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Violence of the Biblical God: Canonical Narrative and Christian Faith
How can we make sense of violence in the Bible? Joshua commands the people of Israel to wipe out everyone in the promised land of Canaan, while Jesus commands God’s people to love their enemies. How are we to interpret biblical passages on violence when it is sanctioned at one point and condemned at another? The Violence of the Biblical God by L. Daniel Hawk presents a new framework, solidly rooted in the authority of Scripture, for understanding the paradox of God’s participation in violence. Hawk shows how the historical narrative of the Bible offers multiple canonical pictures for faithful Christian engagement with the violent systems of the world.
240 pages, Paperback
Published January 8, 2019
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August 4, 2019
Summary: A study of the narratives of violence in scripture and the multiple perspectives one finds in the text regarding God's involvement in that violence.
The incidents of violence in scripture, and particularly those where God commands, or actively participates in that violence, pose a great challenge for any thoughtful believer both in his or her own reading of scripture, and in discussions with skeptics who point to these passages, and especially the book of Joshua. Does not this deeply conflict with the New Testament witness to the love of God in Christ?
L. Daniel Hawk takes a different approach than others who I've seen address this question who either rationalize the violence of God against the Canaanites, or in various ways argue that it actually wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared. Hawk's approach argues that "it may be more important to think biblically than to seek biblical answers" (p. xiv). He proposes that one of the reasons there are so many different responses to this question is that the canon itself speaks with multiple voices that do not all agree. He seeks to take an approach that sees all of the canon as authoritative scripture without muting portions that are in conflict with others.
His work begins with a survey of the approaches taken to this question through church history, and then outlines his own narrative approach, eschewing the "quest for a Theory of Biblical Everything" (p. 18) to listen to the biblical narrative in its complexity as it tells in multiple voices the story of God's work to redeem a fallen world that is violent by "coming down" and entering into that world. He traces this through the fall, the slaying of Abel, and the flood as an accelerating death spiral that God sorrowfully brings to conclusion with the flood, while saving both creatures and one human family to begin anew.
With Babel, Hawk sees a new approach of a God who "comes down," first confusing the languages of those who would make a name for themselves, and then coming down to make great the name of Abram (Abraham) through whom he begins a redemptive work. He consults with Abraham in his plan to violently destroy the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and honors his plea for the righteous. To stand with Abraham means to stand against others, as in the case of Abimelech, who Abraham had deceived. As evident in the deliberation between Abraham and God regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, violence is not a paroxysm of anger but what it means to do what is needed within the context of fallen creation to set things to rights.
He then studies the narratives of God's descent into Egypt to break the power of Pharoah that held Israel in slavery. Only through violence will Pharoah recognize a power greater than his, and to create a new people through the overturning of the power of Egypt. Hawk notes that no emotion or expression of caprice or anger is evident in these episodes, but rather God doing what was needed to deliver and establish this people of the promise, to show God supreme over all other powers. The narrative then continues with this new people as he establishes this covenant, deals with the disobedience of his people (an incident that evidences God's anger), and the violence that both responds to sin, and yet restores his relationship with the people to whom he has committed himself.
Before turning to the text of Joshua, and Israel's conquest of Canaan, he jumps forward to God's assent to give Israel a king like other nations. God first commits himself to Saul, and then to David and his family. His work in the nation becomes taken up with the power dynamics and violence of these kings while acting as a check against their ungodliness and injustices. With the fall of Israel comes an end to this way of working in the world through the instrumentality of the nation as a political entity. His approach will still work through human agents but in another way.
Finally, Hawk comes to Joshua. He contends that exodus and conquest are inextricably connected to God's decision to renew the world by forming a people. He states, "No exodus, no conquest. No violence, no Israel" (p. 165). He demonstrates the focused character of the invasion against the kings of Canaan that arises neither from caprice or judgement to establish a space in which Yahweh alone, and not the gods of the kings is worshiped. In this book there are narratives both attributing violence to God and counternarratives in the latter part of Joshua that indicate this is not God's "preferred mode of working in the world." Hawk notes that while God's coming down and entering into the making of Israel as a nation involves God in violence, this is not a warrant for other wars.
With the fall of Jerusalem and the exile, Hawk sees a move of God "to the outside." Instead of working in and through human systems, God refuses to meet violence with violence, or engage the earthly powers, but takes the violence of the world upon himself in Christ, and in the resurrection, establishes a rule outside the world's systems.
The conclusion Hawk reaches from this narrative survey is a call to move from debates over who is reading scripture rightly to a dialogue that listens to the full complexity and the biblical text. He doesn't argue for "anything goes" but sets interpretive parameters that include an understanding of divine violence that doesn't arise from petty caprice, that often God does not use violence in judgment but to accelerate already evident deterioration (as in Sodom), that biblical accounts are testimonies, not templates, and cannot be use to justify wars advancing national or group agendas. Yet Hawk also seems to recognize that the diverse voices of God's work inside, and from the outside, create the basis for respectful dialogue between Christians who base a peace stance on the narrative of God's work from the outside, and Christians working "within the system" who face the choice of engaging in state-sanctioned violence in the resistance of evil.
For me, Hawk's work challenged a long held assumption of how we read scripture. Do we believe that the Spirit of God speaks with one voice. Or does our understanding of scripture allow for a complexity of voices that reflect the complexity of being both in and not of a fallen world? Where one comes down on this may well affect one's response to Hawk's reading. What commends that reading to me is that it does not gloss over or mute the hard passages or seemingly conflicting testimony (for example, the commands to utterly devote to destruction the Canaanites and a strategy of gradually supplanting the people).
More profoundly, we see a God who neither remains aloof in the face of human evil and violence nor acts with petty flashes of anger, but rather a settled purpose to redeem through a covenant people, one that involves God in that violence, yet ultimately ends with the taking of that violence on God's self in Christ. We also find in Hawk a model of an interpreter of scripture taking the text as it stands, listening humbly, and promoting dialogue between different perspectives rather than ruling everything not one's own out of court in a "Theory of Biblical Everything." Such models are all too rare and greatly needed in a time where people seem to polarize around everything.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
The incidents of violence in scripture, and particularly those where God commands, or actively participates in that violence, pose a great challenge for any thoughtful believer both in his or her own reading of scripture, and in discussions with skeptics who point to these passages, and especially the book of Joshua. Does not this deeply conflict with the New Testament witness to the love of God in Christ?
L. Daniel Hawk takes a different approach than others who I've seen address this question who either rationalize the violence of God against the Canaanites, or in various ways argue that it actually wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared. Hawk's approach argues that "it may be more important to think biblically than to seek biblical answers" (p. xiv). He proposes that one of the reasons there are so many different responses to this question is that the canon itself speaks with multiple voices that do not all agree. He seeks to take an approach that sees all of the canon as authoritative scripture without muting portions that are in conflict with others.
