Following Roger Olson, Matthew Lynch has outlined eight ways in which we might seek to understand the violence of the Old Testament.

I summarise.

1. Rejection.  Marcion and his followers rejected the Old Testament in its entirety.  Its wicked and violent God has been replaced by the kind and loving God of Jesus and the New Testament.

Objection: Fatal for this view is the fact that it rejects much of the New Testament as well.  For, (a) the New Testament endorses the Old Testament in its entirety; (b) the New Testament has its own share of problematic teaching.  It is not surprising, then, that Marcion jettisoned much of the New Testament as well: his ‘Bible’ consisted of a few Pailine letters and an abbreviated Gospel of Luke.

2. Spiritualising.  Origen and some others spiritualised the problem of Old Testament violence.  Without denying that the events actually happened, they applied it to our own battles with indwelling sin.  Origen wrote:

‘Within us are the Canaanites, within us are the Perizzites; here are the Jebusites. In what way must we exert ourselves, how vigilant must we be or for how long must we persevere, so that when all these breeds of vices have been forced to flee, ‘our land may rest from war’ at last?’

Objection: In addition to being hermeneutically suspect, this approach does not help us to understand the Old Testament problem of violence: it tends to side-step it.

3. Divine command.  Many today follow Augustine in adopting the stance: ‘God commanded it.  I believe it.  That settles it.’  God can do no moral wrong.  His judgments are always just.  This was also the view of Aquinas and Calvin.

Objection: This theory tends to drive a wedge between God’s justice and our perceptions of what is just.  How can we imitate God, if his ways sometimes seem so ungodlike?

4. Progressive revelation.  According to this view, God works differently over time.  He may have commanded the slaughter of innocent people in the past, but then changed his approach.  The warrior God is now the God of peace.

Objection: If God’s moral and ethical will can change so drastically, then this raises serious questions about his immutability.

According to a ‘softer’ view of this approach, God’s revelation in the Old Testament was accommodated to people’s (limited) ability to understand him and his ways.  They thought that he had commanded certain things which, with the coming of his fuller revelation in Christ, are now known to have been wrong.

Objection: There is an implicit Marcionism in this view.  Moreover, it fails to reckon with the fact that some of the most explicit denunciations of violence are found in the Old Testement (e.g. Isa 1:10-17; Prov 21:7), whereas some of the most violence language appears in the New Testament (e.g., in its teaching about hell and future judgment).

5. Hyperbole.  Proponents of this view urge that ancient accounts of warfare routinely used exaggerated language.  Even today, a victorious football team might claim that they ‘destroyed’ their opponents when, in fact, no physical injuries were sustained at all.  This approach asks us to pay attention to culture and literary genre.

David Instone-Brewer adopts this view, adding that Israel’s rules of engagement were more humane than those of many other nations.

Objection: Even if the Old Testament language of warfare is exaggerated, there is probably still a significant degree of actual violence behind it.

6. Projection.  Proponents of this view deny that God perpetrated or commanded violence.  But people thought that he did; they projected their own violence onto God.

Objection: This interpretation is open to the charge of cultural imperialism.  ‘It assumes that ancient people were simply more violent than us, and implicitly asks us to turn a blind eye to our own violence.’  Under this view, moreover, there is no limit to the claims that the ancients were mistaken (e.g. about miracles, or that God speaks to humans).

7. Mystery.  God’s ways are past finding out.  Don’t even try to reconcile the Bible’s teaching about divine violence and divine love.

Objection: This view can lead to theological laziness, a retreat into the belief that God’s ways are largely hidden from us.

8. Cruciform revelation.  All previous revelations of God must been interpreted in the definitive revelation of the cross of Christ.  Here is the final statement of God’s character, our response to violence and our towards enemies.

Objection: This approach diminishes and relativises the rest of the Bible’s witness to God.

Matthew Lynch suggests a ‘mix and match’ approach.  He favours 4, 5 and 7 (with a touch of 8).  But, he warns, adopting an ‘approach’ only gets us to the base of the mountain: we still need to negotiate the route itself.

Lynch, Matthew J. Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God. InterVarsity Press.