The Violence of Scripture: Overcoming the Old Testament's Troubling Legacy - Paperback

by Eric a. Seibert (Editor)

No one can read far in the Old Testament without encountering numerous acts of violence that are sanctioned in the text and attributed to both God and humans. Over the years, these texts have been used to justify all sorts of violence: from colonizing people and justifying warfare, to sanctioning violence against women and children. For those who read the Bible as Scripture, these depictions of "virtuous" violence pose tremendous moral and theological challenges. What can be done to stop people from using the Old Testament in such destructive ways, and how might these violent texts be read more faithfully?Eric Seibert faces these challenges head-on by confronting the problem of "virtuous" violence and urging people to engage in an ethically responsible reading of these troublesome texts. He offers a variety of reading strategies designed to critique textually sanctioned violence, while still finding ways to use even the most difficult texts constructively, thus providing a desperately needed approach to the violence of Scripture that can help us live more peaceably in a world plagued by religious violence.

Front Jacket

No one can read far in the Hebrew Bible without encountering depictions of violence carried out by human beings, sometimes in the name of God, or indeed violence carried out or commanded by God from Cain's murder of Abel to the slaughter of Canaanite populations and much, much more. For those who read the Bible as sacred scripture, such depictions can pose tremendous moral and theological challenges. For all of us, they pose historical questions as well: Where did these invocations of divinely sanctioned violence come from? How are we to understand them in a world where the lessening of violence is a desperate need?

Eric A. Seibert faces these challenges head-on, offering perspectives on the roles human and divine violence play in different parts of the Old Testament, evaluating the biblical presentation of "virtuous violence," and proposing strategies for reading the Bible out of a commitment to nonviolence. At last he offers "soundings" in biblical texts where we encounter alternative voices, often neglected, that seek and announce ways of peace.