His work begins with a survey of the approaches taken to this question through church history, and then outlines his own narrative approach, eschewing the "quest for a Theory of Biblical Everything" (p. 18) to listen to the biblical narrative in its complexity as it tells in multiple voices the story of God's work to redeem a fallen world that is violent by "coming down" and entering into that world. He traces this through the fall, the slaying of Abel, and the flood as an accelerating death spiral that God sorrowfully brings to conclusion with the flood, while saving both creatures and one human family to begin anew.
With Babel, Hawk sees a new approach of a God who "comes down," first confusing the languages of those who would make a name for themselves, and then coming down to make great the name of Abram (Abraham) through whom he begins a redemptive work. He consults with Abraham in his plan to violently destroy the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and honors his plea for the righteous. To stand with Abraham means to stand against others, as in the case of Abimelech, who Abraham had deceived. As evident in the deliberation between Abraham and God regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, violence is not a paroxysm of anger but what it means to do what is needed within the context of fallen creation to set things to rights.
He then studies the narratives of God's descent into Egypt to break the power of Pharoah that held Israel in slavery. Only through violence will Pharoah recognize a power greater than his, and to create a new people through the overturning of the power of Egypt. Hawk notes that no emotion or expression of caprice or anger is evident in these episodes, but rather God doing what was needed to deliver and establish this people of the promise, to show God supreme over all other powers. The narrative then continues with this new people as he establishes this covenant, deals with the disobedience of his people (an incident that evidences God's anger), and the violence that both responds to sin, and yet restores his relationship with the people to whom he has committed himself.
Before turning to the text of Joshua, and Israel's conquest of Canaan, he jumps forward to God's assent to give Israel a king like other nations. God first commits himself to Saul, and then to David and his family. His work in the nation becomes taken up with the power dynamics and violence of these kings while acting as a check against their ungodliness and injustices. With the fall of Israel comes an end to this way of working in the world through the instrumentality of the nation as a political entity. His approach will still work through human agents but in another way.
Finally, Hawk comes to Joshua. He contends that exodus and conquest are inextricably connected to God's decision to renew the world by forming a people. He states, "No exodus, no conquest. No violence, no Israel" (p. 165). He demonstrates the focused character of the invasion against the kings of Canaan that arises neither from caprice or judgement to establish a space in which Yahweh alone, and not the gods of the kings is worshiped. In this book there are narratives both attributing violence to God and counternarratives in the latter part of Joshua that indicate this is not God's "preferred mode of working in the world." Hawk notes that while God's coming down and entering into the making of Israel as a nation involves God in violence, this is not a warrant for other wars.
With the fall of Jerusalem and the exile, Hawk sees a move of God "to the outside." Instead of working in and through human systems, God refuses to meet violence with violence, or engage the earthly powers, but takes the violence of the world upon himself in Christ, and in the resurrection, establishes a rule outside the world's systems.
The conclusion Hawk reaches from this narrative survey is a call to move from debates over who is reading scripture rightly to a dialogue that listens to the full complexity and the biblical text. He doesn't argue for "anything goes" but sets interpretive parameters that include an understanding of divine violence that doesn't arise from petty caprice, that often God does not use violence in judgment but to accelerate already evident deterioration (as in Sodom), that biblical accounts are testimonies, not templates, and cannot be use to justify wars advancing national or group agendas. Yet Hawk also seems to recognize that the diverse voices of God's work inside, and from the outside, create the basis for respectful dialogue between Christians who base a peace stance on the narrative of God's work from the outside, and Christians working "within the system" who face the choice of engaging in state-sanctioned violence in the resistance of evil.
For me, Hawk's work challenged a long held assumption of how we read scripture. Do we believe that the Spirit of God speaks with one voice. Or does our understanding of scripture allow for a complexity of voices that reflect the complexity of being both in and not of a fallen world? Where one comes down on this may well affect one's response to Hawk's reading. What commends that reading to me is that it does not gloss over or mute the hard passages or seemingly conflicting testimony (for example, the commands to utterly devote to destruction the Canaanites and a strategy of gradually supplanting the people).
More profoundly, we see a God who neither remains aloof in the face of human evil and violence nor acts with petty flashes of anger, but rather a settled purpose to redeem through a covenant people, one that involves God in that violence, yet ultimately ends with the taking of that violence on God's self in Christ. We also find in Hawk a model of an interpreter of scripture taking the text as it stands, listening humbly, and promoting dialogue between different perspectives rather than ruling everything not one's own out of court in a "Theory of Biblical Everything." Such models are all too rare and greatly needed in a time where people seem to polarize around everything.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
July 20, 2022
This is such an insightful little book. First of all it’s accessible. It’s about 200 pages with minimal footnotes and the writing is non-technical. It’s surprisingly easy to read. Too often similar books on biblical-studies or biblical-theology can be pedantic or dull but the author’s writing is quite good, even engaging. Secondly it is full of thoughtful analysis of the canonical narrative. This means it is absent conjectural reconstructions of Israelite history (i.e. what really happened). The author’s approach to scripture is deeply insightful. He is an imaginative and sympathetic reader which I find to be rare trait among scholars and other writers, especially concerning this difficult thread within the Biblical narrative. There are aspects of the dynamic of scripture which the author highlights that I have never encountered before. At the heart of his analysis is the conflict which God is invariably drawn into as a result of his commitment to renew the world through a family (Abraham) and then a nation (Israel). While its unlikely that anyone will agree with all of the author’s conclusions, as there are so many of them in such a relatively short book, I think that they merit thoughtful reflection. I would strongly recommend this book as the first place to turn for anyone looking for guidance in this most perplexing of topics.
July 8, 2024
“ The Bible sets before faithful readers a vision of extraordinary complexity and frustrating dissonance. ”
March 6, 2022
Disclaimer: you’ll need to choke down Hawk’s Hegelian language when he talks about Yahweh (“discovers”; “is pressed to…”; “realizes who he is dealing with”; etc.) and his conclusion that the Scriptures contain irreconcilable images of Yahweh is about enough to put the book down. But if you can manage, the work includes aspects that are worth your time.
Best bits:
-Scriptire is utterly silent abut God’s violence coming out of his anger except for when it is directed at Israel. There, it is the negative side of his love for his people.
-Hawk’s creation-uncreation-creation framework is immensely helpful for making sense of divine violence. The idea is uncreating to create anew and it works well.
-Viewing the Canaan conquest narratives as the conclusion of the Exodus rather than a new epoch.
Ultimately Hawk’s answer for divine violence which is a helpful one for the question at hand: “If Yahweh is to create in the world, Yahweh must destroy what is corrupted. If Yahweh is to be esteemed, Yahweh must show unassailable power. If Yahweh is to be acknowledged by all the nations of the earth Yahweh must work wonders on behalf of Israel.”
As I said above, the book is ultimately faulty. However, some of the moves Hawk makes are not inextricably linked to his apparent Hegelian and contradictory view of Yahweh and should be made even stronger by connecting them to a more conservative and faithful reading of the Scriptures.
His conclusions from the study (p164-168) are exactly right and put in a helpful way (though he is wrong that the violence is in no way a judgement on the inhabitants of Canaan). For those pages alone the book is 4 stars. However, the other nasty bits mentioned above render it less than.
