INTRODUCTION
Following up on my last post, How to Read the Cruel and Violent Acts in the Bible, I thought a note from the Catholic Church may lend added balance and thought to yesterday's discussion.
Stine's article below gives a succinct background to the problem of evil in the bible to which he parsed out several stratagems. For myself, I most identified with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' position.
I also recognized several older antagonists in Baumgartel and Harnack when working through in seminary class how to fit together theologically the continuities and discontinuities between the Old and New Testaments (and yes, this is a subtle and often overlooked theme / motif in biblical study).
Nor do I think calling everything a "mystery" in Christian circles is much help either as previously discussed here at Relevancy22 over the years. By this I mean that there is always some mystery about God and life but to use it as a common Christian phrase simply shows the laziness of many in the Christian faith when refusing to think a bit deeper. Naturally, I have written as best as I could over the years removing metaphors like mystery for better meta-descriptors like science, theology, and metaphysics.
Further, Stine's three insights at the end of his article are simply expressions of giving God and Christians excuses to continue in their prejudices and violence. Firstly, God is love - not wrath, not murder, not genocide. The God of violence in the bible is a God I don't recognize and refuse as a teaching of the ancients. To me, the bible is a semi-historical narrative of the differing kinds of myths and folklores the late Semitic religions were working out about God. Their idea of God as a violent God is one of them.
Secondly, God's "foresight" - which we describe as "omniscience" - may be more aptly described here, What Does It Mean to Live in Hyperdimensional Worlds? But, in process theology, though God may know and understanding the many permutations of unfolding "time stubs" yet, because of God's love, God doesn't determine the course of a freewill universe but rather participates with it in moment-to-moment relational divine presence (contra Calvinism; but PRO Open and Relational PROCESS Theology).
And thirdly, I do not give God any room for justifying divine violence... as in NONE. Hence, I underlined the last two paragraphs below where Stine submits these as reasonably wise statements but I find these Christian statements unworthy of the God I worship who schemes and plays dice with our lives. Rather, God is always actively creating, sowing, planting, reaping relationally present life-circumstances as living agents which continual are at play atoning, redeeming, renewing life from man and creation's destructions and damage. It is why I find process evolution so intriguing... that it never quits but continues to adapt, morph, assume, consume, change, and move always towards some version of living life. I imagine God doing the same within a freewill creation of agency.
See what you think...
R.E. Slater
September 3, 2024
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| “The Victory of Joshua Over the Amalekites,” Nicolas Poussin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
Violence and Nonviolence in the Hebrew Scriptures
by Brian Stine | July 20, 2020
Yahweh, a Warrior God, or a God of Shalom?
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are a series of actions that one can only classify as violence. Many of these actions are condemned by God. However, a great deal of them are not. Some are even condoned and commanded by God. For readers of the Hebrew Scriptures, this has posed a dilemma as to how does one interpret these verses. If one is to understand that God is a loving God, the various verses would seem to contradict the matter. Yet, the Old Testament reminds us repeatedly that God is still, in fact, a loving God, who commands that his people do not kill. How these two aspects of God should be reconciled is not readily apparent.
First, observe the actions that God allows, permits, performs, condones and commands in the Old Testament. In Genesis chapter 6, in the flood narrative, God destroys all of humanity for the sin of their iniquity.
And when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth,) He said to Noe: The end of all flesh is come before me, the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth… Behold I will bring the waters of a great flood upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, under Heaven. All things that are in the earth shall be consumed (Genesis 6:12–13,17 Douay Rheims).
Here, God’s retribution is in response to a crime, but the crime committed by most of the world is never described. Rather it is just referred to as corruption. Nor is it entirely clear if every inhabitant of the earth bore guilt in such a scenario. There is some ambiguity in the use of the word “all” as God is presumably not referring to Noe and his family, and one can only hope that infants in their innocence are incapable of committing such corruption.
In 1st Samuel 15:2–3, God commands the Israelites to kill all that belongs to Amalec. This includes living people.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I have reckoned up all that Amalec hath done to Israel: I how he opposed them in the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet anything that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass (1st Sam. 15:2–3).
