Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Webb, William J. and Gordon K. Oeste. Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? Wrestling with Troubling War Texts. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Webb, William J. and Gordon K. Oeste. Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? Wrestling with Troubling War Texts. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019. [ Citation Page ] BLOODY BRUTAL AND BARBARIC? Wrestling with Troubling War Texts WILLIAM J. WEBB GORDON K. OESTE IVP Academic An imprint of InterVarsity Press Downers Grove, Illinois [ Title Page ] InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60S1S-1426 ivpress.com email@ivpress.com ©2019 by William J. Webb and Gordon K. Oeste All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press. InterVarsity Press' is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA', a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NlV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide, www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and ‘New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. ™ Cover design and image composite: David Fassett Interior design: Jeanna Wiggins Images: black marble texture: © yokeetod / iStock / Getty Images Plus ISBN 978-0-8308-7073-8 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-S249-9 (print) [ Title Page Verso ] TO JAMES, a friend whose war ethic captures the spirit of Amos. [ Dedication Page ] CONTENTS Preface: The Story Behind the Book .... 1 Acknowledgments .... 5 Abbreviations .... 7 Introduction: Rethinking Holy War Texts .... 11 PART 1: HARD QUESTIONS: GENOCIDE AND WAR RAPE 1 Slaughtering Children? Grabbing Virgins? .... 25 PART 2: TRADITIONAL ANSWERS: GOOD FOR BIG-PICTURE, STORY-LINE QUESTIONS 2 Where Traditional Answers Do Not Work .... 33 3 Where Traditional Answers Do Work .... 52 PART 3: BETTER ANSWERS: BETTER FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT GENOCIDE AND WAR RAPE 4 Reading the Bible Redemptively .... 77 5 War Rape, Part One: The Ugly Side .... 84 6 War Rape, Part Two: The Redemptive Side .... 99 7 War Rape Meets Genocide .... 128 8 Total-Kill Hyperbole, Part One: ANE Warfare .... 136 9 Total-Kill Hyperbole, Part Two: Joshua and Judges .... 151 10 Arguments Against Hyperbole .... 174 11 First Samuel 15: Hyperbole Thesis Undone? .... 204 [ Table of Contents Page i ] 12 Drive Out: An Equivalent Alternative .... 231 13 Ancient War Atrocities .... 263 14 Yahweh as Uneasy War God: The Subversive War Texts .... 288 15 The Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus: The Battle Already Won .... 317 16 Jesus as Apocalyptic Warrior: One Word Will Fell Them .... 335 Conclusion: The Unfinished Justice Story .... 357 List of Online Appendixes .... 369 Bibliography .... 371 Author Index .... 387 Scripture Index .... 389 Praise for Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? .... 398 About the Authors .... 403 More Titles from InterVarsity Press .... 404 [ Table of Contents Page ii ] PREFACE The Story Behind the Book Bloody, brutal, and barbarIc? Quite the question for any book. Admittedly so. Yet the tide fits because this book wrestles with the ethics of holy war in Scripture. To be clear, our answer is unabashedly “yes.” Yes, the biblical war texts are bloody, brutal, and barbaric. There are good reasons why these war texts are so deeply troubling. But that daunting reality is not the whole story. There is a powerfully intriguing side that is often missed. This book presents a search for better answers to the troubling war texts—answers that legitimately reduce their ethical challenge by noting what is often (wrongly) understood and by highlighting redemptive aspects of these difficult texts. Welcome to a fascinating journey. It has taken fourteen years to write this book. Its reputation as long overdue has become a standing joke. I (Bill) have often laughed with various InterVarsity Press staff (particularly with Andy Le Peau) at my exceedingly prolonged efforts. In my defense, however, those years were hardly wasted. Along the way several key events shaped my thinking on the war texts. First, during these war-text years our older son, Jon, slowly slid downhill with a degenerative brain disease; from being a healthy, normal young man he gradually became a quadriplegic with the cognitive ability of a preschooler. He passed away on Saturday, June 8, 2013. That parental, crushed-love journey broke me over and over and over again. It was so intensely painful (still is at times) that I cannot describe it. But a surprising thing happened during these years. The pain—almost debilitating at times—allowed me to see the extent of my own brokenness and the brokenness of the world around me. Even more important, it allowed me to see with new eyes the connection [ Page 1 ] [ Page ] 2 between our brokenness and the intense grief and greater pain felt by God himself, and I wrote one small piece of theological reflection that helped me wrestle with the agonizingly slow, month-by-month, grindingly gradual loss of Jon. It is a sermon titled “Tears in Heaven: Four Portraits of the Suffering/ Crying God.”1 That tiny sermon opened large windows through which I could look and then think about God differently within the war texts. On the one hand, understanding Yahweh as a tearful, crying God affected this book when I began to see passages of Scripture that describe Yahweh weeping about war destruction. Yahweh cries for his own people when he brings war against them, and he cries a river of tears even over the war destruction that he brings against his and Israel’s enemies (this concern for enemies is nothing short of amazing—quite unlike the behavior of ANE gods). On the other hand, this discovery prompted me to search for a whole range of what one might call subversive war texts—ones that, like the crying texts, in some manner subvert or undermine the standard war texts. (Important