Episode 300: Caroline Blyth & Emily Colgan - What to Do About Violence in the Bible
In this episode of The Bible for Normal People, Pete and Jared sit down with Caroline Blyth and Emily Colgan to dive into the many forms of violence in the Bible, including violence attributed to God. They discuss how ancient context, gender dynamics, and structural power inform these texts, why confronting them matters, and how faith communities can engage these difficult passages with honesty and care. Join them as they explore the following questions:
Why is there so much violence in the Bible, and how should we understand it today?
What kinds of violence are present in scripture—beyond just physical acts?
How do we make sense of divine violence, where God is portrayed as violent or complicit?
What role does historical and cultural context play in shaping violent depictions of God?
How do gender-based violence and structural oppression show up in biblical texts?
Is it okay to question or protest divine actions in the Bible—and is that biblical?
How do we engage violent passages as people of faith without excusing or ignoring them?
What does the New Testament, especially the life of Jesus, add to the conversation about violence?
How can violent stories in the Bible create space for modern communities to talk about real-world violence?
What theological meaning can we find in the crucifixion—and is it divine violence or state violence?
Quotables
“Some biblical texts include the violence of threats and intimidation and humiliation and denigration of individuals or communities by virtue of othering them, making them appear to be dangerous or defiling, or unworthy of life and dehumanizing them.” — Caroline Blyth
“Language has an incredible power to dehumanize and completely destroy the lives of people through intolerance and bullying and hatred. And that helps foster further physical violence as well.” — Caroline Blyth
“How we think about divine violence particularly will depend on our relationship to the text. Do we see it as the word of God, literally or inspired word of God? Do we look at it more as a human creation, human words, human attempts to understand God and to understand the mysteries of God?” — Caroline Blyth
“I think these stories are the ancient Israelites' efforts to wrestle with a God who seems to at times treat them really badly, and to understand that and make sense of it.” — Caroline Blyth
“The context in which these texts are coming out of are themselves violent contexts and their responses to various kinds of imperial control, and the violence related to that control.” — Emily Colgan
“We can read about the violence in the text and we can ask questions about that, but then we can also talk about those issues in terms of how they relate to our contemporary communities.” — Emily Colgan
“The Bible becomes a springboard or an invitation to have conversations about things in our communities, like sexual violence, that are really hard to talk about or that are off limits, because if the Bible talks about it, then maybe we can talk about it too.” — Emily Colgan
“And these stories help us to think through that at a distance because we're not having to experience the violence ourselves. We're standing back and looking on as a spectator, but it does give us that chance to mull over questions that we have about violence.” — Caroline Blyth
“It's okay to be appalled by that violence. It's okay to say that it's not okay because there is a long biblical tradition of saying that's not okay. Protesting divine violence is as biblical as the divine violence itself.” — Caroline Blyth
“And what Jesus is doing through His ministry and His healings and His teachings is to talk about what happens when we remove that power, the power of empire. And can we imagine another way of living where people aren't subjugated?” — Caroline Blyth
Mentioned in This Episode
Class: June class “Who the @#!% Wrote the Bible?” with Aaron Higashi
Get your Hall Pass for all 3 Summer School classes
Books: Violence and the Bible for Normal People by Caroline Blyth
Join: The Society of Normal People community
Support: www.thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
-
Pete: You are listening to The Bible for Normal People. The only God-ordained podcast on the internet. I'm Pete Enns.
Jared: And I'm Jared Byas. All right, everybody, it's that time of year again.
Pete: Yeah. Baseball season. Go, go Yankees!
Jared: Yeah. No, no, no. Boo.
Pete: Yeah. Okay, fine.
Jared: It's time for another year of summer school and we have some awesome classes. We're resurrecting the hall pass for another year, which gets you access to all three classes, and it's a great way to support the work we do.
Pete: Our June class is “Who the [expletive] Wrote the Bible?” taught by the one and only Aaron Hagashi.
Jared: Ever wondered who really wrote the Bible? Aaron's gonna take a closer look at who may have written the Pentateuch, the historical books, and some of the most well-known prophets, plus a few thoughts on the New Testament too, of course.
