page_title: The Bible and violence
section_title: Gospels
hierarchical_section_title: The Bible and violence / In the New Testament / Gospels
context_page_description: The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament contain narratives, poetry, and instruction describing, recording, encouraging, commanding, condemning, rewarding, punishing and regulating violent actions by God, individuals, groups, governments, and nation-states. Among the violent acts included are war, human sacrifice, animal sacrifice, murder, rape, genocide, and criminal punishment. The texts have a history of interpretation within the Abrahamic religions and Western culture that includes justification and opposition to acts of violence.
context_section_description: In the Gospel of Matthew, Herod the Great is described as ordering the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
  There are sayings of Jesus where he states that he comes to bring fire or a sword. The cleansing of the Temple is considered to be a violent action by Jesus. There are also sayings of Jesus that oppose violence, such as Turning the other cheek and the passage about Jesus and the woman taken in adultery.
  The earliest detailed accounts of the killing of Jesus are contained in the four canonical gospels, with other implicit references in the New Testament epistles. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus predicts his death in three separate episodes. All four Gospels conclude with an extended narrative of Jesus' arrest, initial trial at the Sandhedrin and final trial at Pilate's court, where Jesus is flogged, forced to carry his cross through Jerusalem, and then crucified. The metaphor of sacrifice is used in reference to His death, both in the Gospels and other books of the New Testament. In each Gospel these five events in the life of Jesus are treated with more intense detail than any other portion of that Gospel's narrative. Scholars note that the reader receives an almost hour-by-hour account of what is happening.
caption: Christ on the Cross. 19th century painting by Gustave Doré
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