note: I am using the terms subvert and undermine in a positive sense because these alternative-to-the-norm war portraits help us realign our thinking with a fuller and more complete understanding of all the war material in the Bible.) Biblical texts such as the ones describing David’s bloody hands and nu- merous others (see chapter fourteen and appendix H) caused me to rethink my understanding of the better-known portraits of Yahweh as a warrior God. This collection of subversive/antithetical (in a good sense) war texts was crucial for relating Yahweh of the Old Testament to Jesus of the Gospels, resulting in a Yahweh-and-Jesus portrait that makes sense. Second, I stepped away from writing the war book for a few years and worked on other projects that unexpectedly helped me better understand the war material. I had started having nightmares—waking in a cold sweat—from researching the larger ANE war context and especially the gruesome war atrocities that were part of the ancient world. So I trans- ferred my efforts for a while into writing Corporal Punishment in the Bible: ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 I first preached the “Tears in Heaven” sermon twelve or more years ago. I have since deliv- ered it numerous times but only on request, since, as you might imagine, it takes me several days to recover. [ Page ] 3 A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic far Troubling Texts.2 The break was healthy. To my surprise, however, the corporal-punishment book gave me a new set of tools for understanding the biblical war texts. As with a previous book on hermeneutics, it strengthened my conviction that much of Scripture is written using an incremental ethic, or, better, an incrementally redemptive ethic.3 This of course will be a major contribution of the war book. The greatest “Oh my goodness!” moment came when, in writing the chapter on ancient-world war atrocities, I realized how the corporal-punishment book had prepared me for seeing a profoundly redemptive element that I might otherwise have missed (I have sensed in this provision the quiet hand of God). The lights came on in my mind: There is an entire parallel or mirror image in the ANE world between court-based punishments and war-based punishments. This insight verified that, despite all their ugliness, something strangely redemptive was happening in the biblical war texts, and this re- demptive evidence is not simply the creation of wishful Christian thinking. I hope you sense that aha moment (chapter thirteen) and find it compelling and encouraging—like discovering a cluster of beautiful, fragrant flowers growing from a dung pile in the desert. Third, Gord Oeste joined me about halfway through the fourteen-year journey of writing this book, and I thank God for Gord and for our seven years of working together. On three occasions we taught a course on holy war ethics at Tyndale Seminary, which provided a great laboratory for testing ideas.4 Gord eats and breathes the biblical and ANE war texts. He published his dissertation on Judges in a renowned series and has taught Joshua and Judges for many years.5 He works relentlessly at seeing the war texts first through the lens of an ancient Israelite and ANE world and then adding other helpful lenses. What makes me especially humbled and honored to work ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 2 William J. Webb, Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011). 3 William J. Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001). 4 Throughout this book we use the term “holy war” as a label for any war within Scripture (not just the conquest battles) where Yahweh is portrayed by the biblical authors as fighting in conjunction with (or through) some human version of war. 5 Gordon K. Oeste, Legitimacy, Illegitimacy, and the Right to Rule: Windows on Abimelech’s Rise and Demise in Judges 9, LHBOTS 546 (New York: T&T Clark, 2011). [ Page ] 4 with Gord is that I know something of what it cost him to write this book with me. In short, it cost him his job. When faced with the alternative, he made the painful but deliberate decision to keep writing. That choice speaks volumes about the rigors and perils of rethinking traditional views. Some choices are difficult but worth making. The chapters that lie ahead have been transformative for us. They have enabled us to think differently about Yahweh and Jesus in ways that have renewed and deepened our faith. The journey has led us to new and sacred places in our thinking—beautiful landscapes with open horizons and fresh air that restore feeling after spiritual numbness and rejuvenate the troubled soul. We hope that readers who share our struggle with the war texts of Scripture—the utter ugliness of genocide and war rape—will find a new sense of joy in thinking more deeply and accurately about Yahweh as holy warrior and Jesus as apocalyptic warrior. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Any book that takes fourteen years to write and one more (fifteenth) year of editorial input requires the generous support of many people. Our wives, Carolyn (Gord) and Marilyn (Bill), deserve an Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Olympic gold medals for their unending love and support; they have gra- ciously endured late nights, preoccupied thoughts, and even occupational journeys that have come as a part of writing this work. Our thanks go to Dorian Coover-Cox (and her husband, Chuck), whose editorial input has touched every page of this manuscript. Her Old Tes- tament expertise and years of professional editing at Dallas Theological Seminary have added wonderful clarity and insight to the final product. At the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Denver we pulled off an epic surprise to thank Dorian for her incredible labor of love, not only in this manuscript but also in other miserably written items of mine (Bill) that she has taken to new levels. An