The Bible and violence

The Hebrew Bible and New Testament contain many passages outlining approaches to violent activity both for and against it centering on the ancient nation of Israel and their involvement with Gentile nations. These same Scriptures also provide civil guidelines on the subject of violent activity as it pertains to individuals within the nation distinguishing individualistic from nationalistic actions.

Hebrew Bible

Against violence

The Torah, the Tanakh and related literature write extensively concerning peace directed toward the nation of Israel, as well as its opposite states. The word "shalom" meaning "peace" has been absorbed into the usage of the language from its Biblical roots. A New Concordance of the Bible: Thesaurus of the Language of the Bible [1] lists over almost 300 words connected with the root "SH-L-M" for "peace" and the same for "Solomon."

Notable examples:

Descriptions of violence

Abraham carries a lit torch in his left hand and a sword in a belted scabbard while leading his heavily burdened son uphill as two onlookers and their donkey gawk.
Abraham carries fire, a sword, and unrevealed intentions for his son carrying a heavy load uphill.

In the story about the Binding of Isaac, son of Abraham,[2][3] God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah by binding him and placing him on a makeshift altar.[4] Abraham is about to carry out the execution when an angel of God stops him at the last minute. (Genesis 22:5 and 22:8).

Several of these arise in the context of the story of the conquest of Canaan.[5]:319–320 For example, in Deut 20:16-18 God orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …".[6] thus leading many scholars to characterize the exterminations as genocide.[7][8] Other examples include the story of Amalekites and the commandment to exterminate them,[9] the story of the Midianites,[10]:245 and the battle of Jericho.[10]:289–296

The instruction God gives in Deut 20:16-18 is for the Israelites to exterminate "everything that breaths". Van Wees goes on to say that these campaigns were largely fictional.[11] In the archaeological community, the Battle of Jericho has been thoroughly studied, and the consensus of modern scholars is that the battles described in the Book of Joshua are not realistic.[12] For example, the Book of Joshua describes the extermination of the Canaanite tribes, yet at a later time, Judges 1:1-2:5 suggests that the extermination was not complete.[13]

Likewise, it is not clear if the historical Amalekites were exterminated or not. 1 Samuel 15:7-8 implies ("He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.") that - after Agag was also killed - the Amalekites were extinct, but in a later story in the time of Hezekiah, the Simeonites annihilated some Amalekites on Mount Seir, and settled in their place: "And five hundred of these Simeonites, led by Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi, invaded the hill country of Seir. They killed the remaining Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day." (1 Chr 4:42-43).

Scholars point out that collective punishment, particularly punishment of descendants for transgressions committed by ancestors of gentiles, is common in the Jewish Bible.[14]

New Testament

Against violence

These are a few examples of passages which indicate the New Testament is against a violent approach, though there exist many others. These passages describe individualistic behavior against other persons as opposed to governmental action against other nations which would include national defense or other military actions.

Ephesians 4:32 – "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you".

Luke 6:27 – “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you".

Matthew 5:43-48 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?".

Matthew 26:52 "But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword". (Jesus said this after Peter had struck one of the soldiers who were attempting to arrest Jesus. Jesus subsequently healed the soldier's wound).

Romans 12:17-21 "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone".

1 Peter 3:9 "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing".

1 John 2:9-10 "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble".

Descriptions of violence

Probably the central act of violence in the New Testament is the crucifixion of Jesus. This act is supported by most Christian theologies, ordained by God and is crucial to the redemption of humanity by God.[15]

Gustave Doré - Christ on the Cross - Google Art Project

There are sayings of Jesus that are alleged to promote violence:[16]

Jesus holds a whip in his hand in striking position while merchants scramble away, or brace for blows.
A 19th century rendition of the Cleansing of the Temple.

