“I love Jesus but I hate the God of the Old Testament. He’s just so violent.”
You might have heard this line before or thought it yourself. In this episode, we’re tackling this issue head-on.
We’re taking a deep dive into the violence of the Bible – especially the Old Testament – and asking how is it that this God of judgement and war can be one and the same with the peace-loving Jesus Christ.
Meet our guest
The Revd Dr Helen Paynter is a Baptist minister and works at Bristol Baptist College in the UK, where she is a Tutor in Biblical Studies and Director of Theological Education.
She holds a PhD in Old Testament studies, and her current research focuses on the violence of the Old Testament.
She is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of the Bible and Violence, which facilitates cutting-edge research in the areas of the hermeneutics of biblical violence and the abuse of the Bible in a violent world and serves the churches by providing resources in these areas.
She has authored several books, the newest of which is titled Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence, out now via Zondervan Academic.
Links
Special thanks to our season sponsor Zondervan Academic. Get discounts on MasterLectures video courses and exclusive samples of their books at zondervanacademic.com/undeceptions
A transcript of this episode is available here. Please note, that due to software not not all exchanges between guests will be completely accurate.
Helen’s work at the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence – of which she is a founding member – can be found here.
Check out these helpful links below for more info on what was discussed in this episode.
To Read
- Here’s where you can get Helen’s book Blessed Are the Peacemakers: A Biblical Theology of Human Violence
- Make sure you also check out her book God of Violence Yesterday, God of Love Today? Wrestling Honestly with the Old Testament – grab your copy here
- This online translation of the Babylonian Enuma Elish is a fascinating insight into how other ancient cultures understood violence in their theology
- This explainer of the Canaanite conquest – courtesy of Old Testament scholar Markus Zehnder – helps understand why God might command such atrocity
- This in-depth article from Christianity Today attempts to get to the heart of why the Caananite conquest was so brutal
- The fertility cults of Baal and Asherah practised terrible human rights abuse of their populations: read about it here
- Here’s a confronting – but informative – explainer on why sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war throughout history
To Watch
- Once again, The Bible Project is a go-to source for us. Check out this overview of the book of Joshua for some helpful context of what we’re talking about
- And here’s their helpful summary of the entire Old Testament
- Here’s a fantastic video from Epimetheus, explaining who the Canaanites were
- Here is friend of the show Sean McDowell offering his take on why there’s so much violence in the Old Testament
- For a different perspective on all this, here’s Krisit Burke and her video ‘5 Bible Passages That Caused Me To Lose My Faith’
To Listen
- We’ve touched on a lot of the themes of this episode before in Undeceptions – here’s Episode 72 ‘The Flood’ with John’s Wheaton colleague John Walton – in it, they also talk about God as judge
- … and here’s John speaking with Scot McKnight about the biblical apocalypse
- Our two-parter on The Crusades also explores a biblical theology of violence. Check it out here
- In addition to their great video, the Bible Project also has this excellent podcast reflecting on today’s topic
… and finally
- Here’s the helpful article on Jewish military law John spoke about. It’s dense but well worth a read
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