Terrific reddit post from an amateur explaining some of the early Church father's positions on some of the elements in the Old Testament:

The conquest passages are the passages that speak about the Israelites conquering the land. Many of these war narratives cause ethical and moral controversy for obvious reasons. In the Christian spiritual tradition these narratives are read symbolically. Similar to the Muslim traditions view that the concept of Jihad is an internal struggle, the conquest passages are read symbolically as a struggle to conquer sin and wickedness. These are examples.

(i)The destruction of the 7 nations

In Deuteronomy 7 and 20 it states there are 7 nations in the land. You are to go and put "the ban" on those 7 nations. Meaning you are to "destroy" or "annihilate" them.

St John Cassian one of the Church Fathers in his work called the "Conferences"(Conference 5) he views the 7 nations as symbolising the deadly sins. The goal of the of the spiritual life is to conquer these vices and temptation. Murder is a deadly sin. We have to conquer the vice and temptation to murder. Greed and covetousness is a deadly sin. We have to conquer those vices as well.

(ii)The Midianite War(Numbers 31)

In Numbers 31 it speaks of how Moses went to war against Midian and in the aftermath the Israelites took many spoils and captives after their military campaign. Origen of Alexandria in his commentaries on the Old Testament read the taking of spoils and captives in a symbolic light

In his Homilies on the Book of Numbers Origen reads the Midianite war as symbolising the spiritual struggle. In Church doctrine Christians are part of what's called the "church militant"(soldiers of Christ). Our job to to engage in spiritual warfare for the sake of righteousness. How do we do that? Origen states "But they fight by means of prayers and fasts, justice and piety, gentleness, chastity and all the virtues of self-control, as if they were armed with the weapons of war."(Homily 25).

When people see us struggling for righteousness through the weapons of justice and piety they become "captives" and "prisoners" to the Gospel and the Word of God because they are "captivated" by the example of Christians who live a life dedicated to justice and righteousness. These people that are "captivated" by these virtues are the "spoils" of those who struggle for virtue and justice in this life.

(iii)Joshua's conquest

Just like other passages Origen of Alexandria read the conquest accounts in Joshua symbolically, and you see this particularly in his homilies on the Battle of Jericho. The walls of Jericho for Origen symbolised the walls of hatred in the human heart, and the city itself symbolised malice. So the destruction of Jericho symbolises the destruction of malice and hatred in the human heart.

Taking this one step further, Christ stated in the New Testament Jesus says the "kingdom of God is inside of you"(Luke 17:21). For Origen, Israel's conquest of Jericho symbolise the sovereignty of sin being replaced with the sovereignty of the Kingdom of God in the human heart.

(iv)The destruction of the "child and the infant".

In the conquest accounts this language is often times used and it generates a lot of controversy. St Gregory of Nyssa in work "The Life of Moses" when commenting on the Ten plagues states "The infant lifts his eyes only to see his mother, and tears are the sole perceptible sign of his sadness. And if he obtains anything which his nature desires he signifies his pleasure by smiling. If such a one now pays the penalty of his father's wickedness, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness?_Life of Moses(Book II, par. 91).

Gregory answering this question he posses reads this symbolically stating "The teaching is this: When through virtue one comes to grips with any evil, he must completely destroy the first beginning of evil. For when he slays the beginning, he destroys at the same time what follows after it. The Lord teaches the same thing in the Gospel, all but explictly calling on us to kill the firstborn of the Egyptian evils when he commands us to abolish lust and anger and to have no more fear of the stain of adultery or the guilt of murder. Neither of these things would develop itself, but anger produces murder and lust produces adultery. Since the producer of evil gives birth to lust before adultery and anger before murder, in destroying the firstborn he certainly kills along with it the offspring which follows"_Life of Moses(Book II, par. 92-94)

What Gregory is saying here is that is that a sin like anger(in it's malicious form) is essentially murder in it's infancy, so we have to destroy the temptation towards murderous intent while it's still in its infancy before it grows or gives birth to something else. And this applies to all sins and wickedness on both a personal and social level. So Nazism was one of the worst forms wickedness in the world, but when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1923 it was still in it's infancy. If the world had destroyed the ideology of Nazism in it's infancy there would be no WWII and Holocaust.

These are all examples of how the passages speaking about the Biblical conquest are read symbolically. Now why does the symbolic and allegorical reading of the text have any validity in a Christian context? The reasons are the following:

1)Reading the Bible allegorically is a Biblical tradition.

The allegorical interpretation of the text isn't a modern development. It isn't something newly developed by the whims of people in 2020 reading the Bible however they want. This is something a part of the tradition of the Church that goes back to the Bible itself.

St Paul the Apostle in his letter to the Galatians uses the stories of Hagar and Sarah. In Galatians 4 he reads the narrative allegorically as a distinction between the heavenly and earthly Jerusalem as well as symbolising the two covenants

Jesus in his dispute with the religious authorities over the Resurrection reads the verse from the Hebrew Bible that says "God of the living not the dead" symbolically as an argument for the Resurrection(Mark 12:27)

St Paul the Apostle in 2 Corinthians speaks about the difference between the "spirit" and "letter" of the text(2 Corinthians 3:6). Origen read that as an injunction that the spirit of the text is much more important than the letter of the text.

2)The Church tradition authorises an allegorical reading.

As I presented in my arguments the Church Fathers read these conquest accounts symbolically. You see it in the writings of Origen of Alexandria(Homilies on Numbers and Joshua). You see it with St Gregory of Nyssa in his commentary on the Life of Moses. St John Cassian as well. St Isidore of Seville also presents this interpretation as well as Pope St Gregory the Great in his commentary on the Book of Job.

The authority of the Church to interpret the text and Christian doctrine goes back to the Bible itself. St Paul states that the Church is the "pillar and foundation of the truth"(1 Timothy 3:15). He also states we are to "hold fast to the traditions that you were taught whether by word of mouth or by letter"(2 Thessalonians 2:15). Jesus himself recognises this authority stating "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven"(Matthew 18:18) and we see the Church excercising it's authority on scriptural interpretation when it came to the question of circumcision(Acts 15).

The Church Fathers and Church leaders are the ones who canonised the text in the first place, so the interpretation of those who canonised the text has massive weight. Add to that the fact that for those that come out of a High Church tradition(Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican) the sacred text and sacred tradition have the same weight of authority when it comes to revelation.

3)It is consistent with Christian spirituality

This reading of understanding the conquest as representing the struggle against sin and temptation is consistent with the Biblical understanding of doing battle against sin. The Apostle Paul speaks about how we are to "put to death" passions like fornication, evil desire, greed, etc(Colossians 3:5)

St Paul also uses military rhetoric in a symbolic manner when speaking of the struggle against wickedness. He speaks of how our sword is the word and our helmet is salvation(Ephesians 6:11-18) and how "faith and love" are our weapons(1 Thessalonians 5:8). This symbolic use of military metaphors would be expand by thinkers like Origen when it comes to the allegorical reading of the conquest

So for all of the reasons above I believe that the conquest passages are meant to be read symbolically and that the symbolic interpretation makes sense.

Anglicanpolitics123's post can be found at the link below.

I discovered this while searching for more resources on St. Gregory of Nyssa's rejection of the story of the Midianite genocide.