This is the best treatment of violence in the Hebrew I have ever come across!!!!

"Our modern tendency to erase the violence in the biblical text... is problematic" so powerful. It echoes today in Israel so clearly.

Found this channel not long ago and love it. I wish more believers would be like this, embracing critical scholarship not the ultra orthodox based type that passes for scholarship in many biblical theological institutions namely in the U.S. I never tried to destroy anyone's faith or make them agnostic like I am. I just want them to really understand the biblical authors context, their sources, the diverse views within it. I love mythology and history.

Who else is here in 2024? ❤

To Dr. Josh’s point about the defunct cities pointing towards “giants,” that matches up really well with the Classical Greek perception of the Cyclopean walls in Mycenean settlements.

It’s almost like the Bible writers woke up one day and realized they where the bad guys who conquered this land and drove out the rightful owners then said maybe we should portray ourselves as innocent victims and everyone else is our unprovoked enemy

The continued reference to modern Professional Sports is perfect. Professional Sports is one of the new religions in the pantheon of modern gods.

I LOVE the conversation about Ethnicity, Polity, Culture, Religion, etc. These distinctions are almost NEVER discussed.

The Israelites where the Canaanites and the scripture even explains how they're constantly trying to eliminate there Canaan roots

Thank you for such a great interview! This very much helps with my own research, and I now have a number of new books to buy, including yours!

People have commented on the quality of the information presented here, which I echo… However, I also wanted to acknowledge how great of an interview/conversation this was/is. I REALLY hope to see more of Dr. Benz in the near future. Great job as always #DigitalHammurabi!

Just discovering this channel and enjoying it immensely. Thanks for the interviews. One tip, if I may, (as a scholar in another field who spends a lot of time communicating with the public): short sentences! Ask your guests very simple questions, not scholarly questions. We in the public don't know much about this subject anyway, so there's no problem starting of very simple. You can let your guest go into details of their research first (then add as much as you like). By keeping the dialog more succinct terse & tight, the length of the videos could be decreased about 30% without losing any content. Just a thought. In any case, keep up the good work!

The historical Israelite/Canaanite distinction reminds me of Northern Ireland in the 20th century. People there worship similarly, but for political reasons hit has in recent decades been important to distinguish oneself from between Protestant or Catholic..creating an "other". But if we just go back 1000 years or so, they would all have identified as "Irish" with the "other" being the Vikings. Go back another 700 years and the were Celts and the "other" was the Romans, etc.

Historically, did Israel actually do the genocide that they claim in the Bible, or is it more of the fiction created in the Exodus story to help aid in the forming of a national identity and a god that can't be defeated?

In regards to the setup of this monolith of "the Arabs," fully agree 100%. These are different ethnic groups with different histories and backgrounds, and their form of Arabic is different, Syrian, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Jordanian Arabic is Levantine (which is a form of Arabic that mixed with the various dialects of Aramaic), and are generally more diverse. The owner of a Lebanese restaurant next door told me that Levantine Arabic speakers can hardly understand N. African Arabic speakers because their Arabic is mixed with local languages; Amazigh, Berber, etc.

After listening to this great interview I looked at the battle in 2 Kings Chapter 3 where it talks about the Moabite king sacrificing his eldest to his god, and the "wrath" that pushed Israel back. What I find interesting about this passage is that the kings of Israel consulted the prophet Elisha. In verse 18 they are told that Jehovah will deliver Moab into their hands. Then they are told step by step how to destroy things once they are in the land. Israel does as they are commanded, but then they retreat from the "wrath" that burned against them. Leaving me to wonder what the hell happened. Is this another failed prophecy? Did Israel tuck tail and run from the intensity of battle? There comes a time when the bible doesn't make sense. Usually the pastor or teacher will point to the faithlessness of Israel and say Jehovah moved against them, but they did as they were told. So, what the hell? I enjoy your channel even when it leaves me looking at the history with bewilderment.

Another delightfully informative discussion :)

“What is this notion of a Canaanite and why is it such a negative thing?” If Canaanite was those serving Egypt and the ancient Hebrews viewed Egypt as their oppressors, wouldn’t it be logical for them to them vilify the Canaanites? “To be Israelite... you were anti Egypt and therefore not Canaanite.” Ah Ha!

