As we begin to approach the day( 3rd September) when we remember the Battle of Britain, the occasion when but for the efforts of the RAF fighter pilots we might have been open to invasion by the German Army, I would like to reflect on the problems of aggression between nations and between peoples which eighty years on still beset us. Many of these acts of aggression occur between races or between sects of the same religion and the question that Christians would naturally ask is ‘Can the Bible help us to come to terms with or understand this aggression?
If we think just of recent times, over the past 20 years or more we have seen on TV horrifying scenes of one group who happen to be Muslims being tortured and killed by another group – which happens to be Christian or Jewish or even as has happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria the Taleban Muslims or Sunni Muslims or Alawites killing other Muslims. At the time writing, the perpetrator of the shooting at the two Mosques in New Zealand which resulted in 51 deaths, is awaiting sentencing. We have seen suffering on the part of innocent citizens and scenes that I am sure have left most of us quite nauseated, a feeling intensified by the fact that most of us as individuals are unable to do anything to improve the situation.
So, with these thoughts in our mind can the Bible help us? On the one hand we have passages like that in Deuteronomy Chapter 7 verse 2 when God apparently commands Israel to destroy the peoples of seven nations:-
“ when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them.”
And on the other hand we have the reading from the parable of the good Samaritan when a man from Samaria tends to an injured Jew where the modern equivalent would be to have a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip taking care of an injured member of the Jewish Community. Sometimes it is said – Ah well, in the Old Testament we have the God of wrath whilst in the New we have the God of love. This is no answer – it is the same God – and we always bear in mind the thought that the New Testament lies in the cradle of the Old.
So how are we to approach passages in the Bible such as the Deuteronomy one I have just quoted; surely one of the harshest, racist and most aggressive passages in the whole Bible, and how are we to relate such passages to the current world situation? Can we interpret such apparently unacceptable commands and can we draw from Deuteronomy some conclusions that are relevant for us today?
Some, who take a very literal attitude to the interpretation of the Bible, may say we must accept the words at face value – perhaps the indigenous population deserved such a fate – did the Kosovars, do the Palestinians, do the Iraqis, do the Syrians; did the innocent victims in New York or in Madrid or in London? Surely not. Others may say that this passage is out of step with the current thinking and teaching of the New Testament, and in particular the parable of the good Samaritan where, we are told, we should love our neighbour, our neighbour nowadays being our fellow inhabitants of the whole world; and we should therefore ignore passages which do not conform to this ideal. Although I have considerable sympathy with this second approach taking into account the fact that the overall message of the Bible is that of peace and love towards one’s neighbour, I do however have to reject both of these approaches.
Those who interpret the Bible too literally soon come unstuck when they find passages that contradict each other, and those who pick and chose which passages to adopt and which to reject, are on a slippery slope at the bottom of which the Bible ceases to have much meaning.
No, our starting point must be that the Bible represents the Revealed word of God. But we must remember that this Revelation comes to us through the hand of human beings influenced by their life and times. The Biblical word comes to us from a real human past, a past that is full of conflict and politics, but at the same time it leads us to God’s Eternal world – that world which has a past, a present and a future and which may be considered to be running in parallel with our own. So, to bring all this down to earth what I am saying is that we must always look at the context in which the passage we are considering was written, if we are to gain a real insight into the inner meaning of the scriptures.
Let us now then have a look at Deuteronomy. Essentially this is both a history of a peoples’ relationship with their God, and a book of the law, the overriding theme being to describe the relationship of that God to the chosen people – the People of Israel. It is one of the important books of the OT and contains the prayer which Jesus cited as the way to eternal life, the prayer known to Jews today as the Shema “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself”. In meeting their objective, the writers of Deuteronomy chose to place much of the text as if spoken by Moses – undeniably one of the most important figures of the Old Testament. But, Deuteronomy was actually written over 600 years after the death of Moses – to give you some idea of the scale of this, a modern parallel would be to write today about the conditions in Britain at the time of the peasants revolt in 1381 setting out the story as told by the leader, Watt Tyler.
Whilst we do not know who wrote Deuteronomy, we do know quite a lot about the conditions in Israel at the time it was written. We know that Canaan had been successfully occupied by the People of Israel in a fairly long drawn out series of battles and tribal skirmishes, but by no means was the indigenous population wiped out. There is even a view, supported by some scholars, that at the time of the occupation many of the people living in Canaan (including incidentally some Hebrews who had infiltrated the country years before) were being oppressed. Oppressed by their rulers who were, of course, under the control of the Israelites old oppressor, Egypt. These people would, under the influence of the Israelites be most willing to revolt against their leaders and be willing to join with the People of Israel and worship the one true God.
