Fine, have it your way (though next time, buy your own Bible).
The Bible does appear to portray God’s judgment of Canaanites in harsh terms. Consider Deuteronomy 20:16-18
16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
It would have been easy for me to have omitted verse 18, of course, but then you'd get to complain "out of context!" Quite rightly, too. But here, we see that Israel is indeed planning (presumably because they think they have God's sanction -- but doesn't everyone in such circumstances?) to take the land of Canaan -- at the cost of the complete and utter genocide of the present inhabitants, yes? No?
But read that all again: "Their Gods?" Are there other gods, or only the one? If there's only the one -- and He's omnipotent -- why does Israel know that but not Canaan? Did God -- for whatever reason -- give ultimately important information to one part of His creation, and withhold it from another?
Also, I'd like to know about the "abominable practices" committed by the infants and young children, along with the donkeys and sheep and whatever else, that required leaving alive nothing that breathes. That is what it says. Kill everything. Complete, total annihilation, genocide right down to the babies -- commanded by God. And for what? For not believing what they've not been told, by the very God that now plans to kill them for not having been told?
In the words of those who don't tend to write as I do: "Give me a freakin' break!"
Now, add to that the totality of Joshua -- which goes into some quite orgiastic descriptions of the killing needed to accomplish this take-over. I'm not going to quote all of Joshua here -- I think it might irritate the membership. However, I will, at the risk of a nasty backlash, cite quite a bit of Numbers 31 -- which speaks quite directly to what I have said:
31 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.
7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.
13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
Now, to be perfectly clear -- all of this is by way of the Israelites, at the invitation and COMMAND of God, to take the land of Canaan for themselves -- at genocidal cost to the present inhabitants (except for the few virgin girls who get to live by getting boffed by their conquerors.) Tell me it isn't -- go ahead, make an apologetic case explaining how it was all God being omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.