I loved this interview. The concept of "The others" The ones who are not us is our enemy, is something that caused a lot of needless suffering. A group of people demonizing others because of where they lived. Good and evil doesn't have a nationality or a passport, it speaks in different, tongues, wears many skins, and exists every where... even in the same person.

That was wonderfully informative and I truly appreciate your work.

The panel talks about child sacrifice was practiced by the Canaanites but what about the biblical patriarch Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Issac that was commanded by God to show his loyalty?

How I see it is the Israelites were one of the Tribes that were part of the "Sea Peoples" invasion. A roving band of Pirates/Raiders who accrued wealth by theft and murder, invading and raiding camps, towns and cities they encountered in their travels. Once land became available they claimed it, any objections were silenced by death or enslavement. Such a Land was Canaan (Phoenicia), good land, great resources and apparently weak and defenseless People. So they invaded Canaan, killed anyone who would stand up against them, took females and children as slaves, moved in to its cities and established their kingdom. These cities were used as a base of operation to raid surrounding nations. The Philistines were also one of the "Sea Peoples" who were in competition with Israel, they just wiped out their competitors. There was Human Sacrifice in every Religion or Culture, both Child and Adult Sacrifice at some point of their History.

Only on KZfaq will you find Patrick Bateman and Negan Smith having a thoughtful discussion on Canaanite history. Amazing! 👍👍👍

This interview format is great - fascinating interview! 👍

You know how we get upset today about "appropriation"? If you look at the Genesis, you find an appropriation of the traditions of Sumer, Akkad, Canaan to paper over basic differences of Anu, Enlil, Enki, Marduk, Inanna, Nebo, etc ... to pretend they had always had an exclusive relationship to one god. In the book of Exodus, you find them attempting to appropriate Egyptian history from the flip side like their new ownership of Osiris (though a careful reading of Manetho reveals to what extent they'd screwed up that nation's history).

Essential episode!

The discussion starting around 35:34 through to about 52:00 or so is fantastic.

I come back to this conversation often (and comment often 🤷🏻‍♂️), I really really hope to see more of these two in talks on this channel. I don’t even care what topic.

It's often difficult to keep your current cultural perspective from passing judgement on what happened elsewhere and at a different time.

Would love to hear a more in depth discussion about colonial genocide, torture and destruction of artifacts through biblical justification I think it is WAY more ingrained into cultures and “accepted”, even in modern times, even now, than people would like to believe

I love when a Professor speaks deliberately and carefully because i can keep up with my note taking.

Great interview! Loving all of your content :)

Why tf am I getting an ad about taking a 30 minute course for Christian women who are too self sufficient to find a good Christian man? Who is doing their marketing and why are they targeting Digital Hammurabi fans 😂

These DH interviews are so consistently good that I am going to be forced to differentiate or catalogue them according to how many [and what] items are on the corner shelf behind Mr. Megan Bowen... 😎

The question in the title can be found here 37:00

I saw this notification on my smart phone before it started. I went to my PC and came to your channel AND did a browser search. On that 'platform' KZfaq did not show this video existed on your channel. Repeat searches showed this streamed one day ago. How bizarre!!! I am watching it now on my smart phone.🤷‍♂️😒

My take is that the priests, the kings and ruling class of this Israelite group would take credit for things like abundant harvests, defeating an enemy and so on to themselves and one way of doing this maintain priests as the intermediary between the people and God so priests could take credit for things that in truth they had nothing to do with but on the other side, when things go south, the crops don't grow, a plague kills of many of the people then the priests take another method. It is the people fault someone did not offer the best animal in the herd or people were worshiping the wrong way. So now the priests conclude we need a bigger temple, more sacrifice, more rituals to restore God's grace. So when God says take this city it is obviously a priest saying this for the sake of the priest for any number of reasons and likely for the king as well as these two classes are often as one. That is my mindset (right or wrong) to look at stories like the story of Canna how are these priests using this to keep them in power. That story puts the priests at the foundation, the literal land you live on because God working through us priests an kings took this land from people that their priests had them believing in the wrong God but thanks to we the priests who talk to the all powerful god our god we won the battle. Editorial comment, this seems to still be working today in religions.

