Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Peter Enns

Home
About
Books
Articles & Essays
Upcoming Events
Archives
Inspiration and Incarnation
- Book Summary
- Endorsements
- The Audience of I&I
- I&I and the Authority of Scripture
- NPR Interview
- I&I and Inerrancy
- Responding to Critics
- Interactions with Bruce Waltke
  - My response to the Introduction of Bruce Waltke’s surrejoinder to my response above.
  - Bruce Waltke’s Revisiting Inspiration and Incarnation.
- A Response to Richard Pratt
  - Pratt 2
  - Pratt 3
  - Pratt 4
  - Pratt 5
- I&I and Westminster Theological Seminary
  - I&I and the Westminster Confession of Faith
  - My Response from the Westminster Theological Journal (Spring 2009)
- Christianity Today Coverage
Science, Faith, and Inerrancy

Home
Evangelical
biblical violence and reading the Bible like Jesus did

biblical violence and reading the Bible like Jesus did

Last updated on: December 3, 2014 at 9:11 am by Peter Enns

biblical violence and reading the Bible like Jesus did 2014-12-03T09:11:59-04:00 Peter Enns

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today’s post is an interview with Derek Flood, author of Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives, and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did, which has just been released this week.

The book deals with the problem of violence in Scripture, tackling a wide range of troubling passages—from commands to commit genocide and infanticide in the Old Testament to passages in the New Testament that have been used to justify slavery, child abuse, and state violence. Flood is also author of Healing the Gospel: A Radical Vision for Grace, Justice, and the Cross. His blog is The Rebel God and he also blogs at Red Letter Christians, Sojourners, and the Huffington Post.

Flood argues that learning to read Scripture like Jesus did will move us beyond typical conservative and liberal approaches, which seek to either defend or whitewash violence in the Bible.

Many Christians struggle with the Bible’s violent passages and commands, especially in the Old Testament. They ask, “How can I believe in a God who orders people to commit genocide or women to be taken in as sex slaves?” Where do you start to address these objections?

There’s often an assumption that these are the objections of atheists, and so the Christian response needs to be to defend the Bible. My own experience, however, was that the more time I spent with Jesus, the more I got to really understand his heart for the lost, the more troubled I became at the violence in Scripture—particularly human violence in God’s name. In other words, the problem I had with violence in the Bible was not a result of a weak faith, but the result of growing deeper in my faith. It was the result of a mature faith.

Still, I felt a conflict because I was questioning my own sacred Scripture. What I discovered as I began to dig into this though was that exactly that kind of questioning was all over the Bible. We find it in the psalmist’s complaints, in the prophets, in Job, in Ecclesiastes, and following in that same line of faithful questioning so characteristic of the Hebrew Bible, we also find that questioning in the name of compassion continued in Jesus and Paul.

So what I would want to say to those who are struggling, wrestling, questioning with violence in the Bible is that you are in some very good company, and that the biblical canon itself invites us, calls us to question. So what I try to demonstrate in my book, looking at the examples of both Paul and Jesus is that we don’t need to stop questioning. Rather, we need to learn to do it well so it leads us to love better and grow closer to Jesus. That’s what faithfulness looks like

Some would object here that since we as humans have a fallen nature, our sense of morality is broken. So how can we question the Bible? Shouldn’t we let the Bible decide what is right or wrong?

The choice is not so much between our fallen morality and the Bible, but between our fallen and limited morality and our fallen and limited interpretation of the Bible. In other words, everything we do goes through our broken lens—including our interpretation of Scripture. So rather than shutting down our brains and conscience as we read, we need to instead learn to read with our hearts and minds fully engaged.

That of course is not a guarantee that we will get everything right. We won’t. That’s a reality that we need to face as adults. But the reality is that when we read the text blindly in a “the Bible said it, that settles it” unquestioning kind of way, we are virtually guaranteed to get it wrong. As evidence for this we just need to look at the long history of how people have used Scripture to justify all sorts of atrocities and hurt.

Questioning is good. Questioning is an act of faith. To not question is dangerous because it means shutting down our conscience, and history shows over and over that really terrible things happen when people do that.

Also I’d want to point out the fact that the Bible—and in particular the Old Testament—is simply not one single view. It contains a multitude of conflicting views, from different authors in different times with different beliefs. For example, some parts of the Old Testament teach that foreigners are corrupting and should be expelled or killed, other parts say in contrast that they should be sheltered and treated with compassion.