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple is an example of direct violent action by Jesus, although it is an example of chastisement and not an attempt to create great bodily harm.[19]

The apocalyptic Book of Revelation is full of imagery of war, genocide, and destruction; it may be the most violent book in the entire Bible. It describes the judgments of God against humanity.[20]

Theological reflections and responses

The theological problem of theodicy deals with how evil can exist if God is omnipotent, omniscience, and good. People of faith who emphasize pacifism have struggled with biblical passages describing God as warlike or violent since these passages conflict with their worldview.[15][21]

Sociological reflections and responses

Scholar Nur Masalha writes that the "genocide" of the extermination commandments has been "kept before subsequent generations" and served as inspirational examples of divine support for slaughtering enemies.[22]

Arthur Grenke claims that the view of war expressed in Deuteronomy contributed to the destruction of Native Americans and to the destruction of European Jewry.[23]

Niels Peter Lemche asserts that European colonialism in the 19th century was ideologically based on the Old Testament narratives of conquest and extermination and that some radical Zionist groups have brought the same idea to bear in Israel.[24]

Scholar Leonard B. Glick states that Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, such as Shlomo Aviner, consider the Palestinians to be like biblical Canaanites, and that some fundamentalist leaders suggest that they "must be prepared to destroy" the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not leave the land.[25] Several scholars draw similar conclusions.[26][27][28]

The Book of Revelation has been used to justify Christian hostility, Christian imperialism and Christian sectarian violence.[20]

Theological uses

Separation

As the early Christian Church began to distinguish itself from Judaism, characterization of the "Old Testament" and the portrayal of God in it, as violent and unforgiving, were contrasted rhetorically with certain teachings of Jesus to portray an image of God as more loving and forgiving, which was framed as a new image.[29]

For example, in his work Contra Faustum Book XIX,[30] the Church father St. Augustine discussed Jesus of Nazareth's Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus urges his followers to turn the other cheek when confronted by violence, as opposed to applying the Lex Talionis.

Supersessionist Christians have continued to focus on violence in the Hebrew Bible while ignoring or giving little attention to violence in the New Testament.[29][31]

Support for gnostic theologies

Gnosticism is a philosophy that has undergone waves of popularity, including some at the time that Christianity and Judaism were separating. A key notion is the division between the material world, which gnostics viewed as being created by a demiurge, and a spiritual world created by the true god.[32] Perhaps the most famous example of an early Christian Gnostic was Marcion who characterized the "God of the Old Testament" as the demiurge, and dropped the Hebrew scriptures from his version of the Bible. Marcion saw the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge and creator of the material universe. For Marcion, the God about whom Jesus spoke was an altogether different being, a universal God of compassion and love, who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy.[33]

