For obvious reasons, I've been thinking a lot lately about how the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians relates (sometimes too intentionally) to the stories of Jewish conquest in the Old Testament. In the process, I happened upon this older article in the Smithsonian covering the debates over biblical archaeology. Essentially, the author lays out three camps regarding the field: a literalist approach that tries to link archaeological finds with biblical phenomena directly, a "minimalist" approach that is skeptical of the Bible's historicity and therefore any link between actual finds and biblical phenomena, and a kind of middle-road approach.
The author then suggests that the "literalist" approach is often appropriated by Israeli government and culture for modern day political ends. This approach lends itself to the mindset that the Jews conquered the land by God's will and therefore had a right to reclaim it by force. The minimalist mindset, the author claims, tends to draw accusations of anti-Semetism. It provides fuel for those that think the Bible is little more than ancient propaganda being exploited by modern propagandists. The middle of the road seems more for people who are trying to make successful careers out of provocative academic theses and who don't mind annoying the other two camps simultaneously.
In the article, the debate that stands out as the most heated issue is whether the ancient Israelites invaded Canaan through a military force or slowly grew as a population without necessarily conquering rivals for the land. As you might guess, the cutting edge, secular view of archaelogy appears to favor the latter option. The middle/minimalist approach argues that it seems likely that the ancient Israelites didn't really kick Canaanite butt in a holy war or engage in huge bloodbaths to fulfill God's promise to Abraham of land and progeny.
Obviously, I'm all for advocating whichever version really did happen in history. I know I'm certainly not going to abandon my belief in biblical narrative based on an article in the Smithsonian.
Still, I think it's worth considering if this more peaceful version of the Jewish settlement solves a lot of theological angst (although I'm not suggesting that one should base beliefs on theological convenience). If archaeology could reasonably prove that the Jews didn't slaughter their foes at God's behest, then this field would certainly resolve what many armchair theologians see as a conflict in God's character between certain passages of the Bible. If the merciful, loving God that Jesus reveals and who is less than interested in using military might to topple kings seems to be a different fellow from the guy who orders Saul to commit genocide against the Amelikites...then maybe it's because there is an actual difference. If something in our tells us that God wouldn't really want genocide and certainly wouldn't demand it, then maybe that's because it's God doesn't and didn't. That's a big maybe, and there are plenty of reasons for not seeing this necessarily as a conflict.
Perhaps God did not, in history, directly order slaughters -- but, rather, God allowed Himself to depicted as such a God because the narrative points to a greater Truth. This certainly adheres to Augustine's rule of charity (If God is telling someone to commit genocide, you must read it as allegorical genocide, not literal genocide).
Certainly, I'm not suggesting that the Old Testament is totally fictional. I'm also not suggesting this interferes with divine inspiration. Part of what's awesome about the Old Testament is that its inspiration leads the reader in ways the authors never intended. Even if books like Exodus and Joshua are written as ancient propaganda (again, please not the resounding "if"), they nevertheless contain typological signals towards the real and historical Christ. Pope Benedict makes this point considering the origins of the Apostle's Creed in his Introduction to Christianity. The Creed, he writes, turns out not to be actually composed by the apostles despite the folk legends surrounding it. It nevertheless points towards something that is true and is thereby accepted by the Church despite its potential spurious origins.
So, to make a long blog post short (too late!), Christians are in a kind of win-win situation regarding this debate in biblical archaeology. If archaeology upholds the biblical accounts of the Old Testament, then it's all true as written and there's nothing to worry about. If honest archaeology undermines biblical accounts of the Old Testament, then God actually appears even more consistent.
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