That’s just one example of a pattern that we find over and over again in the OT. We don’t find a single view, but a record of dispute with differing understandings of what faithfulness looks like, side by side within the Hebrew canon. That reality means that we must choose between these conflicting views. To do that we need to think, to question, to wrestle.

That kind of questioning is typical of Jewish biblical interpretation—after all, the very name “Israel” literally means “wrestles with God.” It is also something we see Jesus doing constantly (which is not surprising since he was Jewish). Yet for some reason we Christians have been taught to think that questioning is bad, that it is a threat to the faith rather than a way to strengthen it. In fact, there is a history of branding those who question as “heretics” and seeking to use violence to silence them.

That’s tragic because it means we lose the art of encountering the text morally when we forbid questioning and conscience. If we want to read Scripture as Scripture we must learn to engage it morally.

What do you make of the places where Jesus seems to affirm God’s violent judgment in the New Testament? For example, Jesus “predicts” the violent end of Jerusalem and seems to be fine with it. How would you respond to that?

Well, first, I’d want to clarify that when you say Jesus did not have a problem with it, what this means is that he did not see a conflict in calling us to a life of radical forgiveness and enemy-love while at the same time affirming God’s judgment for those who instead follow in the way of violence. That of course does not mean that Jesus was okay with people’s suffering. It says, Jesus “wept” over Jerusalem.

In seeking to understand this, it’s critical not to miss the big picture. That is, many of us today struggle so much with this understanding of God’s judgment that we can miss the radical shift that is taking place in regards to the NT’s message of how we humans are to live—the huge move of the NT away from the idea that justice comes through human acts of violence.

That was the common assumption at the time—they believed God’s kingdom came through people killing in God’s name. This was why the people expected the messiah to come as a violent warrior-king. We find human violence in God’s name affirmed throughout the Old Testament, too—for example in the divine commands for people to commit genocide.

So there is an absolutely huge shift taking place in rejecting the idea of humans killing others in God’s name. The NT rejects that way and calls followers of Jesus to a life of forgiveness and enemy-love. So what we have here is agreement within the NT in proclaiming that our way as followers of Jesus is a way of radical forgiveness and enemy-love, as opposed to the way of violence in God’s name.

There is, however, within the NT diversity in how we are to live out that way of Jesus. In some NT writers (for example Matthew’s depiction of Jesus as opposed to the other Gospels) we see a belief in God’s judgment as integral to our following in the way of Jesus—similar perhaps to Miroslav Volf who insists “the practice of nonviolence requires the belief in God’s vengeance.” Elsewhere in the NT we find a different view of God expressed, but again the same focus in our need to act in compassion and enemy love.

What this means is that rather than one way, we find a conversation in the NT about how to live out the way of Jesus. This invites us to enter into that conversation, too. That means that we need to work out what it means to love our enemies today, what it means to care for the poor, how we can resolve conflicts, work for justice, and so on.

The bottom line here is that Jesus demonstrates a way of questioning the cultural and religious assumptions of his time in order to pull people towards greater love. To read Scripture in our time like Jesus did requires that we learn to ask those same kinds of questions—questioning ourselves, our culture, and our religious assumptions, including our assumptions of how we read the Bible.

The goal in all of this is to read Scripture in a way that leads to greater love. We don’t get there by shutting down our brains and conscience, but by fully engaging them as we read.