We're not gonna leave the New Testament out, but you can expect big words like anachronisms, archeology, ideology. But don't worry, we're gonna explain them. This is the Bible for Normal People after all.
Pete: And if you're ready to think about biblical authorship with a little more nuance and a lot more insight, this class is for you.
The live [00:01:00] class and Q-&-A are happening on Thursday, June 26th from * to 9:30 PM Eastern Time, followed by an exclusive extra Q-&-A session just for the members of the Society of Normal people. To learn more and sign up or to purchase a hall pass, head to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/summerschool25
Pete: Everybody, welcome to our episode today, and we're discussing what to do about violence in the Bible with Caroline Blythe and Emily Colgan.
Jared: Yep. And Caroline and Emily both live in New Zealand, where Caroline has taught biblical studies and religious studies at the University of Auckland, and Emily teaches at Trinity Theological College.
Pete: And Caroline is also the author of the very first book in our Themes of the Bible series. Violence in the Bible for Normal People: A Guide to Biblical Texts of Terror. And together they co-host the Bloody Bible podcast.
Jared: Alright, let's get into the episode.
Caroline: There's a long tradition in biblical texts of protesting [00:03:00] violence, including divine violence. Look, it's okay to be appalled by that violence.
It's okay to say that it's not okay because there is a long biblical tradition of saying that's not okay. Protesting divine violence is as biblical as the divine violence itself.
Pete: Caroline and Emily, welcome to our podcast. It's, it's good to have you here to talk about a very light topic. Mm-hmm. Right? I, I don't wanna alarm you, but I think there's some violence in the Bible. I've picked up on stuff, just reading it and there's a lot of violence there.
Caroline: Really?
Pete: And I know, go figure some, somebody should write a book or something. But, um, but people aren't always really taught how to process it. It's just sort of there and you know, you some people just ignore it completely and make believe it's not there. Or they say things like, oh, it's not so bad, [00:04:00] you know?
Or God can do whatever God wants to do and therefore it's fine. But maybe just to get started, give us a sense of just, um, very briefly how you, how you just think about the idea of violence in the Bible. Give us a couple things to just jump off from.
Caroline: I, I would say neither of these options works very well for me.
You know, either saying, oh, the violence is okay, or saying, oh, listen, it's some kind of ancient artifact, we shouldn't bother about it anymore. Um, because I think if we do that, we ignore the fact that so much of the violence we read about in the Bible is still carrying on today. You know, genocide, ethnic cleansing, capital punishment, gender-based violence, wartime rape, uh, enslavement, none of these have gone away.
And so I think it's, that's part of the reason it's so important to take seriously the violence in the Bible, because it's part of our [00:05:00] world, and if we dismiss it in the Bible, then it makes it a lot easier for us to dismiss it here today.
Emily: I'd maybe even wanna take a step back from that and say, first of all, um, yes, there is violence in the Bible.
It's a, it's a, it's a violent book. Um, and I often joke with my students, um, that it should come with an R-rating, like, like movies do. Um, because there are texts that are really difficult and troubling. Um, and to be able to, as readers, to have the permission to read a text and to say, “whew, that's rough, that's a, that's a hard text. That's, um, that's a violent text.” So I'd wanna say that first and then to kind of, to trouble that further, as, as Kaz has just said.
Jared: If I'm listening for the first time and, and I haven't read the Bible in a while, I, I may be trying to kind of think about, what do you mean violence in, violence in the Bible?
You listed Caroline just, uh, you went kind of through a laundry list of types of violence that are still with us today, that [00:06:00] presumably are in the biblical text as well. So maybe even, just kind of like, let's lay the groundwork for what are we, what are we talking about when we talk about violence in the Bible?
Like what are some types or some examples that again, they are, you know, sometimes no they're not, sometimes they have been historically problematic. So we, these are things that we are, are trying to wrestle with in terms of, what do we do with them when we find them in our Bible? But maybe kind of set the table for what kinds of things are we talking about.