Here in this passage, even if someone knows nothing about the guilt of Amalec or his nation, they can still deduce that there is a moral problem with killing all those who “belong to him.” God is not willing to spare the children, women or men regardless of their own culpability, but based on their association.
There are numerous situations in the Old Testament where people are killed in war in the name of God. One example would be in the book of Joshua. After the Israelites finally arrive in the land promised to them, they found that it was inhabited by the Canaanites. Here the Israelites spared no one in conquering the land:
“And killed all that were in it, man and woman, young and old. The oxen also and the sheep, and the asses, they slew with the edge of the sword” (Jos. 6:21).
Later in the book of Joshua, there are over 12 mentioned cities destroyed. While the land was promised to them, or in God’s infinite wisdom, was rightfully given to them, the Israelites owe a reason as to why they felt justified killing children who had no say in the matter, and the reason given is that God commanded them to do such:
“But of those cities that shall be given thee, thou shalt suffer none at all to live” (Duet. 20:16). Similarly, children were also not spared when God sent the Angel of Death to kill every firstborn son in Egypt (Ex. 11:4–6).
If the wars commanded by Yahweh in the Old Testament are compared to a contemporary understanding of the Just War Doctrine, Yahweh’s approach can not be said to be justified. Easily, if any man advocated for what God did in the Old Testament in a modern context, society would condemn him for being a cruel vicious tyrant. Consider the criteria Jus Ad Bellum (the right to battle and war) in regards to the Battle of Jericho. The conquests may have had a just cause, and most assuredly a just authority, but the proportionality and last resort factor are easily questioned. Certainly, the Israelites did more harm to Jericho than Jericho did to them. Also, considering that God is all-powerful, He presumably would have been able to move the Israelites and Canaanites in a way that would not cause conflict, so the Battle of Jericho can not be said, with certainty, to be a last resort. In regards to the criteria given for Jus In Bello, proportionality and discrimination are entirely absent. God targets entire nations, not just combatants when they’re not even in the position to be able to harm the Israelites, so much as the Israelites with God’s help are able to harm them.
Rather than what can be classified as a just war, what is seen throughout the Old Testament are clear examples of Holy War. Consider the Battle of Jericho, where we find that before the battle Joshua is greeted by a man with a sword who said he came to lead the Lord’s army (Josh. 5:13–14). based on Joshua’s response, where he venerates this man, one could presume that this man leading the Lord’s army was an angel. Undeniably, an angel with a sword is a sign of a militant people, and to the Israelites, there is something truly wholesome about a strong courageous army that fights relentlessly for its conquest. The theologian John Howard Yoder expresses the sentiment as such,
Holy War is undeniable in the foundational experience of the Hebrew people… the entire impression left with the modern reader by the narrative of Hebrew Bible is one of violence being not merely tolerated but fostered and glorified.
This glorification is perhaps most apparent when Yahweh is directly referred to as a Warrior God (Ex. 15:3). In Matthew Curtis Fleischer’s book The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence he makes the point that violence in the Old Testament has been used to justify essentially every atrocity committed by Christians. He cites clergyman and Old Testament scholar Christopher J.H. Wright to further his point.
The centuries of Christendom have witnessed professing Christian leaders right up to our modern times using the methods of conquest, torture, execution, horrifying punishments, and racist genocide- and claiming theological justification from their reading of the Old Testament.
The consensus for both Wright and Fleischer is essentially the same; the most unjust actions committed by Christians have been justified based on a reading or interpretation of the violence of the Old Testament. For them and many other critics, this is a problem.
If one were to suppose that this violence was limited to situations concerning war, they would be surprised. In addition to the element of violence within God’s warfare, there is also an element of violence in God’s precepts. In the scriptures, he commands the Israelites to stone rebellious teenagers and those who worship false idols (Deut. 21:18–21, 13:6–10). While this command is a response to real crimes, by almost any measurable understanding of proportional morality, stoning a rebellious teenager would naturally seem excessive.