Best bits:
-Scriptire is utterly silent abut God’s violence coming out of his anger except for when it is directed at Israel. There, it is the negative side of his love for his people.
-Hawk’s creation-uncreation-creation framework is immensely helpful for making sense of divine violence. The idea is uncreating to create anew and it works well.
-Viewing the Canaan conquest narratives as the conclusion of the Exodus rather than a new epoch.
Ultimately Hawk’s answer for divine violence which is a helpful one for the question at hand: “If Yahweh is to create in the world, Yahweh must destroy what is corrupted. If Yahweh is to be esteemed, Yahweh must show unassailable power. If Yahweh is to be acknowledged by all the nations of the earth Yahweh must work wonders on behalf of Israel.”
As I said above, the book is ultimately faulty. However, some of the moves Hawk makes are not inextricably linked to his apparent Hegelian and contradictory view of Yahweh and should be made even stronger by connecting them to a more conservative and faithful reading of the Scriptures.
His conclusions from the study (p164-168) are exactly right and put in a helpful way (though he is wrong that the violence is in no way a judgement on the inhabitants of Canaan). For those pages alone the book is 4 stars. However, the other nasty bits mentioned above render it less than.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2021
It's Sunday, September 14, 2001. I'm tasked with teaching a Sunday School class, and recent events have picked the topic for me. People want to talk about the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. Men professing Islam have flown passenger planes into the tallest buildings in New York City. There is an outcry against violence done in the name of Islam, but I'm not sure I'm ready to cast stones. Is the Bible so peaceful compared to the Koran? Can Christians condemn Islam in light of God's dealing with the Egyptians, Canaanites, and even the whole of humanity in the flood?
Hawk offers some thoughts on why the God of the Old Testament is so violent. I have mixed opinions. On one hand, I like his insight that God was accommodating his creation. For instance, by identifying as a king he was obliged to act as kings do -- go to war. I agree in so far as God was surely bound to redeem a creation gone off course. It's not hard to see that God would need to overpower the likes of Pharaoh. And yet I disagree in several important ways.
First, can an all-powerful God be obliged to do anything? Hawk describes a reactive, retooling god who is bound by circumstance. Is this the God of the Bible? I don’t think so.
Next, Hawk often sounds like an open theist. God is rolling with the punches. While there is a sense in which this is true, ultimately an all-knowing God would have this planned from the outset. The God I read about in the Pentateuch knows, and even decrees, the end from the beginning.
Finally, is "violence" the right word? Contained right within is this idea of violation. If my neighbor strikes me, he has violated me. He has violated my right to well-being. My autonomy. My dignity. God is different. I am not autonomous, I belong to God. My dignity derives from God. God made me, and he has a unique right to do with me as he pleases. Moreover, I am not innocent before God. The uncomfortable truth about all mankind is that we live under a death sentence. It is appointed for all of us to die, and make no mistake. We die due to the sovereign appointment of God, and our very dying demonstrates our broken relationship with him. No, it is not possible that God could violate us.
So I like Hawk's insight about God's accommodation, but I do not believe God ever acts against his eternal decree or character.
Returning to 2001. After struggling with the contrast between Islam and Christianity, I concluded this. If Allah is the true God, then the terrorists were not wrong. If Islam is true, we are infidels. Enemies of Allah and worthy of death. So the crucial question is not why Islam is violent, it's whether Islam is true.
What is the difference between Allah and the God of the Bible? It isn’t wrath. It's grace.
Hawk offers some thoughts on why the God of the Old Testament is so violent. I have mixed opinions. On one hand, I like his insight that God was accommodating his creation. For instance, by identifying as a king he was obliged to act as kings do -- go to war. I agree in so far as God was surely bound to redeem a creation gone off course. It's not hard to see that God would need to overpower the likes of Pharaoh. And yet I disagree in several important ways.
First, can an all-powerful God be obliged to do anything? Hawk describes a reactive, retooling god who is bound by circumstance. Is this the God of the Bible? I don’t think so.
Next, Hawk often sounds like an open theist. God is rolling with the punches. While there is a sense in which this is true, ultimately an all-knowing God would have this planned from the outset. The God I read about in the Pentateuch knows, and even decrees, the end from the beginning.
Finally, is "violence" the right word? Contained right within is this idea of violation. If my neighbor strikes me, he has violated me. He has violated my right to well-being. My autonomy. My dignity. God is different. I am not autonomous, I belong to God. My dignity derives from God. God made me, and he has a unique right to do with me as he pleases. Moreover, I am not innocent before God. The uncomfortable truth about all mankind is that we live under a death sentence. It is appointed for all of us to die, and make no mistake. We die due to the sovereign appointment of God, and our very dying demonstrates our broken relationship with him. No, it is not possible that God could violate us.
So I like Hawk's insight about God's accommodation, but I do not believe God ever acts against his eternal decree or character.
Returning to 2001. After struggling with the contrast between Islam and Christianity, I concluded this. If Allah is the true God, then the terrorists were not wrong. If Islam is true, we are infidels. Enemies of Allah and worthy of death. So the crucial question is not why Islam is violent, it's whether Islam is true.
What is the difference between Allah and the God of the Bible? It isn’t wrath. It's grace.
June 8, 2025
This man spent his time in the 'wilderness' of thought, contemplating the violence of God. This is the work of someone who has meditated on and wrestled with the topic for 40 years. This is an inspired book — if I may be allowed the phrasing.
I probably highlighted over 25% of the entire work, especially in the first chapters.
What I enjoyed most is the conviction with which Mr. Daniel Hawk holds that the church should come to the table to discuss such controversial subjects — not to determine who’s right, but to expand the horizons of biblical interpretation.
The author makes it clear that a definitive belief about the violence of God and its role in human history and reality cannot be easily singled out. Sure, there are unshakable, truth-driven principles — yet one of them is the recognition that we are still living in a violent, evil-intoxicated world, where things are complex and difficult to navigate.
I began this book committed to nonviolence and non-retaliation, and I still hold those convictions. But I finished the book convinced that others, shaped by different contexts, may be equally justified in believing something else… and that even my own context could shift so drastically as to require wisdom and flexibility in how I respond.
I probably highlighted over 25% of the entire work, especially in the first chapters.
What I enjoyed most is the conviction with which Mr. Daniel Hawk holds that the church should come to the table to discuss such controversial subjects — not to determine who’s right, but to expand the horizons of biblical interpretation.
The author makes it clear that a definitive belief about the violence of God and its role in human history and reality cannot be easily singled out. Sure, there are unshakable, truth-driven principles — yet one of them is the recognition that we are still living in a violent, evil-intoxicated world, where things are complex and difficult to navigate.
I began this book committed to nonviolence and non-retaliation, and I still hold those convictions. But I finished the book convinced that others, shaped by different contexts, may be equally justified in believing something else… and that even my own context could shift so drastically as to require wisdom and flexibility in how I respond.
April 24, 2020
Here's an example of the kind of statements that challenge one to think carefully.