Emily: So, um, I think that when we are talking about violence in, in the, the Bible, that we can talk about a range of different kinds of violence. So, um, obviously the first that probably comes to mind is physical violence. So where physical force is, is used to injure and to abuse and to damage or to destroy. Um, and obviously there are loads of, of instances of physical violence in, in the biblical text.
So, you know, think of Cain killing his brother Abel, for example. Um, or I dunno, the violence of warfare. [00:07:00] Um, the violence of Jesus's crucifixion in the New Testament. Um, so that's kind of the, the most obvious form, form of violence or forms of violence that we see in the text. But we also find gender-based violence.
So violence that's perpetrated against a person because of their gender. Um, so here we are talking about, um, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, coercive control. Um, and when we find these, these kinds of texts, um, in narratives where women like Dina or Tamar, um, or whole communities of women like the, the women of Shiloh, um, uh, victims of rape, we see, um, sexual, physical, emotional abuse, um, and intimate partner violence, which we find in kind of the prophets like Ezekiel and Hosea.
Um, so that's another kind of violence that we, that we find in the, in the biblical text.
Caroline: Yeah. And there's also the violence of language, which I think we often overlook. Um, we don't think, or we, we don't think it's as serious as physical violence, but [00:08:00] there, you know, the, some biblical texts include the violence of threats and intimidation and humiliation and sort of denigration of, of individuals or communities by virtue of kind of othering them, um, making them appear to be dangerous or defiling, or unworthy of life and dehumanizing them.
You know, the prophets are full of threats, uh, God threatening either Israel or threatening Israel's enemies. And they're really quite, sort of terrifying threats.
Um, even Jesus uses violent language to talk about his detractors. You know, he refers to them as a brood of vipers and hypocrites and blind fools. And, you know, he refers to some of his fellow Jews, as you know, sort of children of the devil. And that language, as I say, we, you know, I was brought up with the, the old adage of, you know, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Um, but [00:09:00] I think, you know, language and we, we still see this today. Language has an incredible power to dehumanize and, and completely kind of destroy, um, the lives of people through intolerance and bullying and hatred. And that, that itself kind of helps foster further physical violence as well.
Um, and then the, the last type of violence that we see in the Bible, and again, this one is less obvious and apparent and we often overlook it or take it for granted, and that's what is often referred to as structural violence. And that basically in a nutshell, you know, if you think of society as a ladder, a hierarchy, um, where, and those who have power sit at the top of that hierarchy by virtue of their ethnicity or their religion, or their social status or their gender.
And those who sit lower down that hierarchy have less power. And the people at the top of the [00:10:00] hierarchy are able to enact physical violence and or in all forms of violence against those lower down because they have less power. And so we have this kind of hierarchy of injustice where power enables certain people to hurt, harm, or even destroy others. And we see that in the Bible, in, in the, the institution of enslavement, for example.
Or patriarchy is a form of structural violence because depending on your gender, you know, you or you know, where you sit on that ladder, that hierarchy depends on your gender.
So that's just some examples.
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, one question, just maybe even to take, take a step further back in this discussion, and this is a question you've probably heard, I hear it a lot from students, like, why is there so much violence in the Bible? You know, and it's not just people killing people.
The violence that gets people is divine violence. Either [00:11:00] God doing it or looking at it or not condemning it. There's God's presence. And, and, and in this violent, um, you know, this baked into scripture almost violence. And, and that's a hard thing for people to, to understand and especially for those who don't really think God is violent.
You know, I don't think God is violent, but God is presented as violent in many places in scripture. So how, how would you navigate a question like that?
Caroline: That's a good question. I think, I think this, maybe at the very start, I would say that how we respond to that question or how we think about divine violence particularly, um, will depend on our relationship to the text.
Do we see it as the, the, the word of God, like literally or inspired word of God? Do we look at it more as a sort of human [00:12:00] creation, uh, human words, uh, human attempts to understand God and to understand the mysteries of God? And I think our answer to that question will very much shape how we then think about divine violence.