54:20 „Avi-melech“ is a „fatherly king“, metaphoric a moraly-good ruler (see Genesis, 20,1-18; Gen 21,22-34, Gen 26,1-17; Gen 26,26-31), contrasting to Israels idea of theophoric kingdom.

Great talk, loved it!

What about the notion that Moses was a typical leftist revolutionary. So he was someone raised in the Egyptian court, who had ambitions of his own (or in collision with other conspirators), he likely reached his cieling in that court. Then he decides to kill a slave master to earn merit amongst the slaves, he wanted to be identified with the slave class so that he could gain their allegiance for his new project. How many imperial (communist) projects have leaders who use the lower classes for their own aims. He created this notion that the slaves were entitled to more. He made a covenant with the jealous wrathful sky God ywhw (a god of hunter/herdsman- as evidenced by his preference for Able's sacrifice and snubbing of Cain. Cain was a mama's boy, an agriculturalist with reverence for the way that a seed must be broken and placed in the mother for growth. Agricultural societies often sacrifice youth at the height of their vitality as enactment of this most sacred process of life and death. So did the canaanites, and this is one of the things they were villified for). The invasion of hunter/nomadic herdsman into agricultural societies was a commonality in ancient times, and with it comes the eradication of the earth/goddess/nature and the installment of patriarchy, force, machination. So what about the idea that Moses was enciting a group of slaves to do kin-slaying? Abrahamic people were all throughout so called Cannan...and these runaway slaves claimed Abrahamic ties. IMO Moses should be seen as the quitessential two-face soothsayer who plays games with the disenfranchised, claiming to be one of them but having personally experienced nothing of their lifestyle. Ever since Moses the 'notion' of "Israel" has been weaponized for covert colonizers who instill disdain for Sacred Mother God (nature itself)

I paused at the question around the 26:00 mark, so maybe this gets answered, but is it possible the Canaanites were considered too diverse in their customs, too "metropolitan"?

Just a note on pronunciation: Shechem is the King James transliteration of שְכֶם. Technically a two syllable word, the first is the very short shva which is never accented. It's not hard to understand why king James translators thought this is how it should be spelled, but we don't know in how they thought it would be pronounced. Now, not SHEHchem, but ShCHEM.

Re 1:00:25, the distinction between "Israelite" and "Israeli" only exists in the English language. In Hebrew, Israeli is used in both cases.

I really love this channel.

In my journey I see repeatedly how monotheism has caused great tyranny and brutality to women. Now Christian preachers are saying the return of the Goddess is responsible for evil in the world. Why would a female be given the power to literally create life if we are inherently so evil? I was raised in the church. In my 30s I started to question why I had to stay in an abusive relationship. I read the Bible cover to cover and I was sad, angry, depressed, heartbroken, and felt tricked. I was at a library book sale and "when God was a woman" literally fell of a shelf and hit me in the head. That was 25 years ago.

I would say the evidence would refute his claim of Canaanites not being an ethnicity like we see today. The evidence shows a common language, religious system, clothing and dietary practices. To me that says a common ethnicity.

If the Caanonites survived the flood - I Guess God wasn’t too upset with them. And they didn’t need Noah or a boat.

Really interesting information.

The Israelites and Judahites were both Caninities, so on the question of evil, I think that is self evident. Yahweh was a Canaanite God and Asher was his consort, previously the Consort of Bal . There can't be any question I don't think that the Canaanites were the same people as the Judahites and Israelites.

It is also funny to me that it seems like the Israelites really disliked the Egyptians but didn't mind the Mesopotamians too much.

Nice choice of music at the end, can be perfect for Digital Hammurabi intro music

Good chat!!

Hebrews are Canaanites .This is the view of many archaeologists and historians today. K. L. Noll says, in Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: A Textbook on History and Religion: Almost all researchers today speak of a single, relatively homogenous, 'Canaanite cultural sphere', of which Israel was a part.

Ka in Egypt, they worship Khnum/Ares/Mars/Nergal/Shem the monotheistice spirit of violence. Celts and Goths have a similar culture. Also related to John the Baptist and the Templars. Sellers of redemption.

