Flood And Fury Old Testament Violence And The Shalom Of God – Matthew J Lynch (1)

Comparison of reports The Exodus (and Deuteronomic) commands to destroy idols finds surprising fulfillment in Joshua. Throughout the book, the only idols to be discarded and removed were among the Israelites! It was Israel who had to choose whether to follow the gods of their ancestors or Yahweh (Josh 24:2, 15). It was Israel who had to remove the gods among them (Josh 24:11, 23). Joshua never mentions a single Canaanite altar or idol. The named threats were on the inside! The Deuteronomic command to destroy Canaanites also finds surprising fulfillment.

In addition to many Canaanites, the Israelite Achan is destroyed (Josh 7). Moreover, the threat of destruction hung over Israel toward the end of the book when Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an unauthorized altar on the far side of the Jordan (Josh 22:11). Though the episode turned out to be a misunderstanding (the altar was a witness or monument, not designed for sacrifice), the event warned Israel that they could face the same herem fate as Achan (Josh 22:18, 20).

As I said in the previous chapter, the two reports—Majority and Minority—are both important. The Majority Report enacts Israel’s undivided Torah devotion and uncompromising commitment to Yahweh— as Deuteronomy envisioned. The Minority Report shows a more nuanced enactment of the Exodus commands to eliminate idols but focuses on Israelite idols. It also shows the beginning of Yahweh’s promise that he would displace the Canaanites. These two stories run side-by-side and interweave at points.

How can they do so? Did Deuteronomy envision the literal application of its laws? Answering this question involves two issues. One relates to rhetoric, and one relates to readers. Let’s start with rhetoric. It’s important to look at this “total kill” language in its ancient context. Ancient war reports often included exaggerated trash-talking.

10 Show Them No Mercy 11 Completing the Exodus in Canaan 12 Giants Will Fall 13 Worship as Warfare PART FOUR THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE CHARACTER OF GOD 14 What the Old Testament Says About God’s Character 15 Irresolvable Notes Figure Credits General Index Scripture Index Praise for Flood and Fury About the Author More Titles from InterVarsity Press OceanofPDF.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES 3.1.

Assurbanipal hunting the lion, from the North Palace in Nineveh (ca. 645–635 BC) 7.1. A bronze sickle sword recovered from Late Bronze layers at Aphek 9.1. Early Israelite settlement and conquest regions 10.1. Comparison of “destroy” commands in Exodus and Deuteronomy 10.2. Comparison of reports 11.1. Second highlighted map of Israel following the conquest 12.1. Pharaoh Rameses II and opponents in the Battle of Kadesh 12.2. A relief of Ramses II from Memphis showing him capturing enemies: a Nubian, a Libyan, and a Syrian, circa 1250 BC, Cairo Museum 12.3.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad (ca. 2230 BC), which depicts him slaying the Lullibi and their king TABLES 9.1. Displacement vs. destruction 10.1. Deuteronomy 7:1-5 10.2. Deuteronomy 7:5 and 2 Kings 23 10.3. Deuteronomy 7:5 and 2 Chronicles 31 11.1. Report vs. Canaanite response 12.1. The defeat of kings OceanofPDF.com FOREWORD HELEN PAYNTER IT WAS IN 2004, just another ordinary school night, and I was making dinner for my husband and our three daughters.

When the phone rang, there was nothing to suggest that I was about to be confronted with one of the hardest questions of my life. “Hi Helen, it’s Clare. [Our church youth worker.] I wonder if you can help me. [Subtext: it’s a long shot.] One of the young people in our youth group has been reading the Old Testament properly for the first time. [That’s great! Isn’t it?] She’s finding loads of grim, violent stories there, and they’re really troubling her. I think she might be in danger of losing her faith.

Can you tell me how to help her?” What do we do with the violence in the Old Testament? There are two classic responses to a question like that. One is to say, in effect, “God says it, you’ve got to believe it. Don’t question the Word of God.” The other is to reply like this: “Tell her not to bother with the Old Testament.

It’s all horribly violent and out of date. Just focus on Jesus.” Honesty prevented me from giving the first answer. Sometimes we have to take things on trust, but God gave us brains for a reason, and he is never honored by us dishonestly denying that problems exist. My deep commitment to Scripture as the revealed Word of God wouldn’t allow me to give the second response.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 87e893a10b791ba4
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 8,040,581 bytes (7.668 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 329
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 428.02 minutes
• Total Words: 85,604
• Total Characters: 516,721
• Average Words per Page: 260.19
• Average Characters per Page: 1570.58

Most Frequent Words

god (652), joshua (447), violence (411), israel (371), old (261), god’s (257), testament (240), people (217), story (208), genesis (196), land (181), like (178), book (178), josh (170), also (164), gen (157), one (153), creation (153), see (152), bible (151), canaanites (145), scripture (138), biblical (137), israel’s (135), it’s (132), kings (131), jesus (129), new (119), deuteronomy (117), conquest (116), canaanite (116), texts (114), way (111), against (109), ancient (105), problem (102), first (101), violent (100), even (100), stories (97), between (97), yahweh (97), jericho (95), exodus (92), point (92), divine (91), press (89), flood (88), deut (84), lord (82), two (81), women (81), world (81), herem (80), destruction (79), time (76), canaan (75), earth (75), sword (74), covenant (74), power (73), mercy (72), many (69), toward (68), take (67), good (67), character (66), life (65), read (65), ways (64), later (64), com (63), humans (63), report (62), another (62), history (61), destroy (61), human (61), war (60), doesn’t (60), king (59), important (59), great (58), problems (58), need (58), yet (58), moses (58), word (57), part (56), place (56), giants (55), back (55), make (55), worship (54), think (54), know (54), israelites (54), law (54), instead (54), end (53).

PDF Download