Ezine Test

Q1 2020.
INSIGHT
Theology | Ideas | People | Updates from Belfast Bible College
Featuring:
Meet Dr Joy Allan
God Commanding Violence? by Dr William Ford

PAGE 2
THE PRINCIPAL’S PAGE
WHERE WE ARE AT?
Helen Warnock
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illenda ndaessitat magnimu sapiendem earum
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rioruptatur?
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veriatiam.
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dis quiam nes doluptatem audi nonsecu sandaecte
volorpo repratem ressint ipsam et ea
invellesciis ut aut resed mod que volorposa
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illenda ndaessitat magnimu sapiendem earum
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aut dolesti qui del mos dolorio temporume
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des ut vel et expliti oreprem conse perum voleniam,
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ut lis el iusciis modit aut et aspicaero mib.

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INTRODUCING JOY
AN INTERVIEW WITH
OUR NEWEST LECTURER.
We have had the pleasure of getting to know Dr Joy Allan over the past
semester and we thought it was about time you got to meet her as
well.
Click on image to play video - this will open a new page in your browser.

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ARTICLE
GOD COMMANDING VIOLENCE?
Dr William Ford
At Christmas, we remember the birth of one described
as the ‘prince of peace’. We read in the
gospels how he taught us to turn the other cheek
and love our enemies, before demonstrating this in
an amazing display of love by dying on the cross.
Elsewhere in the Bible, however, we come across
passages that portray God in a rather different
way: either commanding or carrying out acts of violence.
How do we read and understand these passages
as part of the revelation of the God of love?
This is a difficult question, and one that has bothered
Christians from the early church to the present
day. The events of 9/11 and subsequent acts of terror
linked to religious causes have magnified this
issue for both Christians and non-Christians. As a
result, we need to have some response to the question,
both to strengthen our own faith and as an answer
to the questions of others.
The very basic response to the question of how we
read these passages is that we need to read and
understand them better as part of the Bible and
its message. While there is no ‘silver bullet’ that removes
the problem completely, there are ways to
make better sense of each difficult passage as we
look at them. As an example, we will look briefly at
the conquest of Canaan as one particularly difficult
set of passages where God seems to command extreme
violence. We will look at two ways to read it
better: by paying attention to genre and to wider
biblical context.
Genre
The Bible is full of different types or genres of material:
laws, stories, poetry, prophecy and so on. To
understand a passage properly, we need to know
how to read and understand its genre.
The conquest is commanded primarily in Deuteronomy,
which has the style of a sermon. It exhorts
the Israelites to do whatever is necessary to carry
out the first commandment - to show total loyalty to
God in the land that he is giving to them. As part of
this, Deuteronomy uses high-powered rhetorical images
to motivate the Israelites. The Canaanites who
dwell in the land are portrayed as a great danger
to Israel’s relationship with God due to their idolatrous
worship practices in the land. Therefore, Israel
must remove that danger by destroying the Canaanites
(and particularly their worship) from the land.
Conversely, if Israel give in to this danger and follow
the Canaanites’ idolatry, then Israel will also be
destroyed from the land. In Deuteronomy this kind
of ‘destruction’ refers to being removed from the
land as a people group, rather than the killing of
every man, woman and child. As an example, Deuteronomy
7:1-2 seems to suggest that the Canaanites
should all be wiped out, but verse 3 commands
the Israelites not to marry Canaanites. If verses 1-2
are understood literally, there is no need for verse
3. (There is no danger of marrying corpses!)
The conquest is portrayed primarily in Joshua chapters
1-12. This includes material that has been described
as ‘ancient war journal’ in style. One characteristic
of this material is that it uses hyperbole
(exaggeration to make a point). When we read
about the total slaughter of the Canaanites, this is
probably an exaggerated way of describing highly
successful military campaigns. This exaggeration
is not deceitful, because the initial readers would
have known what it meant. (For example, imagine
that I was describing a football game and said,
“We slaughtered them!” Hopefully you would understand
me to be describing an emphatic victory
(say 5-0), rather than the killing of the members of
the other team.) As an example, passages like Joshua
10:40 seem to suggest that the Canaanites were
completely wiped out. However, in Joshua 13:1 God
tells Joshua that much of the land remains to be taken.
(This implies that there are still a lot of Canaanites
left.)

