3 Things You Need to Know About Divine Violence in the Bible

For the past 8 months now I have been reading every book I can get about divine violence in the Bible. So far, I've read about 20, and I have 5 more to go. In my reading I have been noticing a trend that I think is important to acknowledge when framing one's discussion of this topic. I think the issue centers around 3 vital components, which often go unnoticed in debates (see, for example, my review of 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide, here).

1. This is first and foremost an issue of the authority of Scripture

Is all of Scripture God's self revelation? Does every portrait of God painted in Scripture perfectly depict his true nature? Does Jesus repudiate any Old Testament theologies? Did the Israelites get anything wrong about God? These questions need to be dealt with first. How you answer them will determine what the rest of your approach is going to look like.

If Scripture is infallible, then that means none of Scripture's depictions of God are flawed. If you believe Scripture has God as its ultimate author, that every part of Scripture was willed and determined by God, then that means all of Scripture's theology is really God's self-description, and none of it is wrong. What is your view of Scripture? That will be the biggest deciding factor in your understanding of the issue of divine violence in the Bible. As Thom Stark has said, "In the end, the way one looks at these things and the manner in which one interprets these matters depends completely on one's theology of sacred scripture" (The Human Faces of God, 2011, p.150).

Too often biblical scholars have neglected this issue in their discussions of Scripture's violent portrayals of God. None of the contributors to 4 Views on God & Canaanite Genocide, for example, discussed this aspect of the problem in their respective chapters.

2. This is an issue of the historicity of certain biblical books

Related to the authority of Scripture aspect of this problem is the issue of whether or not the OT books are historically accurate. Did God flood the entire earth, killing most of its inhabitants? Did God toss the Egyptian warriors into the Red Sea? Did God deliver Jericho into the hands of the Israelites so that when they marched around the city and shouted its walls miraculously came crumbling down? Did God hand the Canaanites over to the Israelites so that they could defeat them in battle? How reliable is the OT history? If it is indeed historically reliable, and the battles happened exactly the way the texts say they happened, then it seems that we would have to say that God actually did do those things.

Furthermore, when the OT says, "Thus says the Lord," does it reflect what God actually said? Are such speeches of God historical? If so, we would have to admit that God did command Saul through Samuel, "Go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1 Sam. 15:3).

Are all the battle stories in the OT accounts of actual historical events? How you answer this question will be a significant determining factor in your understanding of the larger issue.

3. This is an issue of how to interpret the book of Revelation

Often in their arguments for the continuity between the theology of the OT and that of Jesus, Evangelical scholars will refer to the book of Revelation, which seems to portray Jesus in the same violent manner in which God is portrayed in the OT.

I think this one is so important because if we were to base our understanding of the God revealed in Jesus solely on his teachings and example described in the Gospels, I think most Christians would recognize a discontinuity between the theology of Jesus and that of certain parts of the OT.

For example, when his disciples suggest that they pray for God to strike fire on the Samaritans for refusing to let them into their village, Jesus rebukes them and says, "You know not what spirit you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of human beings but to save them" (Luke 9:55). Also, Jesus repudiates the OT teaching of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Deut 19:21; Ex 21:24; Lev 24:20) and taught that we shouldn't be violent but should rather engage people peacefully (Matt 5:38-39). Rejecting the way the Israelites dehumanized and hated their enemies (for example, Ps 139:21), Jesus taught that we should love our enemies and pray for them (Matt 5:43-44). Indeed, I think the dominant Christian consensus would be that Jesus rejected the violent theologies of the OT, if it were not for passages in the book of Revelation like this one:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. . . . He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. . . . Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. . . . The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. 

Revelation 19:11-21

How do we interpret this passage? Do we take it at face value and interpret it to mean that Jesus is the same as the warrior God in the OT? How you interpret passages in Revelation like this will determine whether or not you think Jesus affirmed the violent theologies of the OT.

