Various views
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.[108] 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.[109] 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.[110]
As part of the many reflections on religious violence inspired by the Abrahamic religions that followed 9/11, John J. Collins wrote a short book called "Does the Bible Justify Violence?".[111][112]: 1–3 In the book he reviews the passages in the Bible describing violence done by God, commanded or promised by God, and done by people, as well as how these texts have been used by religious people and governments throughout history.[111] For example, he discusses The Exodus and the conquest of the Canaanites in the subsequent Book of Joshua, as two sides of the same coin; the Exodus story has inspired hope for millennia as well as civil rights movements; at the same time people identifying with the liberated Israel supported by God have cited the conquest to justify actions ranging from genocide of indigenous peoples to Apartheid.[112]: 19–20
Collins concludes that the Bible speaks in many voices. He writes that: "....historically people have appealed to the Bible precisely because of its presumed divine authority, which gives an aura of certitude to any position it can be shown to support -- in the phrase of Hannah Arendt, 'God-like certainty that stops all discussion.' And here, I would suggest, is the most basic connection between the Bible and violence, more basic than any command or teaching it contains....The Bible has contributed to violence in the world precisely because it has been taken to confer a degree of certitude that transcends human discussion and argumentation."[112]: 32–33
Collins, writing as a Christian scholar, also notes: "It is not unusual for Christian interpreters to claim that 'the Biblical witness to the innocent victims and the God of victims demystifies and demythologizes this sacred social order' in which violence is grounded. Such a selective reading, privileging the death of Jesus or the suffering servant, is certainly possible and even commendable, but it does not negate the force of the biblical endorsements of violence that we have been considering. The full canonical shape of the Christian Bible, for what it is worth, still concludes with the judgement scene in Revelation, in which the Lamb that was slain returns as the heavenly warrior with a sword for striking down the nations."[112]: 27
Regina Schwartz is among those who seek to reimagine Christianity and the Christian biblical canon in ways that reduce violence. She describes violence as arising from the ancient Israelite invention of monotheism and the ways ancient Israelites conceived of themselves in relation to that one god and to other peoples. Christians inherited this view but only in part. She writes that: "The Other, against whom Israel's identity is forged is abhorred, abject, impure, and in the "Old Testament," vast numbers of them are obliterated, while in the "New Testament," vast numbers are colonized (converted). The tying of identity to rejection runs counter to much of the drive that could be found elsewhere, both in the Bible and throughout religious myth and ritual, to forge identity through analogy, even identification....Among all the rich variety, I would categorize two broad understandings of identity in the Bible: one grounded in Negation (or scarcity) and the other in Multiplicity (or plenitude).[113]: 18–19 Near the end of her book, she says: "My re-vision would produce an alternative Bible that subverts the dominant vision of violence and scarcity with an ideal of plenitude and its corollary ethical imperative of generosity. It would be a Bible embracing multiplicity instead of monotheism."[113]: 176
Stephen Geller notes that both the Deuteronomist and the Priestly authors working in the Axial Age were re-evaluating and reformulating their traditions, like their neighbors were, using the literary means available to them. The Deuteronomists expressed their new notions of the transcendence and power of God by means of ideas and associated laws around unity—the one-ness of God, worshipped at the one temple in Jerusalem, by one people, kept distinct from the rest of world just as God is; zealously and violently so.[114]: 32–22 Likewise the Priestly author adapted the myths and rituals of the ANE and the specific traditions of the ancient Israelites to forge different meanings for blood sacrifice than their neighbors had, specifically in the elaborate and precarious rituals on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest had to enter the Holy of Holies and the presence of God; in their work the Priestly authors also attempted to express the transcendence and unity of God who is yet in a relationship with humanity with all its variable sinfulness.
In Geller's reading the blood is not magical nor is the animal just a substitute for a human sacrifice; instead blood is at once an expression of the violence of the fallen world where people kill in order to eat (unlike Eden) and the blood itself becomes a means for redemption; it is forbidden to be eaten, as a sign of restraint and recognition, and is instead offered to God, and in that action the relationship between fallen humanity and God is restored. The Priestly authors underline the importance of all this by recalling the mortal danger faced by the High Priests, through the telling of the deaths of Nadab and Abihu when God refused their "strange offering" and consumed them with fire.[114]: 32–22 One result of this reformulating work, is a God with aspects of terrifying and powerful otherness; as Annie Dillard wrote in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return."[11