"To simplify, the Old Testament presents God at work primarily at the center of society, while the New Testament presents God at work primarily at the margins. The question, following on this observation, has to do with whether one views the Old Testament as a narrative that must be rejected because it testifies to a failed divine approach or one that displays the messiness and accommodations that must be navigated by those who believe that God still works at the center of power as well as its periphery." (p 199)
"To simplify, the Old Testament presents God at work primarily at the center of society, while the New Testament presents God at work primarily at the margins. The question, following on this observation, has to do with whether one views the Old Testament as a narrative that must be rejected because it testifies to a failed divine approach or one that displays the messiness and accommodations that must be navigated by those who believe that God still works at the center of power as well as its periphery." (p 199)
November 10, 2021
Incredible book that looks at the violence of the OT within the narrative context of God and his covenant with humans, Israel, and human built systems. From Genesis through the exodus, to the first time God is declared angry within scripture, all the way to Jesus's teachings on nonviolence, this books explores a conversation of God's anger in light of his love. This will be a book I reference frequently on this topic as a helpful addition to the messy conversation of who God is and how he relates to this world.
November 20, 2018
Hawk delves into examining not just the instances in the Bible where God is either directly or indirectly involved in violence, but tries to explain the motives behind it. Just think for a second of how often you've wondered at *why* God would do something or the other, and we're not settling (for the most part, anyway) with the "they were wicked" reason.
The author will likely not have been the first to present God to the reader as a deity that yearns for a relationship with people, but Hawk is adept at putting an interesting slant to it; he tracks God maneuvering within covenants, going back and forth on whether or not he should just cause an extinction event and start over again.
The condensed versions of the stories here put things into perspective. You begin to understand (or re-discover/re-affirm) that we, as a people, are bound for misbehaving and won't stop until we've screwed everything up. God, in his wisdom, must evolve his attempts for a connection, and that sometimes entails war and divine violence...sometimes that means that God just needs to go have a breather.
Hawk makes his own suggestions for why God punished/afflicted/destroyed throughout the Bible, and also warmly invokes the reader to keep an open mind; that, whether or not you're a pacifist or one that would do what was necessary to uphold Christian ideals, that all need to confer, and that there's room at the table for absolutely everyone in this discussion.
I've never had the opportunity to look at the Old Testament at this angle. It's been an incredibly valuable read for me, and you're in for a very contemplative (and possibly mind-blowing) read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for the advance read.
The author will likely not have been the first to present God to the reader as a deity that yearns for a relationship with people, but Hawk is adept at putting an interesting slant to it; he tracks God maneuvering within covenants, going back and forth on whether or not he should just cause an extinction event and start over again.
The condensed versions of the stories here put things into perspective. You begin to understand (or re-discover/re-affirm) that we, as a people, are bound for misbehaving and won't stop until we've screwed everything up. God, in his wisdom, must evolve his attempts for a connection, and that sometimes entails war and divine violence...sometimes that means that God just needs to go have a breather.
Hawk makes his own suggestions for why God punished/afflicted/destroyed throughout the Bible, and also warmly invokes the reader to keep an open mind; that, whether or not you're a pacifist or one that would do what was necessary to uphold Christian ideals, that all need to confer, and that there's room at the table for absolutely everyone in this discussion.
I've never had the opportunity to look at the Old Testament at this angle. It's been an incredibly valuable read for me, and you're in for a very contemplative (and possibly mind-blowing) read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company for the advance read.
March 6, 2019
(See the full-length review at: https://derekdemars.com/2019/03/06/bo...)
The preponderance of violence in the Bible often creates a serious stumbling block to Christian faith. How could a God of love also sanction so much violence? How do we make sense of a Bible in which God tells the Israelites to annihilate all the Canaanites in one place, and then Jesus tells us to love all our enemies in another? It's an extremely challenging topic, and a plethora of potential answers have been put forth -- some more helpful than others.
In The Violence of the Biblical God, Daniel Hawk offers a constructive approach that seeks to do justice to the myriad ways in which the Bible depicts divine violence. He takes a careful look at the narrative contours of Scripture to determine where we've misread it and how it should shape a Christian discussion of violence.
He concisely reviews other Christian thinkers' approaches to the topic, from Marcion and Origen in ancient times down through the Reformers and modern historical critics. He also takes a quick look at some representative contemporary writers like Eric Seibert, Jerome Creach, and most popularly, Greg Boyd. In response to liberal-critical attempts to dismiss the violent conquest accounts in the Old Testament as merely a human invention meant to serve as Israel's propaganda, Hawk rightly points out that we lack any hard evidence to confirm such a theory; all we have is the text as it stands, and violence is ubiquitous past the conquest accounts -- even on into the New Testament (15-16). And in contrast to popular contemporary approaches that assume a radically-nonviolent Jesus and pit him against the violent depictions of God in the Old Testament, Hawk wants us to explore the whole biblical story (with all of its nuances, progressions, and tensions) to arrive at a fully-orbed picture of God's relationship to violence -- when and why he uses it or rejects it; how he qualifies it; and how working with human political and value systems sometimes necessitates taking a violent approach.
This exploration of the biblical narrative occupies the main bulk of the book, where Hawk focuses on the biblical concept of God "descending" into our broken world in order to work within it and bring about redemption for his creation. Hawk draws our attention to five key passages in the biblical story where God is said to "come down" into the world and willingly become entangled in our violent human systems. This divine accommodation prompts God to use violence when it is the only way to further his ends among sinful people who only acknowledge power. With each divine descent, God involves his human partners more and more deeply in his plan to save the world. But by working in tandem with human agents under a covenant partnership, God must sometimes undertake violent action to protect his covenant partners as they operate in a violent world.
When Hawk turns to the New Testament in Chapter 8. He points out -- rightly, I think -- that many interpreters have been too hasty in reading Jesus as condemning all forms of violence in any context. There is nuance in Jesus' ethical teachings that must not be bulldozed over. What's more, one cannot overlook the fact that even after the cross God continues to take violent action in the book of Acts. For Hawk, all of this means that we must consider that violence may in fact be quite appropriate in some contexts, given certain parameters set by Scripture (and explained in detail in the book's final chapter). What we need is a deeper, more biblically-informed perspective (or perspectives) on violence that wrestles seriously with the text and rejects a hasty, black-and-white approach.
I should mention that some of Hawk's wording throughout the book – for example, his depicting God as "adapting his approach," or calling things like the Israelite monarchy an "experiment" on God's part (118) – implies that he holds to open theism. Even so, the interpretive conclusions he comes to are still essentially in line with what many classical theists would hold to: namely, that God saw fit to accommodate his divine ideals in order to work in a broken world, alongside of and through broken people, for the purpose of bringing about redemptive ends.
I gleaned many fresh insights from Hawk's discussion of the text which have helped nuance my own understanding of God's ways and the role of violence therein. The notion that God's decision to work in covenant with a nation entailed participation in nationalistic violence as its suzerain King provides a helpful framework for approaching many difficult OT texts (Chapter 5). Hawk's comments on God's hardening of the hearts of Pharaoh and the Canaanite chieftains was both challenging and insightful (80-83). And his chapter on the conquest of Canaan was comprehensive and constructive, laying out the various ways the text itself nuances that particular historical event and invites interpretive openness. Hawk's conclusions won't satisfy everyone, but then, part of his point is that there are no easy answers. We must all wrestle with the text (and the God who speaks therein) for ourselves.