Um, for my own part, I, I mean, I see the Bible as, as a, a book that's been created by ancient people in, in ancient times as they wrestle with, uh, a, a God who's mysterious and, and who's unknowable in, in so many ways. Um, and so these stories about divine violence for me are kind of attempts, and, and sometimes, um, imperfect attempts to wrestle with the fact that this, this God who is, who they believe is all powerful and, and who loves the covenant community so much can appear to do terrible things.
Um, you know. Why have we, why have we lost our land? Why have we been sent into exile? Why do our [00:13:00] enemies always defeat us on the battlefield? And, and in an attempt to answer that question, they may perceive God as, as someone who is capable of violence against, you know, the community that God loves. Um, and so we get this picture of a very jealous and angry and emotional God.
Um, and I, I, for me, and, and you know, a god who, who's capable of doing atrocious things, you know, murdering children, um, killing the love of his life.
Pete: I mean, touchy, not just emotional, but touchy. Like, it doesn't take much. It doesn't take much, right?
Caroline: No, no. Well, I think, and I think that's, you know.
Emily and I both study gender-based violence quite a lot in our, our research and, and I see God as, as the depictions of God sometimes reminds me of that, those people often then who, [00:14:00] who do lash out with violence when, when they're humiliated or they feel that they've been disrespected or the, the, their partner and those they love are disloyal to them.
Um, and yeah, touch touchy is, is, is perhaps is a good word. It's, it's a hair trigger, um, in terms of how God's humiliated fury gets kind of, you know, dished out to both the enemies of Israel and to Israel itself. And so, yeah, I think these stories come back to the initial question.
I think these stories are just, are, the ancient Israelites' efforts to, you know, to wrestle with a God who seems to at times treat them really badly. Um, and to understand that and make sense of it.
Pete: Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that, Emily?
Emily: Yeah, I mean, the only thing I'd, I'd add to that, and I, and I agree Kaz, um, the only thing I'd add is that these texts, we know kind of from a historical critical point of view, they're being [00:15:00] written across kind of hundreds, if not thousands, thousands of years.
In lots, in lots of contexts or in lots of the places and spaces that these texts are, are kind of coming out of, we are talking about contexts of empire, contexts of domination. So these, the, the context I think in which these texts are coming out of are themselves violent contexts and their responses to various kinds of imperial control.
Um, and, and the, the, the violence related to that control. So I, I just kind of wanna emphasize I think a little bit, um, the, the response and the making sense of what are also kind of trauma events. Um, and so how do we, how do we make sense of, how do we process these traumatic events like the Exile, for example, um, and how do we make sense of God in that space?
And do we present God as kind of, um, weak and powerless? [00:16:00] Um, in the context of, of, um, defeat and domination? Or do we make sense of God as the one, or as part of inflicting, um, that kind of violence and domination and so. I think we can also think about the broader context of, um, empire and trauma, um, as part of our thinking about divine violence as well.
Caroline: And that, that comes out very clearly just in, in Revelation, the Book of Revelation, which is one of the most violent books in the entire Christian Bible. Um, and yeah, it's a, a, you know, a beleaguered community of, of early Jesus followers are, are trying to make sense of the fact that they're being persecuted and subjugated by the Roman Empire and you know, how, how can they have hope in their, in their God?
How can they envision, um, God rescuing them and saving them? And so the, the way they do that [00:17:00] is to present God as this really fierce warrior who like no holds barred will use enormous amounts of violence to protect that community.
Jared: How do you, to, to dive into probably the average, the average person who's not a, a biblical scholar, how, how do you help them bridge that gap?
Because you talked about kind of the historical critical, and you know, if you don't see the Bible as, as sort of, I mean, I think even people who do see it as inspired in some way, but are willing to create some distance. How do we go from, uh, this is, you know, what you described, uh, Caroline as, as a, a description of what's going on in the text?
How does that get reconciled with people who, who still wanna read the Bible as, as a part of their faith expression, as a part of kind of the, the means of grace? So this is a part of my Christian tradition. How now can I engage with these texts? Is it just a matter of, uh, again, I, I come back to what you kind [00:18:00] of said is there's a, maybe a binary of, well, we just have to accept it because this is true and that's how it works.