unusual type of thanks must go to InterVarsity Press, since this manu- script was notoriously late in fulfilling even the most elastic of contractual definitions. As noted earlier in the preface, Andy Le Peau and Gary Deddo used to joke with me (Bill) about getting IVP’s “_Award [the blank represents the name of a well-known author whose identity 1 will leave un- stated].” (Aside: This award was not exactly a compliment, as 1 found out, since apparently—whether fact or fiction 1 do not know—this particular author had the longest outstanding contract in the history of IVP.) ft was a wonderful honor to have this work edited by Dan Reid as his intentional (according to him) “last manuscript read.” His comments and input were most encouraging. Then, after Dan retired in December 2017, Jon Boyd read [ Page 5 ] [ Page ] 6 the manuscript along with an anonymous reader outside IVP, whom we dubbed “Dr. Anon.” Our special thanks to Jon Boyd for shepherding the manuscript along through its final stages. From these three sources (and Dorian’s input) we had a wealth of ideas that made our time of integrating editorial insights a tremendous developmental (stretching?) experience for both of us. At the polish stage we thank Claire Brubaker and Rebecca Carhart for talcing this book across the finish line. We owe the entire IVP team a great debt of thanks for their protracted patience and, when it did finally appear, for bringing a much-improved book to press. Our final word of thanks goes to a community of friends and academic colleagues who have supported us. Numerous friends have read early ver- sions of these pages with great benefit to our own thinking. If we start mentioning names, we are going to miss some. We do wish to acknowledge the generous support of Tyndale Seminary (Toronto, Canada)—a won- derful community of learners—for offering our holy war course during several summers. The collaborative involvement of students, faculty, and administrators/board leadership contributed in various ways to bringing this book across the finish line. Our many thanks! ABBREVIATIONS AB Anchor Bible ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992 ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library AEL Ancient Egyptian Literature. Miriam Lichtheim. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973 AIL Ancient Israel and Its Literature ANE Ancient Near East ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Edited by James Bennett Pritchard. 3rd ed. with supplement Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969 AOTC Apollos Old Testament Commentary ARAB Ancient Records of Asssyria and Babylonia. Daniel David Luckenbill. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926-1927. Reprint, New York: Greenwood, 1968 ARE Ancient Records of Egypt. Edited by James Henry Breasted. 5 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906 ASOR American Schools of Oriental Research BARev Biblical Archaeology Review BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BBR Bulletin for Biblical Research BBRSup Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement BECNT Baker Evangelical Commentary on the New Testament BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Bib Biblica BibSac Bibliotheca Sacra BJS Brown Judaic Studies BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries BO Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry BRS The Biblical Resource Series BT The Bible Translator [ Page 7 ] [ Page ] 8 BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft CANE Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by J. Sasson. 4 vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995 CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series CHANE Culture and History of the Ancient Near East COS The Context of Scripture. 3 vols. Edited by William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger. Leiden: Brill, 1997-2003 CSHB Critical Studies in Hebrew Bible CSHJ Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism DH Deuteronomistic History Dtn Deuteronomic, or the Deuteronomic editor Dtr Deuteronomistic, or the Deuteronomist EQ Evangelical Quarterly FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FCI Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation HACL History, Archaeology, and the Culture of the Levant HALOT The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Study ed. 2 vols. L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner. Edited by M. E. J. Richardson. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2001 HDB Harvard Divinity Bulletin HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs HSS Harvard Semitic Studies HTR Harvard Theological Review IEJ Israel Exploration Journal JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JBQ Jewish Bible Quarterly JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies JQR Jewish Quarterly Review JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series LAI Library of Ancient Israel LH Laws of Hammurabi LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible Old Testament Studies LNTS Library of New Testament Studies LXX Septuagint MAL Middle Assyrian Laws [ Page ] 9 MSAW Münchner Studien zur Alten Welt MT Masoretic Text NAC New American Commentary NCBC New Cambridge Bible Commentary NEA Near Eastern Archaeology NICOT New International Commentary on the Old Testament NIDB New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 5 vols. Edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld. Nashville: Abingdon, 2005 NIDOTTE New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. Edited by Willem VanGemeren. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997 NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary NIVAC NIV Application Commentary NSBT New Studies in Biblical Theology NTL New Testament Library NTT New Testament Theology OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology OIS Oriental Institute Seminars OTE Old Testament Essays OTL Old Testament Library PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly RevExp Review and Expositor RIM.EP The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Early Periods SAA State Archives of Assyria SAAS State Archives of Assyria Studies SAHL Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant SANER Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records SBLABS Society of Biblical Literature Archaeology and Biblical Studies SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series SBLWAW Society of Biblical Literature Writings from the Ancient World SJOT Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament SOTBT Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology SWBA Social World of Biblical Antiquity TDOT Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, et al. Translated by J. T. Willis, G. W. Bromiley, and D. E. Green. 15 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974-2006 THAT Theologisches Handwörterbuch Zum Alten Testament. 2 vols. Edited by E. Jenni and Claus Westermann. München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971-1976 [ Page ] 10 TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentary TynBul Tyndale Bulletin UF Ugarit Forschungen VT Vetus Testamentum VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements WBC Word Biblical Commentary WTJ Westminster Theological Journal WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft INTRODUCTION Rethinking Holy War Texts A post-9/11 world thinks differently about war texts in the Bible. The decades ahead will chronicle the profound impact on Christian theological reflection resulting from the events of September 11, 2001, and a stream of religiously inspired violence—today’s version of holy war. One can no longer ignore the intersection of religion and violence and, more specifi- cally, the biblical war texts that seemingly approve of genocidal killings and war rape—forcibly talcing attractive female captives for wives. This monu- mental shift, while posing a dilemma for people of faith, ironically offers Chris- tians an opportunity and a new horizon from which to reflect on war texts and our understanding of them: Have we missed something in our traditional readings of Scripture? Is there any evidence that should cause us to rethink the Bible’s war texts? Here is how this book began. I (Bill here) started writing the early stages of this book when a small group of biblical scholars in the Toronto area gathered to study the biblical war texts.1 We dubbed our group “the genocide fraternity”—a label that conveyed something of a twisted attempt at humor among academics (we do not get out much). More importantly, the label expressed the exact opposite of what we felt about the subject matter. We were all deeply disturbed by genocide and contemporary occurrences of holy war around us and, as a result, experienced growing dissonance between our faith in God and the war traditions of the biblical text. We were all looking for answers. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 In this book the singular “I” refers to myself, William (Bill) Webb. The collective “we” or “us” refers to Gord Oeste and me or, as on this page, to groups mentioned in the context. [ Page 11 ] [ Page ] 12 An exceptionally bright young man named James joined our group. James was in his mid-twenties, a nonacademic and unabashedly vocal in his raging disdain for the holy war texts of Scripture. While James grew up in an evan- gelical home and had once embraced the Christian faith, in his early twenties he dropped his church connections and struggled with his belief in the God of the Bible. Several factors led to this disconnection. But one of the core issues was that James could no longer stomach the portrait of Yahweh as a “genocidal baby killer.” I crossed paths with James just before starting our study and asked him to join our group. I thought he could keep us academics honest. Over the summer of 2004 we met four times. We were all reading the recently released Show Them No Mercy: Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide, along with a foot-high stack of more academic material on ANE warfare.2 At one point of intense frustration with the genocidal passages in the Bible, James blurted out, “These texts are bloody, brutal, and barbaric!” I still hear his impassioned voice. To fully capture how his words—bloody, brutal, and barbaric—sounded, try adding James’s British accent, his eyes wide open, and both hands (fingers spread) shaking back and forth around his head. The visual version said, “Aah!?! Why can’t people see this?” That was and is James—a delightful and most welcome addition to a compara- tively sedate group of scholar types. As you surely have guessed by now, I must thank James for providing the tide of this book. If you check the front pages, this volume is dedicated “To James, a friend whose war ethic captures the spirit of Amos.”3 As I began writing the early pages of this book the words “bloody, brutal, and barbaric” haunted me. At first I did not want to admit this assessment of the war traditions of Scripture. I was raised in a church tradition that said these war stories were right and just, without ethical blemish. But the longer I worked with the biblical war texts, the more I came to realize that what James said was true in the sense that it accurately describes one part of the story.4 __________________________________________________________________________________________ 2 C. S. Cowles, Eugene H. Merrill, Daniel L. Gard, and Tremper Longman III, Show 'Them No Mercy: Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide, ed. Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003). 3 James contributed a present-day expression and spirit of Amos in our ethical discussions of the biblical war passages. 