Jewish Biblical Context on War or Violence

Jewish Biblical Context on War or Violence

Introduction

Religion and violence have been closely linked since the beginnings of recorded history. In general, prior to the rise of the monotheistic faiths, that link has presupposed that the god of a given group would fight on the group's behalf. Victory in battle was seen as validation of a god's potency, as well as a reason to abandon the belief or worship of the defeated deity. Examples of this type of religion-violence connection are legion, stemming from the great empires of the ancient world, such as the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and the Roman Empire. The most common form of attack against religious institutions on the part of these empires would be the ritual temple desecration, in which a victorious or defiant enemy would defile the sanctities of its opponent's belief system. This desecration would have a dual effect: It would demonstrate the absolute impotence or worthlessness of the sanctuary or pantheon in question, and it would present a challenge that could not be ignored by those adhering to that sanctuary or pantheon.

Since about 1970's, violence in the bible was scientifically treated to a general theme only. The multifaceted concept of violence is here understood in the narrower sense as human life damaging and destructive power and violence, in the broadest sense as an impairment of life in general. This plays into many biblical texts play a role:

Between God and man: for example in the cult as a sacrifice, justified in the sacred law as the manufacture of justice through violent retaliation.

Between large groups, such as a war and extermination.

Between small groups, such as a blood feud, later, state-controlled capital punishment, corporal punishment.

Between individuals, such as a murder, torture, assault, rape, assault.

Between social groups, e.g. as exploitation, oppression, dispossession, and deprivation of rights.

Discussion

Judaism, as it is described in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), is strikingly similar to the belief systems of the ancient Near East. Its god is singular (not part of a pantheon) and jealous of his prerogatives, but given reciprocity he fights on behalf of the Israelites and, later, the Jews descended from them (cf. Joshua 10:14). Although the virtues of peace are frequently extolled in the Bible, none of the major royal or prophetic figures is said to have rejected violence per se or upheld pacifism as a virtue (other than in places where the Jewish people were actually helpless and could not fight anyway). In these ways, the Jewish belief system was similar to those around it; though, in the biblical account, the deity progressively becomes hostile toward the holy sanctuary and the elites that surround it. This fact enabled the Jewish people to survive not one but two destructions of their sanctuary in Jerusalem, along with a number of desecrations (such as that carried out by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC, which led to the Maccabean revolt and that by Pompey the Great in 70 ...