One weakness of the book has to do not with Hawk's argument but with its presentation. Some of the chapter summaries began to feel a bit repetitive after a while. This is a minor complaint, but one that's exacerbated by the fact that such space could have been devoted to biblical texts that were regrettably left out of the discussion. The book of Revelation's absence was especially lamentable. Though I understand the decision to focus only on historical narrative text, I would have enjoyed a longer work that looked at all of Scripture (I would love to see Hawk write an expanded edition or a follow-up work that incorporates the prophetic books!)
Overall, I benefited greatly from reading The Violence of the Biblical God and would recommend it to anyone seriously interested in the topic. Do be sure and read to the end, as Hawk packs a great deal of nuance throughout the discussion before building to some powerful conclusions in the final chapter. I personally think his approach is much more helpful than other recent treatments of the topic that feel shallower and more reactionary, especially compared to Hawk's sober and sensitive canonical approach. This would make a fantastic textbook on the subject, either for Old Testament studies or Christian apologetics. And if you're an interested pastor or layperson, this book will give you much food for thought.
Even if Hawk prompts more questions than answers, I believe his work will reward a careful and discerning read. I sincerely hope it finds a wide readership.
The preponderance of violence in the Bible often creates a serious stumbling block to Christian faith. How could a God of love also sanction so much violence? How do we make sense of a Bible in which God tells the Israelites to annihilate all the Canaanites in one place, and then Jesus tells us to love all our enemies in another? It's an extremely challenging topic, and a plethora of potential answers have been put forth -- some more helpful than others.
In The Violence of the Biblical God, Daniel Hawk offers a constructive approach that seeks to do justice to the myriad ways in which the Bible depicts divine violence. He takes a careful look at the narrative contours of Scripture to determine where we've misread it and how it should shape a Christian discussion of violence.
He concisely reviews other Christian thinkers' approaches to the topic, from Marcion and Origen in ancient times down through the Reformers and modern historical critics. He also takes a quick look at some representative contemporary writers like Eric Seibert, Jerome Creach, and most popularly, Greg Boyd. In response to liberal-critical attempts to dismiss the violent conquest accounts in the Old Testament as merely a human invention meant to serve as Israel's propaganda, Hawk rightly points out that we lack any hard evidence to confirm such a theory; all we have is the text as it stands, and violence is ubiquitous past the conquest accounts -- even on into the New Testament (15-16). And in contrast to popular contemporary approaches that assume a radically-nonviolent Jesus and pit him against the violent depictions of God in the Old Testament, Hawk wants us to explore the whole biblical story (with all of its nuances, progressions, and tensions) to arrive at a fully-orbed picture of God's relationship to violence -- when and why he uses it or rejects it; how he qualifies it; and how working with human political and value systems sometimes necessitates taking a violent approach.
This exploration of the biblical narrative occupies the main bulk of the book, where Hawk focuses on the biblical concept of God "descending" into our broken world in order to work within it and bring about redemption for his creation. Hawk draws our attention to five key passages in the biblical story where God is said to "come down" into the world and willingly become entangled in our violent human systems. This divine accommodation prompts God to use violence when it is the only way to further his ends among sinful people who only acknowledge power. With each divine descent, God involves his human partners more and more deeply in his plan to save the world. But by working in tandem with human agents under a covenant partnership, God must sometimes undertake violent action to protect his covenant partners as they operate in a violent world.
When Hawk turns to the New Testament in Chapter 8. He points out -- rightly, I think -- that many interpreters have been too hasty in reading Jesus as condemning all forms of violence in any context. There is nuance in Jesus' ethical teachings that must not be bulldozed over. What's more, one cannot overlook the fact that even after the cross God continues to take violent action in the book of Acts. For Hawk, all of this means that we must consider that violence may in fact be quite appropriate in some contexts, given certain parameters set by Scripture (and explained in detail in the book's final chapter). What we need is a deeper, more biblically-informed perspective (or perspectives) on violence that wrestles seriously with the text and rejects a hasty, black-and-white approach.
I should mention that some of Hawk's wording throughout the book – for example, his depicting God as "adapting his approach," or calling things like the Israelite monarchy an "experiment" on God's part (118) – implies that he holds to open theism. Even so, the interpretive conclusions he comes to are still essentially in line with what many classical theists would hold to: namely, that God saw fit to accommodate his divine ideals in order to work in a broken world, alongside of and through broken people, for the purpose of bringing about redemptive ends.
I gleaned many fresh insights from Hawk's discussion of the text which have helped nuance my own understanding of God's ways and the role of violence therein. The notion that God's decision to work in covenant with a nation entailed participation in nationalistic violence as its suzerain King provides a helpful framework for approaching many difficult OT texts (Chapter 5). Hawk's comments on God's hardening of the hearts of Pharaoh and the Canaanite chieftains was both challenging and insightful (80-83). And his chapter on the conquest of Canaan was comprehensive and constructive, laying out the various ways the text itself nuances that particular historical event and invites interpretive openness. Hawk's conclusions won't satisfy everyone, but then, part of his point is that there are no easy answers. We must all wrestle with the text (and the God who speaks therein) for ourselves.
One weakness of the book has to do not with Hawk's argument but with its presentation. Some of the chapter summaries began to feel a bit repetitive after a while. This is a minor complaint, but one that's exacerbated by the fact that such space could have been devoted to biblical texts that were regrettably left out of the discussion. The book of Revelation's absence was especially lamentable. Though I understand the decision to focus only on historical narrative text, I would have enjoyed a longer work that looked at all of Scripture (I would love to see Hawk write an expanded edition or a follow-up work that incorporates the prophetic books!)
Overall, I benefited greatly from reading The Violence of the Biblical God and would recommend it to anyone seriously interested in the topic. Do be sure and read to the end, as Hawk packs a great deal of nuance throughout the discussion before building to some powerful conclusions in the final chapter. I personally think his approach is much more helpful than other recent treatments of the topic that feel shallower and more reactionary, especially compared to Hawk's sober and sensitive canonical approach. This would make a fantastic textbook on the subject, either for Old Testament studies or Christian apologetics. And if you're an interested pastor or layperson, this book will give you much food for thought.
Even if Hawk prompts more questions than answers, I believe his work will reward a careful and discerning read. I sincerely hope it finds a wide readership.
April 8, 2019
The violence depicted in the Bible is one of the most difficult and debated aspects of the character of God revealed in its pages. The apparent contrast between a God who is loving and caring and one who is wrathful and violent has led some to view the Bible as "broken", heavily discounting the validity of some passages in favor of others. Others take a more apologetic approach, seeking to reconcile or justify the conflicting images on an extrabiblical basis. In his new book, Dr. L. Daniel Hawk. takes neither of these approaches. Instead, he provides a biblical narrative that serves as a cognitive framework for a unified understanding of the God who is revealed throughout Scripture. Hawk focuses on the canonical text and what it implies, or doesn't imply about the violent episodes in the Old Testament and their connection with the way violence is viewed and experienced in the New Testament. It is an approach that needs to be taken into account by other efforts to explain or account for the theodical difficulties found in the Bible.
