Wrestling with Troubling War Texts
WILLIAM J. WEBB
GORDON K. OESTE
An imprint of InterVarsity Press
Downers Grove, Illinois
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
©2019 by William J. Webb and Gordon K. Oeste
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges, and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Cover design and image composite: David Fassett
Images: black marble texture: © yokeetod / iStock / Getty Images Plus
ISBN 978-0-8308-5249-9 (print)
ISBN 978-0-8308-7073-8 (digital)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Webb, William J., 1957- author. | Oeste, Gordon K., author.
Title: Bloody, brutal, and barbaric? : wrestling with troubling war texts / William J. Webb, Gordon K. Oeste.
Description: Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019029417 (print) | LCCN 2019029418 (ebook) | ISBN 9780830852499 (paperback) | ISBN 9780830870738 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: War—Biblical teaching. | War—Religious aspects—Christianity.
Classification: LCC BS680.W2 W43 2019 (print) | LCC BS680.W2 (ebook) | DDC 220.8/35502—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029417
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019029418
a friend whose war ethic captures
the spirit of Amos.
Preface: The Story Behind the Book
Introduction: Rethinking Holy War Texts
PART 1: HARD QUESTIONS: GENOCIDE AND WAR RAPE
1 Slaughtering Children? Grabbing Virgins?
PART 2: TRADITIONAL ANSWERS: GOOD FOR BIG-PICTURE, STORY-LINE QUESTIONS
2 Where Traditional Answers Do Not Work
3 Where Traditional Answers Do Work
PART 3: BETTER ANSWERS: BETTER FOR QUESTIONS ABOUT GENOCIDE AND WAR RAPE
4 Reading the Bible Redemptively
5 War Rape, Part One: The Ugly Side
6 War Rape, Part Two: The Redemptive Side
8 Total-Kill Hyperbole, Part One: ANE Warfare
9 Total-Kill Hyperbole, Part Two: Joshua and Judges
10 Arguments Against Hyperbole
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About Bloody, Brutal and Barbaric?: Wrestling with Troubling War TextsChristians cannot ignore the intersection of religion and violence, whether contemporary or ancient. In our own Scriptures, war texts that appear to approve of genocidal killings and war rape—forcibly taking female captives for wives—raise hard questions about biblical ethics and the character of God. Have we missed something in our traditional readings? In Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? William Webb and Gordon Oeste address the ethics of reading biblical war texts today. Theirs is a biblical-theological reading with an eye to hermeneutical, ethical, canonical, and ancient cultural contexts. Identifying a spectrum of views on war texts ranging from “no ethical problems” to “utterly repulsive,” the authors pursue a middle path using a hermeneutic of incremental, redemptive-movement ethics. Instead of trying to force traditional Christian answers to fit contemporary questions, they argue, we must properly connect the traditional answers with the biblical storyline questions that were on the minds of Scripture’s original readers. And there are indeed better answers to the ethical problems in the war texts. Woven throughout the Old Testament, a collection of antiwar and subversive war texts suggest that Yahweh’s involvement in Israel’s warfare required some degree of accommodation to people living in a fallen world. Yet, God’s redemptive influence even within the ugliness of ancient warfare shouts loudly about a future hope—a final battle fought with complete and untainted justice by Christ. |
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