4 In addition to fully acknowledging the ugly side of the war texts, this book will equally en- deavor to celebrate features of an incremental ethic that move in a strikingly redemptive [ Page ] 13 AN OVERVIEW: WHERE WE ARE HEADED Open disclosure of where we are headed may be less intriguing than a sus- penseful, inductive approach (one that lets the mystery unfold bit by bit). Yet, we have observed when teaching this material that the breadth of the war texts (Genesis to Revelation) and the complexity of the ethical, hermeneutical, and theological issues call for as much clarity up front as possible. This war book contains not just one thesis but six theses, woven together to form the ar- gument as a whole. Here are the key ideas that we present in the pages ahead. Thesis one: Square pegs, round holes. Our “square pegs, round holes” description is a way of saying that, unfortunately, many Christians are trying to plug traditional answers (divine commands [“God said it”], God’s holiness, Canaanite evil, etc.) like square pegs into the round holes of contemporary questions about the ethical issues of genocide and war rape. This does not work for several reasons. First, the pairing of traditional answers with genocide and war rape fails the test of logical, hermeneutical, and ethical reasoning (chapter two). Furthermore, a museum-like walk through the gruesome world of ancient war atrocities (chapter thirteen) should convince any reader that the type of genocide and war rape in the biblical text, when understood correctly, would not have been on the ethical radar of the original audience (not even close).5 In addition, the degree of divine accommodation in a collection of subversive war texts (chapter fourteen)—a perspective often missed by readers—places Yahweh in a dramatically different light as the highly reluctant warrior God. They tell us about a large gap between what happened in Israel’s own backyard and what God would have preferred. Meanwhile, the genocide and war rape that one encounters in Scripture do not square well with the best possible war practices in a fallen world.6 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ direction. Our journey includes both ethically troubling aspects of the text and its redemp- tive spirit in the context of the war ethic of its day. 5 The accommodation gap helps us understand what would have been and what would not have been on the original audience’s ethical radar. Since Israel settled for (was happy with) a war ethic that fell well below what Yahweh truly wanted, there is little chance that Israel- ite warriors (or the original readers) would have been troubled by the type of genocide or war rape described in the text. At numerous places throughout the book we develop evi- dence for how horizons (both ancient and contemporary) shape what we might call our ethical radar regarding war actions. 6 As one wrestles with the biblical war texts, it becomes apparent that many instances of plans B, C, or D found their way into the war domain. Very little of the war material, if any, should [ Page ] 14 Genocide and war rape in the biblical texts connect far better with Yahweh’s accommodating attempts to move his faith-fumbling, idolatry-loving people along in the mired-down, fallen world around them. Sometimes God enters our world in hip waders (mediated actions), sloshing through the sewer water in order to bring about instances of incremental redemption. But these redemptive acts—small and large—in the ugly world of war are a beautiful thing, for they shout loudly about hope for complete redemption one day. That said, we should not abandon the traditional answers. No. They are still excellent answers. They simply must be connected with the right question(s), namely, the biblical story-line questions that were on the mind of the original readers. We will unpack what the original readers’ broader, big-picture war questions most likely were (hint: they relate to the land and a new Eden) and how they differ from our contemporary, more narrowly focused investigation into the ethics of specific war actions, namely, genocide and war rape (chapter three). This realignment within our square-pegs-in- round-holes thesis provides a venue for discovering exactly where the tradi- tional answers do work and, indeed, fit extremely well. It pulls together an amazing canonical story from Genesis to Revelation in terms of God’s active presence, sacred space, and the anticipation of a restored Eden. The story line, then, and its ethical questions (not ours) are where the traditional an- swers make sense. Thesis two: Total-kill rhetoric as hyperbole. A second major thesis might in short form be called the hyperbole thesis. In five chapters (eight through twelve) and three appendixes (A through C) we develop evidence that the language related to total-kill or genocide statements in the biblical war texts is best understood as hyperbolic. That does not mean such events never occurred. They happened, but with significantly reduced killing and without requiring the death of the entire enemy population, as seemingly instructed (and reported). If total kill did not happen, then how many people were actually killed? Here we begin to talk in terms of probabilities. The most probable (and strategic) enemy killed in biblical holy war would have been ________________________________________________________________________________________________ be connected to plan A—i.e., how Yahweh ideally wants his people to act. The cascading effect of Israel’s lack of faith and its yearning for this-world war methods is clearly reflected in their insistence on a king, horses, chariots, and the like. These issues and dramatic ex- amples of subversive war texts will be developed in chapters fourteen and sixteen. [ Page ] 15 the king or his general and in all likelihood the males (in some cases also the females) of the royal family. Next in terms of probability would be the slaughter of the army—but generally this would include those who con- tinued to