I belive Jerusalem before David was the Yebusites. I think their Priesthood was the Melchizadec the Royal Priesthood. Eventually absorbed into the Levite system after 1st Temple era.

Would like to get my hands on the book by dr. Benz, but its hard to come by and retails at about a hundred dollars here in Norway (about the same with shipping from abroad). Any chance of getting it republished as a more market-friendly edition. Eisenbrauns' books are decidedly expensive.

I'm trying my best with this, I really am, but, 26 mins in, not one straight answer ...

Were the Canaanites the same as Phoenicians in a genetic or cultural way? Who came first? Phoenicians or Canaanites?

Thank you both

The first mention of Canaan in the Bible is in the post-Flood story about Noah not fulfilling God's commandment to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth" [9:1] and, instead, becoming "the first tiller of the soil" and who "planted a vineyard . . . drank of the wine, and became drunk" [9:20-1]. Noah's son Ham then "saw the nakedness of his father" [9:22]. According to Leviticus [20:11], "The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall be put to death, their blood is upon them." So, Ham had sex with his own mother (who is unnamed in the Bible), and "Ham was the father of Canaan" -- the implication being that Canaan was the result of the mother/son incest. The similar story told in Genesis 19, about the post-Disaster father/daughters incest committed by Lot after his daughters got him drunk. Lot's wife having died -- the "pillar of salt" penalty for looking back at the destruction of Sodom -- these unnamed daughters thought it their duty to repopulate the world, so they got him drunk and committed incest with him, thus becoming the mothers of Moab and Ben-Ammi -- the eponymous ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Noah -- rather than condemning his own wife and their son Ham -- instead curses the baby Canaan, as if that child had any say or responsibility in its own manner of conception! Noah curses Canaan -- and, by extension, all of his descendants, the Canaanite tribe -- calling upon him/them to be SLAVES of [the descendants of] Shem and Japheth. The brutality meted out by the invading Israelites, following the Exodus and the 40-year wanderings, upon the people living in the land of Canaan is, thus, 'justified' as being the fulfillment of Noah's curse upon Canaan. Noah was, after all, a "righteous man" [6:9], so he must have been righteous when he condemned a baby its subsequent progeny to perpetual servitude -- nay, worse than that, since Joshua is commanded to commit genocide against the Canaanites -- excepting only Rahab the harlot and her family because she had aided Israelite spies sent into Jericho prior to its destruction. Men and women. And children. The God of the Bible wanted Joshua and the Israelites to slaughter them all. Why? What was so evil about them that called for such cruelty? Because of the manner in which their eponymous ancestor had been conceived, through mother/son incest. For a similar reason, the Moabites and Ammonites are mistreated by the Israelites: their eponymous ancestors were begotten via father/daughter incest. In my view, the Israelites wanted ["coveted"] the land on which the native3 Canaanites happened to live, so they murderously stole it from them, committing genocide . . . and, later on, to retroactively justify their genocidal annexation of the territory, they invented a bogus story about how God promised to give the land to them, and the bogus stories of how the indigenous peoples already living there 'deserved' to be slaughtered -- because of the disgusting manner in which their distant eponymous ancestors had been begotten, through incest. Anyone who calls it "the Good Book" is ethically no different than the Nazis who labelled Jews "untermenschen" -- subhumans who, like rats, must have deserved to suffer the Holocaust. I have yet to encounter an apologist who can justify this sordid 'scripture'. You can bet that neither the Canaanites nor the Moabites and Ammonites ever believed that they had been spawned through parent/child incest. Those stories in Genesis are base lies told at the expense of peoples who had the bad luck to be living on land coveted by the heartless, bloodthirsty Israelites who weren't above committing genocide and then making up a fake history to 'justify' their crimes against humanity.

Frank Turek needs to start watching this video at the 37 min mark

The Hyksos were Canaanites and the Egyptians referred to them as “wicked of heart, vile Asiatics”.

Thank you for the content. I just wish your answer were more plainly stated. It seems like I'm having to sift through your long winded run on's to put together some kind of actual answer. I much more enjoyed the Q+A session in the later half of the video.

So, were the Canaanites as bad as the Bible and some apologists make out or not?