Collectively there are numerous examples of God allowing, permitting, performing, condoning, and commanding violence in the Old Testament. Among the various Christian traditions and attitudes that exist today, even the most radical would seem to be somewhat tame in comparison to the violence advocated by God, Himself. Yet in what is perhaps the most shocking twist, in light of everything mentioned, God is also a God of love and peace. While there may be numerous examples from Scripture that show God’s wrath, there are additionally numerous examples that show God’s mercy towards his people and humanity.
One example can be found in the book of Jonah in contrast to the book Nahum. While in the book of Nahum, God glorifies sexual violence against Ninevites (Nah. 3:5), in the book Jonah, God converts the entirety of Ninevah peacefully through the words of the prophet Jonah. In this event, God does so without shedding a single drop of blood and ultimately forgives the entire city. While if a person were to just read Nahum they would presume God would wish punishment on the Ninevites, as they were quite brutal, but in Jonah, we see that God’s mercy is not limited to the Israelite people, but to all humanity. Meanwhile, the method used by Jonah is not a Holy War, nor is it a just war, rather it is a form of pacifism or militant nonviolence, of the likes of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. Jonah speaks to the entire rival nation, but never once resorts to violence. There is a negative aspect to this as Jonah does use coercion and threatens the destruction of Nineveh, but this destruction never occurs (Jon. 3:4), so ultimately, God saves Nineveh in the most peaceful manner possible, through preaching.
In a rather different situation, we also find that God tends to use the call to violence in order to prevent further violence. In Genesis, when God commands Abraham to kill Isaac, in an act that would normally violate the sanctity of life, God stops Abraham from doing so at the last minute (Gen. 22). While one may suppose that this act was unnecessary and a simple precept from God to avoid human sacrifice, would have been sufficient, the event was used as an effective morality tale that prevented the Israelites from sacrificing children to God, as this was a common practice of the time. By creating the scenario for such a memorable tale, God may have saved the lives of Hebrew children, without needing to rely on a specific command. In other words, while God may have been able to order that the Israelites stop sacrificing children, the story of Abraham and Isaac was much more effective.
In regards to Biblical commandments, many of them are mentioned in the Old Testament. One that stands out as the most relevant, though, is “thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20:13). At the heart of the issue of violence, this commandment would seem to speak for itself, while the rest of the commandments also show a sense of compassion from our Lord. While some theologians may point towards the sermon on the mount as the first time our Lord told us to love our neighbors, the same commandment is mentioned prior, in the book of Leviticus (Lev 19:9–18). Here God tells the Israelites that they should not hate their neighbor in their heart. This love is not limited to those who belong to the nation of Israel. Among American immigration activists, often cited are numerous Old Testament commandments to welcome foreigners in Israel’s midst, (i.e. 1 Kings 8:41–43, Exodus 22:21, Exodus 23:19, Deuteronomy 10:19, Deuteronomy 24:14, and Deuteronomy 27:19.) Perhaps the clearest and most succinct example is Exodus 22:21, “Thou shalt not molest[mistreat] a stranger, nor afflict him: for yourselves also were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex. 22:21). Among the verses listed, God tells His people that their love should not be limited to those who are within their race or their group. Rather they are to welcome all people. This can be seen as an extension of the same principle expressed in Leviticus as it is focused on loving one’s neighbor. This precept also recognizes that our neighbor is not limited to just those in our own community.
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How the contradiction between the violence and peace of God is explained varies based on different theological approaches to hermeneutics and divine providence. Dianne Bergant in an article entitled “Yahweh: A Warrior God?” notes that while there is a great deal of violence committed by God, one can see this violence as a violence that was in response to persecution. Nearly every situation or struggle the Israelites faced, from their enslavement in Egypt to the attacks they faced from Assyrians, showed that they were a persecuted people. Yahweh as a warrior God is not to be seen as an oppressor in light of these circumstances, but rather as a liberator of Israelite people. “And [The Lord ]brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders”(Deut. 26:8).