Derek Flood

Disarming Scripture

violence of God

Previous Post

December 2, 2014

God likes stories, and science agrees

Next Post

December 3, 2014 10 New Testament passages that shape how I think about God

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "aha" moments "The Bible" on the History Channel 1 Corinthians 10:4 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 1 John 1 Peter 3:15 1 Timothy 5:19 1st Advent 2001 World Series 9/11 A Beka Books A Long Faithfulness A More Christlike God A Year of Biblical Womanhood A. J. Jacobs Abraham abuse of power academic freedom Acts 10 Adam Adam and biblical genealogies Addison Hodges Hart adjunct teaching adolescent sexual purity aesthetics age of the earth Al Groves Al Mohler Alan Millard Albert Einstein Alberta Alex Rodriguez Allah American Sniper Ana Greene Andrew Louth Andrew T. Lincoln Andrew Wilson Andy Gill anger animal suffering announcement Anthony le Donne Antony Flew apologetics Apostles of Reason Are You Waiting for "The One"? Aren Maeir atheism Augustine author interview Babylonian exile Back to Red Balaam son of Beor Barack Obama Barnes and Noble Bart Campolo Bart Ehrman baseball Becoming Divine Becoming Who You Are belief in God belligerence Benedictine spirituality Benefit of the Doubt Berry Friesen best of 2014 Bethlehem Between Heaven and Mirth BIble Bible and Ancient Near East Bible and diversity Bible and History Bible and imagination BIble and myth Bible and politics Bible and science Bible and social sciences Bible and women Bible as Story Bible Curriculum Bible difficulties Bible wars Biblica biblical archaeology biblical authority biblical canon biblical contradictions biblical criticism biblical genealogies biblical Greek biblical historiography biblical inspiration biblical interpretation biblical lifespans biblical literalism biblical prophecy biblical theology biblicism bibliogian Big History Project Bill Gates Bill Nye binding of Isaac BioLogos birth of Jesus blog commenting blog comments blogging Bob Jones University Press Bohannon fundraiser book proposals book publishing book reviews Born of a Virgin? Brad Jersak Branch Davidians Brandon Ambrosino Brandon Withrow Brene Brown Brevard Childs Brian McLaren Broken Word Bruce Glass Bryan College bunny theology BuzzFeed Byzantium C. H. Dodd C. John Collins C. S. Lewis Caesar Is Not Calvin and Hobbes Calvin College Calvinism camel domestication Canaan Canaanite genocide Canaanite religion Carl Sagan Carlos Bovell Carolyn Custis James Cedarville University certainty chain saws Changing Faith Charles Halton Charleston shooting Chasing Francis Chasing the Wind Chicago Cubs Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Choon-Leong Seow Chris Christie Chris Keith Chris Tilling Christian America Christian apologetics Christian blogging Christian colleges Christian family Christian humanitarian efforts Christian leadership Christian liberty Christian Life Christian nation Christian persecution Christian Smith Christian Taliban Christian-Muslim dialogue Christianity and art Christianity and evolution Christianity and Islam Christianity and politics Christianity Today ChristianMingle.com Christians and academia Christians and sex Christmas Christopher B. Ansberry Christopher M. Hays Christopher Rollston Christopher Southgate Christopher W. Skinner Christotelic interpretation Chuck DeGroat Church Fathers and scripture circumcision co-dependence Coffeehouse Theology cognitive dissonance Community Bible Experience compost pile conquest of Canaan Consider No Evil contemplative Christianity control cosmos counter testimony Craig Blomberg creation creationism Creative Trust Literary Group creeds and confessions crisis in Syria crisis of faith crocs with socks crucifixion CT shootings culture wars cycle of life D. Brent Sandy Dan Harrington Dan Haseltine Daniel E. Fleming Daniel Kirk Daniel Taylor dark night Darwin David G. Benner David Koresh David Opderbeck David Williams Death Before The Fall defending the Bible defending the faith Denis Alexander Denis Lamoureux denominationalism depth psychology Derek Flood Derek Jeter desert fathers Dick Vitale Did God Really Command Genocide? Dietrich Bonhoeffer Disarming Scripture Discerning the Mystery Disturbing Divine Behavior diverse portraits of God divided monarchy Divine Vintage Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? doctrinal inconsistency doctrine Documentary Hypothesis doubt dualistic thinking dying to self Early Church Easter Eastern Orthodoxy and the Bible Eastern University Eat With Joy Ecclesiastes Ed Cysewski election 2012 election 2016 empire criticism enlightenment Epic Fail Episcopal Church Eric Metaxas Eric Seibert Eucharist Evangelical biblical scholarship Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism evangelical scholarship Evangelical Theological Society Evangelicalism evangelicals and academia evangelicals and politics everything breathes evolution evolutionary creation Evolving in Monkey Town Excalibur exchanging the peace Exodus exodus and conquest Exodus: Gods and Kings experiencing God Ezekiel 37 Ezra 