Recommended reading:
On the authority of Scripture with regard to divine violence, see Kenton Sparks, Sacred Word, Broken Word (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012). See my review, here. Also see Wesley Morrison, "Did God Command Genocide?: A Challenge to the Biblical Inerrantist," Philosophia Christi, 11, no. 1 (2009). Finally, see my blog, "God-Breathed: The Authority of Scripture According to the Greek Word θεόπνευστος," http://jdhollowayiii.blogspot.com/2013/11/god-breathed-authority-of-scripture.html

On the historicity of the Old Testament, see K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1990). Also see Victor R. Matthews, A Brief History of Ancient Israel (Lousville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).

For a fantastic bibliography on the book of Revelation, see Greg Boyd, "Revelation and the Violent 'Pride-Fighting' Jesus," Reknew.org, http://reknew.org/2010/09/revelation-and-the-violent-prize-fighting-jesus/

Book Review: "Violence in Scripture" by Jerome Creach

Creach, Jerome F. D. Violence in Scripture. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013. pp.xi-286. ISBN 978-0-664-23145-3. ★★★★★

After WJK Press completed their Interpretation commentary series, dedicated to providing "Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church," they jump-started a special themes series to go along with it. Jerome Creach's Violence in Scripture is part of that series, and after reading it I am looking forward to reading the others. Creach is a well-rounded scholar whose study is enriched by early church fathers as well as the best of modern biblical studies, which he brings together quite nicely in his treatment of violence in Scripture.

With regard to the flood story, in chapter 1 Creach posits that, given its genre, it "was not meant to be read as an historical account. . . . [So], although the story portrays God making 'an end to all flesh' (Gen 6:13), it does not intend to say that God actually made an end to all flesh."(1) He says the flood narrative "is really about God's struggle to maintain creation in the face of humanity's spread of violence. . . . [D]ivine judgment amounts to the return of the precreation state in an attempt to correct creation and reestablish the order necessary for life."(2)

He essentially says the same thing of the narrative of the plagues. He follows Terence Fretheim in saying that Pharaoh is the "anticreator" who with his violent oppression is destroying God's creation and moving it towards a state of chaos.(3) He also follows Fretheim's analysis of the plagues, which he reads "as 'signs' of creation's rebellion against the Egyptians."(4)

In chapter 2, Creach addresses the warrior theology of several Old Testament texts. He says, "the image of God as warrior . . . is closely related to the picture of God as judge and arbiter of justice."(5) Therefore, war is understood as one of the ways God establishes justice in the world. Furthermore, Creach says that by "assigning war to God, as part of God's judicial actions, war is taken out of the hands of humans as a tool at their disposal. Any use of war for selfish purposes then becomes illegitimate. If this perspective is taken seriously it makes war extremely difficult to justify."(6) But doesn't that leave it open for war to be justified at times as the necessary action against a people that are moving God's creation towards chaos and rebelling against God's justice? For such scenarios, it seems that there would be no reason to reject the use of war. Yet Creach still maintains that, "Far from empowering any human being to engage in war, [the Bible] denies humans the right to fight. The battle is left to God."(7) Lori Rowlett rightfully asks, "Why would a deity who commands pacifism for his people engage himself in the slaughter of thousands of other people?"(8)

It is when Creach talks about herem in the OT in chapters 3 and 4 that his argument starts to become pretty unique. Of the Israelite war with the Amalekites, he says,

Whatever "history" lies behind the story in 1 Samuel 15, that history is now used for a larger religious purpose. The Amalekites do not represent so much real historical foes as the forces of disorder that threaten to undo God's creation. Thus the promise to eradicate the memory of Amalek must be understood against the backdrop of order and chaos.(9)

Elsewhere he says the Amalekites are "a prototypical enemy that represent the forces of evil."(10) So, the emphasis in 1 Samuel is not on a historical people that have to be destroyed, but the spirit and way that those people represented which Yahweh will not tolerate. Creach quotes Avi Sagi who said that the "war against Amalek is waged with the book," the implication being that it was not waged with actual weapons and violence.(11) Furthermore, Sagi says, "the 'remembrance' of Amalek [that must be destroyed refers to] a memory that encourages a way of relating to and controlling others through violence."(12) 

While I certainly see the value of this interpretation--and I think this is the message that should be drawn from the story--I don't think it can reflect the actual purpose of the text, nor do I think it properly addresses the theological problem--that is, that Yahweh is the kind of God that commands the death of "women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys" (1 Sam. 15:3). Creach resurrects the allegorical approach of early church fathers like Origen in a sophisticated and well-informed manner. Unfortunately, it still comes off as a weak way of dealing with the issue.