Marcion's teaching was repudiated by Tertullian in five treatises titled "Against Marcion" and Marcion was ultimately excommunicated by the Church of Rome.[34]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Abraham Even-Shoshan, A New Concordance of the Bible: Thesaurus of the Language of the Bible: Hebrew and Aramaic Roots, Words, Proper Names Phrases and Synonyms (Kiryat Sepher Publishing House, Jerusalem. 1986 edition)
  2. ↑ Jewish Virtual Library. "Akedah". Accessed March 25, 2011
  3. ↑ Judaism 101: A Glossary of Basic Jewish Terms and Concepts Accessed March 25, 2011
  4. ↑ Genesis 22:9
  5. ↑ Ian Guthridge (1999). The Rise and Decline of the Christian Empire. Medici School Publications,Australia. ISBN 978-0-9588645-4-1. the Bible also contains the horrific account of what can only be described as a "biblical holocaust". For, in order to keep the chosen people apart from and unaffected by the alien beliefs and practices of indigenous or neighbouring peoples, when God commanded his chosen people to conquer the Promised Land, he placed city after city 'under the ban" -which meant that every man, woman and child was to be slaughtered at the point of the sword.
  6. ↑ Ruttenberg, Danya, Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security Danya Ruttenberg (Ed.) page 54 (citing Reuven Kimelman, "The Ethics of National Power: Government and War from the Sources of Judaism", in Perspectives, Feb 1987, pp 10-11)
  7. ↑ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, pp 17-30
  8. ↑ Philip Jenkins - quoted in NPR article "Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran?" by Barbara Hagerty. Online at Is The Bible More Violent Than The Quran? : NPR.
  9. ↑ A. G. Hunter "Denominating Amalek: Racist stereotyping in the Bible and the Justification of Discrimination", in Sanctified aggression: legacies of biblical and post biblical vocabularies of violence, Jonneke Bekkenkamp, Yvonne Sherwood (Eds.). 2003, Continuum Internatio Publishing Group, pp 92-108
  10. 1 2 Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9.
  11. ↑ Van Wees, Hans (April 15, 2010). "12, Genocide in the Ancient World". In Bloxham, Donald; Dirk Moses, A. The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press.
  12. ↑ Ehrlich, pp 117
  13. ↑ Ehrlich, p 119
  14. ↑ Krašovec, Jože, Reward, punishment, and forgiveness: the thinking and beliefs of ancient Israel in the light of Greek and modern views, BRILL, 1999, p 113. He cites the following examples of collective punishment (of descendants) in the Bible:
    Ex 20:5 - "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments."
    Deut 5:9-10
    Exodus 34:6-7: "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
    Deuteronomy 7:9-10 - "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him."
    Jeremiah 32:18 - " You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the fathers' sins into the laps of their children after them. O great and powerful God, whose name is the LORD Almighty"
  15. 1 2 Hawkin, David J. (2004). The twenty-first century confronts its gods: globalization, technology, and war. SUNY Press. p. 121.
  16. ↑ Stroumsa, Gedaliahu G. "Early Christianity as Radical Religion" (PDF). In Ilai Alon, Ithamar Gruenwald, Itamar Singer. Concepts of the other in Near Eastern religions. p. 176.
  17. ↑ John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible, 1746-63
  18. 1 2 Jeremy Gabrielson, Paul's Non-Violent Gospel, James&Clarke, 2013, 52
  19. ↑ War, A Catholic Dictionary: Containing some Account of the Doctrine, Discipline, Rites, Ceremonies, Councils, and Religious Orders of the Catholic Church, W. E Addis, T. Arnold, Revised T. B Scannell and P. E Hallett, 15th Edition, Virtue & Co, 1953, Nihil Obstat: Reginaldus Philips, Imprimatur: E. Morrogh Bernard, 2 October 1950, "In the Name of God : Violence and Destruction in the World's Religions", M. Jordan, 2006, p. 40
  20. 1 2 Barr, David L. (2006). The reality of Apocalypse: rhetoric and politics in the book of Revelation. Society of Biblical Literature. p. 127.
  21. ↑ Seibert, Eric A. (2009). Disturbing divine behavior: troubling Old Testament images of God. Fortress Press.
  22. ↑ Masalha, Nur, The Bible and Zionism: invented traditions, archaeology and post-colonialism in Palestine-Israel, Volume 1, Zed Books, 2007, pp 273-276:
    "Prior revisits the old ground [in his book The Bible and colonialism: a moral critique] … First, the biblical narrative, with its 'divine promise' was inherently linked with the mandate to ethnically cleanse or exterminate the indigenous people … third, in the narrative of the Book of Deuteronomy the divine command to commit 'genocide' is explicit. Fourth, genocide and mass slaughter follow in the Book of Joshua. These highly dubious traditions of the Bible have been kept before subsequent generations of Jews and Christians in their prayers…. The historical evidence, however, strongly suggests that such genocidal massacres never actually took place, although these racist, xenophobic and militaristic narratives remained for later generations as powerful examples of divine aid in battle and of a divine command for widespread slaughter of an enemy…. [Professor Bernardo Gandulla, of the University of Buenos Aires], while sharing Prior's critique of the perverse use that Zionism and the State of Israel have made of the Bible to support their 'ethnic cleansing' policies in Palestine, … Prior … found incitement to war and violence in the very foundation documents of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the Hebrew Bible, for instance, there is a dominant strand that sees God as ethnocentric and militaristic. Furthermore, in their conquest of Canaan, the Israelites are commanded by Yahweh to destroy the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Later in the days of the Israelite kingdoms, they are urged to show no pity, but to massacre their enemies…. Today, both Christian Zionists in the West and Israeli messianics continue to refer to the Hebrew Scriptures for archetypal conflicts, which guide their attitudes towards the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine: the Palestinian Muslims and Christians." Masalha refers to: Prior, Michael P., The Bible and colonialism: a moral critique, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
