the bible and violence the bible and violence the hebrew bible and the new testament both contain narratives, poems, and instructions which describe, encourage, command, condemn, reward, punish and regulate violent actions by god, individuals, groups, governments, and nation-states. among the violent acts included are war, human sacrifice, animal sacrifice, murder, rape, genocide, and criminal punishment.: introduction the texts have a history of interpretation within the abrahamic religions and western culture that includes both justification of and opposition to acts of violence. "the deluge" by gustave doré definition the definition of what constitutes violence has changed over time.: 1 in the twenty-first century, the definition has broadened considerably to include acts that used to be seen as acceptable.: 1–2 modern scholarship on violence in the bible tends to fall into two categories: those who use modern ethics to critique what they see as the violent legacy of monotheism, and those who approach the topic from a historical and cultural perspective.: 10–12 the bible reflects how perceptions of violence changed over time for its authors and its readers.: 261 biblical writers defined and interpreted violence in culturally specific terms based upon the values of the age in which they lived.: 3, 6 the biblical writers used their own themes, cultural explanations, and theological logic to define violence as a problem in four general categories. they define as violent anything that destroys the inter-relationship, interdependence and wholeness of life and its environment; they depict scheming, arrogant and dishonest speech, especially that aimed at oppressing the poor, as violent in its effect;: 3 violations of justice are defined as particularly egregious forms of violence in an early understanding of natural law; and violations of purity and sanctity are seen as a kind of violence that defiles the land, its people, and the sanctuary. it is accompanied by disgust on the part of the biblical writers.: 119–129, 251 terms part of a series on thebible canons and books tanakh torah nevi'im ketuvim old testament (ot) new testament (nt) deuterocanon antilegomena chapters and verses apocrypha jewish ot nt authorship and development authorship dating hebrew canon old testament canon new testament canon composition of the torah mosaic authorship pauline epistles petrine epistles johannine works translations and manuscripts dead sea scrolls masoretic text samaritan pentateuch targumim septuagint peshitta vetus latina vulgate gothic bible luther bible english bibles by language biblical studies archeology artifacts dating historicity internal consistency people places names biblia hebraica stuttgartensia rahlfs' septuagint novum testamentum graece documentary hypothesis synoptic problem nt textual categories biblical criticism historical textual source form redaction canonical interpretation hermeneutics pesher midrash pardes allegorical interpretation historical-grammatical method inspiration literalism alcohol conspiracy theory ethics capital punishment homosexuality humor incest muhammad prophecy rape serpents sex slavery violence warfare women perspectives gnostic islamic quranic inerrancy infallibility criticism of the bible biblical authority outline of bible-related topics bible portal hamas hamas, meaning 'violence, wrongdoing', is the hebrew bible's primary term for violence and it is first used in genesis 6:11: "the earth was corrupt in god's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.": 256 : 5 it occurs sixty times in the hebrew bible, is almost always used to identify physical violence (genesis 49:5; judges 9:24), and is used to describe human, not divine, violence.: 2 "however, the word hamas in the old testament also appears in the contexts of sin and injustice against god and one's fellow-man, judicial affairs, structural violence and the theodicy problem". hamas may refer to verbal or even ethical violence. "sometimes the word refers to extreme wickedness (isaiah 53:9; 59:6) where physical violence may or may not be .": 10–11 "the term hamas sometimes appears as a cry to god in the face of injustice (jer. 6:7)." exodus 23:1 and deut. 19:16 characterize a false witness as ʿēd ḥāmas (a “violent witness”). the notion that a false witness threatens life and well-being appears in fuller form in the psalter.": 3 in the torah the terms gazal (rob) and asaq (oppress) are frequently used in combination to describe the human violence of taking/robbing/plundering as oppression of the poor which may or may not include physical, verbal or other types of harm. they are also used both separately and in combination throughout the remainder of the hebrew bible describing robbing the poor (isaiah 3:14, 10:2; jeremiah 22:3; micah 2:2, 3:2; malachi 1:3), withholding the wages of a hired person (cf. deuteronomy 24:14), political oppression (hosea 12:7), charging oppressive interest (ezekiel 22:12), and oppressing the outsider in their midst (ezekiel 22:7) as acts of violence. haram the hebrew verb ḥāram connotes (new revised standard version, “utterly destroy”; deut. 7:2); the noun which is derived from it (ḥērem) is sometimes translated as meaning "the ban" and it denotes the separation, exclusion and dedication of persons or objects which may be specially set apart for destruction to god (deuteronomy 7:26; leviticus 27:28-29).: 319 historian susan niditch says "the root h-r-m links together several biblical non-war and war usages of the term ... under the heading of sacrifice." the early usage of the term indicates that the israelites were not allowed to touch, possess, or redeem these "devoted things". however, the later usage of the term, such as its usage in numbers 18:14-17 and deuteronomy 7, indicates that items and first-born children were supposed to be set aside as ḥērem so that they could be redeemed by the priests.: 30 the hebrew scholar baruch a. levine notes that deut.7:1-11 shows that hebrew ideology has evolved since the writing of exodus 33:5-16, with its addition of the ban (see exodus 20:19,20). levine concludes that this is one of several indications, including extra-biblical evidence, that ḥērem was a later addition to hebrew thought. levine says this indicates that israel was still, as late as deuteronomy, making ideological adjustments with regard to the importation of the foreign practice of ḥērem from its source in the surrounding near eastern nations.": 396 over half the occurrences of the verb and noun for the root ḥ-r-m are concerned with the