The Violent Plot in the Hebrew Bible by Mark McEntire Violence in the Bible is a them that has received a tremendous amount of attention in recent years. What has been lacking in many such studies is the kind of sustained exegesis of biblical texts which allows the bible itself to set the agenda. This book attempts to begin with biblical texts and to stay with them long enough to hear what they have to say, rather than using a collection of texts to support an argument. Part I traces the biblical story of Israel, focusing on tests at the turning points of the narrative.
Violence enters the human community in the story of Cain and Abel.
The thread of violence than runs through the entire biblical narrative. It appears prominently in texts where the status of Israel changes from free persons to slaves to wanderers to land-owning tribes to citizens of a monarchy to citizens of two monarchies to exiles. The interpretations of these passages expose their violent nature and then ask what they tell us about human violence. They reveal that violence is an inevitable part of human existence, which defies attempts to control it. They illustrate the ways in which violence alters human identity, both of the victims and the perpetrators.