War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence

Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008 by Charlie Trimm
Categories: Old Testament; Military Issues
Susan Niditch wrote this book as an attempt to describe the complex attitudes toward war in the Old Testament. Instead of taking a developmental approach as many do, she instead sees seven different ways war is viewed in the OT and thinks that these views often coexisted. She helpfully categorizes several ways that war is viewed in the OT, although I wouldn't necessarily agree with all of her examples and shades of meaning. She writes from a mixture of postmodern where she enjoys seeing diversity and allowing everyone their view along with the modernist historical-critical view. She also seems to work with the presupposition that all warfare is bad, and perhaps even that all violence is bad.

The first view of war: ban as sacrifice. The enemies are killed in toto because God delights in human sacrifice. She follows some OT scholars who believe that human sacrifice was practiced in ancient Israel, even though the "winners" who wrote the OT did not approve of it. The sacrifices are valued highly by those banning because God wants only the best, which explains why they can keep the spoils of war even when they kill the people. Mesha seems to use the word this way. Niditch views this as a way for people to get God to do something: they would dedicate the best to God if he would give them victory. The parade example is Jephthah, who makes this vow before he goes to battle. There is no mention of justice in these texts.
The next topic is ban as the justice of God. In this view, the enemy is depersonalized and viewed as worthy of the justice of God for some deed they have done. Instead of viewing them highly as in the previous, here they are viewed as sinful and worthy of death. Hence, the ban is justified because the people under ban deserve to be killed. Achan is the parade example here, as well as the texts which discuss their sinfulness. Those under ban are unclean. This view is based on the covenant. Another example of this view is the Deuteronomic version of the attack on Sihon. She says the author of Judges implicitly argues against this view in the story of Benjamin.
The third view is based on Numbers 31, the battle with Midian. The Israelites are to revenge what Midian did to them. One major difference here is that the young virgin women are to be kept alive, because the males are the center of society and a woman is marked permanently after sexual relations. Hence, there is greater attention paid to what is unclean and clean among the enemy. One last difference is that the warriors are to be purified after the battle because they killed in the battle. Does this imply that killing deflies? Is war not that holy after all?
The fourth view is the bardic stories about warrior which focus on the stories about war which focus on the warriors. They go to war for glory. These are seen more prominently in the might men of David stories. The battle between the twelve men of Abner and Joab is called sport in the text, illustrating this view. A sort of just-war thinking is beginning, with attention paid to non-combatants and fairness in battle.
The fifth view is that of the trickster, the underdog who has to resort to guerrilla warfare to win. Examples of this are seen in the attack on Shechem, the story of Ehud, Jael, and Samson. Many of these stories are connected with sexual themes as well. The enemy deserves to die because they are the oppressor.
The sixth view is the opposite of the fifth: war as an expedient measure. The oppressor can can attack at will because they are stronger, and so they use war to their own advantage. This war is total war because the war needs to end quickly, so there are no just war measures during the war (think Sherman's march to the sea). The attack of Abimelech in Judges 9 and the Danites are examples. Another example is the total killing by David of those he attacked while working for the Philistines so that they did not talk. The killing of the Edomites by Joab and the Moabites by David after battles are more examples. Niditch thinks that the Chronicler subtly argues against this view by means of changing the story to remove those aspects.
The last view is the one that Niditch likes the best: non-participation. This is still short of non-violence, since non-participation in the OT is usually accomplished by God performing a miracle and killing the people directly. These are the texts on which Millard Lind bases his view, such as the Exodus. There are critiques of violence in Genesis 49 of the attack on Shechem and in Amos 1-2 of the violence done by the nations. This view is a late view which comes to clearer view in Chronicles.

Series: Book Reviews
The Gods of the Nations, by Daniel Block
Hebrew Poetry and Robert Alter
Creation According to Sailhamer
The Rise of Evangelicalism	Random book reviews from Charlie
Old Testament Theology Devotionals
The Dominance of Evangelicalism: The Age of Spurgeon and Moody
Rethinking Missions with Steve Saint
Neither Poverty nor Riches
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind II
Going Places with God
A God Entranced Vision of All Things
The Meaning of Jesus: Borg versus Wright
Military History and Christianity: Do they mix?
Wright and Borg, Part 3
The Mosaic of Christian Belief
Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology
The Problem of War in the Old Testament
God is a Warrior
Holy War in Ancient Israel, by Gerhard von Rad
Yahweh is a Warrior
Is There A Meaning in This Text
Faithful Intepretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World
Engaging Scripture
Does the Bible Justify Violence?
Reading Scripture with the Church
A History of Christian Thought, Volume 1
The Darker Side of Samuel, Saul and David
War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence
Golden Compass Trilogy
Israelite Religions, Richard Hess
The Mission of God
Biblical Interpretation: Then and Now
Life in Biblical Israel
Biblical Theology
Reading and Preaching the Bible in the Worship of the Church 3
Theological Introduction to the Psalms
The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature