Book Review: "A History of Modern Scholarship on the Biblical Word Herem" by William Lyons

Lyons, William L. A History of Modern Scholarship on the Biblical Word Herem: The Contributions of Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter C. Craigie, and Tremper Longman, III. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010. pp.i-219. ISBN 978-0-7734-3834-7. ★★★★☆

I should begin this review by stating that Dr. Lyons was a professor of mine at Regent University. I had four classes with him, and he was my favorite professor. Beyond that, he has counseled me on academic papers, as well as on the next steps of my academic career, and we have maintained a friendship since my first semester at Regent, one that continues to strengthen. He even guided my wife and I through marriage counseling and officiated our wedding. Given our relationship, it would be very easy for me to just sit here and pat him on the back with a 5-star review singing his praises. However, if you know me, you know that I can have a close relationship with people while also being openly, even harshly, critical of their views. And I think you'll find that Dr. Lyons--though his teaching was a milestone in my life and was monumental to the development of my thinking, my research and my writing as a student--is no exception to the honest scrutiny and criticism that I put into my analysis.

The purpose of Lyons' book is to provide an overview of the work of three evangelical Old Testament scholars, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter C. Craigie, and Tremper Longman, III on the issue of warfare in the OT, particularly that of herem. Their work, as well as the work of scholarly evangelicals in general, has largely gone overlooked, and so Lyons lends focus to them and their claims, as he himself is an evangelical OT scholar.

He starts the book by outlining the major claims of evangelicals, one of which is the unapologetic belief in the Bible as the infallible word of God. For example, Longman refers to "the fact that the divine Author stands behind all of Scripture" (emphasis mine).(1) Lyons also quotes Mark Noll, who said that for evangelicals, "where the Bible speaks, God speaks."(2) In this, all of Scripture is God's self-revelation, which leads Longman and other evangelicals to see the whole Bible "as a single writing that presents an internally consistent message."(3) I would like to ask him what leads him to think that the Bible has God as its author, since such a claim is not made anywhere in Scripture.

What I find problematic about the divine authorship understanding of Scripture is that by embracing it, a multitude of conclusions are automatically made about the text before dealing with the evidence. For example, when the Bible says that God told Saul, "attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything 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 15:1-3), before studying, say, the other ancient near eastern cultures that claimed their wars were also divinely commanded, an evangelical will say that God did indeed command such horror, because he/she is already committed to that view of Scripture. The God revealed in Jesus Christ has to be exactly like he is described by the authors of the OT, because the Bible was written by God and offers a single, consistent theology. Thus, conclusions are made before examining the evidence (which probably has something to do with why evangelical scholarship has been overlooked).

Not only is this, to me, flawed investigation, but it also creates problems for the evangelical mind, as evidenced by the fact that Kaiser, Craigie, Longman, and Lyons all inadequately address the theological problem of divine violence. They all provide what I consider to be pat answers, as they essentially appeal to either mystery, God's wisdom and righteousness, or the evil of the victims of his violence. But what other response could they provide given their view of Scripture?

I find Longman's approach in particular to be troubling, as he seems to dehumanize the war narratives of the OT. Lyons criticizes him for not addressing the problem of divine violence in his book God is a Warrior (see my review here). Longman addressed this to Lyons by saying that the book was "an exercise in biblical theology, not ethics,"(4) as if God commanding genocide isn't a theological issue! What is troubling to me is that when he was asked by Lyons "Is herem moral?" he responded in the affirmative, because "If it is initiated and directed by God, it is moral. God defines morality."(5) If something is immoral, it shouldn't be moral just because God does it (I think of Nixon's words to David Frost: "If the president does it, it's not illegal"). Such a definition of morality makes morality completely relative, and thus meaningless. If we cannot say that something as terrible as genocide is immoral, then what can we say is immoral? Lyons would probably describe my assessment as a desire for a "kinder, gentle God." Sure, if all it takes to be a kinder, gentler God is to not kill women and children, then, yes, I do believe in a kinder, gentler God!

My favorite of the three scholars Lyons discussed is Peter Craigie, who acknowledged the unholy nature of war in the OT: "Can the ruthless requirement for the extermination of the enemy--men, women, and children--in anyway be regarded as holy? I think that it can not!"(6) Unfortunately, rather than letting this lead to questioning his expectations of Scripture, he settles for a strange dualism between God's activity and God's moral being, that essentially amounts to saying that God did and did not participate in the violence that is ascribed to him.(7) Lyons is right to critique his approach.(8)

With his book, Lyons points out what is being ignored in the OT academic community, that is, the scholarship of evangelicals. His overview is comprehensive and informative, and he includes insightful appendices and footnotes. For the evangelical studying the OT's war material, or for those interested in the overlooked sides of the topic of war in the OT, this is a great resource.

Notes:
(1) William L. Lyons, A History of Modern Scholarship on the Biblical Word Herem: The Contributions of Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Peter C. Craigie, and Tremper Longman, III (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 128.
(2) Ibid., 13.
(3) Ibid., 134.
(4) Ibid., 158.
(5) Ibid., 154.
(6) Ibid., 107.
(7) Ibid., 117.
(8) See Ibid., 174.