HI Josh, I enjoy your guests and the discussions you lead. Just a bit of hopefully constructive criticism. Perhaps you could try to limit the number and length of your asides. I think that sometimes the result is that not enough time is spent on the subject at hand. Thanks!

Considering the place was called Retenu and Pa Ka Na Na (Canaan) was an archaic word well passed its sell by date.by the time the backward hill tribes learnt how to write. The Amarna period is 7 centuries before the judahite tribal books of myths gets written.

A text of wisdom? Seriously!?

I do think that when the Israelites set themselves apart as such they probably did so without YHWH and only later did they adopt YHWH from the south. So basically varied Canaanites ----> Israelites -----> Israelites with YHWH and Judahites.

The Cananites were the thorn in the Isralites' side; the Isralites envied the Cananites culture wanted their land, so they demonized them!

The Problem of Evil doesn't seem to be a problem at all for fundamentalists if it's "DEUS VULT".

What about those of us who regard supernatural beings as creations of human wishful thinking? That only leaves raw genocide as an explanation (assuming the events are historically accurate)

As far as fluid ethnicity goes, many centuries after the assumed times of Exodus, Joshua, and Judges, the priest Ezra ordered Jews to put away their foreign wives. It seems that by that time, ethnicity had become sticky.

The Israelites came from the Aegean but originally from Libya. The judeans came from Zargos and are linked to phoenecian semites and Aetiopia. Israelites are not semites! They didn’t worship Shem. They hated him. The black sheep. Israel worshiped El. Isra El. El Shaddai, Eloi, El-ohim🔯🔯🔯

yet another really interesting show. cheers.

Most of us learn the Bible from only a theological perspective, and in many ways modern students see the ancient period as some different, magical ,fantasy type of different time and people. Think gods amd temples but we dont grasp the practical use of all this. And I'm 46 just now learning the Bible practically and what the authors was truly and practically trying to pass on. I've invested thousands of hours learning history esp biblical . Practical Genesis is literally telling us that all man knew one God to each own tribe but as they mixed mingled and traded they began to make gods in man's image ,obviously we trade for things therefore these neighbors tribes gods aren't ours but they offer selfish needs that man has. Instead of understanding them all as one they began adopting all these gods per needs ,rain,fertility, war etc etc etc. Well around 3,000 bc up christ the Levant starts becoming a refuge or the place exiles from the surrounding major powers would move to. The modern Lebanese is likley almost as original as you can get . When sea peoples or a more Greek peoples come in plus groups living in and out if Egypt like hykosos it became a mixed multitude. And as the Bible says before Moses and the covenant with God they where a mix multitude. This tells me every ethnic present ,nubian ,India, Greek, sumerian ,cannanite all become isrealites. The hittite controlled North becomes phoneciean. Judea the 3rd branch of cannanites i believe is off spring of Egyptian over lords who married cannon women and after the 1180 collapse this is the format. With isreal and Judea having phonecias flank protected and they allied as the Bible suggest that then allowed them to go into Mediterranean and found Carthage, Spain etc city states

@DigitalHamurabi speaking of the giants in the land, given that Egypt had at this time fortifications in what is called the land of Canaan, could instead of the giants refering to the physical size of individuals, rather be an alagorical reference to those Egyptian fortificatuons and the power that they would project into the area?

Interesting also many forget that much is Allegory and the terms religion in the west and religion in the east are 2 totally different things.

Anyone here after the WLC talk with Alex O’Conner?

Great interview. A lot to think about from this conversation. I am really enjoying this channel.

Thanks!