  23. ↑ Grenke, Arthur, God, greed, and genocide: the Holocaust through the centuries, New Academia Publishing, LLC, 2005, pp 17–18: "Discussing the influence of Christian beliefs on the destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas, Stannard argues that while the New Testament view of war is ambiguous, there is little such ambiguity in the Old Testament. He points to sections in Deuteronomy in which the Israelite God, Yahweh, commanded that the Israelites utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (Deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16-17). … According to Stannard, this view of war contributed to the .. destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas. It was this view that also led to the destruction of European Jewry. Accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the Old Testament: it not only describes a situation where a group undertakes to totally destroy other groups, but it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide."
  24. ↑ Lemche, Niels Peter, The Old Testament between theology and history: a critical survey, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008,pp 315–316:"The [Biblical] story of the 'morally supreme people' that defeats and exterminates another, inferior, nation was part of the ideological baggage of European imperialists and colonizers throughout the nineteenth century. It was also carried by European Jews who,... migrated to Palestine to inherit their ancestral country … In this modern version of the biblical narrative, the Palestinian population turned into 'Canaanites', supposed to be morally inferior to the Jews, and of course the Arabs were never considered their equals … The Bible was the instrument used to suppress the enemy".
  25. ↑ Glick, Leonard B., "Religion and Genocide", in The Widening circle of genocide, Alan L. Berger (Ed). Transaction Publishers, 1994, p 46::"[God] looked with favor on what we may fairly call their [Israelite] proto-genocidal destructiveness. The Book of Joshua provides us with one of the earliest texts in which a deity quite plainly promotes the destruction of a people. As the Hebrews, under Joshua's leadership, undertake the conquest of Canaan, they massacre everyone who stands in their way…. It is instructive (and distressing) to note that contemporary Jewish ultra-nationalists in Israel root their politics in the Book of Joshua and equate their territorial aspirations with the will of God. Here, for example, is Shlomo Aviner, a prominent theorist of the Gush Emunim … movement: 'from the point of view of mankind's humanistic morality we were in the wrong in (taking the land) from the Canaanites. There is only one catch. The command of God ordered us to be the people of the land of Israel'. Others have identified the Palestinians as 'Canaanites' who are engaged in a 'suicidal' struggle opposing God's own intentions; hence the Jewish people must be prepared to destroy them if they persist in pursuing their collective 'death-wish'."
  26. ↑ Whitelam, Keith W., The invention of ancient Israel: the silencing of Palestinian history, Routledge, 1996, especially pp 71–121. Cited by Ehrlich, pp 117 "Keith Whitelam (1996) has published a book [The invention of ancient Israel: the silencing of Palestinian history] in which he has implied that the modern European imperialist Zionist Jewish movement has drawn inspiration from the biblical conquest tradition … Parallels are thus drawn in Whitelam's thought between the genocidal Israelites presumably of Joshua's day and the racist Zionists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and also between the ancient Canaanites and the modern Palestinians … the interpretations attributed to [Whitelam] of the place of the book of Joshua and its … genocidal account of Israel's emergence in the land that it claims as its own pose a challenge to Judaism…. It thus behooves us to ask … how has the Jewish community dealt with these foundational narratives, saturated as they are with acts of violence against others?…."
  27. ↑ Boustan, Ra'anan S., Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity, BRILL, 2010, page 4-5
    "Later readers of the Bible dramatically transformed this divine directive [Deut 20:15-18] through hermeneutic alignment of the Canaanites with the current detested 'other'. Thus the Canaanites have been identified with … Palestinians (by militant Zionists), and scores of other 'enemies' of Israel. In doing so, the violence perpetrated against these groups is not only justified, but indeed, part and parcel of the original divine plan. The violent legacy of the Bible is a product of both its own violent narrative and the hermeneutics of violence applied to it".
  28. ↑ Hitchens, Christopher, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Random House, Inc., 2007, p 101
  29. 1 2 R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) ISBN 978-0800628833
  30. ↑ Contra Faustum Augustine of Hippo, NewAdvent. Archived 30 July 2007 at WebCite
  31. ↑ Gibson, Leigh; Matthews, Shelly (2005). Violence in the New Testament. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 3.
  32. ↑ On the complexity of gnosticism, see Larry W. Hurtado (2005). Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 519–561.
  33. ↑ Metzger, Bruce. Canon of the NT ISBN 978-0-19-826180-3; The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 characterized Marcion as "perhaps the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known."; Harnack's Origin of the New Testament: "Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that “follows the Testament of the Creator-God,” and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against the falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles by the original Apostles and the writers of the Gospels. He would necessarily have dealt with the two Testaments of the Catholic Church if the Church had already possessed a New Testament. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under the supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any “litera scripta Novi Testamenti.”"
  34. ↑ Pixley, Jorge V. (2004). Jeremiah. Chalice Press. p. 65.

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