PAGE 4
ARTICLE
In summary, both Deuteronomy and Joshua use
powerful imagery as part of their style. Their focus
is not the killing of individuals, but rather that Israel
should trust and obey the LORD their God in all
matters in the land. Reading either book without realising
this could lead to an over-literalistic misreading,
similar to misunderstanding my football story as
a literal bloodbath and calling the police!
Biblical context
To understand a biblical passage correctly, we
need to read it in wider context. This includes reading
and understanding it within the wider Bible. If
we look at the conquest in wider biblical context,
we notice a number of things that can help us to understand
it better.
The conquest is a one-off event in a very specific
situation (the entry into the Promised Land). These
commands are not a general principle of how
the people of God are to behave towards others.
Therefore, these passages should never be understood
as a justification for Christians to attack or
mistreat others. (Sadly, these passages have been
misused this way through the ages.)
This one-off event is part of the wider Old Testament
story of God’s relationship with Israel. As
God’s chosen people Israel are special, and the
story is focussed on them, not on the Canaanites.
However, the ultimate purpose of God choosing
Israel is not just about Israel. This choosing starts
with the promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) which
ends with the promise that ‘all peoples on earth will
be blessed through you’. We see this fulfilled ultimately
in the New Testament as Jesus, the descendant
of Abraham, dies for the world and rises again
to bring salvation to all.
Furthermore, because Israel are chosen and the Canaanites
are not, this does not mean that Israel can
do whatever they like, or that the Canaanites are
doomed whatever they do. Throughout the Bible,
we see that God acts with both justice and mercy.
If Israel act like the Canaanites, they will be treated
like the Canaanites and be destroyed from the
land. God warns them of this in Deuteronomy 8:19-
20, and this takes place centuries later in the exile
to Babylon. In 2 Kings 21 God announces the exile,
because King Manasseh and his people have acted
worse than the Amorites (aka Canaanites) did
(verses 11-15).
However, while God shows justice, he shows mercy
even more. Israel did not deserve the land in the
first place, even if the Canaanites had acted wickedly
(Deuteronomy 9:4-6). They did not deserve to
return to the land after the exile (Ezekiel 36:22-32).
This is all due to God’s mercy to a continually sinful
people. This mercy is not just for Israel, but also for
the Canaanites. In the book of Joshua, we see two
groups of Canaanites who want to side with Israel’s
God: Rahab and the Gibeonites (Joshua 2 & 9).
Both are accepted even though, like Israel, they do
not deserve it. In other words, any Canaanite in the
conquest who turns to God is accepted. In the conquest,
as in the rest of the Bible, God holds out both
justice and mercy. Under God’s justice, every human
being (Israelites, Canaanites and us) deserves destruction.
Yet, under God’s mercy, every human being
who seeks him (Israelites, Canaanites and us) is
spared that destruction.
Conclusion
We have seen briefly how reading the conquest
passages carefully can help us to understand them
better. It does not remove the problem totally, but it
can help us to read them as part of scripture. Paying
attention to matters such as genre and context
can help with other difficult passages, and are important
for understanding all passages, not just the
difficult ones.
If you are interested in finding out more about understanding
biblical passages better, there are various
things that you could do. There are a number
of books that deal with difficult passages. If you
want to learn more in general about how to read
the Bible better, I will be teaching an evening class:
‘Deeper into Scripture’ starting on 21 January 2020.
You are warmly invited to attend.
[A couple of accessible books that deal with the
wider issue of God and violence (including the conquest)
are Chris Wright The God I Don’t Understand,
and Helen Paynter God of Violence Yesterday, God
of Love Today? A couple of more detailed books on
the conquest are Walton & Walton The Lost World
of the Conquest, and Copan & Flannagan Did God

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COURSES
CURRENT COURSES
Over the past few years we have had quite a number of changes to the
courses that we offer. So to keep you up to date here’s our current offer.
BA(HONS) PROGRAMME
This undergraduate programme has now been running
for 10 years and is the course which forms
the core of the teaching for the College. We are in
the process of revalidation which means that we’re
making updates to enhance what we offer....
GRAD DIPLOMA
This undergraduate programme has now been running
for 10 years and is the course which forms
the core of the teaching for the College. We are in
the process of revalidation which means that we’re
making updates to enhance what we offer....
MA THEOLOGY
WSF
This undergraduate programme has now been running
for 10 years and is the course which forms
the core of the teaching for the College. We are in
the process of revalidation which means that we’re
making updates to enhance what we offer....
EVENING CLASSES
This undergraduate programme has now been running
for 10 years and is the course which forms
the core of the teaching for the College. We are in
the process of revalidation which means that we’re
making updates to enhance what we offer....
This undergraduate programme has now been running
for 10 years and is the course which forms
the core of the teaching for the College. We are in
the process of revalidation which means that we’re
making updates to enhance what we offer....

PAGE 5
thoughts. 1
In Mark’s account of Jesus feeding the five
thousand (6:30-44) he records that the people
sat down in groups on the green grass, a detail
often passed over when the story is read
here in Northern Ireland where we expect
grass to be green – what else would it be? In
much of the world, however, the grass is not
always or even usually green. In Kenya, where
I worked for a number of years, the grass was
brown for much of the year and such a detail
had a significance – green grass indicated
that rains had come and the fact that the rains
had come suggested a good harvest and
food for the coming year.
Of course, when we read the account of Jesus
feeding the five thousand we are not reading
about events in Northern Ireland or in Kenya
but in Israel. So, to understand the significance
of the comment about the green grass, we
need to understand the context of the Middle
East where the grass is usually green in the
spring and then dries up. The reference to the
green grass would suggest to someone familiar
with the geography of the area that the
feeding of the five thousand occurred in the
spring time.
The different understandings of a detail such
as the reference to ‘green grass’ show how
context is important for understanding. Reading
the gospels we need to be aware that the
events described happened in a very different
context to the one which we are living in today.
To understand the gospel texts more fully
and more accurately we need to dig into the
context of the surrounding culture and history
– and so avoid misreading … context is important
for accurate reading and understanding.
Written by Dr Karen Fulton - New Testament
Lecturer
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