And then we have this complicated relationship with a violent God because it has to be true. Or this is contextual Iron Age, you know, tribalism and violence, and we can just disregard that, which would lead to people to, I think, just kind of skip those parts.
So how, how do we engage with it from a faith perspective?
Emily: For me, one of the things that I’m interested in is, well, firstly to not skip over the violence, to recognize it and to name it. Um, but we don't have to always think positively about, about well, God's character in the Bible. Um, although we might feel, um, that, well, often as people of faith reading the Bible, we might feel like we need to defend God in that situation.
And so the first thing I'll say is actually, I don't think we need to defend God in this text. I think God is big enough [00:19:00] for us to ask questions and to be critical. Um, so the first thing for me is about asking us to think critically, um, and to ask hard questions of, of the text. But I think for me, the fact that these stories are in the Bible, that they are in our sacred scriptures, um, they allow us to have hard conversations about hard things in our communities.
So, um, the fact that these stories are there means that we can, well, we can read about the violence in the text and we can ask questions about that, but then we can also sit, talk about those issues in terms of how they relate to our contemporary communities. And so for me, um. I do think that there's, you know, these, it's hard having these difficult texts in, in the Bible, but also I think they provide a really kind of sacred opportunity to have conversations about hard things or, and about how we think about [00:20:00] God and how we, um, how we think and, and how we navigate that relationship between God and humanity and, and, all of creation.
The difficult texts, but I think, and, and I don't wanna take them at face value and just kind of say, well, they're there so they, and we have to make sense of them, um, in a positive light, uh, they're there, we have to wrestle with them. And then how, what does that mean for us on the ground?
Jared: And, and maybe I'm, what I'm hearing too is not necessarily even that we have to wrestle with them, but, depending on your view of the Bible, like the, if you're, if you're going to the Bible to be a source of all the answers, I would think that would lead you to one of these binaries. Like it is either giving us the answer or we need to skip it because it's not gonna give us a good answer.
But what I'm hearing you say is if you [00:21:00] engage the text in a different way altogether, that it is there to invite the conversation and it is there to provide, uh, sort of the, um, it's there to provide the fuel for conversation and discussion and disagreement and having the hard conversations and tying it into contemporary, uh, issues of faith and, and ethics and morality.
Then it's not like we have to. It becomes a helpful tool, those passages, to have those conversations. So it may depend on, you know, what, what role do we feel like the Bible should play in our life of faith?
Emily: It becomes a conversation partner with us. Journeying with us. I think one of the things that I work with communities, um, where the Bible is taken very seriously often, quite literally.
Um, and one of my areas of, of interest I think is, is in, in gender-based violence in our communities. I mean, throughout, I'm from Aoteora New Zealand, so our communities have, [00:22:00] have quite high, very high levels of, of sexual violence and, and gender based violence. Um, one of the things in these communities is that we don't talk about sexual violence.
It's, it's off limits. It's, it's taboo.
Um, but the Bible becomes our common ground in those contexts because it's taken seriously. But also the Bible talks about sexual violence. And so in that way, the Bible becomes, um, a springboard or an invitation to have conversations about things in our communities, like sexual violence that are really hard to talk about or that are off limits, because if the Bible talks about it, then maybe we can talk about it too.
And so in that way the Bible becomes, um, a, a, an opening, um, to, to conversations around violence, which we wouldn't otherwise be able to have.
Pete: Right. Caroline, to get you into this, you use the language of, [00:23:00] um, I mean, supporting, I think I, I, what I'm hearing Emily say is, I think what you say when you, uh, what you mean when you say, um, violent texts allow us to really look at violence from a safe distance.
Could you just expand on that? I think that's a great phrase.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, it's something that I've heard before. 'cause I'm a huge, uh, Emily and I are both huge and unashamed fans of, of all things crime-related. So crime fiction, crime, drama, true crime. And it's something I've often heard. The term is used to, to, to try and explain why do we have this fascination with violence stories, not, not just biblical stories, but violent stories in general.
And, and one of the theories which I really like is that, um, you know, as, as human beings, we, we fear violence, um, but we are also part fascinated by it and, and part anxious about it. Um, [00:24:00] whether or not we've experienced it ourselves. You know, violence stories raise questions about, or they bring up themes about loss and injury and pain and grief and trauma.