While this interpretation of liberator is perhaps quite evident, it still doesn’t quite explain the exact militant proportions that Yahweh takes in the Old Testament. The retributive attack on Amalek, for example, may have been justified, but children, such as the ones mentioned in 1st Samuel 15:2–3, would generally be presumed to be innocent of any such guilt. One interpretation is that every single one of those who God commanded to be slaughtered, including babies, really were quite evil. Even here, God’s retribution is not to be seen as the initial offense. For example, the Amelecs were known to “attack from behind” which was a way of saying that they fought in a vile manner. In extension, so were Israelites vile when they disobeyed God’s Commandments. This approach suggests that mankind truly deserves these punishments from God as all are guilty before God, and this can be supported even in the New Testament: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). This comes at the assumption that mankind is deserving of being killed or condemned and that this is the default position for all sinners. Perhaps the Calvinist teaching on total depravity is the single strongest example of this particular interpretation, as no one is presumed worthy of being considered innocent in light of God. With the traditional western Christian teaching of Original Sin, this approach can perhaps be justified among Catholics as well, since the catechism states that while “human nature has not been totally corrupted” all have lost original holiness and justice (CCC 404), which could serve as a basis for the violent Old Testament passages.
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This interpretation, however, is not accepted by all theologians, and the paradox between violence and peace in the Old Testament has caused many theologians to resort to neo-Marcionism. That is, in the spirit of the 2nd-century heretic, Marcion of Sinope, many theologians reject the Old Testament, and choose rather to focus only on the New Testament. Baumgartel, for instance, says that the Old Testament is impossible for us to understand in light of our faith, and therefore should be rejected. “Nothing in the Old Testament is accepted.” Adolf Von Harnack is famous for holding this viewpoint, and Franz Hesse also says every manner in the Old Testament must remain inadequate. For these theologians, the Old Testament is qualitatively different from that of the New Testament.
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For those who are not Marcionists, there is still another interpretation of the Old Testament, which renders such a justification of God’s actions, unnecessary. Commonly it’s asked if these precepts were ever directly ordered by God or were they the creation of the Hebrew people. For those who presume the latter, the scriptures may still be understood to be the divinely inspired Word of God, but divinely inspired in a way that is not so interpretatively demanding. In other words, scripture doesn’t have to be taken literally. Rather it is seen more as a device for learning and less as a list of precepts from God. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks adapts a version of this stance and argues that violence can not be done in God’s name, and what’s really important for Scripture is that it be interpreted within a specific tradition. Here, the emphasis is not on Scripture itself, but a tradition surrounding it. Similarly, the Catholic Church adopts a manner of tradition surrounding Scripture, as Scripture is not the only foundation for Christian doctrine in Catholicism.
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For those who do not accept this approach to interpretation, the contradiction between the Yahweh of violence and peace is a mystery worthy of spiritual contemplation all on its own. Rudolf Bultman describes it as a contradiction in which believers may find fulfillment in the contradiction. Just as paradoxes are observed in other areas of life, so are they observed in Yahweh himself. In a presentation at the Ukrainian Catholic University, Professor Klaas Spronk noted this violence and told the audience that there was no simple answer, but in many respects, God calls on us to dwell on such a matter. Perhaps the mystery, is similar to that of Abraham and Isaac, as Abraham really had no way of understanding how God’s will in that situation could be justified, and in a similar way, just as Abraham could not have known that his attempt to kill Isaac would end child sacrifice, the truth or effect of God’s demand for violence is good in a way also beyond our knowledge.
