THE ZEAL OF PHINEHAS: THE BIBLE AND THE LEGITIMATION OF VIOLENCE

(ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.) "The Bible, of all books, is the most dangerous one, the one that has been endowed with the power to kill," writes Mieke Bal.1 Like many striking aphorisms, this statement is not quite true. Some other books, notably the Qur'an, are surely as lethal, and in any case, to coin a phrase, books don't kill people. But Professor Bal has a point nonetheless. When it became clear that the terrorists of September 11, 2001, saw or imagined their grievances in religious terms, any reader of the Bible should have had a flash of recognition. The Muslim extremists drew their inspiration from the Qur'an rather than the Bible, but both Scriptures draw from the same wellsprings of ancient Near Eastern religion. While it is true that both Bible and Qur'an admit of various readings and emphases, and that terrorist hermeneutics can be seen as a case of the devil citing Scripture for his purpose, it is also true that the devil does not have to work very hard to find biblical precedents for the legitimation of violence. Many people in the modern world suspect that there is an intrinsic link between violence and what Jan Assmann has called "the Mosaic distinction" between true and false religion,2 or even between violence and monotheism or monolatry.3 Such claims are, no doubt, too simple. Violence and the sacred went hand in hand long before the rise of Akhenaten or Moses, and polytheism can be used to legitimate violence just as easily as monotheism.4 But it is biblical monotheism that has dominated the Western world for the last two thousand years, and it is the Bible that concerns us here. At a time when the Western world is supposedly engaged in a war on terrorism, it may be opportune to reflect on the ways in which the Bible appears to endorse and bless the recourse to violence, and to ask what the implications may be for the task of biblical interpretation. Violence, of course, has many forms. On a broad level, it has been defined as "the attempt of an individual or group to impose its will on others through any nonverbal, verbal, or physical means that inflict psychological or physical injury."5 Often the term is reserved for coercion or force that is illegitimate, and is associated with social disorder, although states and governments routinely use forceful and coercive methods to impose order.6 For the present, I will restrict myself to the most obvious, even crude, forms of violence-the killing of others without benefit of judicial procedure. It is important to bear in mind, however, that the line between actual killing and verbal, symbolic, or imaginary violence is thin and permeable. The threat of violence is a method of forceful coercion, even if no blood is actually shed. I. The herem or Ban "The Lord is a warrior," says the Song of Moses (Exod 15:3), in one of the earliest attempts to characterize the God of Israel.7 Many of the oldest hymns in praise of this god celebrate "the triumphs of the Lord" (..., Judg 5:11). "It is as good as certain," wrote Gerhard von Rad, "that the concept of faith-in other words, that confident trusting in the action of Yahweh-had its actual origin in the holy war, and that from there it took on its own peculiar dynamic."8 Even if we regard von Rad's statement as exaggerated, it is certainly true that YHWH's putative power in battle was a major consideration in early Israelite worship.9 Moreover, the Israelites were expected to "come to the help of the Lord" in battle and were subject to sanctions if they did not, as can be seen from the cursing of Meroz in the Song of Deborah (Judg 5:23). Only in much later times would the power of the deity be taken as a reason for quietism on the part of human worshipers.10 The violence associated with the worship of YHWH in antiquity is most vividly illustrated by the herem, or ban, the practice whereby the defeated enemy was devoted to destruction.11 The practice was not peculiar to Israel. …