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Yahweh is a Warrior

Posted Monday, October 29, 2007 by Charlie Trimm
Categories: Military Issues
This is another helpful introduction, this time as to how a pacifist can read the OT. Millard Lind, a Mennonite, sees the Exodus as the primary event in relation to war in the OT. The patriarchs are presented as peace loving people, so that means J was probably done during a time of weakness, such as the time of the Judges. The Exodus was a great and powerful act of God that influenced all the rest of history. The Israelites did not do anything, but simply trusted God, who worked a miracle and killed the Egyptians. This sets a pattern which Lind sees as foundational: God does the miracle, and the Israelites need only to trust him. When there is fighting, the fighting only occurs after the victory has already been won.
The kingship is the great downfall of Israel, since it involved (with David) the rise of standing army and "wise men," but declined to trust Yahweh like they used to. Daniel continues on the tradition as he should: Yahweh acts and his people trust, in contrast to the fighting Maccabees. Jesus also continues this tradition, in contrast to the zealots. The point for us today, although it is not stated as such, is that Christians should not fight, but only trust God, who will do a great act.
A central problem with the book is that Lind ignores texts that do not fit his thesis. A key text is the battle with the Amorite kings, which do not involve miracle, but are clearly pre-monarchic. He says that they are relevant to his point, but they seem to me to directly go against his point.
He assumes critical scholarship throughout the work (there is a foreword written by David Noel Freedman), although he does argue strongly for the historicity of the Exodus, since he sees that as historically foundational for Israel's view of war.
I appreciate much of what Lind argues for: God is indeed the divine warrior. But I don't see it solving as many problems. First, there are just too many battles where the Israelites do indeed fight. Second, even if God is the one doing the miracle, he is still killing people. As I read somewhere that I don't remember: regardless of who killed them, there are still dead Egyptians on the shore. Do pacifists serve a violent God?

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