He does the same sort of thing with the account of Canaanite genocide in Joshua.

The story of placing the people of the land under the ban seems to have served [Josiah's] reform movement largely as an emblem of purification, but was not meant to be taken literally.(13) 

Josiah was not dealing with Canaanites in the land, but with his own people, who often practiced the worship of their God with elements of the worship of Baal and other deities (2 Kgs. 23).(14) 

"Canaanite" in Judges is a code word for the kind of society that works against God's intentions for shalom. Thus the charge for the Israelites to drive the Canaanites out of the land is really a charge to establish justice and to reject the death-producing society the Canaanites represent.(15)

This reading is more plausible than his reading of the Amalekite story, but it still falls short in my mind. Though he's right when he says that the purpose of the story was to support Josiah's reform and not necessarily to record actual historical events, the text still reflects an ideology of war and a theology of a divine warrior.(16) Gerhard von Rad denied historical reality to the so-called "holy war" narratives, but he still maintained that something like holy war went on in ancient Israel.(17)

I think the messages Creach draws from these narratives should be embraced, but only alongside of an acknowledgement of the incomplete theology within them. I think it is still necessary to reject certain elements of the text's theology, but Creach is reluctant to do so. He speaks of those who "separate the presentation of God as a warrior in the text from the real God . . . [understanding] the text as a flawed work, a relic of the past that naturally presents God in ways that are imprecise and culturally conditioned." Of such people, he says that "the complete separation of the real God from the textually embodied God seems misguided. Such an approach also overlooks the potentially positive role [the image of God as warrior] plays in Scripture and in Christian theology."(18)

This is somewhat of a straw man. Fretheim distinguishes between the "textual God" and the "actual God,"(19) but he doesn't then say that the image of God as warrior never plays a positive role in Scripture or theology. There is nothing wrong with imaging God as a warrior, as long as we say he is a warrior "against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," and not against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12). Indeed, I follow Greg Boyd's "warfare worldview" in which Christ is always working as a warrior against evil,(20) but that doesn't mean I embrace all the images of God as a warrior in the Bible, particularly those which depict God as violent.

Creach's reluctance to reject certain OT theologies is made clearer when he talks about Jesus and the New Testament in chapter 7. He says, "Jesus did not offer a corrective to Old Testament ideas . . . , it is most accurate to say that Jesus presents for Christians a normative interpretation of the Old Testament, not a repudiation of it."(21) However, he seems to contradict himself on this point. He has a great discussion in chapter 6 about the relationship between 2 Kings 1:9-12, in which Elijah calls down fire from heaven upon his enemies, and Luke 9:51-55, in which Jesus rebuked his disciples for suggesting that they call to God to send fire to consume the Samaritans. He says that Jesus' message in Luke 9 is unambiguous: "Jesus seems clearly to repudiate Elijah's actions" (emphasis mine).(22) But 2 Kings 1 does not merely describe Elijah's actions, it describes God's actions as well. So for Creach to make this claim, he has to admit that Jesus is calling for his disciples to reject a certain OT theology. Creach instead claims at the end of the book that the OT does not contain "instructions and stories that have values that Jesus then rejected."(23) These are conflicting claims.

I wish I had space to cover some of the other topics Creach covers in the book. For example, he includes a phenomenal discussion of hell in chapter 6. In a well-rounded and nuanced manner, he makes the case that the Bible leaves the door open to the possibility that hell is not forever, and that Jesus will seek the reconciliation of its inhabitants after death. His presentation is not only compelling but also much-needed.

Overall, this is an incredibly informative book for a Christian studying violence in the Bible, particularly the OT. While the title is "Violence in Scripture," I was disappointed to find that it includes very little discussion of violence in the NT. Notwithstanding, I definitely recommend the book to those interested in the topic. It is a good resource for all readers--student, pastor, scholar, whatever--and its insights go beyond the topic of violence, as Creach supplies important and illuminating discussions of a number of biblical topics, accompanied by a fantastic bibliography.

Notes:
(1) Creach, 36.
(2) Ibid., 34.
(3) See Terence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991).
(4) Creach, 82. Also see, Terence E. Fretheim, "The Plagues as Ecological Signs of Historical Disaster," Journal of Biblical Literature 110, no. 3 (1991), 385-396.
(5) Creach, 56.
(6) Ibid., 58.
(7) Ibid., 238.
(8) Lori L. Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1996), 68.
(9) Creach, 93.
(10) Ibid., 89.
(11) Avi Sagi, quoted in Ibid., 95.
(12) Sagi, quoted in Ibid., 96.
(13) Ibid., 98.
(14) Ibid., 108.
(15) Ibid., 131.
(16) See Niels P. Lemche, The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1991), for the case that "Canaanite" is code for "Assyrian."
(17) See Gerhard von Rad, Holy War in Ancient Israel, trans. and ed. Marva J. Dawn (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991).
(18) Creach, 48.
(19) See Terence E. Fretheim, "Is the Biblical Portrayal of God Always Trustworthy?" in The Bible as Word of God in a Postmodern Age (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 97-111.
(20) See Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997).
(21) Creach, 229.
(22) Ibid., 159.
(23) Ibid., 238.

Purchase Violence in Scripture on Amazon (here)

Atheist Materialism, the New Calvinism?

It has often been said that the new atheists are a lot like fundamentalist Christians because of their literal reading of Scripture, their all-or-nothing attitude in which if one thing in the Bible is errant then it all has to be fallacious, and their either-or approach to a lot of Christian issues (i.e. the problem of evil, genocide in the Bible, etc.). There are other reasons, but that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about a similarity between atheist materialism and Calvinism that has caused me to abhor the former almost as much as I abhor the latter. The similarity is fatalism.

In Calvinism, everything that happens in life is God's will. God predetermined everything as part of a meticulous plan. Thus, everything we do has been predestined since the beginning of time (or since the fall, depending on what kind of Calvinist you are). In this, humans have no free will. Yes, many Calvinists try to explain how free will and predestination aren't mutually exclusive, but their attempts will forever fall short because a predestined act can never be considered a free act. It's a blatant contradiction, and every attempt I have seen to say that it's not has failed to convince me. I don't think there's any way around it: Calvinism implies a rejection of free will.

In atheist materialism, everything is a by-product of evolution. I read an article recently that said the recent beard fad is a cause of evolution. I have also heard that women are drawn to "bad boys" because they will do whatever it takes to survive, and women are naturally drawn to men with whom they are most likely to survive. Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock says that men are naturally promiscuous because of evolution. Leonardo Dicaprio explains the greed of people like Jordan Belfort with evolution.

This evolutionary understanding of the world also implies a rejection of free will  (Richard Dawkins has admitted this). To me, any worldview that rejects free will is meaningless, because it means rejecting how we experience the world, and our experience of the world is what really determines our reality. As Lesslie Newbigin says, "All arguments designed to show that free will is an illusion break down into absurdity . . . [for nothing should be accepted] which simply denies our daily experience."(1)

Whereas in Calvinism everything that happens is God's will, to atheist materialists everything that happens is, in a sense, evolution's 'will'. So, the two worldviews inevitably share some of the same problems--the rejection of free will, the problem of evil, the denial of experience, et al. One of the biggest problems both worldviews pose is the lack of sufficient grounds to affirm moral responsibility. In Calvinism, God determined long ago everything that would occur in the world. So when Jordan Belfort snorts cocaine, punches his wife, takes their child into his car and speeds out of the garage so fast that he crashes into a brick fence, a Calvinist can't really claim that he is morally responsible. Before he did it, it was God's will that he do it, so he had no other choice. Likewise, if evolution is determining the course of the universe, then Belfort was merely following his natural evolutionary inclination. In both of these worldviews, moral responsibility for one's actions cannot be affirmed.