9-10 faculty firings Fail faith and certainty faith and intellect Faith and Reason faith and theology faith seeking understanding false self FAQs FarmVille fear figurative readings first Christian Bible first half of life Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy food and religion ForeWord Reviews forgiveness Found Four Views on the Historical Adam Fox News Francis of Assisi Francis Schaeffer Frank A. James III Frank Viola Frederica Mathewes-Green From Evolution to Eden From Fear to Faith fundamentalism fundamentalism and art future of evangelicalism Fuz Rana G. I. Williamson Galatians game theory garden of eden Gary A. Anderson Gary Burnett Geerhardus Vos gene pool genealogies of Jesus Genesis Genesis 1-11 Genesis 1-2 Genesis 1-3 Genesis 15:6 Genesis flood Genesis for Normal People Genesis: History Fiction or Neither genetic studies genetics Gentiles George Washington Gerd Thiessen German language Gilbert Gottfried Göbekli Tepe Temple God God and country God and sports God in the Dock God in Translation God's absence God's gender God's sovereignty God's Word in Human Words good news/euangelion Gospel of John Gospel of Luke Gospel of Mark GospelFutures GospelMemes Gospels granite Greg Cary Gregory A. Boyd Gregory of Nazianzus Gregory of Nyssa growth Haggai Half the Church Hans-Georg Gadamer Harold Heie Harvie Conn Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Hebrew Patriarchs helicopter parenting helpful hints Henri Nouwen Hermann Gunkel hermeneutics high school reunion Hippasus of Metapontum historical accuracy historical criticism historical Jesus Holy War in the Bible homeschooling homosexuality honesty How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian Hugh Ross humility humor and spirituality I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution Ian Morgan Cron immortality incarnation inerrancy Inspiration and Incarnation intellectual models Intelligent Design inter-religious dialogue interracial marriage intolerance introverts in church Irenaeus irrational numbers Isaiah Isaiah 17 Israel Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israelite history J. R. Briggs J. R. Daniel Kirk Jacob L. Wright James A. Sanders James Barr James D. G. Dunn James Flynn James Hoffmeier James K. A. Smith James Martin Jana Riess Jared Byas Jars of Clay Jeannine Brown Jeremy Begbie Jesus Jesus and the Old Testament Jesus as divine and human Jesus as messiah Jesus Is Lord Jesus scholarship Jesus' wife Jewish biblical interpretation Jimmy Greene Job Job 1-21 jobs in academia Joe Modica Joel Baden Joel Butler John 10:35 John 20:19-29 john byron John Calvin John Dickson John Dominic Crossan John Franke John Goldingay John K. Stoner John of the Cross John Oswalt John Piper John Schneider John Walton John Wesley Jon Stewart Jon. D. Levenson Jonathan Dudley Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Fitzgerald Joseph and his brothers Joshua Delusion journey Judah judgement free zone justice and righteousness justification by faith Justin Martyr Karl Giberson Kashi Ken Ham Kent Sparks Kevin Vanhoozer Kim Jong Un Kindergarten King David King David and His Reign Revisited kingdom of God/heaven Konrad Schmid Kurt Eichenwald lament land of Israel Larry Hurtado Law of Moses leadership leaving church Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places Legends of Genesis Leon Wieseltier Leonard Sweet Les Miserables Lesslie Newbigin letters from God literaliam literalism literary agents living in the questions Losing my Religion love love of God Love Wins Loveology Lucian Luke Norsworthy Luke Timothy Johnson Madonna and Child manners Marc Brettler Marcionism Margaret Kim Peterson Mariano Rivera Mark 2:23-27 Mark 3 Mark Noll Mark Roncace Mark S. Smith Mark Strauss Mark T. Edwards Martin Hengel Martin Luther Martin Luther King Marvin the Martian Mary Magdalene Matthew 18 Matthew Flannagan Megan DeFranza Menachem Wecker Mere Christianity Mesha Inscription messiah Messiah College Micha Boyett Michael Bird Michael Graves Michael Gungor Michael Halcomb Michael Hardin Michael Hidalgo Michael Moore Michael Pahl Michael Ruffin Michele Bachmann microbes midrash Miley Cyrus missiology Mitt Romney modernism Moises Silva Molly Worthen Monte Harrell Hampton Mora Downey morals and the arts Mother Teresa Mt. Hood my home office My Utmost for His Highest Myron Penner mythic membership consciousness N. T. Wright Nachmanides need for attention Neil degrasse Tyson Neil Williams neo-Calvinism new paradigms New Testament New Testament use of the Old Testament New Year New York Yankees Newsweek Newsworthy with Norsworthy Newtown Nicholas Wolterstorff no one likes Canada Noah (the movie) Noah and the flood Noah's ark NOMA Not Your Mother's Morals Obedience Old Testament Old Testament ethics Old Testament history Old Testament prophets Old Testament Theology Old Testament Turning Points Olive Branch Books online course Oprah Oral Tradition orality and the Bible oreos Origen original sin origins myths origins of the Old Testament Orthodox Presbyterian Church Oswald Chambers Owen Strachan pale blue dot Parker Palmer