Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible A Literary and Cultural Study

Most studies on violence in the Hebrew Bible focus on the question of how modern readers should approach the problem. But they fail to ask how the Hebrew Bible thinks about that problem in the first place. In this work, Matthew J. Lynch examines four key ways that writers of the Hebrew Bible conceptualize and critique acts of violence: violence as an ecological problem; violence as a moral problem; violence as a judicial problem; violence as a purity problem. These four 'grammars of violence' help us interpret crucial biblical texts where violence plays a lead role, like Genesis 4-9. Lynch's volume also offers readers ways to examine cultural continuity and the distinctiveness of biblical conceptions of violence.

Introduction; Part I. Violence and Ecology: 1. A brother's blood on the land; 2. The cosmic ecology of violence; 3. Covenant and the restraint of violence in creation; Part II. Violence and Moral Speech: 4. Violent deceitfulness in the scheming heart; 5. The violence of arrogant speech; Part III. Violence and Justice: 6. The outcry of violence; 7. Judicial responses to violence; 8. Violence and the divine avenger; Part IV. Violence and Impurity: 9. Violence and the problem of impurity: key texts; 10. The rhetoric of violence and impurity; Conclusion; Appendix. Biblical terms for violence.

Matthew J. Lynch is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Regent College in Vancouver, and until 2020, was Academic Dean at Westminster Theological Centre, UK. He is the author of Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles: Temple, Priesthood, and Kingship in Post-Exilic Perspective (2014). He is a founding co-host of the OnScript podcast.