In The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel, Roland Boer offers an economic study intended to bring contemporary social science into dialogue with the world of Ancient Israel. Focusing on the allocation and extraction economic patterns in ancient Israel and the historic interplay between these institutional systems, Boer argues that a Marxist analysis of the economicContinue reading “Book Review: The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel”
Tag Archives: Ancient Israel
Did God Command Genocide? (Part VI)
This is the final post in a series examining whether or not God commanded Israel to commit genocide in the conquest of the Promised Land. A Way Forward Given Ancient Near East warfare terminology, “driving out” language, and an emphasis on the destruction of the heads of state, it seems that the vast majority ofContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part VI)”
Did God Command Genocide? (Part V)
This post is part of an ongoing series examining whether or not God commanded Israel to commit genocide in the conquest of the Promised Land. The Total Destruction of Ai What about those instances where near-total destruction—including women, children, and non-combatants—does seem to be ordered by Yahweh? As an example of this, let’s consider JoshuaContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part V)”
Did God Command Genocide? (Part IV)
This post is part of an ongoing series examining whether or not God commanded Israel to commit genocide in the conquest of the Promised Land. The Context of Conquest Several texts can be submitted as examples of where Yahweh seems to have commanded the people of Israel to commit genocide. One such place is ExodusContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part IV)”
Did God Command Genocide? (Part III)
This post is part of an ongoing series examining whether or not God commanded Israel to commit genocide in the conquest of the Promised Land. Ancient Near East Warfare Terminology Most important for our purposes is considering the language of the conquest narratives in Deuteronomy and Joshua, especially in light of other passages which canContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part III)”
Did God Command Genocide? (Part II)
This post is part of an ongoing series examining whether or not God commanded Israel to commit genocide in the conquest of the Promised Land. How Do We Read the Bible? : The Importance of Context Many Protestant Christians talk about reading the Bible “literally.” But I often don’t understand exactly what that means. Webster’sContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part II)”
Did God Command Genocide? (Part I)
The Rock Church of Saint Louis–our church home–is in the midst of reading through the entire Bible narrative as a church community. The past two weeks we have been reading the book of Joshua, which is all about Israel’s conquest of the promised land of Canaan. One feature of this conquest that contemporary Christians areContinue reading “Did God Command Genocide? (Part I)”
Book Review: Fields of Blood (Armstrong)
For many people living in the West, an assumption exists that religion is inherently violent. After all, they say, just look at the evidence: religion has caused wars, the Crusades, terrorism, religion has made people hate and kill others for nothing more than the ideas that were in their heads. According to this view, religionsContinue reading “Book Review: Fields of Blood (Armstrong)”
The Importance of Narrative in the Axial Age
This post is the first in a series of reflections concerning “Conceptions of the Ultimate”, the ways in which various world religions conceive of and interpret the Ultimate Being of the cosmos. In today’s reflection I consider some of the implications of the “Axial Age”, a term first coined by Karl Jaspers to designate theContinue reading “The Importance of Narrative in the Axial Age”
God, Genocide, and Context
Several weeks ago I was chatting with some friends about the topic of God (Yahweh) in the Christian Old Testament. And, as is often the case, we ventured into the topic of whether or not Yahweh commanded genocide during the Old Testament period. While I am by no means an expert on this topic, IContinue reading “God, Genocide, and Context”
Pursuing Veritas 