resist. The killing of large numbers of the nonmilitary, general population was least likely. Much biblical war language is hyperbolic, never intended to be taken literally. When the text of Joshua 11:4 describes the invading enemy troops, horses, and chariots being “as numerous as the sand on the seashore,” it is not intending to report a literal result of counting—that the enemy forces included more soldiers than the number of every person birthed in human history. Rather, the text is vividly saying something that would have been readily understood by its audience: “Their forces were significantly larger [and weapons stronger] than ours.” The figurative, sand-on-the-seashore way of describing the situation also spoke on an emotive level: “The opposing army was huge compared to ours, and we were scared out of our skins!" Most war hyperbole was used to communicate to the ancient readers an emotive force within the battle record (afterwards) or as part of the earlier instructions (beforehand). In the ancient world, overstating war reality in terms of total destruction was usually meant to convey that (1) the battle was decisively won, (2) the enemy as a people group no longer existed as a threat because the king and his family had fallen (collective identity in the ancient culture meant that killing the king, some of his family, and resisting armed forces was equivalent to or represented the total destruction of that city or people group), and (3) resistant armed forces had surrendered or fled. In the case of biblical rhetoric, Scripture co-opts this exaggerated war language of the ANE world for its own purposes of accentuating an eschatological hope of someday eliminating idolatry from the land entirely and enjoying the worship of Yahweh exclusively. The underlying objective in biblical holy war is not the killing of people or the killing of all the enemy; rather, it is about the hoped-for creation of idolatry-free sacred space in the formation of a new Eden. Thesis three: Accommodation. A third thesis, to which we have already alluded, is the accommodation of Yahweh in holy war to the ethical war practices of Israel. Yahweh stoops down when he plays in the sandbox of this [ Page ] 16 fallen world; there is often a Grand Canyon-like gap between what God truly wants and what he actually enacts in war with his people. Many times throughout Scripture we see God giving commands or instructions to his people, and though the instructions come from an untainted, pristine, holy God, they reflect justice or love at a concrete-specific level in a limited way and not its best ethical expression. In order to appreciate this accommo- dation thesis, we will turn to a collection of subversive war texts: portraits of Yahweh as a weeping war God, the unwillingness of Yahweh to have his name/reputation tarnished by David’s bloody warrior hands (the “1 am not David!” portrait of Yahweh screams as a counter pattern to the norms of temple building in the ANE world), finding a dwelling place for his name under the label of shalom instead, including only flowers, pomegranates, and animals in the temple carvings (no war scenes, which were common to ANE temples), hamstringing captive horses and burning chariots, not really wanting a king in the first place—an action explicitly tied to war issues—and so forth. Antiwar and subversive war texts provide crucial evidence that Yahweh’s involvement in Israel’s warfare required that he leave his lofty, untainted world and at times stoop low, very low, when working with his people. Could killing babies (traditional position) or even the rhetoric of total kill (our view) within biblical holy war contain real ethical deficiencies? Do Yahweh’s in- structions to Israelite male warriors about taking good-looking virgins sim- ilarly contain real ethical deficiencies? We will argue yes in both cases, namely, that these very real ethical deficiencies reflect God’s accommodation to Israel and its ancient-world context. Much of what occurs in the biblical text represents Israel’s war practices, seduced by the war ideology of other nations, and not truly Yahweh’s preferred war (or peace) practices. Simply put: Yahweh accommodates himself to another/lsrael’s level of ethic. The breadth of accommodation evidence (chapter fourteen) in the war domain makes this case more than just plausible. Thesis four: Incremental, redemptive-movement ethic. A fourth thesis in this book—an incrementally redemptive ethic—is the happier flip side of the previous one. Accommodation looks at the sad reality of a huge gap between what Israel does in war and what God truly wants. Its happier side [ Page ] 17 is twofold, namely, that (1) God cares about his people Israel and about bringing redemption to all humanity to the extent that he is willing to humble himself and stoop low in our fallen world, and (2) God gently tugs his people toward something better, even if that redemptive better is measured in in- cremental terms. An incremental redemptive-movement ethic means that God often brings his people along in at least incremental steps relative to the world around them (foreign movement) or relative to earlier stages in the redemptive story line (canonical movement). We will explore and celebrate God’s quietly redemptive hand even in the ugliness of biblical holy war. Believe it or not, there exists a redemptive side to the highly disturbing war rape passages in the Bible (chapter six) when they are read in light of the war practices of an ancient world. Also, if the total-kill language of Scripture amounts to rhetorical overstatement, as we will argue (chapters eight through twelve and appendixes A, B, and C), then biblical war practices are hugely redemptive—at least in an incremental sense—relative to the horrific war atrocities of the day (chapter thirteen). Finally, Jesus’ version of apocalyptic holy war sets a new canonical standard as the final battle forges a pathway into a