Violence and the Old Testament I

The "National Catholic Bible Conference" was held this summer in Chicago. Among the talks it advertised was one entitled "Old Testament Wars and the Spiritual Battle." I did not go to the conference, but I was intrigued by the description of this talk in the brochure I received: "How should we interpret all the wars and violence recorded in the Old Testament? This presentation shows how we can uncover the spiritual meaning of Israel’s battles by reading them in light of the fullness of revelation given in Christ ... Interpreted properly, Israel’s wars contain powerful lessons of the spiritual battle all Christians are engaged in." In light of the fact that the biblical text has been used over the centuries to support all kinds of atrocities, this description raises an important question, "how should we interpret all the wars and violence recorded in the Old Testament." Will the speaker deal with the difficulties posed by the notion of a Warrior God actively involved in violence? Will the speaker address how we as Christians can reconcile the violent God of the Old Testament with the God of unconditional love and forgiveness proclaimed by Jesus? Will the speaker tell us how to reconcile Israel’s battles with Jesus’ command to love our enemies and his refusal to allow his disciples to do violence to save him from the cross? None of these questions will be addressed; rather the presentation will "uncover the spiritual meaning of Israel’s battles" and show how when "interpreted properly" these wars "contain powerful lessons of a spiritual battle all Christians are engaged in." "Spiritual battle" language was not a part of my Catholic upbringing, so I googled the phrase "spiritual battle" and found over 2 million sites informing me in rather terrifying language of this battle. After reviewing several of the sites, I wondered how the nuns who taught me missed the opportunity to "scare the hell out of me" with this "spiritual battle" stuff. Maybe they thought it was just too "Protestant." I find it odd to assume that what the battles of the Old Testament have to teach us when "properly interpreted" is something which is not said. I find it dismissive of the biblical text when we say that an imagined "spiritual meaning" is more important than what the text actually says. My concern is with what the biblical text says and how we can appropriate that message in our lives today, but if what we say it means is not connected with what it meant in its historical, literary and theological context, then why bother reading the biblical text at all? To speak of the battles of the Old Testament as referring to spiritual warfare strikes me as a cop-out. It dances around the real challenge of the biblical text: what do we do with all the violence and battles of the Old Testament? It is a question I will address in my next post. Pauline Viviano