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The one thing that remains certain despite the confusion of readers when considering the Biblical controversy is that God is justified, and humanity is not God. God holds all existence in being, gives every living creature life, and possesses an essence that’s synonymous with goodness. Whether the violence in Scripture reflects this goodness or is merely the product of a particular literary tradition, God’s goodness cannot be denied. When approaching God’s providence, there is a required sense of humility on the part of man. God explains this to Job when he questions God. “Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). The violent actions God commands in the Old Testament may be wrong when carried out by humanity. That is if a person or group were to attack the Canaanites indiscriminately by their own volition, without God’s explicit condonation, it would be unjust. However, in the event where scripture be taken literally at face value, and such actions are ordered directly by God, these types of actions can be justified for 3 main reasons:
The first reason these violent actions are not to be acknowledged as problematic is that all human life belongs to God. Murder is wrong because when someone murders, they take something that does not belong to them. Suicide, for example, is wrong, because an individual’s life belongs to God and is meant to serve a purpose outside of oneself. All of humanity and all of existence belongs to God, and to suppose he can’t take a life, when all life is His, is wrong. He created it, and can do what he pleases with it, for it was created in order to give him glory. Considering that he creates out of mercy and benevolence, and “wills the salvation of all,” (1 Tim. 2:4) this shows that he is still all good. His mercy being the winning factor, shows that while people are killed under his command, it’s always done for benevolent purposes.
The second reason God’s violence is justified is related to the first reason, which is that humanity is unable to make restitution for human life, in the same way God can. While God has been compared to a dictator by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, unlike a dictator, God can offer people eternal salvation. When putting this in a manner of priority, this is far more important than our finite earthly lives, so while yes, God does allow for our finite lives to be taken from us, he also offers so much more in return. In theory, God could order all of humanity to undergo the most “unjust” miserable human lives, yet if this were carried out and humanity was guaranteed salvation, then the light of eternal salvation would render the pain this causes as inconsequential. There is no reason to suppose that God did not redeem the lives of those killed in the battle of Jericho, or use their deaths to prevent them or others from falling into even greater evil. This is within God’s ability, while earthly tyrants could not have guaranteed such an outcome. That is the essential difference.
The third reason God can remain all good while ordering the death of thousands of people is because of his foreknowledge of all events. God uses evil that was brought into the world by men but never causes evil directly. While God did not cause death, nor did he bring death into the world, he uses it to prevent an even greater evil, eternal death (damnation). If one dared to presume to know what God intended by ordering the slaughter of Jericho, they could perhaps assume that God was protecting the Israelites in order to bring about Christ, as the Israelites were chosen to do such. Certainly, the everlasting life brought by Christ is worth more than all the finite lives in the world if such an interpretation is accurate. By the unjust killing of Christ, all of humanity has been atoned.
The contrast between violence and nonviolence in the Old Testament has caused considerable confusion for those reading the scriptures. While humanity may never know exactly what God intends, it is through an act of faith that Christians know that God intends the best for all. Whether Scripture is literal and refers to actual events where God condoned the killing of seemingly innocent people or whether Scripture is to be interpreted in a more abstract manner, God can be said to desire the best for all humanity. This is a certainty that can not be underappreciated or overstated as all are called to trust in God’s word. Whether that be God’s word in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Christian Scriptures, believers can rest assured that God is calling us to receive his mercy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bergant, Dianne. “Yahweh: a Warrior God?” The Bible Today, 1983, 156–61.
Fleischer, Matthew Curtis. The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence. Oklahoma City, OK: Epic Octavius the Triumphant, 2017.
Filat, Sergiu. “Who Was the Man Mentioned in the Passage of Joshua 5:13–15?” Moldova Creștină, September 18, 2018. https://moldovacrestina.md/en/who-is-the-man-of-joshua-5-13-15/.
Goodman, James. “Understanding Genesis 22: God and Child Sacrifice,” My Jewish Learning, April 7, 2015, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/members-of-the-scribe/understanding-genesis-22-god-and-child-sacrifice/)
Hanson, Paul D. “War and Peace in the Hebrew Bible.” Union Seminary Review 38, no. 4 (1984): 341–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/002096438403800402.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Trans. Lowrie, Walter. Fear and Trembling, Kindle Edition. Fig, 2012.
Spronk, Klaas. Genocide and Revenge in the Name of YHWH. Кафедра Біблійних наук УКУ, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRUWmxOBH6s.
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Editor for St. Ambrose Press
A former catechetical teacher, and current theology master student. The opinions expressed are my own and do not reflect the views of my university or employer.
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