The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible by Brad E. Kelle;Brent A. Strawn; & Brent A. Strawn

Author:Brad E. Kelle;Brent A. Strawn; & Brent A. Strawn [Kelle, Brad E. & Strawn, Brent A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190074111
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2020-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Divine and Human Violence in the Historical Books

Douglas S. Earl

Prior to the 1990s the Old Testament historical books were seldom characterized in terms of violence.1 For instance, in the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas did not consider the issue of violence in relation to biblical narratives. Likewise, with regard to Joshua, a narrative frequently characterized in terms of violence today, ancient interpreters did not use the concept of violence in its interpretation, even though they were aware of moral difficulties. For example, Augustine considered whether Joshua’s campaign summary (Josh. 11:14) reflects horrible cruelty, and concluded not. God ordered the campaign so we judge wrongly if we consider it a great evil (see Questions on Joshua 16 in Franke 2005: 67), a view reflected by Calvin (e.g., on Josh. 10:18; see 1949: 157–58), and recently Wright (2008).2

Origen took a different approach. He was alert to Joshua’s moral difficulties, although unlike contemporary readers he seldom characterized them in terms of violence. However, in Homily 12 on Josh. 10:20–26 he makes a passing reference to violence, although the discussion is framed in terms of cruelty (see Homily on Joshua 12:3 in Bruce 2002: 123–24).3 Origen’s approach to the moral difficulty differs from the Gnostics here, who used it to repudiate the narrative, and the later Augustinian tradition, where perceived moral difficulties indicate human finitude. For Origen the moral difficulty at the literal level is real but a cue to locate the text’s significance otherwise—spiritually, through intertextual canonical reading. Whilst Origen would no doubt agree with the Augustinian tradition regarding human finitude and God being the measure of all things, he takes Christ as portrayed in the New Testament as the foundation for our knowledge of God and as measure of all, including moral judgments. Origen takes as problematic what Augustine would not, through appeal to the revelation of God as most perspicuous in Christ rather than in the literal sense of Old Testament narrative. Yet Origen rejects the Marcionite hermeneutic, and will not repudiate the witness of scripture, understanding scripture to witness to God, but not literally as in Marcionite and Augustinian traditions.

Origen’s moral concerns and spiritual reading had faded from view by the modern era, during which concerns with moral difficulties, and violence in particular, were seldom articulated. An exception is Thomas Morgan, who explicitly contrasts “violence” associated with the Mosaic and conquest traditions with the Abrahamic and Pauline traditions (1739: 105–14). However, such characterization had little lasting impact. To take paradigmatic examples from nineteenth-century German and English scholarship, neither Wellhausen (1885 [1882]) nor Driver (1891) discuss the historical books in terms of violence; in the mid-twentieth century, von Rad (1975 [1957]) does not either. Works in the late modern era are concerned mostly with historical-critical issues rather than ethical issues (e.g., Soggin 1972 [1970]; Boling and Wright 1982). “Violence” is not in view, even in revisionary works where one might expect it to be (Bainton 1960; Gottwald 1979).

There was a watershed in the 1990s with the appearance of various works characterizing

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