Hawk's narrative reveals a sequence of the ways that God interacts with humanity in Scripture. At first working within the confines of fallen human experience, with and through individuals, nations and kingdoms in God's attempt to bring about a life giving and sustainable relationship between himself and humankind. Finally, stepping outside those human social constructs to reveal himself personally to the world, he submits to the violent nature of the people he has come to save and accomplishes a final victory over the sin and death that plagues humankind and offers that way of salvation, and inclusion in the work of salvation, to the rest of us. Thus God's efforts, and the means he has tried, to restore the originally intended relationship between himself and humankind are written within our own human history; not done in secret or apart from human involvement. That the process has been, and continues to be, messy is very evident, but also reflects God's persistence of, and insistence on, involving human beings in the process.
Several "interpretive parameters" stem from Dr. Hawk's study of the biblical text that would serve to guide our understanding (pp. 203 - 208):
1. "Yahweh's acts of violence do not eminate from the caprice or anger of a petty deity who has taken personal offense and seeks satisfaction".
2. "In the narrative literature of the Old Testament, Yahweh rarely employs violence to judge other nations". Most of his judgement is reserved for Israel in violating the covenant on which their flourishing depends.
3. "The narratives explored in this book are best taken as testimonies, not templates. ... The episodes for the narrative are points in Gods's story and are not templates to be replicated by readers in their times."
4. "Expanding on the above, biblical narratives cannot be rightly appropriated to justify wars that advance national or group agendas".
5. "The narrative thread we have explored offers no justification for retaliatory violence."
6. "While there may be different views on whether violence can ever bye condoned by Christian believers, there is no question that an orientation toward nonviolence and a critique of the mechanisms and instigators of violence must instead define Christian faith and practice". For him this does not necessarily rule out the use of violence as a last resort: "It is one thing to practice nonviolence, and to be willing to die for one's beliefs. It is quite another to make others vulnerable to death for the sake of one's beliefs."
Dr. Hawk's book serves as an important basis for how we think about problems of theodicy without trying to oversimplify the complex nature of God's will and ways in the world. This is a very important book. I hope it gets a wide and fair reading.
Hawk's narrative reveals a sequence of the ways that God interacts with humanity in Scripture. At first working within the confines of fallen human experience, with and through individuals, nations and kingdoms in God's attempt to bring about a life giving and sustainable relationship between himself and humankind. Finally, stepping outside those human social constructs to reveal himself personally to the world, he submits to the violent nature of the people he has come to save and accomplishes a final victory over the sin and death that plagues humankind and offers that way of salvation, and inclusion in the work of salvation, to the rest of us. Thus God's efforts, and the means he has tried, to restore the originally intended relationship between himself and humankind are written within our own human history; not done in secret or apart from human involvement. That the process has been, and continues to be, messy is very evident, but also reflects God's persistence of, and insistence on, involving human beings in the process.
Several "interpretive parameters" stem from Dr. Hawk's study of the biblical text that would serve to guide our understanding (pp. 203 - 208):
1. "Yahweh's acts of violence do not eminate from the caprice or anger of a petty deity who has taken personal offense and seeks satisfaction".
2. "In the narrative literature of the Old Testament, Yahweh rarely employs violence to judge other nations". Most of his judgement is reserved for Israel in violating the covenant on which their flourishing depends.
3. "The narratives explored in this book are best taken as testimonies, not templates. ... The episodes for the narrative are points in Gods's story and are not templates to be replicated by readers in their times."
4. "Expanding on the above, biblical narratives cannot be rightly appropriated to justify wars that advance national or group agendas".
5. "The narrative thread we have explored offers no justification for retaliatory violence."
6. "While there may be different views on whether violence can ever bye condoned by Christian believers, there is no question that an orientation toward nonviolence and a critique of the mechanisms and instigators of violence must instead define Christian faith and practice". For him this does not necessarily rule out the use of violence as a last resort: "It is one thing to practice nonviolence, and to be willing to die for one's beliefs. It is quite another to make others vulnerable to death for the sake of one's beliefs."
Dr. Hawk's book serves as an important basis for how we think about problems of theodicy without trying to oversimplify the complex nature of God's will and ways in the world. This is a very important book. I hope it gets a wide and fair reading.
February 2, 2025
I was reading some commentary on OT vs NT God, where someone pointed out that Saul, the first king of Israel, was punished by God for not committing genocide. Uncertain of the context of this story, I began searching (1 Sam 15 for reference). YHWH’s stripping of Saul’s kingship is because he did not obey fully in slaying every last living thing of the Amalekites; he preserved the best animals, allegedly as a sacrifice, but it sounds (to me) more like an Achan or Ananias and Sapphira type situation. But the big question remains: why did God sanction genocide in the first place? How do you square this with the non-violent message of Jesus? Moreover, when we (Americans) talk of evil and eternal condemnation, the prime example is Hitler, whose greatest evil was sanctioning the killing of millions. Wholesale slaughter of ethnic groups is thought to be unequivocally evil, so how is it that a perfectly good God did that?
This led me to The Violence of the Biblical God. I was drawn to this book because it seemed to face the most difficult passages and stories head on without compromising or retconning canonical books or attempting to weave speculative theories. If anything, Hawk avoids the wayward mission to find a “unified theory” that tries to resolve competing or paradoxical messages, and instead starts with the the scriptural narrative and makes insightful observations about what YHWH does and does NOT do and explores how and why. The writing is easy to follow and lays out the author’s perspective plainly with occasional references to other works. Interestingly, the book spends the majority of its time in the OT before making the transition to NT (not unlike the Bible itself), but I found the NT section to be the most profound. Hawk’s observations and highlights from Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt/pharaoh/the exodus, and Joshua help by elaborating on the reasons why YHWH accelerated the destruction of creation-gone-wrong or participated in the violent nation-building project that was Israel.
My summary:
God created man with agency and authority to make decisions and rule over creation. Since the fall, man and man-made systems of rule have relied and resorted to violence to function. After wiping the slate clean with the flood, God began his creation restoration project with Abraham, Moses, and the formation of Israel. This was all done within the imperfect systems of man where kings rule nations and men worship deities who occupy specific areas of land. Creating a name for himself and a nation to serve as a template for other nations required coming down and operating in the violent systems of the earth. YHWH has direct relationships with the leaders of the nation, and supports and protects them (because he promised to, ie covenant) even when it requires violent ends. And it didn’t work in the end. So after pulling back for a while, God reappears with a new plan that ignores the systems of man. Restarts at the other end of the spectrum, with regular people far removed from the rulers and kings. Jesus brings an entirely new message because God has moved away from working through nations and kingdoms with kings and borders and politics and wars. Instead he initiates a new kingdom that is wholly separate. Jesus repeatedly teaches non-violence and has nothing to say to Pilate and Herod. Unlike Moses and Pharaoh, there is no divine display of power at the climax of Jesus confrontation with the ruling bodies, instead there is a total absence of it and Jesus is crucified.
