“The Conquest of Joshua could not have been a primitive assault, because a civilized land like Canaan with well-fortified cities could easily have repulsed an attack that was militarily naïve. …Spies were sent to search out the land and lay the groundwork.”

— Cyrus H. Gordon

Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VIII Further Observations on the Bible

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Conquest of Joshua could not have been a primitive assault, because a civilized land like Canaan with well-fortifie…" by Cyrus H. Gordon?

Cyrus H. Gordon73

American linguist 1908–2001

Related quotes

“In reality, an American siege and occupation of the city would take weeks, perhaps months, but capture of the airport would allow troop-carrying aircraft to land. Since the city is 27 miles wide, an all-out assault could be an operation of epic proportions.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

Allies 'seize most of Baghdad airport' http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles210b.htm, April 4, 2003 <br class="br">2003

“The eclipse of the Aborigines was tragic. Could it have been averted? It could have been prevented for a time if no British settlers had landed, but eventually people of other European or Asian nations would have come and occupied much of the land.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

A Shorter History of Australia (1994)

“Not an inch of the land belongs to you, but every inch could easily imprison you.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Ai Weiwei Twitter feed: @AiWW (9:10 a.m. May 21, 2010)
2010-, Twitter feeds, 2010-12

“[About the diaspora] Canaan is too small for God's children. The Land of Israel will spread through all lands!”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Der Dichter, 1910. Alle Verk, x. 24.

“There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“There is one important aspect of my answer that I would change, however. I have come to appreciate as a result of a closer reading of the biblical text that God’s command to Israel was not primarily to exterminate the Canaanites but to drive them out of the land. It was the land that was (and remains today!) paramount in the minds of these Ancient Near Eastern peoples. The Canaanite tribal kingdoms which occupied the land were to be destroyed as nation states, not as individuals. The judgment of God upon these tribal groups, which had become so incredibly debauched by that time, is that they were being divested of their land. Canaan was being given over to Israel, whom God had now brought out of Egypt. If the Canaanite tribes, seeing the armies of Israel, had simply chosen to flee, no one would have been killed at all. There was no command to pursue and hunt down the Canaanite peoples.
It is therefore completely misleading to characterize God’s command to Israel as a command to commit genocide. Rather it was first and foremost a command to drive the tribes out of the land and to occupy it. Only those who remained behind were to be utterly exterminated. There may have been no non-combatants killed at all. That makes sense of why there is no record of the killing of women and children, such as I had vividly imagined. Such scenes may have never taken place, since it was the soldiers who remained to fight. It is also why there were plenty of Canaanite people around after the conquest of the land, as the biblical record attests.”

William Lane Craig book Reasonable Faith

[Subject: The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited, Reasonable Faith, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8973, 2011-10-20], quoted in [Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig, Richard, Dawkins, Guardian, 2011-10-20, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig, 2011-10-20]