What makes the case for atheist materialism worse is that there can be no standard for morality at all. Every atheist materialist knows this is true. It's a problem, they say, with which we will just have to keep wrestling. So not only do they have no standard for morality, but they have no way to affirm moral responsibility. They already acknowledge that one cannot objectively claim that anything is immoral, so when Belfort punches his wife and risks getting his daughter hurt or even killed, atheist materialists can't actually claim that his actions are wrong or evil, nor can they ascribe moral responsibility to Belfort for his actions.

For these reasons and others (see my other blogs on atheist materialism here and here), I think atheist materialism is a wholly insufficient worldview, as it shares some of the major flaws of Calvinism. There's an old joke, "What does a Calvinist say after he falls down some stairs? 'Thank God that's over!'" Well now we know that joke also applies to atheist materialism.

Notes:

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1989), 69.

Reflections on the Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

We learn from the world that kingdoms belong to people of power, to kings with prestige, military victories, and considerable wealth. These people of power by their very nature could never be described as 'poor in spirit', for their spirit inspires the amassment of capital and control.

The kingdom of heaven subverts all such concepts of kingdoms and those who inherit them. The kingdom of heaven is occupied by the lowly who live dependent on the abundance of God and who share that abundance with others. These people are not interested in self-promotion, money or dominance. They are not concerned with scarcity, with "needing" to get more because of a fear of not having enough; they are concerned with the well-being of the community. It is in such people that the spirit of Jesus rests.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I love what Brueggemann says about Jesus and mourning: "Suffering made audible and visible produces hope, articulated grief is the gate of newness, and the history of Jesus is the history of entering into the pain and giving it voice."

The world says that those who mourn are weak. Jesus says that those who mourn are blessed, for they have given suffering a voice, and God is in tune with people's cries (Ps. 10:17). A cry silenced is the truth hidden. Jesus wants to see the truth come to light, so that it can provide the hope of transformation.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

The earth does not belong to those who conquer it. God has granted the earth to those who will receive it as his gift of abundance. The conquest of the earth by the powerful is widescale robbery. God was against Pharaoh because he believed, "The Nile belongs to me; I made it for myself" (Ezek. 29:3). Those who claim the parts of the earth for themselves are committing an injustice.

I love Henri Nouwen, who said that the world rewards upward mobility, but Jesus rewards downward mobility.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

We all know that many of the things which offer us the world leave us dissatisfied. Be it sex, alcohol, drugs, relationships, food, work, or whatever, we are often plagued by an intense desire for something, thinking that by obtaining it we will be filled. And no matter how often we discover that it just leaves us in the nihilism of disappointment, we always go running back. We don't let dissatisfaction and disappointment lead us to disillusionment.

The quest for righteousness, on the other hand, does not consist of a dreary circle of enchantment-disenchantment-enchantment-disenchantment. The quest for righteousness makes good on its offers.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Central to Christian ethics is the idea that, in this age or the next, you will reap what you sow. If you sow violence, you will reap violence (Matt 26:52). If you sow forgiveness, you will reap forgiveness (Matt 6:14-15). Likewise, sow mercy, reap mercy.

It should be noted that mercy cannot be mercy if it is done with self-interest; that is, if it is done with the thought of the mercy one is to receive for being merciful. When one shows mercy for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, one is not being a poor in spirit, meek, pure in heart, seeker of righteousness. As Jesus says later in his sermon, giving to the needy will only be rewarded if it is not done in a self-serving manner (6:2-4).