In this book I found what I was looking for. I’m grateful to the author for writing such an accessible and insightful book on this difficult subject. It helped give me a baseline to orient myself.
This led me to The Violence of the Biblical God. I was drawn to this book because it seemed to face the most difficult passages and stories head on without compromising or retconning canonical books or attempting to weave speculative theories. If anything, Hawk avoids the wayward mission to find a “unified theory” that tries to resolve competing or paradoxical messages, and instead starts with the the scriptural narrative and makes insightful observations about what YHWH does and does NOT do and explores how and why. The writing is easy to follow and lays out the author’s perspective plainly with occasional references to other works. Interestingly, the book spends the majority of its time in the OT before making the transition to NT (not unlike the Bible itself), but I found the NT section to be the most profound. Hawk’s observations and highlights from Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt/pharaoh/the exodus, and Joshua help by elaborating on the reasons why YHWH accelerated the destruction of creation-gone-wrong or participated in the violent nation-building project that was Israel.
My summary:
God created man with agency and authority to make decisions and rule over creation. Since the fall, man and man-made systems of rule have relied and resorted to violence to function. After wiping the slate clean with the flood, God began his creation restoration project with Abraham, Moses, and the formation of Israel. This was all done within the imperfect systems of man where kings rule nations and men worship deities who occupy specific areas of land. Creating a name for himself and a nation to serve as a template for other nations required coming down and operating in the violent systems of the earth. YHWH has direct relationships with the leaders of the nation, and supports and protects them (because he promised to, ie covenant) even when it requires violent ends. And it didn’t work in the end. So after pulling back for a while, God reappears with a new plan that ignores the systems of man. Restarts at the other end of the spectrum, with regular people far removed from the rulers and kings. Jesus brings an entirely new message because God has moved away from working through nations and kingdoms with kings and borders and politics and wars. Instead he initiates a new kingdom that is wholly separate. Jesus repeatedly teaches non-violence and has nothing to say to Pilate and Herod. Unlike Moses and Pharaoh, there is no divine display of power at the climax of Jesus confrontation with the ruling bodies, instead there is a total absence of it and Jesus is crucified.
In this book I found what I was looking for. I’m grateful to the author for writing such an accessible and insightful book on this difficult subject. It helped give me a baseline to orient myself.
June 25, 2023
3.75. Took me a little over a year to work through it, but this is certainly one of the most thoughtful accounts of violence in the Biblical testimony that I've come across. Chapters 1-6 were, for the most part, excellent in setting up the issues at hand as well as in telling the slow story of God's working with and for his people. There were a couple times that Hawk made unwarranted assumptions and drew shaky conclusions from lack of evidence in the text, but the work is transparent and dependable overall.
Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing is the strange decision to describe Yahweh's actions through an assumed Hegelian lens, using the language of God's "failed project", God's purported "discoveries" and lack of knowledge, and the language of "trying". For a book that desires to work with the text as is, this attitude does not allow the way that the Scriptures attest to God's utter sovereignty and perfect knowledge control or contribute to the way God's motive and actions are spoken of.
Chapters 7-9 were the heart of why I read this though, and the arguments and conclusions there made sense of what Hawk had been working to trace and set up in the first 2/3 of the book. Hawk does not back away from the complexity of the text as well as the many issues that arise from even a cursory reading of it, and I'm thankful that he aims to work with the text as is rather than trying to completely harmonize or dismiss issues altogether. Here are some of the most central and powerful quotes for me:
Ch. 7 (Conquest of Canaan)
"The narratives of Exodus and conquest are inseparable components of Israel's origin story."
"The invasion and occupation of Canaan constitute the final act of the drama that began with Yahweh's decision to step into the world and renew creation by forming a people...draw[ing] Yahweh increasingly into the violence that configures the affairs of nations in a world gone bad. Yahweh thus takes up violence on Israel's behalf, to advance Yahweh's purpose through Israel and to demonstrate Yahweh's faithfulness and power."
"Yahweh's violence is targeted, purposeful, and directed towards divine ends—specifically, the annunciation and demonstration of Yahweh's supremacy in the world and the establishment of a new people in a new land."
"The Deuteronomic commands to wipe out the indigenous people make use of exaggerated language to underscore the importance of transforming the land into a Yahweh-only space."
Ch. 8 (Jesus)
"Luke explicitly evokes the grand sweep of the narrative through a genealogy that connects Jesus all the way back to Adam and so invites readers to read his gospel as an account of God's latest and greatest work, against the backdrop of God's dealings with humanity since the creation of the world."
"The Lord's saving work will no longer be advanced through a king who stands within and is bound by warped human systems but through a king who stands outside of and in judgment of them."
"The fact the Jesus defines his mission with reference to a prophetic utterance from the Old Testament reinforces the continuity of God's work through Jesus with God's work through Israel, and particularly to the narrative strand that addresses Yahweh's attention to the powerless."
"At the cross, God received the full force and malevolence of human violence without retaliating whatsoever. . . The resurrection then displays God's supremacy over the death-dealing mechanisms of human systems by vanquishing death itself. . . The victim of violence becomes the victor over violence."
Ch. 9 (Followers of Jesus)
"The biblical narrative, in all its complexity—as opposed to putative narratives about what its authors and redactors were thinking when they wrote it—should stand at the center of Christian conversation about divine violence."
"Yahweh's acts do not emanate from the caprice or anger of a petty deity who has taken personal offense and seeks satisfaction. The narrative testimony confirms that Yahweh is 'slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.'"
Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing is the strange decision to describe Yahweh's actions through an assumed Hegelian lens, using the language of God's "failed project", God's purported "discoveries" and lack of knowledge, and the language of "trying". For a book that desires to work with the text as is, this attitude does not allow the way that the Scriptures attest to God's utter sovereignty and perfect knowledge control or contribute to the way God's motive and actions are spoken of.
Chapters 7-9 were the heart of why I read this though, and the arguments and conclusions there made sense of what Hawk had been working to trace and set up in the first 2/3 of the book. Hawk does not back away from the complexity of the text as well as the many issues that arise from even a cursory reading of it, and I'm thankful that he aims to work with the text as is rather than trying to completely harmonize or dismiss issues altogether. Here are some of the most central and powerful quotes for me:
Ch. 7 (Conquest of Canaan)
"The narratives of Exodus and conquest are inseparable components of Israel's origin story."
"The invasion and occupation of Canaan constitute the final act of the drama that began with Yahweh's decision to step into the world and renew creation by forming a people...draw[ing] Yahweh increasingly into the violence that configures the affairs of nations in a world gone bad. Yahweh thus takes up violence on Israel's behalf, to advance Yahweh's purpose through Israel and to demonstrate Yahweh's faithfulness and power."