new-creation world, where all stand at the judgment. The traditionalist holy war view in its literal understanding of Revelation (woefully problematic) contradicts the peaceful Jesus of the Gospels, his teachings, and his mode of discipleship. As followers of Jesus, those more disposed toward violence—Simon the Zealot, Peter, and Paul— were taught to lay down their swords and put away their violent inclinations. We will develop seven differences between Israel’s practice of holy war in the Old Testament and Jesus’ final holy war battle, where each difference dem- onstrates ethical development. The final battle ought to be understood as something real and powerful, not in a literal sense but as Jesus’ spoken word. That is all. One spoken word. No more is needed or intended. The final battle is fought by Christ alone (see chapter sixteen) and is the purest of all battles, for it is won (contra traditional holy war positions) through the earlier death of Christ and through one final spoken word. Thesis five: Converging God portraits—bringing Yahweh and Jesus to- gether. A fifth thesis considers the best way to unite the portraits of God within a canonical development of Scripture. The variance in what God [ Page ] 18 looks like over the pages of Scripture is particularly problematic when trying to relate three elements: (1) Yahweh as warrior in the Old Testament, (2) Jesus of the Gospels and in Paul, and (3) Jesus as the apocalyptic warrior in the book of Revelation. In brief, there are three pieces to a large jigsaw puzzle. (Aside: Keep one finger here and flip ahead a few pages to the figure near the end of this introduction, if needed, to understand the labels.) The traditional view dislocates the central puzzle piece (2) from the other two. The antitra- ditional view detaches the first piece (1) from the other two. We will propose that the realigned-traditional view best links together all three pieces—(1), (2), and (3)—of the puzzle without dislocation. Let’s consider the portraits of God as puzzle pieces a little further. First, the core of the Christian story is found in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters. Jesus in the Gospels and the Spirit in Paul are powerful figures, but they do not seem to be engaged in violence or encourage a discipleship of violent ideology. In the Gospels Jesus teaches his followers to turn the cheek, put down the sword (do not Lake it up, Peter!), and love one’s enemies. Similarly, in Paul’s epistles, the presence of Jesus in our midst—the Spirit—functions in ways antithetical to violence. Just look at the fruits of the Spirit (versus the deeds of the flesh), and you will discover Jesus-like characteristics that strive for peace and harmony rather than violence. Also, Paul himself and at least one of Jesus’ disciples (Simon the zealot) converted out of a violence-and- religion tradition in order to follow Jesus. Like Peter, they too put the sword away. Finally, the heart of Christian theology in the Gospels is that the cross is the place where Jesus’ violent death absorbed the violence of our world. That is the center of the canonical puzzle. Here’s the connection issue. The core of Christian theology contained in the middle piece—Jesus of the Gospels and Paul—does not connect easily with what comes before or after: (1) Yahweh as Israel’s warrior God and (3) Jesus as apocalyptic warrior. Both the traditional holy war view (that it exemplified an untainted, pristine-good ethic) and the antitraditional holy war view (a dark- evil ethic) leave Christians with a difficult, bumpy ride across the canon. Whether aware of the tension or not, traditional-view Christians typically dis- tance themselves from Jesus of the Gospels, and most antitraditional-view Christians equally distance themselves from the Yahweh of the Old Testament. [ Page ] 19 Our position on biblical holy war texts (an incrementally redemptive ethic) brings a better convergence to the portraits of God in Scripture. We will argue that Yahweh as warrior, when understood through the lens of the subversive war texts (an often-missed scriptural voice for viewing the Yahweh portrait), merges well with the Jesus of the Gospels and Paul. In turn, these two pieces of the God portrait fit well with a “one word [not sword] will fell them” view of Jesus as apocalyptic warrior. If the evidence for this more unified holy war perspective is convincing (and we think it is), then readers should sense a burst of fresh air and much greater enjoyment in reading the whole of the Bible from cover to cover. This is solace for the troubled soul. Thesis six: The unfinished justice story. A sixth thesis (see our conclusion) taps into the eschaton and how it functions within biblical ethics. We will briefly develop an argument of eschatological reversal as bringing closure to outstanding or unfinished elements of injustice in the enactment of justice in Scripture. If God is absolutely righteous, holy, and loving (and we believe he is), it would seem logical that his justice in the last day will right the wrongs of all injustice within this fallen world, even the experience of unjust elements within the messy actions of Old Testament holy war (appendix D). WHERE THIS BOOK FITS: SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE This book addresses the ethics of reading the biblical holy war texts today on the issues of genocide and war rape. Obviously, a range of views are devel- oping. For newcomers to the discussion, it might be helpful to get a feel for the spectrum of ethical views and where this book fits within that range. While hardly exhaustive in terms of the authors or views cited, this visual spectrum may help at least as an initial grid for sorting through the options. Clear labels for the differing assessments of biblical holy war ethics have not yet been developed, since the discussion between views is hardly at a mature stage. The figure that follows (figure 0.1) uses