destruction of nations in war, but other terms which are associated with actions which the old testament scholar eric siebert considers "divine violence" may or may not include war. siebert says that divine violence is "violence which god is said to have perpetrated, caused, or sanctioned." specifically, this includes (1) violence which god commits without the use of human agents (e.g., sending down fire on sodom and gomorrah); (2) violence god commissions, typically unbeknownst to those who are being commissioned (e.g., using babylon to punish the people of judah for their sins); and (3) violence which god directly commands (e.g., ordering the israelites to wipe out the canaanites)." for example, concerning those who worship idols, deuteronomy 7:16 uses akal ("consume") when saying "you must destroy (consume) all the peoples the lord your god gives over to you…". deuteronomy 7:24, on the other hand, uses abad when saying "you shall make their name perish from under heaven…" while deuteronomy 20:10-18 says "…you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. but you shall utterly destroy (ha-harem taharimem) them, the hittite and the amorite, the canaanite and the perizzite, the hivite and the jebusite, as the lord your god has commanded you…". "amos 1:3–2:3 uses akal to indict israel’s neighbors for various acts of cruelty during war (e.g., the ammonites “ripped open pregnant women in gilead in order to enlarge their territory”; 1:13) and uses those war crimes of surrounding peoples to draw a parallel with israel's mistreatment of the poor, thus elevating economic injustice to the level of war crimes." (2:6–8).: 44 other terms are: ṣamat (put an end to, exterminate...annihilate); shamad (destroy, exterminate); nakah (to strike fatally, kill, in manslaughter, murder...as retaliation ...in warfare, conquest...combat...attack, rout); aqar (pluck up, often in the violent sense); qatsah (to cut off, in a destructive sense); shabat (with zeker can refer to one's "memory" being "blotted out" but in another idiom it means to "be blotted out...from... earth" to "be exterminated, be destroyed, perish"); and kalah (kalah in qal can mean "be finished, be destroyed).: 133, 431–432, 684, 179, 255, 416, 418 warfare from genesis through joshua five kings of midian slain by israel (1728) by gerard hoet, an illustration of the war against the midianites (numbers 31) warfare represents a special category of biblical violence and is a topic the bible addresses, directly and indirectly, in four ways: there are verses that support pacifism, and verses that support non-resistance; 4th century theologian augustine found the basis of just war in the bible, and preventive war which is sometimes called crusade has also been supported using bible texts.: 13–37 susan niditch explores the range of war ideologies in ancient near eastern culture saying, "...to understand attitudes toward war in the hebrew bible is thus to gain a handle on war in general..." in the hebrew bible warfare includes the amalekites, canaanites, moabites, and the record in exodus, deuteronomy, joshua, and both books of kings. in the bible god commands the israelites to conquer the promised land, placing city after city "under the ban" - which meant every man, woman and child was supposed to be slaughtered at the point of the sword.: 319–320 for example, in deuteronomy 20:16-18 god orders the israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …", thus leading many scholars to characterize these as commands to commit genocide. other examples include the story of the amalekites (numbers 13,14), the war against the midianites (numbers 31), and the battle of jericho (joshua 1–6).: 9 starting in joshua 9, after the conquest of ai, the battles are described as defending against attacks from canaanite kings.: 8 about passages such as deut 20:16–17, ucl historian hans van wees (2010) stated: 'the genocidal campaigns claimed for the early israelites, however, are largely fictional: the intrinsic improbability and internal inconsistencies of the account in joshua and its incompatibility with the stories of judges leave little doubt about this.' in the archaeological community, the battle of jericho has been thoroughly studied, and the consensus of modern scholars is the battles described in the book of joshua are not realistic, are not supported by the archeological record, and are not consistent with other texts in the bible; for example, the book of joshua (chapter 10) describes the total extermination of the canaanite tribes, yet at a later time judges 1:1-2:5 suggests the canaanites lived on. similarly, claims in numbers 31 that 12,000 israelite soldiers exterminated the entire midianite population (except for enslaving the 32,000 virgin girls) and destroyed all their towns without suffering a single casualty are held to be historically impossible, and should be understood as symbolic, not least because other biblical books set in later times still refer to the midianites as an independent people, such as judges chapters 6–8, where gideon fights them. historian paul copan and philosopher matthew flannagan say the violent texts of ḥerem warfare are "hagiographic hyperbole", a kind of historical writing found in the book of joshua and other near eastern works of the same era and are not intended to be literal; they contain hyperbole, formulaic language, and literary expressions for rhetorical effect — like when sports teams use the language of “totally slaughtering” their opponents. john gammie concurs, saying the bible verses about "utterly destroying" the enemy are more about pure religious devotion than an actual record of killing people. gammie references deuteronomy 7:2-5 in which moses presents ḥerem as a precondition for israel to occupy the land with two stipulations: one is a statement against intermarriage (vv. 3–4), and the other concerns the destruction of the sacred objects of the residents of canaan (v. 5) but neither involves killing. c. l. crouch compares the two kingdoms of israel and judah to assyria, saying their similarities in cosmology and ideology gave them similar ethical outlooks on war. both crouch and lauren monroe, professor of near eastern studies at cornell, agree this means the ḥerem type of total war was not strictly an israelite practice but was a common approach to war for many near eastern people of the bronze and iron ages.: 335 for example, the mesha stele says that king mesha of moab fought in the name of his god chemosh and that he subjected his enemies to ḥerem.: intro, 182, 248 : 10, 19