pastoral burnout Patterns of Evidence Paul Paul and the Faithfulness of God Paul Copan Peace Hill Press Pentateuch Pentecost Pete Enns Peter Drucker Peter Liethart Peter Rollins Peter Traben Haas Ph.D. job market Philippians 3:10 pilgrimage Planet Fitness politics postmodernism prayer Presbyterianism Priene Calendar Inscription problem of evil prodigal son professional Christian progressive evangelical theology Protestantism Proverbs Proverbs 26:4-5 Proverbs 26:7 Proverbs 26:9 Proverbs 31:10-31 Psalm 110 Psalm 82:6 Psalms psychotherapy public criticism Qumran Qur'an Rachel Held Evans Rachel Marie Stone Randal Rauser Randall Heskett Randy Hardman Raw Revelation Raymond B. Dillard Raymond E. Brown Reading Genesis 1-2 Reading John reading the Bible Really!?! rebuilding the temple reception history Red Letter Christians Reformation Reformed theology Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear religion religion and popular culture religious hostility respectful conversation respectful conversations resurrection resurrection accounts resurrection in the Old Testament retributive violence Reuel/Jethro Reza Aslan Richard Hess Richard Rohr Rick Perry Ridley Scott Rite I rival eschatology Rob Bell Rob Dalrymple Robert Yarbrough Robin A. Parry Roman empire and the New Testament Romans Romans 1:18 Romans 9:25-26 Ronald E. Osborn Ryan Miller sabbath breaking Sacred Word Sacred Word Broken Word Samaritans Samuel L. Jackson Samuel Miller Sandy Hook Sarah Moslener Sarah Palin satan Saving the Original Sinner scepticism science and faith science curricula science education Scot McKnight Searching for Sunday self-absorbed self-centered seminary senate blocks gun legislation Septuagint Sermon on the Mount Seven Glorious Days shame shameless self-promotion Simon Schama sin singing size of universe slippery slope Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting Solomon Soren Kierkegaard source criticism Southern Baptist Theological Seminary southern Presbyterians Spinoza spiritual formation spiritual memoir spirituality Spirituality and the Awakening Self St. Benedict St. Nicholas Stephen Jay Gould Stephen L. Young Stephen Lawhead Stephen Taylor Steve Moyise Steven Collins Steven Pressfield Storm of Words story storytelling Strangers and Pilgrims Once More suffering Sumerian King List Super Bowl supernova Surrender to Love Sylvia Keesmaat T. Michael Law talking about God teaching Bible to young Christians Ted Bobosh Telling God's Story Teresa of Avila textual criticism Thanksgiving The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary The Beauty of God The BIble and the Believer The Bible Made Impossible The Bible Tells Me So The Biblical Cosmos The Book of Common Prayer The Books of the Bible The Byrds The Civil War The Courage to Teach The Discarded Image The Drew Marshall Show The Early History of God The End of Apologetics The Episcopal Church and science The Evangelicals You Don't Know The Evolution of Adam The Future of Evangelicalism The Godfather the gospel The Gospel According to the Blues The Gospel Coalition The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society The Groaning of Creation The Historical David The Historical Jesus The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Anything The Jesus Driven Life The Jewish Study Bible The Last Battle The Liturgists Podcast The Lost World of Scripture The Old Testament: A Literary History The Oral Gospel Tradition the problem of Scripture The Prophetic Imagination The Rebel Jesus The Skeptical Believer The Story of the Jews The Twible The View The Violence of Scripture The War of Art The Wife of Jesus The Wonder of the Universe The Year of Living Biblically theistic evolution theological conflict theological diversity in the Bible theological interpretation theology Thomas Keating Thomas Merton Three-Legged Stool Thucydides Tim Keller Tim McCarver Todd Starnes Tom Krattenmaker Tony Campolo Toughest People to Love Toward the Other tradition transformation Tree of Life tree of the knowledge of good and evil Tremper Longman III tribalism trust in God Tullian Tchividjian Turn tweed in San Diego Unbelievable? Uncategorized uncertainty unfaithfulness of God Valentine's Day Victor Matthews violence of God Virgin Nation Walter Brueggemann Was the Birth of Jesus According to Scripture? water We Make the Road by Walking Wesleyan Quadrilateral western Christianity Westminster Theological Seminary What We Talk About When We Talk About God What? When God Spoke Greek William Dembski winemaking wisdom women and children as slaves women and the Bible women in ministry World Series worship wrath of God writer's block writing writing tips Yahweh young evangelicals young scholars and the internet Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth zero-sum game Zondervan Counterpoints Series Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary

Select a Month August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian group requires its members to serve as missionaries?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Baptists Anglicans Latter-day Saints