God rewards disinterested righteousness. Only by disregarding rewards will one receive a reward for one's right-doing.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

In 1 Peter, we learn that purifying ourselves happens through loving others (1:22). The opposite of indulging in our sinful desires, Paul tells us, is serving others in love (Gal 5:13). John was following Jesus' teaching on being pure in heart when he said that "everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 Jn 4:7-8). The pure in heart, those who love others, will see God, because God is love.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Jesus is called the son of God. And Jesus came as the peaceful champion of God's kingdom. He embodied peace and taught peace and gave his life for the sake of peace. The Cross is not only the establishment of shalom, it is the call to the world to embrace God's reality of shalom.

Blessed are those who reject violence, who reject the way the world deals with things. Blessed are those who embody and teach peace, who embrace the peace of Jesus. Through their actions of peace, the kingdom of God penetrates our world, and shines through in the midst of violence. Those who introduce the kingdom of God through actions of peace are truly the children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Not only do many Christians today have a martyr complex and act like they're being persecuted when they're not, but their responses to persecution are wholly unChrist-like. They fight. They demand their rights. Their rights become more important than anything or anyone else. When Jesus talks about persecution for the sake of righteousness, he is not talking about fighting for one's rights when one feels they are being infringed, he is talking about standing up for others whose humanity is being infringed.

Blessed are those who give a voice to the voiceless, who look out for those being overlooked, who help those being trampled on. The actual persecution of such people by those who rely on alienation and exploitation is the persecution Jesus is referring to.

Blessed are those who sacrifice their rights for the sake of others and in return receive persecution, for they will find their true rights in the kingdom of heaven.

Book Review: "Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence" by Lori Rowlett

Rowlett, Lori L.  Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis. Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1996. pp.8-195. ISBN 1-85075-627-9. ★★★★☆

In this work, Lori Rowlett set out to deconstruct the Joshua literature from a new historicist perspective; that is, by assessing the historical context in which the text was conceived. Rowlett goes along with the widely accepted theory that the Deuteronomic History (Joshua-Kings) was formed largely in the era of King Josiah's reign. With this, she says "the DH was written as propaganda for Josiah's reform."(1) The propaganda found in the book of Joshua, she says, uses a rhetoric of violence "to serve as a warning to the people of Josiah's kingdom that the post-imperial power of the central government could and would be unleashed upon any who resisted its assertion of control."(2) In this, Josiah was "adopting the violent ideology of [Israel's] oppressors. The same ideology that had undermined their identity was now being used to exert their identity. The rhetoric of violence appropriated from the oppressor is turned by the oppressed into a vehicle of self-reconstitution."(3)

This understanding of Joshua runs contrary to the reading posed by Walter Brueggemann and Norman Gottwald. Brueggemann says, "Following the general analysis of Gottwald, the city-states [like Canaan] are to be understood as monopolies of socioeconomic, political power that are managed in hierarchal and oppressive ways."(4) Furthermore, early Israel was "an antimonarchic, peasant movement hostile to every concentration, surplus, and monopoly."(5) So then, in Joshua, "Yahweh is allied with the marginalized, oppressed peasants against the monopoly of the city-state."(6)

K. Lawson Younger critiques this understanding, saying that Joshua

utilizes a common transmission code observable in numerous ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts, employing the same ideology. Since the ideology which lies behind the text of Joshua is one like that underlying other ancient Near Eastern conquest accounts--namely, imperalistic--, then 'egalitarian, peasant' Israel is employing a transmission code (a 'communicative mode') which is self-contradictory.(7)

Younger's analysis lines up well with Rowlett's claims. However, one wonders how much the use of a certain transmission code (by which he is referring to the literary form of the text) can say about the ideology of the author. Could it be that the use of a common ANE transmission code says only that the transmission code was common and not that it carries with it an imperialist ideology?

