• Old Testament Violence

The violence described in the Old Testament sounds gruesome, yet the Bible is often described as the story about God's character and mankind's relationship with Him. Christians are followers of Jesus who taught forgiveness and peace. How can they—we—make sense of Old Testament violence? Is the God of Abraham the same God embodied by Jesus? In 144 AD Marcion said no:

Marcion denied that the God of the Old Testament was the same God presented in the New Testament. For Marcion, Jesus was the Son of the God of the New Testament but not the Son of the deity described in the Hebrew Scriptures. The deities of the Old and New Testaments were, from Marcion’s perspective, literally two different gods. Marcion did not deny the existence of the god of the Old Testament. He simply classified this god as a secondary deity, one that was inferior to the supreme God revealed in Jesus.

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Marcion believed Paul was the only true apostle of Jesus Christ. He rejected all of the New Testament writings except ten of Paul's letters and Luke's Gospel, minus the infancy narrative, because he had to eliminate all the places where Jesus identified Himself with the God of Abraham, for example:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

Matthew 5:17—18 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

Jesus fulfilled many Old Testament prophecies, including this from about 600 BC:

He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:3—6 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

Jesus made it clear He is the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament, and He is one with the Father:

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.  The Father and I are one.

John 10:27—30 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

Marcion believed so strongly in his own understanding that he was willing to reject not only the God of Abraham, but much of what Jesus taught. Dennis Prager highlights the danger of this approach:

Of course, there is a faith component to my religious life. The primary example is the foundation of this commentary—my belief in the Torah as a divine document. While reason has led me to this belief, I acknowledge there are a few verses or passages that challenge this belief. Whenever I encounter such passages, however, I am not prepared to say, Love the stranger is divine, but this difficult part is man-made. Once one says that, the Torah not only ceases to be divine, but it also ceases to be authoritative. When you say, this part is divine, but that one isn’t, you become your own Torah.

Dennis Prager, XXVI of [PragerDeuteronomy]Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses by Dennis Prager, 2022 publisher: Regnery Publishing

He was referencing only the first five books of the Bible, but it applies equally to the whole Bible. Does God tolerate us questioning His Word? I think He even encourages questions, as a route to deeper faith. Names in the Old Testament often had important meanings. God renamed the patriarch Jacob:

Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. So he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then the man said, You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.

Genesis 32:24,27—28

I think Jacob literally had a wrestling match with an angel, but its message to us is metaphorical. Dennis Prager explains the meaning of Israel:

It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the meaning of the name Israel. It means struggle (yisra) with God (el). That God would bestow this name on His People could only mean God assumes—even expects—those who believe in Him to struggle with Him.

Dennis Prager on page 386 of [PragerGenesis]Genesis: The Rational Bible by Dennis Prager, 2019 publisher: Regnery Publishing

It helps to realize that some Biblical passages are not meant literally. For example Jesus said:

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

Matthew 5:29—30

A literal interpretation of this passage would be gruesome. The people listening to Jesus understood because exaggerations to make a point are found in the Old Testament also. A clear example is the celebration after David killed Goliath, in about 1000 BC:

As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry, Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands. Saul was very angry, for this saying displeased him. He said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands; what more can he have but the kingdom?

1 Samuel 18:6—8 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

David was only a shepherd boy at the time, not a soldier. He killed wild animals to protect his sheep, but his first battle with a man was against Goliath. He had only killed one man. The celebrating women exaggerated to express the extent of their joy. Saul was not mad because the women were lying, he understood they were not. He was mad because they were praising David above himself, potentially threatening his throne.

The Bible does not directly claim God told David to kill Goliath, it only reports the event. Much more troubling are passages like this one, where God, through Moses, tells Israel to fight:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you—and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

Deuteronomy 7:1—2 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

The literal meaning is clear: kill everyone in the land, but the very next verse says:

Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,  for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.  But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire. 

Deuteronomy 7:2—5 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

Moses conveys God's command for the Israelites to kill everyone in the land, yet also not to mingle with them. It seems like a contradiction. The books of Joshua and Judges explain what actually happened, but understanding the story requires understanding the whole sequence, not individual passages.