And we might be curious to learn more about these, but we don't want to experience them ourselves. We, so stories about violence give us a way to think about these themes and, and to ask questions about, you know, what, what would make a fellow human being just like me behave in such a heinous way to someone else?
What, what emotions drive that? You know, what motivates them? Uh, how can I keep myself safe from violence?
And these stories help us to, to think through that, um, at a distance because we're not having to experience the violence ourselves. We're standing back and, and sort of looking on as a spectator, but it does give us that chance to sort of mull over questions that we have about violence. You know, why do [00:25:00] people perpetrate violence? Um, what is it about our world that, that, that keeps violence flourishing? What can I do to maybe help stop violence? And so these, you know, these stories give us an outlet for, for asking questions like that.
Pete: Yeah. So, so neither of the binaries, as Jared said, neither one or the other, but a, a third way of trying to process this.
And again, I'm just, this is, this fascinates me. 'cause I, like most people, I do struggle with these violent texts, to know what to do with them. And if I'm frank, I'll say I'm, I'm not, I'm not pleased with this, but I would say, I just wanna sort of write this off as Iron Age mentalities. And say, well this, I mean, and you sort of said that before, but you're saying much more than that.
That the, um, God is portrayed in ways that make sense culturally for people and all these ancient peoples had deities that had violent streaks in them. And, and they win wars for you and they gain our territory. So [00:26:00] there's sort of projections of what you have with monarchies and things like that.
So I, I think on the one hand, the, I appreciate what you're saying about the presence of violence, of like human-on-human violence and how that might go with, you know, crime shows and things like that as an analogy. But I'm still stuck on divine violence. Like, solve that for us. Please. You have, you have a few minutes left, but what do we do with the texts?
That's what I'm saying. What, what, what do we do with those stories? Like the flood.
Caroline: This doesn't, I don't, this might not answer the question for everyone, but a, a helpful way I think of, of thinking about these violent texts, particularly divine violence is that, um, if we look at biblical text more widely, there are a lot of texts where we see protest against divine violence.
We see it in the Psalms of Lament. Uh, we see it in the book of Job particularly strongly. [00:27:00] We see it in Genesis 18 where Abraham is arguing with God because of God's plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And, and Abraham is saying, you can't do that because there might be righteous people living in Sodom and Gomorrah.
How on earth can you, are you planning to destroy everyone? Um, we see it in the book of Lamentations and, and we also see God, um protesting violence generally in the prophets as well. God threatens a lot of violence in the prophets, but God also protests against the violence of others, particularly those that, um, subjugate the most vulnerable members of the community, the, the poor and the oppressed.
And so there's a tradition and Walter Brigman, the, the theologian and biblical scholar has, has spoken about this before. You know, there's a long tradition in biblical texts of protesting violence, including divine violence. And I think we could say to people that, that, that are maybe [00:28:00] uncomfortable about, um, challenging or, or criticizing divine violence in the Bible.
Say, look, it's, it's okay to be appalled by that violence. It's okay to say that it's not okay because there is a long biblical tradition of saying that's not okay. Protesting divine violence is as biblical as the divine violence itself. Um, and so you have, you have permission to say, hang on a minute, that's not okay.
That doesn't sound right to me.
Jared: And I, I appreciate you bringing that out. I've never maybe thought about it so starkly that within the prophets it shows some, uh, consciousness being developed maybe in that, that time period where there's an irony of I'm going to violently punish you for your violence.
And there's an interesting irony there that maybe shows some- the questions are being raised, but we maybe haven't gotten quite to the point [00:29:00] of yes, wait, maybe God's not actually violent, and maybe that's why there's a call to nonviolence. And there's, there's, there's a bit of a, a time period of, uh, maybe an ironic time period there during that, that time.
Can we maybe take a turn because, well, I wanna make sure, did you get your questions answered about divine violence?
Pete: Um, no.
Jared: Oh, okay. Great. So that's perfect.
Emily: Can I, can I add one more thing to that?
