. Even in the days of Solomon, the kingdom extended far north, but did not include Sidon. So there’s no reason to think that the Israelites destroyed the people who lived there. In fact, we can be sure they didn’t!
So in reality, the study actually shows that the available evidence supports rather than contradicts the Bible account.
IV. Applications
Now let’s think about some applications of this.
A. The Bible is supported by evidence
The Bible account continues to be supported by a mountain of archaeological evidence.
Even in the original scientific paper, they give a little background statement:
During the Bronze Age in the Levant, around 3–4 kya, a distinctive culture emerged as a Semitic-speaking people known as the Canaanites. The Canaanites inhabited an area bounded by Anatolia to the north, Mesopotamia to the east, and Egypt to the south, with access to Cyprus and the Aegean through the Mediterranean. Thus the Canaanites were at the center of emerging Bronze Age civilizations and became politically and culturally influential.
That fits perfectly with the Bible account. The Bible story takes place in real places, involving real nations and peoples that you can read about in history books. The Egyptian pharaohs, the people of Canaan, the Syrians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, etc., and then in the NT, the places and rulers, the Herods, emperors, etc. They are all historical people and places. You have a whole library of historical archaeological evidence of these ancient peoples.
Compare this with the Book of Mormon, for example, that describes nations, wars, peoples, technologies, etc., that never existed.
B. Apparent contradictions can usually be explained
However, sometimes there does appear to be a discrepancy between what science discovers and what the Bible records. But as in this case, a closer look is usually all it takes to find the answer.
For example, remember that the study also said, “However, no archaeological evidence has so far been found to support widespread destruction of Canaanite cities between the Bronze and Iron Ages: cities on the Levant coast such as Sidon and Tyre show continuity of occupation until the present day.”
Well, of course Sidon and Tyre were not destroyed, by Israel at least. The Bible never says they were. But what about the cities of the land where the Israelites did conquer? This has apparently been somewhat of a mystery, the lack of evidence of large scale destruction. So… does that contradict the Bible story?
Deut. 6:10-12 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
It looks like the people probably left the houses and cities intact, and just moved into them.
The point is, there is usually an explanation if you look for it.
C. Science can be mistaken
Another thing to keep in mind is that science has often been mistaken about things. There was a long time when they thought there was no such people as the Bible Hittites. But a discovery in 1906 found a huge store room in Turkey with over 10,000 clay tablets, which proved the existence of the Hittites. (source)
And even in this study, think of all the assumptions that go into it. Bones from graves in Sidon, dated to 3700 years ago, somehow assumed to be Canaanites? I wonder how they know? Couldn’t they have been from somewhere else?
Also, even if the Bible said the people of Israel destroyed the Canaanite people, that wouldn’t mean no relatives of theirs in other places survived.
D. Scientists may not be well studied in the Bible
It’s surprising that none of the 15 authors of the research bothered to look a little closer at the Bible record before publishing their paper. Look at their sources, 54 of them, none of which is a Bible. They didn’t even supply a citation for their statement that “the Bible reports the destruction of the Canaanite cities and the annihilation of its people.” No footnote for that. Wouldn’t have taken long to find out if that is a true statement.
But the Bible isn’t their area of expertise. Seems like maybe they should have left it out of their report, then.
E. Many are biased against the Bible
But for many people, any opportunity to take a swipe at the Bible is too good to pass up, no matter how flimsy. It’s good to recognize that. Not all scientists or reporters are looking at the evidence objectively. Many have already decided the Bible is a bunch of fairy tales, so they easily swallow anything that fits that view without critically examining it. How else can you explain how so many reputable news papers published such outlandish stories about this supposed discovery?
It’s also worth noting that what passes for journalism today is anything that will get people to click on it. That doesn’t further the cause of truth and understanding.
F. Some are honest
I was pleasantly surprised to find a story absolutely blasting all these headlines, and how everyone got the story wrong. The title is: “For Culturally Illiterate Science Reporters, Canaanite DNA Yields Occasion to Slap Bible Around.” In it, they cite the bogus headlines mentioned earlier and then say, “The only problem with this reporting? The Bible is detailed and unambiguous in relating that the Canaanites survived Joshua’s invasion. So it’s no wonder they have living descendants.”
But here’s the real surprise: this story is from evolutionnews.org. The author begins by saying, “Obviously, your friends at Evolution News are not here to do Biblical exegesis. However, when science headlines tendentiously try to manipulate readers in order to slam the Bible, well, that’s fair game.” I respect that.
Sometimes Christians make the same kind of mistake of just latching onto anything that sounds like it fits their view and sharing it or passing it along without the least bit of critical thinking. And it comes across the same way as these bogus headlines do to us.
The key is to take the time to examine what you read and share. Be thoughtful and honest about it. There are people out there who are genuinely looking for the truth.
Conclusion
Paul writes, “Let God be true though every one were a liar.” (Rom. 3:4). As Christians, we believe his Word, even when the world tries to attack it. It has been proven reliable and true, time and time again.
INVITATION
