Greg Boyd’s ‘conundrum’ is addressed in two books – the longer The Crucifixion of the Warrior God and the shorter (but still substantial) Cross Vision.  It is the latter of these two books that I am currently working through.  But it is the Introduction to the former that contains a succinct statement of the ‘condundrum’ that motivated the writing of both books:

‘How are we to reconcile the God revealed in Christ, who chose to die for his enemies rather than to crush them, with the many OT portraits of Yahweh violently smiting his enemies?

‘How are we to reconcile the God revealed in Christ, who made swearing off violence a precondition for being considered a “child of your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:45), with the portraits of Yahweh commanding his followers to slaughter every man, woman, child, and animal in certain regions of Canaan (e.g., Deut 7:2, 20:16–20)?

‘How are we to reconcile the God revealed in Christ, who with his dying breath prayed for the forgiveness of his tormenters (Luke 23:34) and who taught his disciples to forgive “seven times seventy” (Matt 18:21–22), with the OT’s portraits of God threatening a curse on anyone who extended mercy toward enemies (Jer 48:10; cf. Deut 7:2, 16; 13:8; 19:13)?

‘And how can we possibly reconcile the God revealed in Christ, who expressed profound love for children, promising blessings on all who treated them well and pronouncing warnings for all who might harm them (Luke 18:15–17; Matt 10:42, 18:6–14), with the OT portrait of God bringing judgment on his people by having parents cannibalize their own children (Lev 26:28–29; Jer 19:7, 9; Lam 2:20; Ezek 5:9–10)?

‘Because Jesus affirmed the inspiration of the OT, I cannot agree with the many today who argue that we must simply reject such violent portraits of God, even though I cannot disagree with their claim that some of these portraits “strike us as sinister and evil.” Yet, because I believe that Jesus reveals an agape-centered, other-oriented, enemy-embracing God who opposes all violence, and because I have become convinced that the New Testament (NT) presents Jesus as the revelation that surpasses all others, I also can no longer agree with many of my fellow Evangelicals who insist that we must simply embrace these violent divine portraits as completely accurate revelations of God alongside the revelation we are given in Christ.

‘I am thus caught between the Scylla of Jesus’s affirmation of the OT as divinely inspired and the Charybdis of his nonviolent revelation of God. This is the conundrum that motivated me—that forced me—to write this two-volume work. With Jerome Creach and many others, I am convinced that resolving the conundrum created by the OT’s violent portraits of God constitutes “one of the greatest challenges the church faces today.”

(xxviii – xxviv, reformatted)