Jared: Yeah. Yes.
Pete: Okay. This will, this will do it. This is it. Go on. This will do it. You're on. Go.
Emily: Let's do it. Heads up. Heads up. I won't answer your question, but I just wanna add another thought. Um, because I think this comes back to what Kaz was saying about our positioning in terms of how we understand the biblical text and, and where its authority comes from. And is this a text written by God or inspired by God, or is this a text that's written by human beings?
And if this is, if the divine violence described in the text, is God describing God's violence, then that's wild. That's problematic. And, and you're gonna have to, [00:30:00] to, to think critically around that. If this is a text that is written by human beings and their understanding and processing of their relationship with God, then you are, you are asking a whole bunch of different questions.
And this, I think, relates back to Kaz's point of, um, the, the multiple voices in the text offering different positions on, on violence. Um, and so we have these voices of, of that, that talk about the divine violence. We also have voices of protest, and for me, that's one of the most exciting things that I love about the Bible is that multiplicity of voices who are kind of all clamoring for attention in there.
Um, and we get to engage with that multiplicity, and there's something I think rich and beautiful and, um, life giving about that. Um, and, and that we just have to kind of, we've been given this tradition of holding intention, the many-ness of the voices there.
Um, and [00:31:00] for me, that's a real gift.
Pete: Yeah. I was kidding before when I said, no, you haven't. Um, but both of you are saying things that I think are, are very important for people to hear. And, and I, I would, uh, make it two, two things you're saying. One is remember ancient context and people, if we think of the Bible as people reflecting on that, which cannot be put into words.
We only have our language to do that. It's gonna look a certain way. What are we doing that's the same? You know, we're, we don't have some objective, hold on, on the creator, right? So, so it, it is context, but it's also, especially what you were saying before, Caroline, you know, the, the buzzword now is multi-vocality.
There are, there's dialogue within the Bible, there's debate, there's disagreement within the Bible, and that's the gift. That's the gift that that's like, okay, you have to work this [00:32:00] out too somehow, and good luck with that. But you, you have to try to figure out what to do about this. And I, I think that's, that's a wonderful way of putting it, so thank you.
Jared: Yeah. And nothing, nothing says like you're in a, a group full of nerds when multi-vocality is a buzzword. Yeah, I know. It's like, it's everywhere. Everyone's talking multi-vocality, aren't they?
Pete: Are people at home? In podcast land?
Jared: Well, maybe I, I wonder, before we run outta time, I wanna maybe jump to the New Testament a little bit and I, I, what I'm thinking of, not necessarily do we find violence in the New Testament, 'cause you already mentioned Revelation and I think it's there.
But I do think it often, um, the idea of, of Christ, you know, the, the life and, and the work of Jesus somehow affects how we approach that. And I, and in some ways it, it's trying to put a, a square peg into a round hole by trying to put these together. But I do hear that quite a bit in terms of, well, that was, you know, it's that kind of [00:33:00] classic, uh, that was in the Hebrew Bible, but now Jesus has come and so He's shown us a new way. Um, but how does, um, how do you sort of think about the, the, the life and work of Jesus as we find it in the New Testament? How does it intersect this idea of, of biblical violence?
Caroline: Um, I mean, I think in some way I don't, yeah. In, in some ways, um, Jesus as, as we, you know, the Jesus that we read off in the Gospels, I can't speak of the, the historical figure, but the, the, the Jesus of the Gospels is in some ways a, a product of His time in that He, um, you know, He, He uses, as I said before, He uses violent language, He's not averse to that.
Um, He also seems fairly comfortable with the institution of enslavement as was probably everyone or a lot of people back at that time. So, I, I [00:34:00] don't think, you know, I think when we look at, at Jesus' life and ministry, He does, uh, focus on drawing in the marginalized and the oppressed.
And he has a, a very prophetic voice in that sense. Um, but there are other times when that, or, or there's perhaps limits to who He's drawing in or there's limits to the liberation that He's offering in terms of, um, you know, who, who will be really sort of liberated in, in the kingdom of God.