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Book Review: "War in the Hebrew Bible" by Susan Niditch

Nidith, Susan. War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. pp.3-180. ISBN 978-0-19-509840-4. ★★★★★

In War in the Hebrew Bible, Susan Niditch provides an overview of the diversity of ideologies and practices of war in the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, she goes over seven types of Israelite warfare:

the herem (placing under the ban, devoting to total destruction) as God's portion, in which total annihilation of the enemy is practiced as a sacrifice to God; 

the herem as God's justice, in which total annihilation of the enemy is necessary for the preservation of holiness in Israel due to the evil of the enemy; 

the priestly ideology of war in Numbers 31, in which virgin women are spared because they haven't been defiled/marked by the enemy; 

the bardic tradition of war, in which war and warriors are glorified as noble, and a kind of chivalry and respect towards enemies is developed; 

the ideology of tricksterism, in which the weaker community of Israelites use deception to outwit the more powerful enemy; 

the ideology of expediency, used by Israel when they possessed considerable power, is a more brutal war tradition in which violence knows no bounds and emphasis is placed on going to whatever lengths to get the job done; 

and finally, the ideology of nonparticipation is that in which the Israelites do no fighting, but Yahweh is the sole agent warring and bringing victory on behalf of Israel.

With these categories, Niditch offers a helpful schema for studying the Hebrew Bible's war traditions. Although, it might have been better arranged in a somewhat more chronological order, with regard to Israel's history. While I understand the difficulties of developing a timeline for Israel's development, and while the arrangement she has provided flows well ideologically, it might have been more helpful if Niditch provided a progression of thought in Israel's history. For example, she places the ideology of nonparticipation (in which the Israelites sit back and watch as God does all the fighting for them) at the end of her book, even though this war tradition is the kind found in the earliest textual example of war in ancient Israel, that of the victory at the Red Sea in Exodus 15.

While the book's sub-title is "A Study in the Ethics of Violence," it might have been better as, "A Study in the Israelite Ethics of Violence." I would have appreciated more input from Niditich's own approach to the ethics of violence. Hints of it are present in the text, but it mainly consists of Israelite approaches to the ethics of violence--which, of course, is absolutely necessary to the book, but I don't think it should have taken focus away from Niditch's own views.

That being said, this is an essential study for the student of the Hebrew Bible, and definitely the student of the Hebrew Bible's war material. Niditch's analysis offers a very informative and helpful overview of the war traditions of ancient Israel. While an even more thorough analysis would have been even more informative and helpful, what I found with War in the Hebrew Bible is the best overview on the subject I have read so far.

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Book Review: "God is a Warrior" by Tremper Longman & Daniel Reid

Longman, III, Tremper and Daniel G. Reid. God is a Warrior. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995. pp.7-224. ISBN 978-0-310-49461-3. ★★☆☆☆

In God is a Warrior, Tremper Longman, III and Daniel G. Reid provide an overview of the warrior theology in the Bible, particularly geared toward evangelical Bible students. The first half of the book is dedicated to describing the Old Testament's warrior theology, and the second describes the warrior theology of the New Testament. One has to read between the lines to get at what Longman and Reid are suggesting, but what one finds is a conservative evangelical take on the Bible's depiction of God as a warrior. Essentially, Longman and Reid provide that all of the Old Testament's claims about God's militant nature are echoed in the New Testament: "the Lord of the second covenant is the same as the Lord of the first" (p.188).

The most pervasive problem with the book is its lack of dialogue with opposing or alternative views. This is most likely due to the fact that the purpose of the book is to inform evangelical students about the Bible's depiction of God as a warrior. Even so, one should not teach by telling the learner what to think. In order for students to actually learn, they have to be presented with differing viewpoints.

An alternate view which Longman and Reid could have benefited from entertaining is that of T.R. Hobbs in his book A Time for War. He affirms that the New Testament echoes in a lot of ways the warrior theology of the Old Testament. The main difference is that Hobbs understands the New testament as transforming that theology, instead of simply affirming it: "the key to understanding [Jesus'] ministry, his message and his death and eventual resurrection, is the transformation which popular and traditional concepts undergo in his teachings."(1) To say that the New Testament utilizes a lot of the same warrior language that the Old Testament used is not to say that the NT affirms everything about the OT's warrior theology. As Hobbs suggests, it would be better to see the transformation that the warrior theology undergoes in the NT.

Ironically, Longman and Reid outline quite well the transformation, without acknowledging that it is indeed a transformation. In most of the discussion of the OT warrior God material, Longman and Reid go over the enemies of Israel that become God's enemies. In the OT, God was a warrior against flesh and blood. However, in all of their discussion of the NT warrior God material, God is a warrior against the principalities and powers, against evil, against chaos. I think an essential and radical claim that the NT dares to make is that Yahweh is not a warrior "against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph. 6:12).

Another essential element that Longman and Reid miss is the new way of doing battle revealed in the NT. In the NT, victory is achieved through self-sacrifice, not coercive force. The Cross reveals the true nature of God's warrior activity, and it is echoed in Revelation, in which, "The Messiah has certainly won a victory, but he has done so by sacrifice . . . [and] the people of the Messiah . . . share in his victory, but do so similarly, by sacrificial death rather than by military violence."(2)

As an overview of the Bible's warrior theology, Longman and Reid's book is informative, but no more-so than other books on the subject. Furthermore, their lack of dialogue with opposing views, and their argument's (perhaps consequent) lack of nuance makes this book second-rate.

Notes:
(1) T.R. Hobbs, A Time for War: A Study of Warfare in the Old Testament (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989), 230.
(2) Richard Bauckham, "The Victory of the Lamb and His Followers," in The Theology of the Book of Revelation, ed. James D.G. Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 74, 77.

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