"Yahweh's violence is targeted, purposeful, and directed towards divine ends—specifically, the annunciation and demonstration of Yahweh's supremacy in the world and the establishment of a new people in a new land."
"The Deuteronomic commands to wipe out the indigenous people make use of exaggerated language to underscore the importance of transforming the land into a Yahweh-only space."
Ch. 8 (Jesus)
"Luke explicitly evokes the grand sweep of the narrative through a genealogy that connects Jesus all the way back to Adam and so invites readers to read his gospel as an account of God's latest and greatest work, against the backdrop of God's dealings with humanity since the creation of the world."
"The Lord's saving work will no longer be advanced through a king who stands within and is bound by warped human systems but through a king who stands outside of and in judgment of them."
"The fact the Jesus defines his mission with reference to a prophetic utterance from the Old Testament reinforces the continuity of God's work through Jesus with God's work through Israel, and particularly to the narrative strand that addresses Yahweh's attention to the powerless."
"At the cross, God received the full force and malevolence of human violence without retaliating whatsoever. . . The resurrection then displays God's supremacy over the death-dealing mechanisms of human systems by vanquishing death itself. . . The victim of violence becomes the victor over violence."
Ch. 9 (Followers of Jesus)
"The biblical narrative, in all its complexity—as opposed to putative narratives about what its authors and redactors were thinking when they wrote it—should stand at the center of Christian conversation about divine violence."
"Yahweh's acts do not emanate from the caprice or anger of a petty deity who has taken personal offense and seeks satisfaction. The narrative testimony confirms that Yahweh is 'slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.'"
September 16, 2021
When we read the Bible (especially works in the OT Hebrew Bible), it is difficult to understand and rationalize the violence that takes place. The narratives often hop from one violent encounter after another. While history is full of violence, what can make us uneasy is understanding God's role in the violence. And how do we understand the violence we see in the Hebrew bible in contrast to the teachings of Jesus in the NT?
Hawk does an amazing job handling this topic. I loved this reading for a number of reasons. First, Hawk is simply a good writer. He communicates in a clear, articulate language that is approachable to the common reader and scholars alike. Second, he is humble. I think approaching a topic as difficult as biblical violence is best served when one is able to hear different voices on the topic and work within a mosaic of difficult questions. Third, I think he did a great service to the nuanced details of this topic. He walks through the narrative of the whole Bible starting from the beginning drawing clear distinctions around assumptions and showing how violence is actually a natural consequence of humanity choosing their own system of justice back in the garden as opposed to relying on God's wisdom.
I appreciated at the start of the book how Hawk lays out the difficult questions bible readers face when considering violence, and he outlines the various interpretations that exist to attempt to answer those questions. From this, he begins to walk through the narrative of the Bible from the perspective of its overarching story and how violence interjects itself in its various accounts.
I found Chapter 7's handling of the Joshua narrative and conquest of the Promised land in Canaan to be particularly intriguing.
Hawk does an amazing job handling this topic. I loved this reading for a number of reasons. First, Hawk is simply a good writer. He communicates in a clear, articulate language that is approachable to the common reader and scholars alike. Second, he is humble. I think approaching a topic as difficult as biblical violence is best served when one is able to hear different voices on the topic and work within a mosaic of difficult questions. Third, I think he did a great service to the nuanced details of this topic. He walks through the narrative of the whole Bible starting from the beginning drawing clear distinctions around assumptions and showing how violence is actually a natural consequence of humanity choosing their own system of justice back in the garden as opposed to relying on God's wisdom.
I appreciated at the start of the book how Hawk lays out the difficult questions bible readers face when considering violence, and he outlines the various interpretations that exist to attempt to answer those questions. From this, he begins to walk through the narrative of the Bible from the perspective of its overarching story and how violence interjects itself in its various accounts.
I found Chapter 7's handling of the Joshua narrative and conquest of the Promised land in Canaan to be particularly intriguing.
February 11, 2023
The Violence of the Biblical God is a must-read for every believer (Christian or Jew) who has struggled with wars and catastrophes in the Hebrew Bible.
This is a deep study of God’s relationship to mankind and Israel, and an exploration how God’s commitments and faithfulness draw him into violent man-made systems. It is an explanation of God’s “violence” that I have hardly heard or read anywhere else, but that every Bible-honoring believer should know. It has not completely eliminated the internal struggle for me, but it has answered so many questions and explained why it’s okay to feel that tension. Hawk covers everything from the flood, to the plagues on Egypt, to Sodom, and the wars in Israels’s early history.
It’s not the easiest read. Hawk is definitely a professor and a scholar, but anyone who wants to better understand these difficult passages can handle it. :)
Finally, I really appreciate how Hawk ends with an admission that these texts are hard and a call to faithful, respectful dialogue among the Church - rather than debates and division. He “calls for a community committed not so much to winning principled arguments as to hearing opposing perspectives and discerning together how God is at work within the mess to make all things new.”
This is a deep study of God’s relationship to mankind and Israel, and an exploration how God’s commitments and faithfulness draw him into violent man-made systems. It is an explanation of God’s “violence” that I have hardly heard or read anywhere else, but that every Bible-honoring believer should know. It has not completely eliminated the internal struggle for me, but it has answered so many questions and explained why it’s okay to feel that tension. Hawk covers everything from the flood, to the plagues on Egypt, to Sodom, and the wars in Israels’s early history.
It’s not the easiest read. Hawk is definitely a professor and a scholar, but anyone who wants to better understand these difficult passages can handle it. :)
Finally, I really appreciate how Hawk ends with an admission that these texts are hard and a call to faithful, respectful dialogue among the Church - rather than debates and division. He “calls for a community committed not so much to winning principled arguments as to hearing opposing perspectives and discerning together how God is at work within the mess to make all things new.”
July 12, 2021
Absolutely wonderful book. You can tell Daniel Hawk has spent many many hours reading through the scriptures slowly and intentionally with his insights he shares here. While so many today are quick to either dismiss the violence in the Hebrew Bible as wrongly attributed to YHWH or to just chalk it up to something we dare not even question, Hawk engages with the tension that the Bible puts out there and gives a wonderfully helpful synopsis on what may actually be going on. Couldn’t recommend more for anyone who has struggled to reconcile some of the stories in the OT with the life and teachings of Jesus. Thank you Mr. Hawk for this work.
January 2, 2020
Argues that divine violence is productive in fashioning an elect community and punishing it. Despite the author's call for "ensemble interpretation" (poor term for interpretive strategies that accommodate different voices, though only within a Christian framework), the perspective conveyed in the book about divine violence, and benevolence, betrays an underlying supposition of a prioritized community at the expense of outsiders, who are at times "collateral damage."
February 1, 2021
This is one of the best books I've ever read about the Bible. It doesn't try to come up with a rickity theory or story to explain things, it just goes through the text and helps us see what's happening. We'll never have a full answer to the questions it brings up, but it helps make sense of some difficult texts.
September 30, 2018
Ethical and thoughtful, this book explores an issue that stumps even seasoned theologians. I appreciated the level of support and research the author used in constructing this exploration.
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