A sordid story of “divinely-sanctioned” violence in the Old Testament … which seems to be anything but that.
There are many stories in the Old Testament of carnage and slaughter, perpetrated by the nation of Israel, which are presented as divinely-sanctioned. In fact, the claim is that God / YHWH not only condoned them, but actually commanded them. Many books, articles and podcasts have looked at these and found ways to “justify” this violence. Explanations given include:
- YHWH had put a curse on the line of one of Noah’s sons (Ham, from which the Canaanites came), commanding that those descendants would be perpetual slaves of another one of Noah’s sons (Shem, from whom the Israelites came);
- YHWH had promised that land to Abram and Sarai, and the Canaanites were just in the way of Divine urban development;
- YHWH had to use Israel to carve out a protective little niche in a savage heathen land in order to establish a Messianic bloodline;
- the wickedness of the people of those lands was so great that YHWH couldn’t tolerate it anymore, and he used the nation of Israel to cleanse the land;
- YHWH/God had his reasons, he does not have to explain himself to us, and we’re in no position to judge him on that.
Personally, I can’t accept those explanations any more: they’re entirely inconsistent with a God of love and forgiveness, and it’s appalling that an omnipotent God would use an innocent people (Israel) to do his dirty work. Imagine a religious leader or a winner of a Nobel Peace Prize sending his teenage-daughter with a shot-gun to the neighbours next door to slaughter every person and animal in the house because they did something to offend him.
But maybe we’ve got it wrong. Maybe those stories aren’t divinely sanctioned; maybe people were just being people and using their national deity as their alibi. The push-back on that suggestion is simply the slippery slope argument: if the text claims that God commanded it and we decide that he didn’t, then where do we draw the line on other parts of the Bible?
But there’s a story in the Old Testament which, in my mind, gets around the explanations listed above: an incredibly sordid story recounted in the book of Judges, chapters 19 to 21. Without getting into all the details: one individual Israelite is badly personally disrespected by the men of an Israelite town, so he rallies the entire nation of Israel to defend his honour by slaughtering the Israelite tribe in which this town is found. They had to attempt the attack three times before they were finally successful (so much for God being in charge). Once they realize that the tribe of Benjamin is in imminent danger of being completely eliminated (because they had killed off all the women and children), they attack another nearby innocent Israelite village, kill off everyone except the reproductively-viable virgins, and give those virgins to the survivors of their first attack.
And this is supposed to have been divinely ordained and sanctioned!?
This story has nothing to do with Canaanites (in fact, the “enemy” is a tribe of Israel, with whom YHWH had also made a covenant), or protecting a Messianic line. It is all about one truly despicable little man in a jealous rage igniting a civil war between Israelite tribes, all of it fuelled by offended Semitic male pride (just read the story). And yet the story claims that God “gave that city into their hands” because the attackers threw some magic dice and trusted that the outcome was God’s command, even though the dice were thrown AFTER they had already decided to go to war against their brothers. Let’s keep in mind that the story is not a dictation from God, but an oral history (transmitted by humans) which was eventually written down (by humans) and later revised, redacted and edited (by humans) over a thousand years later when the nation was trying to make sense of their Babylonian captivity.
Our motive in exploring this truly sordid story is not to discredit the Bible or the Christian faith, but to show that we don’t have to read the Bible literally and superficially, especially when it comes to things like the Canaanite slaughters. Instead, we have to admit that the Bible may be divinely-inspired, but it’s got human fingerprints all over it, and we have to develop the skills to read it critically and astutely. There may be golden nuggets in it, but you have to dig those out of the dirt and polish them off.
As always, tell us what you think…
Find out more about Eric Seibert at his university profile page, and his books at this Amazon page.
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