Furthermore, it seems to me that Rowlett's approach to Joshua/King Josiah is unnecessarily negative. Yes, an ideology of 'otherness' permeates the book of Joshua, but it seems to me that her assertion that the book utilizes a rhetoric of violence to keep King Josiah's people in check goes beyond what the data provides. The small kingdom of Judah does not strike one as an oppressive imperial system, especially given Israel's reputation for being "always in the shadow of the empire."(8)

Jerome Creach offers a different approach to Joshua:

Josiah sponsored the writing of the first draft of the history in order to support his religious and political reforms that focused mainly on purifying worship and limiting the cult to the Jerusalem temple. The story came into its final form while Israel was in exile in Babylon. In other words, the story of Israel's sweeping conquest of Canaan was told by people who themselves had no land and who were powerless before the great empires of their day.(9)

While Creach is more confident about the book's composition than I think is warranted, his more positive view of the book's purpose is valid. Throughout Israel's history, surrounding empires posed as threats to their existence. Israel was always a vulnerable people, even in their periods of autonomy. This small people, as Gottwald says, "had achieved something by combining forces under the aegis of their empowering deity."(10) Thus, devotion to Yahweh, the sovereign ruler of all of creation, was absolutely necessary in order for them to compete with the surrounding empires.(11) This could provide a viable reason for the texts associated with King Josiah's reign.

However, Rowlett is also negative about the theology of the book of Joshua, claiming that it has more to do with divine sanction of King Josiah than it does King Josiah's devotion to Yahweh. She says,

in the text of Joshua, the sovereign is really Yahweh. Therefore, Joshua, King Josiah's stand-in, can appear to be motivated only by loyalty and obedience to the deity, rather than by an attempt to assert his own power. This is one of the rhetorical devices employed to mystify the inequities of the social order and to advance the power of the monarchy. The rhetoric depends upon the evocation of sentiment by employing a kind of false modesty: Yahweh is really in charge. Joshua (and by extension Josiah) poses merely as Yahweh's humble servant, acting as his proxy. However, since Joshua is functioning as the deity's proxy, Joshua happens to be the most powerful of all human beings since he and only he has been chosen by Yahweh . . . as an instrument of the deity's sovereignty. Furthermore . . . the discourse of and within the text is politically self-serving and not quite as selflessly pious as it appears on the surface. The things that Joshua and King Josiah do in apparently humble servitude for Yahweh, the sovereign, happen to enhance their own power and sovereignty immeasurably.(12)

While this reading is plausible, it is not the necessary conclusion that it is presented as. It could just as well be said that the book of Joshua is an anti-imperial script designed to inspire devotion to Yahweh in order to stand up against the powers of the empire. Their 'rhetoric of violence' could have been "part of the struggle to build and defend a [subversive] communitarian society" in the midst of a world of empires.(13)

Overall, Rowlett brings some very interesting claims to the table. While I think some of her conclusions are examples of the tendency in modern biblical scholarship to choose the more negative conclusion under the mistaken impression that the negative conclusion is always right, I do think she has a lot to offer, and her claims should be weighed and measured with further study. I definitely recommend Rowlett's book to the serious student of the Hebrew Bible.

Notes:
(1) Rowlett, 44.
(2) Ibid., 183.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Walter Brueggemann, Divine Presence Amid Violence: Contextualizing the Book of Joshua (Eugene: Cascade Book, 2009), 15.
(5) Ibid., 20.
(6) Ibid., 24.
(7) K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts (Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1990), 255.
(8) See Walter Brueggemann, "Always in the Shadow of the Empire," in The Church as Counterculture, eds. Michael L. Budde and Robert W. Brimlow (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 39-58.
(9) Jerome F.D. Creach, Violence in Scripture, ed. Patrick D. Miller (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 113.
(10) Norman Gottwald, "The Biblical Prophetic Critique of Political Economy: Its Ground and Import," in The Hebrew Bible in its Social World and in Ours (Atlanta: The Society of Biblical Literature, 1993), 358.
(11) Creach, 113-114.
(12) Rowlett, 174-175.
(13) Gottwald, 358.