Foundation needs applied. Who is the god that commanded to perform genocide? It is a lesser god, a son of the Most High (El Elyon) whose inheritance was Yisra'el. This is found in the DSS that expresses this inheritance of the Yah god among the other lesser gods. Bibles change Deut. 32 to say "sons of Yisra'el," because the scribes believing the Yah is the real deal "God" could not have a god that was a lesser god among others of El Elyon, but the DSS reveals "sons of God (El Elyon)," not "sons of Yisra'el." With that as foundation revealed through the DSS and unaltered bibles, the bible reveals it is the Yah (YHWH) that wanted the peoples of Caana wiped away in order to fully become the Great God (usurped his father El Elyon) and make his inheritance (Yisra'el) "the Chosen" and justified to wipe away other peoples for superiority reasons, so the peoples of Caanan must, therefore, be declared evil, even though the Yisra'elites also sacrificed children. Finally Yisra'el accepted the Yah as to be their inherited god and went from being believers in multiple gods to believing their Yah is truly the only Great God. The ideology employed by the Yah god is that he made his people "set apart" and, this, created the Yah religion.😮

God apparently enjoyed testing his loyal followers. You gotta wonder about some godly behavior when condemning others for the same behavior. Good stuff!

Could the destruction of the Cananites cities/people means, remove their allegiances to foreign powers?

I don't know why they didn't like the canaanites. After all, they were canaanites. Just because the canaanites got their butts kicked and those whom fled didn't want to be seen as canaanites doesn't change the fact that they were and always will be canaanites. Regardless of what they call themselves.

Well the Hebrews had no letters of their own the Canaanite letters are the base of of the Greek & Latin letters. Not to mention so many words used till now in Europe have these roots. The Canaanites i.e. the Phoenicians left incredible archeological remains enough is Byblos Baalbeck Ugarit.. the Hebrews left nothing since they were Nomads. Even the word Hebrew means people who move , infact much of the israelite tradition is similar to the bedouin. The whiskers that religious jews wear were bedouin ones slso the tabernacle till recently bedouin tribes carried wirh them this coffin that held in it their sacred objects. So israelites left nothing except a propaganda book called the OT which most of its material was stolen from other cultures . Starting with the sumerian myth of the flood..

A friend of a friend of mine had a cousin who knew a man who was rumoured to have read a good chunk of the Bible while in prison. He said it was a bit too far-fetched for his tastes.

It is no coincidence that Noah's grandson was named Canaan, the cat. pronunciation with the letter "K" ک (Canaan), cat. in turn, akin to the word "canine" - canine. Canis (dog) in Latin. The very word Cain (Cain) is also similar to Cainite ... After all, there are legends about dog-headed people, a cat. lived from Northern Africa to India. If we take into account the version that Cain was the son of Eve and the Enemy, then maybe he was the ancestor of the Peseglavites. Yes, and in the south of Russia, there were legends about foxheads and there are coats of arms with fox muzzles ... The Cainites or Cainians were a Gnostic and antinomian sect known to venerate Cain. into the Enemy, and now they want them to return the icon of the dog-headed St. Christopher. So my dear Canaanites, we have reason to think...... :))))

A lot of the giant grandchildren left Jericho, which had been built to house the giants and their families; that is, the men who came to earth and bred earth women. They naturally started kingdoms around Jericho, so yeah, founded Phoenicia....

Unfortunately, the host spoke more than the guest.

What does Marxism have to do with ancient Israel?

If you two do not understand "the other" inasmuch as the Canaanites threw their babies into the fires of Baal, then their is not much I can learn from either of you!l

They are the same people as the israelites.

Who can listen with all the damn ads

Try to put this factor into the equation: The monotheists were nomad Phrygians.

In my view the problem is the bible is a set of narratives that were acceptable and that made sense for a period until they didn't. They were written in sync with culture. When culture changed, the writings did not change, how could they? All u can do is archive them and write new ones that fit the time but that is the very thing you cannot do if you say those writings are divine and cover all of time, past present and future. With that point of view u then have to sanitise a lot of the stuff in those writings, twist yoirself into a pretzel, as someone sed, in order to justify or explain away something you shouldnt even be having to explain. It belongs in the past and can have SOME relevance in modern times but only if you take it as a set of writings that communicated moral and practical values. Those change.

Wow, glad you replaced your giant mute button. You guys have come a long way. Last time I watched people were diving under tables and ducking for cover every time you hit that mute button.

There is no Abaham, he is a myth

The discussion it's interesting but it needs to be more dynamic. The subject it attractive because everybody wants to know about the Canaanites but you guys are very slow in conversation.

Until recently Bible was mocked for Hittites.

If you already sent him the questions why is it so hard for you to form a thought? You already knew what you were thinking. Spit it out man.