Matthew J. Lynch > Quotes

“also suggested that Israel’s beginnings were complex. They comprised groups of former slaves from Egypt but also indigenous Canaanites.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“God commits himself eternally to the well-being of creation. What a promise!”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“At face value, this could sound like the genocide of a major urban population. But as noted in chapter ten, herem suggests comprehensive destruction, and not necessarily the killing of every single person of all categories.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Rather than exodus versus conquest, perhaps we should think of Joshua as the final scene in the exodus.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“22). In other words, the actual process would be slow and steady. This creates a tension between Deuteronomy 7:2 and 7:22, unless verse 2 was means to be read hyperbolically.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“When we pan out from these stories, we see a regular pattern wherein God reminds his leaders and liberators that they are not exempt from the danger of proximity to God, or of the need to remain totally devoted to him.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“As I suggest below, there are two different perspectives on the conquest in Joshua. The story of Jericho belonged to only one kind of storytelling in the book. It’s the Majority Report, since it’s the one most readers assume. It’s a story of utter and complete conquest. Another existed, and it needs to be heard. That second is what we might call the Minority Report.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“The intent is not total destruction of Canaanites but separation from Canaanite religious practices.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Rahab embodies Torah in word and deed.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“By describing shalom and the shattering of it, the Old Testament gives us an education in how to think about the problem of violence.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Joshua uses a more realist style to write the Minority Report. Realism portrays the world, warts and all, and seeks a “faithful representation of reality.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Genesis 9 addresses God’s right to address bloodshed in the post-flood world. The proverb doesn’t hand humans or the state power over life and death.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“I want to name the obvious here for a moment. This is not good military strategy (nor is it an endearing geographical name). I can just imagine Joshua addressing his officers: “Gentlemen, tomorrow at dawn we cross the Jordan. And when the enemy least expects it, we’ll attack! . . . ourselves . . . with swords, to prepare for war!”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Martial and marital domination went hand-in-hand for kings and other men of power.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“These verses raise the bar of discipleship, showing that Jesus-loyalty can even divide us from what we previously considered our highest priorities.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“The sword of the Lord is a terrible thing, and not just for our enemies. The sword of the Lord cuts both ways, and right through the lines that we use to delineate insiders and outsiders (cf. 1 Pet 4:17).”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“At the very least, we must concede the deep tension between these texts and what we learn of God from other places in the Bible: The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Ex 34:6, NRSV)”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“it is likely that these stories are meant to be applied to the lives of Joshua’s first readers by rooting out idolatry within Israel.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“The ground-destroying curse is reversed.7”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Turning creation back to formlessness may have been part of God’s consequent will—which follows from certain conditions—but it was certainly not part of his antecedent will (God’s original plan).”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“What we can say is that a proper understanding of Genesis needs to be the starting point from which we try to understand those later passages, and not the other way around.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“But Joshua needed to uncouple his perceptions of God from the narrow confines of nationalistic thinking.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“This is religious vandalism, not the extermination of whole people groups! Or, if you prefer scholarly parlance, this is a “reform movement,” not a genocidal campaign.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“a fever, and even vomits when humans are morally ill (Lev 18:28; 20:22; cf. Deut 11:8-17).”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“God decided to let the floodwaters burst forth and rain down to return the earth to a state of useful formlessness. Then, brooding over those wild waters God “remembered” his covenant with the earth and began to recreate (Gen 8:1).”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“So, what does the potter do? He stops the wheel and takes the clay into his hands. He forms a new ball of clay out of the old. He returns the clay back to a state of useful formlessness. The potter returns the clay to this preformed state in order to remake it.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Certainly not! Watery formlessness—or a Great Flood—is the ancient way of expressing “un-createdness.” God is saying that he’d never again uncreate the world. He’s fully committed to this creation despite the ongoing problem of violence.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“For important reasons, these verses—which are central to an Old Testament portrait of God—hold God’s mercy and judgment together,”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“The book’s battles were between Israel, whose God is king, and the Canaanite city-states, for whom kings were like gods. Battle reports in Joshua consistently focus on the defeat of kings. Table 12.1. The defeat of kings Text King(s) Depiction”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God

“Deuteronomy 7:1-2. In other words, failing to utterly destroy the inhabitants of the Promised Land leaves the Canaanite temptation around. However, if herem is hyperbolic (as argued above), there would undoubtedly be Canaanites who remain, as Deuteronomy 7:22 suggests. In addition, verse 5 suggests that herem was meant to be focused on worship sites.”
― Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God