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“That Troublesome Old Testament God - VI”
Violence is a topic that many feel uncomfortable discussing when it comes to Biblical theology, especially in the Old Testament. How do we deal, for instance, with a text like Psalm 137, where the psalmist cries out for retributive justice from God? How do we exegete these words: “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks!” How does a Christian, in the light of Jesus’ call to his followers to pray for and love their enemies, and to turn the other cheek when slapped, interpret a text that asks God to commit an act of violence?
The heretic Marcion, from the early days of the church, decided that the way to do so was to posit that the God of the OT was a different God altogether. The God of the OT was vindictive and judgmental and harsh and violent. The God of the NT, on the other hand, was good and merciful and gracious and long-suffering. Marcion attempted to purge the NT, therefore, of any vestiges of the Old – and so his NT canon lacked the Gospels and Hebrews and most anything outside of parts of the letters of Paul. The OT, to Marcion, was an unreconciliable poison to be purged from Christian thought.
Do we have Marcionistic tendencies today? That is for another post and another day...
But back to violence...
In Fretheim’s final lecture, he discussed violence and offered some rich insights, I believe, into the Biblical texts. He began with this: God’s ultimate goal – His ultimate goal – is a world of peace. One might recall the great passage from Micah 4:3-4, where an age of peace is envisioned by the prophet. This is what God is working toward – this is where He is going. But, alas, neither He nor we are there yet. We live in a world of violence – and there seems to be no end in sight – at least in human sight.
Fretheim also quoted the following definition of “violence” that might be helpful. Violence is “...any activity, physical or verbal, personal or institutional, human or divine, that violates the personhood of another, so as to abuse, denigrate, injure, or kill.” That might take some reflection to digest, but I believe it is helpful.
The Bible often speaks of such violence, because the Bible is real. It deals with the real issues of life. It reflects life as it is – not as it should be or as we wish it was. If the Bible were written today, in fact, it would be far more violent than it is!
In the next post, we will look at some specific texts, BOTH OT and NT, that portray violence, and we will try to suggest how such texts can be understood in a way that does no violence to the Biblical text, and that makes sense to us.