As we work our way through some of the theories about how God can condone and command violence in the Bible, we come to a view which basically states that the violence is exaggerated.

The basic premise is that we misread the Bible when we think that the Israelites actually killed all the Canaanites (or whatever people group is in view). Sometimes the Bible is exaggerating in the number of people that were killed while other times the Bible says that all the people were killed when in fact they were not.

Then there are those cases where the terminology for “destruction” need not refer to death, but could refer to something else, such as being forced to leave the land or make the decision to join forces with the Israelites.

In other words, this position has several elements and perspectives, depending on which book you read or which scholar you listen to, but the main elements of this theory are described below (Note: Many hold various versions of this view, but you can read one summary of it on the Eternity Bible College blog).

Others Could Join Israel

First, God’s ultimate goal was for the conquered people to repent of their sin, see that God was worthy of worship and obedience, and join with Israel in following Him. Examples of this are found in some of the Egyptian people who joined with Israel at the Exodus (Exod 12:38), Rahab siding with the Israelite spies against her own people and then becoming one of the Israelites after their conquest of Jericho (Josh 6:22-23), and the Gibeonites choosing to be servants of Israel rather than face annihilation (Josh 9:9).

The Canaanites were Driven Out

Secondly, when people did not side with God in this way, God did not actually command the Israelites to kill and slaughter those that remained, but to “drive them out” of the land, that is, to force them to leave the land of Canaan and go elsewhere (cf. Num 21:32; Deut 9:1; 11:23; 18:14; 19:1; 23:27-30; etc.).

[Read more…]

Ever wonder how God can command such violence in the Old Testament, but Jesus commands only love and mercy?

One view that is prominent among biblical scholars is that although God used war, He didn’t like it.

As seen in Jesus Christ, God hates war. But He uses it in human history for two purposes: to accomplish His will through messy human methods, and to reveal the horror of life apart from Him. God used war to bare evil to the bone, to unmask the myth of redemptive violence, to show that bloodshed results only in more bloodshed.

Divine Accommodation in War

Those who hold this view argue that the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament reveal God’s divine accommodation to human sinfulness and evil. God, knowing that sin will be involved no matter how He uses humans in this world, gives the commands for Israel to perform the violence in a way which reveals to them and to the rest of the world how wicked and evil sin really is.

God wants to expose the wickedness of sin in all its ugliness, and so chooses Israel to bear the curse of sin for the world in all its blackness and horror.

As with many of the other positions mentioned previously, there is much to commend this view. It is absolutely true that violence only leads to more violence. Murder, bloodshed, and war, however it is justified in the minds of those who commit it, always and only leads to more violence. Jesus said that “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” (Matt 26:52) and this truth has been seen over and over throughout history and throughout Scripture. Violence does not lead to peace, but only to further violence.

[Read more…]

We are working our way through several of the views about how to understand the violence of God in the Old Testament in light of the love and mercy taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

One view is that such an attempt is futile from the start because it is like comparing apples and oranges.

We must not equate what Jesus was trying to accomplish in His life and ministry with what God was trying to accomplish through Israel in the Old Testament. The two events had different goals and different methods, and trying to fit them together is like trying to put a square into a round hole.

Jesus, it is argued, was trying to set up a spiritual kingdom, governed by the rule and reign of God within men’s hearts. In the Old Testament however, God was trying to set up an earthly kingdom, one that had rulers and laws with a system of taxation, government, and military might.

The Kingdom of God in Israel

In a world like ours, countries need military might and wartime violence to establish borders, maintain peace and security against invading armies, and protect itself from crime and revolutionaries within its borders. In this view, since Israel was a theocracy, God, as the “Commander in Chief” sent Israel to war against her enemies. He gave the order to kill, destroy, and annihilate those who threatened the earthly government which He installed in Israel.

The Kingdom of God in Jesus

Jesus, on the other hand, came to install a Kingdom that was “not of this world” (John 8:23; 18:36) and therefore, did not need to issue commands for His followers to kill others for their common cause. The Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom, and as such, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of the air (Eph 6:10-20).

So just as it would seem to be impossible for any earthly government to exist without a standing military, without violence toward enemies, and without governing rules for order and peace which include death to traitors and some form of capital punishment, so also God had to include such things in the earthly government which He set up in Israel. But Jesus had different goals and different methods, and so He was able to show a way of peace and non-violence toward His enemies, and call His disciples to do the same, for His Kingdom is not of this world.

[Read more…]

How do you understand the violent portrayals of God in the Old Testament, especially in light of the love and mercy revealed in Jesus Christ?

We are working our way through some of the theories regarding this biblical dilemma, before I eventually propose an idea of my own (for your theological target practice). The view for this post is this:

God-Inspired Error

One view is that the descriptions of God in the Old Testament are accurate descriptions of what people wrongly believed. That is, the Bible is an inerrant guide to the bad theology some people had during the Old Testament era, and now that Jesus has come, we can see where and how they were wrong. The Bible includes these ideas, not to encourage us to emulate and copy their thinking and their actions, but to show us how their incorrect theology led to poor actions and destructive behavior.

In this way, much of the Old Testament is not a positive example to follow, but a negative example to avoid. It is not showing us what we should believe and do, but is showing us what people in the past thought about God and what they did as a result, and now that Jesus has come and shown us what God is really like, we can follow His example in not following the example of much of what the Old Testament says.

Different people who hold this view have different ideas about how involved God was in the whole process of the inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures. Some believe that God inspired the human authors to write incorrect theology and ideas about Himself so that later generations could see the damaging effects of bad theology, while others think inspiration has little to do with it, and the human authors simply recorded what they thought God was saying and telling them to do, even though they were incorrect in what they thought.

When read this way, the Bible is not exactly an accurate record of what people should believe, but instead, an accurate record of what people did believe

The Bad Theology of Job’s Four Friends

This view sounds pretty far-fetched until you actually begin to realize that many passages of Scripture function in exactly this way. Take the book of Job as an example.

[Read more…]

As we slowly move toward a proposal for why the God of the Old Testament commanded the Israelites to engage in warfare against the the Canaanites, I am laying out some of the views that people have on this tough issue.

One rare view is that the name “Yahweh” in the Hebrew Scriptures represents two different beings: Jesus and Satan. When reading the Bible, the word “Yahweh” can sometimes refer to Jesus Christ and other times depicts Satan. See this article for a more complete explanation: Forgotten Key to Old Testament.

Apparently, one of the basic premises of this view is that ancient Israel cosmology had not yet developed to the point of being able to discern the difference between Yahweh and Satan. Ancient people, it is taught, believed that God was behind everything that happened, and so sometimes wrongly attributed the works of the devil to Yahweh. Today, since we know the difference between God and Satan, we can use the revelation we have received in Jesus Christ to tell the difference.

So according to this view, whenever we see Yahweh mentioned in Scripture (translated as Lord in most Bibles), we should use the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Gospels to determine whether Yahweh is referring to Jesus or to the devil. If Yahweh is doing, saying, or commanding something that appears evil, then Yahweh is the devil, but if Yahweh is doing, saying, or commanding something that looks like Jesus, then in these cases Yahweh is Jesus.

Proponents of this view do not argue that Yahweh is both good and evil, but that the term Yahweh represents two different beings, Jesus and Satan, and we must use later revelation in Scripture to determine when Yahweh refers to one or the other. God Himself, of course, is always loving and just, but sometimes the human authors of Scripture confused the true God as revealed in Jesus Christ with the actions of Satan in history, and referred to the actions of both as coming from “Yahweh.”

I, frankly, am opposed to this view.

[Read more…]