God did not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land. Moses passed leadership of the people to Joshua, who directed many battles to gain control of the Promised Land:

Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained. So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land was quiet from war.

Joshua 11:21—23 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

It sounds like the whole previous population has been expelled or killed. But that was not the case. Only three chapters later, Caleb asked Joshua:

So now, give me this hill country about which Yahweh spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps Yahweh will be with me, and I will dispossess them as Yahweh has spoken. So Joshua blessed him and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance.

Joshua 14:12—13 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

I put Hebron in boldface type. It is in both passages. Joshua 11 says Hebron was won for Israel, but in Joshua 14 Caleb expects to take Hebron in battle, and make it part of his inheritance. Is this an inconsistency? The original writers didn't think so. Then, in the book of Judges it says:

Now these are the nations which Yahweh allowed to remain, to test Israel by them. ... These nations are: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. And they were for testing Israel, to know if they would obey the commandments of Yahweh, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. Now the sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and they took their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods. Thus the sons of Israel did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh and forgot Yahweh their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.

Judges 3:1,3—7 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

So it's not just little pockets of the people previously living in the Promised Land that survived. It was many, and the Israelites lived among them. The warning Moses gave in Deuteronomy 7:2—4 came to pass: Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,  for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods.

Was the continued existence of these people a failure of the Israelites to obey God, or was it God's intention? It does say they are the nations which Yahweh allowed to remain.

I am not looking at resources outside the Bible. I'm comparing passages from the Bible that describe the sequence of events. It seems the people recording this history, and transmitting it over thousands of years, did not consider these passages contradictory. I conclude that

you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.

is exaggeration, not intended to be literal. In any case, it is not what happened.

A careful reading of the Old Testament reveals the war Israel fought to occupy the Promised Land was not as brutal as, you must utterly destroy them, implies. Yet, the wars waged back then were brutal. Why did God order them?

Before attempting to answer that question, pause to compare war back then with modern wars. Old Testament battles were brutal and personal. Most killing was done hand-to-hand with swords, spears, farther away with arrows, or by starving out whole towns. Now we are more sophisticated. Today our weapons are longer range and can kill vast numbers of people quickly.

Are any modern wars justified? Were any of them condoned by God? I think World War Two was justified. We eliminated two horrific regimes, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan. We spent years, money, and lives defeating those two enemies. Then we rebuilt their nations. Was that ever done before? I don't think so. Our Judeo-Christian faith drove us to that work of mercy. It is the faith of the Holy Bible.

Why did God give Israel the Promised Land? In about 2000 BC He told Abram, later renamed Abraham:

Now the LORD said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Genesis 12:1—3 [NRSV]New Revised Standard Version Bible by National Council of Churches USA, 1989

In fact the whole world is blessed by the Judeo-Christian faith, which God rooted in the Promised Land. Western civilization is built on the Bible. The United States, the most prosperous, free, and generous nation ever to exist, was founded on Biblical teachings.

In about 1400 BC God led the Israelites to the Promised Land, and made it possible for them to occupy that land, and only that land. God never allowed them to spread to other territories. God seeded the Judeo-Christian faith in the Promised Land, and nurtured it in order to bless the whole world, not just Israel. He knew it had to be somewhat isolated and protected from the people surrounding it:

Furthermore, the Bible’s disturbing ethics of warfare can perhaps be best explained in terms of monotheism’s struggle to survive. Monotheism started out as a minority movement with a different theology and ethical system than the rest of the world. It expanded and developed because it had one small corner in the world where it could grow unmolested. Had the Hebrews continued to reside amidst the pagan and child-sacrificing Canaanite culture, monotheism itself would almost certainly have died

Joseph Telushkin on page 30 of [PragerDeuteronomy]Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses by Dennis Prager, 2022 publisher: Regnery Publishing

As I said, I believe World War Two was justified. We helped save all of Western Civilization, spread it to Japan, and restored it in Germany. I think God blessed us in that war. God Himself told us why He authorized the Israelites to own the Promised Land. He told us world-wide blessings would result. Now we can look back and see why.

What do you think? Do you agree God was justified when He gave the Promised Land to Israel? Let me know your thoughts on the comments sections, on Twitter @ChrisErvinReid, or on Face Book, PrincipledThinking.