Old Testament violence: yes, let’s apply the hermeneutic of Jesus

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Christian writers of a certain stripe seem to be queueing up to say pretty much the same thing: the Old Testament contains texts that have repeatedly been used to legitimate violence in the form of colonialism, abuse of women, and genocide.  We should not ignore these texts, nor yet try to justify them.  We should see, rather, how they have been thoroughly subverted by the teaching and example of Jesus Christ.

One such writer is Eric Seibert, in The Violence of Scripture: Overcoming the Old Testament’s Troubling Legacy.…

Goldingay: the destruction of the Canaanites

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With regard to the parts of the Old Testament that record, encourage, or even command violence, a frequent response is that we should interpret them with a ‘Jesus hermeneutic’.  Trouble is, Jesus didn’t seem to find these accounts nearly so problematic as we do.

Distinguished Old Testament scholar John Goldingay (not exactly a dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist) puts it like this:-

‘Many modern people don’t like the way the book portrays Joshua’s leading Israel in killing many Canaanites, but there is no indication that the New Testament shares this modern unease.

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A legacy of violence?

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In his book Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives, and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did, Derek Flood claims that OT texts which represent God as encouraging, or even commanding, genocide ‘have been used repeatedly by Christians to justify genocides, beginning with the crusades and continuing up to present times.’

Flood mentions the Crusades, the killing by Oliver Cromwell of large numbers of Irish Catholics, the slaughter of many native Americans, and the killing of nearly a million Tutsies in the Rwandan genocide. …

How old is the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement?

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It is often thought (and taught) that the early church knew nothing of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.  This view seems to have been popularised by Gustav Aulen, in his celebrated book Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (trans. A. G. Hebert; New York: Collier, 1969 [1931]).  Aulen found mere ‘traces’ of this doctrine in the early fathers.

Many modern opponents of the doctrine of penal substitution tend to follow Aulen uncritically at this point: if this doctrine was not ‘discovered’ until about 500 years ago, how can its proponents claim that it provides an inescapable (possibly central) explanation of what God achieved in Christ?…

The wrath of God in the New Testament

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It is often assumed that the picture of God in the Old Testament is that of a wrathful despot, while the God of the New Testament is nothing but love.

This is seriously mistaken.  Not only does the OT have much to say about God’s love (see, for example, Deuteronomy 7:7,8; and Hosea 3:1; 14:4), the NT has rather a lot to say about god’s wrath.  Let Roger D. Campbell summarise for us:-

First of all, in the New Testament there are a number of verses which make direct reference to “the wrath of God.”
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How does the cross affect me?

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This is one of the questions posed and answered by Richard Bewes in his little book The Top 100 Questions.

Put slightly differently, the question is: What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ died ‘for’ me?

The most fundamental answer to this question, says Bewes, lies in the idea of ‘penal substitution’.  Christ was the only person qualified to take upon himself the penalty of separation from God (Romans 6:23), and he himself declared that he had come to give his life in the place of many (Mark 10:45).…

The 500 word manuscript

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I’ve written previously about the dangers and pitfalls of preaching from a full manuscript.  I recognise, too, the problems associated with preaching from no written notes at all.

I won’t go into either of these polarities again just at the moment.  But it leaves the question, how long should a preaching manuscript be?  I have found myself, in recent times, using either of two approaches:-

(a) preparing a Powerpoint presentation is precise and detailed enough to give me the prompts that I need, without recourse to any further notes.…

Understanding the plagues – can science help?

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In his book The Miracles of Exodus (Continuum, 2003), physicist Sir Colin Humphreys argues that a plausible scientific basis can be found for the plagues of Egypt, as recorded in Exodus 7-11.

This is not to suggest that they can be ‘explained away’ as merely natural phenomena.  Rather, accordingly to Humphreys’, the miraculous element lies in their timing and intensity, along with the fact that they were predicted.

Instone-Brewer (Science and the Bible: Insights For An Ancient Text) takes a similar line:

‘These plagues are not portrayed in the language of miracles, except with regard to their timing and their ferocity.

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How do we get from the Old Testament to Jesus?

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Allan Moseley poses seven questions that can help us to see how the Old Testament points to Jesus.

  1. Is the passage referred to in the New Testament?  For example, Habakkuk 2:3 is directly quoted in Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38.  Sometimes, however, the allusion is not so straightforward, as when, according to Matthew 2:23, it had been written ‘the prophets’ that Jesus would be called ‘a Nazarene’.
  2. Does the OT passage address a theme that is also addressed in the NT?
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What is ‘progressive Christianity’?

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A century ago, it was ‘liberal Christianity’ that was putting out its newer, kinder, more modern agenda for the Christian faith.  Around the time of the millenium (no, not that millenium, but the one we’ve already lived through) it was the Emerging Church that was seeking to free itself from the shackles of traditionalism.  Now, it seems, the most popular self-designation for those disenchanted with orthodoxy is ‘Progressive Christianity’ (PC).

As is the case with all these movements, PC is a bit difficult to pin down. …