However, after the occupation we know that the Israelites became a “Rebellious People”; they did not obey the commandments or keep their side of the covenant or contract which God had made with them. They were warned of the consequences of their behaviour by the Prophets. They ignored the prophets. Their Kingdom became split and eventually dominated by the Assyrians. At the time Deuteronomy was written, and certainly before it was finalised, it was apparent that, with the capture of the Kingdom by the Babylonians, the People of Israel would be split up and sent into Exile.
Thus, there was a need in this book for there to be a definitive statement of the fundamental principles of belief and conduct by which the Israelites had to live, combined with a history which set out the origins of their culture. In other words, it was to proclaim a renewal of the Covenant with God. Essentially Moses exhorts his people to remember their role appointed by God to serve His purpose, to proclaim the message of salvation. He also exhorts them to remember God’s acts made known in the Exodus and to resist the temptations to live as the people of Canaan – temptations which persisted throughout the period from the Occupation up to the time of the Babylonian Exile.
Let me now return to the quotation about the destruction of the Canaanites; one interpretation might be to say the if Moses were making a final speech to rally his people before handing them over to a new leader for the final assault on Canaan he would try to give them every confidence in their likely success, by saying that God will help them crush all opposition.
But there is much more than this in the passage – First, the main emphasis is really that the chosen people, the people of Israel, are a Holy People and that they are different from other people. We can therefore see this extract from Deuteronomy as emphasising that separate-ness; an emphasis expressed, later on by the need for no inter-marriage, for no adoption of any part of the original Canaanite culture. This need is expressed so vehemently that the writer seems to over-exaggerate the religious justification, to the extent that the Canaanite cultural temptations – self-sufficiency without God and self-righteousness – be totally destroyed. However, we have already seen from consideration of the poor state of Israel at the time this was written that this over emphasis is understandable.
Secondly, we need to remember that the People of Israel were chosen by God to be of special service to God. The initiative was that of God not that of the People. They had no reason to be proud or boastful of that selection – it was by God’s grace (and part of our Faith) that they, a small, weak band of slaves in Egypt were chosen for His service – primarily to love the one and only true God who first loved them.
So, can we draw from this, any message which is as relevant for us today as it was for the Israelites. I think we can – from Deuteronomy we learn that God’s concern is to support the oppressed and those who are weak and without power
This is of course a message that is as relevant for us today as it was for the Israelites – and a message that is not so far from that of the Good Samaritan.
For us, this should mean that if we are to be in the service of God, we should support the weak members of our society; in the context of Iraq. Afghanistan and Syria this means supporting the refugee fleeing from a nightmare of internal strife and it means supporting the oppressed – as the insurgencies continue we can only hope and pray that they will be replaced eventually by totally accepted benign governments. But there is still a long long way to go.
It is very easy for me to write what should happen – the real problem in many cases of oppression and strife is a complete lack of any understanding of the other persons’ point of view. So, the first problem that has to be tackled is one of lack of education, lack of an ability to stop and think and consider the other’s point of view. This can only be solved by encouraging people to try to cease their blind hatred of the other and to try to persuade them to understand that eventually we will all have to act together if we are to solve the real world problem of maintaining a sustainable population in a world subject to global warming and all the consequences that may result from this inevitable rise in the average world temperature. But here I am running before I can walk – the first stage must be, I emphasise, for an understanding between the members of the main world religions.
As Hans Kung, the Catholic Theologian has said:
No peace among the nations, without peace among the religions
No peace among the religion without dialogue between the
religions
No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the
foundation of those religions.
So, let me just conclude by summarising this essay:
First of all in our approach to the Bible, we should read carefully, remember the context and, to help us do that, we should read a commentary – the series published under the name of the great preacher William Barclay is one that I am very happy to recommend.
Secondly, there is a need in all our theology and ministerial training colleges to promote an understanding of all the world’s major religions – and not just one particular religion. In the case of the ministerial training colleges, from this foundation one can then espouse the particular qualities of the religion for which one is being trained to become a minister.
And finally, all Christians should work for the achievement of the Kingdom of God which will only be achieved when all people, of their own free will, will chose to establish justice in all relationships of life. This ethic can of course apply to everyone of us what ever our career or vocation. Let me just leave you with this one objective that can apply to all of us – to work towards a world in which people chose of their own free will to establish justice in all relationships of life. Or expressed yet another way: in our treatment of others we should try to act as God’s steward to ensure that a spirit of love, concern and solidarity spreads throughout the whole community.
Dr David Greenwood d.greenwood@uwtsd.ac.uk August 2020
Brislington Community News 