A Trajectory Toward Nonviolence in the Old Testament
Despite many violent portrayals the arc of the Hebrew scriptures bends towards nonviolence
(This post is the fourth in an ongoing series on Christian Nonviolence. You can read the first three posts here, here, and here. As we head into the biblical case, that third one will be an especially helpful intro.)
When aiming to make a case for Christian Nonviolence, the Old Testament will inevitably be a hurdle that must be leapt over. It would be one thing for the Old Testament to recount violent portrayals of the past, but it becomes much more difficult when those stories don’t simply tell of the violence “out there” or perpetrated against the people of God, but also include the violence commanded by God and carried out by the people of God. In short, if you were looking to make a biblical case for violence, the Old Testament would be the place for you.
In a future post, I’ll be dealing with objections more head on. But it is hard to discuss a biblical case for nonviolence and not address the fact that there’s a lot of, seemingly, God-ordained violence within the Bible. For now, I’ll say that if you are someone who is open to interpretations that are less fundamental and literal and instead take into account the historical context, the genre, and the overarching trajectory of scripture then there are plenty of ways to read the violence in the OT understanding that it is not God’s ideal, if even his work at all.1 And while I am open to such interpretations, I don’t believe they are necessary to show that the story of scripture is on a trajectory toward nonviolence.
Let’s take the assumption, whether it’s the assumption you actually hold or not, that we are to take all of the Old Testament and its violence at face value. God is God and is allowed to do whatever he wants. If He commits or commands violence it’s not a sin or even a problem. His ways are not our ways. In His infinite wisdom that decision was the best decision for all involved.2 Can one hold to those assumptions and still see a thread of nonviolence throughout scripture? I believe the answer is yes.
HUMAN KINGS AND THE END OF VIOLENCE
If we are taking the stance that God can do whatever he wants and who are we to question him - a respectable stance to take - then I believe there is a key shift in the way violence is portrayed as soon as Israel gets a king. In 1 Samuel 8, we read that Israel demanded of Samuel to “give us a king to judge us as all the other nations have.” God tells Samuel to relent and to obey the wishes of the people, but also to give them a word of warning. One of these warnings is at least related to what we are discussing here. 1 Samuel 8:11-12 says, “...(The king) will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties…”
I find it interesting that one of God’s warnings to Israel is that a king will take your sons and use them for his military purposes. Wasn’t this already happening when God took Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land to drive out the Canaanites? There appears to be a difference between a king doing this and God doing this.
Israel gets their king. Saul sees some highs and lows, but the next thing I want to highlight is David. King David marks both a high point for Israel and the impetus for their downfall. But before David’s sin against Bathsheba he sets out to build a temple for God. In short, God’s answer is no. In 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17, the reasons given are basically that God has never had a permanent place to dwell since He took Israel out of Egypt, why do it now? He honors David’s intent by making a promise to establish his throne and to be with his son, but ultimately David will not build him a temple. That will be an honor bestowed upon his son. It’s not until 1 Chronicles 22 that we hear David explain to Solomon why David was prohibited from building the temple. 1 Chronicles 22:8 tells us “But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth.’” According to David, the reason he is not able to build the temple is due to his violence. This isn’t exactly an endorsement of violence, is it?
Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, violence is afflicted upon Israel not the other way around. The prophets frequently critique both Israel and other nations for their violence (Micah 6:12; Ezekiel 7:23; Amos 3:10, Isaiah 59:6; Jeremiah 6:7; Zephaniah 1:9). One could go into much more detail on the prophets treatment and critique on violence, but suffice it to say they aren’t fans. That brings us to Jesus in the biblical story, but we’ll get there next week.
A BRIEF WORD ON VIOLENCE BEFORE THE KINGS
When reading the Old Testament through what has become the traditional lens - simply put, what I’m reading happened in the way I’m reading it - it becomes clear to me that when God is leading his people he is allowed to commit and command acts of violence. As soon as Israel demands a king, violence is no longer justified because it is no longer God who is leading but rather corruptible men. But even before we get to the kings, I believe we have the seeds of nonviolence in place.
Our first act of violence takes place as soon as humanity is outside of the Garden in Genesis 4. Cain kills his brother Abel and Abel’s blood cries out. How does God respond? By protecting Cain so that no one would find him and kill him. A few chapters later we read that “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” This leads to God destroying all of humanity - save for Noah and his family - through a flood. After the flood, God forbids the shedding of blood saying, “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
The next major texts when it comes to violence would be in Exodus where Pharoah uses power and violence against Israel and God responds in kind. Then through Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as Israel prepares to go into the Promised Land there are problematic texts where God commands Israel “Do not leave alive any living thing.” These are not to be ignored or glossed over, but for sake of this post I’ll just point out that when we get to the end of Joshua and beginning of Judges we see that Israel failed to obey God not because they left alive some of the Canaanites but because they did not drive them out (Joshua 17:13; Judges 2:11-13, 10:6). The violence previously commanded was not the main point, but rather the main point appears to be driving out the inhabitants.
To summarize, while there are different interpretive approaches to Old Testament violence one can read these stories taking for granted that what is being described happened as it was described and still see a thread that is leading us toward nonviolence as the ultimate ethic of God. God commits and commands acts of violence, but even during that time there are ways God condemns violence and protects perpetrators of violence from incurring violence themselves. As soon as Israel rejects the leadership of God and demands a human king, God takes a much sharper stance against violence. This is seen by his refusal of David’s request to build a temple due to the fact that David is a man of much bloodshed, the words of the prophets, and the absence of God’s commands to act violently against the enemies of God’s people.34
This was far from a complete survey of violence in the Old Testament and certainly has left room for unanswered questions. If you have them feel free to leave them in the comments or email them to dmhallahan5@gmail.com and I’ll seek to include them in the future post looking at objections to nonviolence.
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See Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us by Preston Sprinkle; The Grace of God: The Gift We Don’t Deserve, The Love we Can’t Believe by Andy Stanely; The Crucifixion of the Warrior God: Interpreting The Old Testament’s Violent Portraits of God in Light of the Cross, Volume 1 & 2 by Greg Boyd; Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence by Greg Boyd; The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending the Bible Has Made Us Unable to Read It by Pete Enns; The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: Covenant, Retribution, and the Fate of the Canannites by John Walton; Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News by Brian Zahnd
I’ll respond directly to this line of thinking in the objections to Christian Nonviolence post in the future
The day after I scheduled this post this podcast showed up in my feed: Slow Theology E. 27 - Processing Violence in the Bible. It was a good listen.
Also after scheduling this post, I started listening to the audio version of Wisdom for Faithful Reading: Principles and Practices for Old Testament Reading by John Walton. It’s available for free through Hoopla with a library card. Anyway, the point of me bringing it up is twofold. First of all he says early in the book that the goal of interpretation should not be getting a “right” interpretation but rather a faithful one. Of course interpretations can be right or wrong, but often we won’t know which is which. There will be more or less evidence to support an interpretation but to determine who is right and who is wrong is difficult, if not impossible. Therefore we should aim for faithfulness while interpreting. That was my goal here and continues to be going forward.
The second reason I bring it up is because in chapter 11 Walton specifically discusses hyperbole in ancient war texts. He quotes from another scholar regarding the consensus among biblical historians when it comes to the purpose of Ancient Near East historical texts. Paraphrasing his quotation the consensus understanding is that Ancient Near East cultures were not concerned with a simple, straightforward retelling of history. The goal was not to tell history for histories sake, but instead historical accounts from the time period were themselves interpretative acts. I thought this was interesting and worth adding to the context of this post.