functional labels that are easy to understand. You will see that our view (Webb/Oeste) lies somewhere in the middle.7 That does not make our position right; it just provides a sense _________________________________________________________________________________________ 7 Other authors exploring middle-ground approaches are Paul Copan/Matthew Flannagan. Greg Boyd’s approach, though distinct from the antitraditional view, is much closer along the middle range of the spectrum to that view. [ Page ] 20 [ Please contact repository@tyndale.ca for Figure 0.1 details ] 1 Traditional Plus: Ultra-Pristine, Beyond Ethics Old Testament holy-war texts present no ethical problem at all. God is morally free to do anything he likes. He is free to enact justice however he wishes without our ethical critique. Yahweh is not constrained by human standards of right and wrong, nor even by standards he teaches to humans about right and wrong. (Beale) 2 Traditional View: Pristine, Good Ethics Old Testament holy-war texts are ethically difficult. God is constrained to act within his revealed character; he is not completely free. So there is an understand- able tension for most readers. However, we simply do not understand God's actions in these texts. At the end of the day, the Old Testament war instructions were given by a just and holy God and so must themselves be just and reflect holy actions. (Merrill, Gard, Longman, etc.) 3 Realigned - TraditionaI View: Incremental, Redemptive-Movement Ethics The traditional answers are good but need to be realigned and employed where they best fit, namely, the broader story-line questions of the original readers. The traditional answers do not work well when used in response to the contemporary micro-military ethical questions about genocide and war rape. Rather, another set of answers better addresses the ethical concerns of genocide and rape within biblical holy war; these answers are hyperbole, accommodation, redemptive movement, converging God portraits, and an unfinished justice story (reversal in the eschaton). OT holy war texts should be understood within an incremental, redemptive-movement ethic, an understanding that acknowledges elements of the ugly and the beautiful. The ethical problems in the war texts are real, not just apparent. While saddened by the degree to which God must bend down to act in coagency endeavors within our fallen world, we recognize also a wonderful, positive side that ought to be celebrated—the redemptive movement happening in the biblical war texts when understood within the ANE context and/or canonical setting. That which is incrementally redemptive awakens our hope of complete redemption. (Webb/Oeste) 4 Antitraditional View: Rather Dark, Evil Ethics When read in light of Jesus'teaching and life—he being the clearest representation of God—the Old Testament war texts and especially the actions of genocide and war rape offer Christians an exceedingly dark portrait of evil. These commands were human initiatives, even though they are presented as from God. The accounts of Old Testament warfare represent a textual version of God but not a real/actual portrait. (Cowles, Seibert, etc.) 5 Antitraditional Plus: Utterly Repulsive Ethics As part of a larger discussion of religion and violence, new-atheism perspectives add a highly critical voice that theists and Christians would do well to engage. In his war actions the God of the Bible is nothing less than a genocidal baby killer. His treatment of female war captives is abominable. Why would anyone believe or trust in this Yahweh God? (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc.) Figure 0.1. Spectrum of ethical views of where it falls along a spectrum. It should be obvious that we are attempting to take what we consider the best of the traditional and antitraditional views and forge a middle position. The spectrum of labels is constructed around the traditional position (number two) since most readers will be familiar to some extent with that view. Also, labels that correspond to the traditional view provided the easiest way to communicate the alternatives. We are embarrassed by at least four components in this figure. First, it fails to include another twenty or so scholars with finely nuanced distinc- tions that would fill in a three-page figure. At best the spectrum above is [ Page ] 21 representative and intended for entry-level readers who need an initial footing within the discussion. Second, our own view gets the longest summary. There is a reason (other than it’s our view). Since it sits next to the traditional view, we wanted not only to articulate the view but also to summarize how a realigned-traditional view differs from the traditional view. Third, we do not develop the differences between our view and the antitraditional view. That omission reflects our intention that this book pri- marily addresses readers who either hold or have been raised within the traditional view (or traditional-plus view). No book can do everything. Fourth and yet another grand omission, the figure and this book as a whole do not address approaches to the biblical war texts that stress dating texts, authorship, and/or archeology. Such is a helpful discussion but well beyond the scope of this book. Instead we are attempting to do a theological reading of the biblical text with an eye to hermeneutical, ethical, canonical, and ancient-cultural contexts. We trust that readers find as much enjoyment in reading this book as we have had in writing it. Granted, our change-of-mind journeys tell of some intensely painful moments along the way.8 But the comparatively greater delight of discovering even a handful of more seaworthy answers for the journey of faith ... well, that was (and is) joy unspeakable. ________________________________________________________________________ 8 For these painful elements see the preface. ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****