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Book Review: "Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God & Canaanite Genocide"

Show Them No Mercy: Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide. Edited by Stanley Gundry. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003. pp.7-218. ISBN 978-0-310-24568-1. ★★★☆☆

Stanley Gundry's Counterpoints in Bible & Theology series offers a lot of helpful introductions to various biblical and theological issues. Usually, the Counterpoints books are well-rounded and consist of multiple viewpoints. Given the series' reputation for providing several different viewpoints, I was disappointed and a little confused by this collection of arguments, which would be more properly titled "Two Views on God and Canaanite Genocide." There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the approaches of Eugene Merrill, Daniel Gard, and Tremper Longman. All three are conservative scholars and, despite the curious [misleading] titles of their views (moderate discontinuity, eschatalogical continuity, and spiritual continuity), they all basically have the same understanding of how to interpret the violent material in the Bible; that is, all three affirm the infallibility (and probably also the inerrancy) of Scripture, that God did exactly as the text suggests, and that all of the violent actions attributed to him are moral and just. So then, the book consists of one liberal view (that of C.S. Cowles) against three equally conservative views. This is very odd, since there are clearly many more approaches than just these two. Roger Olson highlights nine in his article "Every Known Theistic Approach to Old Testament 'Texts of Terror'" (although, I think his use of 'every' is an overstatement).(1) One wonders if this set-up was purposeful, that Gundry wanted three conservative views against one liberal view to discourage readers from adopting the liberal view.

Since three of the views in this book are so similar, the conservative scholars' responses to each other consist of an unnecessary overview of the argument they're responding to, a pat on the back, and a struggle to find things with which to disagree. For example, in Gard's response to Merrill, one of his few critiques is that Merrill takes the 1000 years referred to Revelation literally, a point of difference which has nothing to do with God and Canaanite genocide. For this reason, one could just read Cowles' responses to the conservative approaches and skip the others.

What is also unfortunate about this book is that I doubt it will help much in the divide between Christians on this issue. The reason I say this is because the most crucial aspects of this issue were not given ample focus. I think the problem of divine violence in the Bible centers around two things: the authority of Scripture and how to interpret Revelation. Obviously, there are more factors at play, but I do think these two carry the most weight.

Most Christians will say that the Bible's violent depictions of God are at least troubling. The problem is, most Christians regard all of Scripture as infallible and as God's self-revelation. So when the Bible says God did something, there is no question, he definitely did it. Thus, it is first and foremast an issue of the authority of Scripture and how we are to read/interpret Scripture. The fact that all three conservative scholars mentioned the authority of Scripture in response to Cowles supports this understanding.

Also at the center of this issue is how we interpret Revelation. A central argument for those like Cowles who say that the violent depictions of God in the Old Testament do not reflect what he actually did or his actual nature, is that Jesus in his life and teaching presents a very different portrait of God, one who loves enemies, rejects using violence and reprimands those who use violence. At the end of the day, the only major element that complicates this understanding of Jesus is the book of Revelation, which seems to depict Jesus as the same kind of violent warrior that Yahweh is depicted as in the OT. This argument is used by all three conservative scholars in their responses to Cowles.

One can only really discuss divine violence in the Bible if one deals with how to interpret the disturbing parts of the Bible while maintaining its divine inspiration, and also by explaining how the depictions of Jesus in Revelation don't imply that he is a violent warrior. While I agreed wholeheartedly with most of what Cowles had to say, he unfortunately did not dedicate much time to addressing these core issues. He didn't discuss the authority of Scripture at all, and he limited his discussion of Revelation to a single quote from a scholar of Revelation in a footnote not even in his main contribution but in one of his responses to the others. Quite inadequate.

Overall, while I have highlighted the deficiencies of this collection of arguments, the book isn't altogether inadequate. It can still serve as a good introduction to the war material in the Bible and how we Christians should respond to it. That being said, I don't think it properly served its purpose, and I hope that a more comprehensive book that similarly focuses on the dialogue of opposing views will be put together in the future. If it does, hopefully it will represent more than two views, and hopefully it will include a much-needed discussion of the authority of Scripture and of the book of Revelation.

Notes:
(1) Roger Olson,  "Every Known Theistic Approach to Old Testament 'Texts of Terror," Patheos blog, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/07/every-known-theistic-approach-to-old-testament-texts-of-terror/

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