Herem (war or property)
Herem or cherem (Hebrew: חרם, ḥērem), as used in the Tanakh, means something given over to the Lord, or under a ban, and sometimes refers to things or persons to be utterly destroyed.
[2] There is also a homonym, herem, meaning fisherman's net, which occurs 9 times in the masoretic text and is regarded as etymologically unrelated, according to the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon.
The concept of herem also appears in 1 Samuel 15, where Saul "totally destroyed" (verse 8, NIV) the Amalekites with the sword, but spared their king, Agag, and kept "the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good."
[10] In the archaeological community, the consensus of modern scholars is that the story of battle and the associated extermination are a pious fiction and did not happen as described in the Book of Joshua.
"[3] Lilley goes on to suggest that essence of the idea of herem is an "irrevocable renunciation of any interest" in the object 'devoted', and thus "so far as persons are concerned, the options of enslavement and treaty are not available."
[22] The Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder suggests that the concept of herem was unique in relation to the morality of the time not in its violence, but in ensuring that "war does not become a source of immediate enrichment through plunder",[23] and hence was the beginning of a trajectory that would lead ultimately to the teaching of nonviolence.
Scholars Ian Lustick and Leonard B. Glick quote Shlomo Aviner as saying "from the point of view of mankind's humanistic morality we were in the wrong in [taking the land] from the Canaanites.
[29] Scholar M. I. Rey notes that Deut 21:10–14 constitutes a form of genocidal rape and the gravity of the practice should not be minimized solely because it does not display the totalizing destruction and annihilation seen in herem (despite being labeled "herem-like").
Several justifications and explanations for the extreme violence associated with the wars of extermination have been offered, some found in the Hebrew Bible, others provided by Rabbinic commentators, and others hypothesized by scholars.
The Nephilim are believed to be the offspring of fallen angels and mankind[35][36] so thus, Heiser argues that the purpose of the herem is to also prevent the physical corruption of the Israelites.
According to Ian Lustick, in the 1980s, leaders of the now defunct Israeli messianic and political movement Gush Emunim, such as Hanan Porat, considered the Palestinians to be like Canaanites or Amalekites, and suggested that implied a duty to make merciless war against Arabs who reject Jewish sovereignty.
[40] Nur Masalha, a Palestinian writer and academic, writes that the genocide of the extermination commandments has been "kept before subsequent generations" and served as inspirational examples of divine support for slaughtering enemies.
[41] Ra'anan S. Boustan, an associate professor of ancient Mediterranean religions at UCLA, has said that militant Zionists have identified modern Palestinians with Canaanites, and hence as targets of violence mandated in Deut 20:15-18.
[46] Carl Ehrlich states the biblical rules of extermination provide guidance to modern Israelis not for genocidal purposes, but rather simply as models for reclaiming the land of Israel.
