THE CONQUEST of Canaan was a war to drive the Anakim out of the hill country of Judah and Israel.

This week, we discuss Joshua’s two campaigns in Canaan, against coalitions of Amorites, Perizzites (Philistines), Hittites, Hivites (Mycenaean Greeks), and Jebusites (probably Hurrians). We explain how the deception of the Gibeonites was perceived by the Amorite kings in the south as a divide-and-conquer maneuver by Israel, and why the Anakim were a warrior elite who venerated the Rephaim (spirits of the Nephilim; i.e., demons).


In our book Veneration, we explain why we believe Anakim ”was a title roughly meaning ‘lords’ or ‘rulers,’ and the ‘sons of Anak’ [Num. 13:21] were a warrior elite who ruled the hill country of Judah and Israel.”

We also discuss a Chuck Missler articlein which he proposed that Joshua’s Long Day was the result of a near pass of Earth by the planet Mars. Besides the defeat of the Amorite kings, Chuck suggested that other significant events, like the flattening of Sodom and Gomorrah and the destruction of the Assyrian army outside the walls of Jerusalem, were also the result of a Mars flyby. Fascinating!

Chuck pointed out that Jonathan Swift, in his novel Gulliver’s Travels, apparently knew about the two moons of Mars (including their sizes, periods, and orbits) 151 years before they were discovered! According to Chuck, “it is assumed that Swift simply embroidered his colorful parody drawing upon an ancient legend of some sort, probably not realizing that it was, apparently, an actual eye-witness account long prior to the development of telescopic optics.”