The religious factor in the Old Testament and its impact on the ideology of genocide The travel of Joshua bin Nun as a model

Abstract

Genocide was not an event of the times, but rather an event that extends its roots to the depths of the ancient history of mankind. Ancient history has preserved for us brutal and bloody genocides that occurred in the BC period, carried out by kings and tyrant leaders for several reasons in which the religious factor played an active role. In the books of the Old Testament, which are sacred religious texts and historical documents at the same time, many genocides carried out by the Israelis against the safe peoples after they occupied their lands and under religious cover are mentioned, as they were carried out and as mentioned in the Old Testament texts by the order and blessing of the Lord, and it is an obligation The law that God commanded the Israelites to exterminate and uproot the heathen peoples. We have chosen one of the most important and most important books that narrate these genocides, which is (The Book of Joshua bin Nun), this book named after the leader who took the leadership of the Children of Israel after the death of Moses (peace be upon him), and who initiated the first genocide known to humanity in its ancient times, taking from the texts The religious beliefs of the Old Testament are a pretext for carrying out those massacres, as it came in those texts: (As for the cities of the nations that the Lord your God gives you an inheritance, do not leave anyone in them, but consume them all...) (Deuteronomy 20/16-17), and it came in other texts of the Covenant The old one also (So enlist against Midian, as the Lord commanded, and kill every male...) (Numbers 31/17-19). Here is the religious factor and its impact on the ideological thought of the genocide. When Joshua bin Nun (1267-1157 BC) and those with him from the beginning, the Israelites, who hated everything that was civilized and civilized, attacked the Canaanite city of Jericho, they exterminated all its inhabitants. Those in the city were men, women, children and the elderly, even cows, sheep, and donkeys, and they burned the city and everyone in it with fire...), and so they did with the rest of the Canaanite cities and other cities, where travel continues in this manner in killings and genocide until it was called (the journey of massacres).