Um, so I, I'm, I'm a little, I I'm always a little bit, um, I dunno, skeptical about claims that, that, that Jesus changes everything. Um, that the violence still exists. And, but, but I, I think what, what Jesus does is, as I say, continues that that prophetic tradition of, of questioning power, um, because I think one thing we can maybe say about the majority of biblical [00:35:00] violence is that it, it happens and it’s allowed to happen because of power differentials, because some people are more powerful than others, and those with power, use violence and oppression to keep hold of their power and to subjugate those who have less power than them.
And I think the one thing that, that Jesus does is that I admire the most, I think, is that he shines a light on that very much.
And, and, and the, the gospels as a whole remind us, you know, the power of empire, the power of oppression, um, is, is incredibly violent and life diminishing. And what Jesus is doing through His ministry and His healings and His teachings is to, to talk about how, what, what happens when we remove that, that power, um, the power of empire.
And can we imagine, uh, another way of living where people aren't subjugated. As I said, it's [00:36:00] imperfect because, you know, He talks about enslavement. He doesn't really talk about patriarchy, for example. You know, it's, it's a text that was written in the first century, so maybe I'm just being, maybe I'm being too critical. But, you know, it's, I think as, as contemporary readers, as 21st century readers, we have to acknowledge that at the same time.
Pete: Well, I, I know I've heard others say, and it, it helped me to work through this as well, that, um, it's hard to understand really the rhetoric of violence if you're yourself in a privileged position.
Caroline: Yes. Yeah.
Pete: And that's, I found that that's actually true. 'cause it's easy for me to say, you know, violence is wrong, but I don't know what I would do if ISIS were coming into my backyard.
What would I be praying for God to do? I might sound like the Book of [00:37:00] Revelation pretty quickly. Right. So I, and, and, but again, this is, if we read that as human expressions of “save us,” you know, and this is the, this is the way it has to happen, we have to be safe from our oppressors and that usually means killing them.
Maybe that's what you pray for. But, maybe that's imperfect, right? I know it's in the Bible, but maybe it's not the final story.
Can we, um, I, I hope we have a minute here, a couple minutes. I would love to hear your thoughts on crucifixion.
Jared: Two, two minutes.
Pete: No, not two minutes. Two-and-a-half. Two-and-a- half minutes.
Jared: Okay. I'll give you two and a half.
Pete: Explain crucifixion and, um, and as, as, um, as some have said, as an act of divine violence, even, uh, some have said divine child abuse. Um, I'm not sure where I am with that, that doesn't sound, uh, terribly convincing to me, but I might be wrong. So, just what, how, how do you process crucifixion, which is like the, the, the core of the Christian faith?
There, there is a violent [00:38:00] act going on there.
Caroline: Mm-hmm. Um, I, I, for me, I, for me personally, I think the, the, the crucifixion is a form of state violence. It's, it's structural violence. It's the violence of empire. Jesus was a, a political victim of, of violence at the hands of the Roman Empire.
And I think that for me is, is how I perceive it. And, and, and I also think it's important to remember that, you know, during Jesus' passion and His crucifixion, He was utterly humiliated and shamed and stripped of all His power, His, His social power. He had no political power and He, He stands as a, as an example of, of the, the way that, that those in power can impact those with less power than them.
And Jesus also stands as a reminder to contemporary readers, regardless of their faith [00:39:00] that, um, you know, imperial power, that the, the power of the oppressors is never good and it's, you know, perhaps we can read, all of us can read the crucifixion story as a way, as, as Emily said earlier, as a sort of springboard to think about the way that that same sort of structural and political violence continues today.
You know, what can we do, uh, in our own context and communities to, to speak out against it. Um, and to see Jesus not as, um, to see this not as a, not, not merely as, as a, a sort of divine or, or, or sort of religious or, or spiritual act, but a reminder to all of us that, that, you know, that the crucifixion, the violence Jesus went through was, was not okay and that we need to speak out against it.
Emily: And I, I maybe follow that up with, obviously people have, uh, or Christians have read into the, that [00:40:00] physical act of imperial violence, have read into that act a number of different, kind of, theologies and, and in order to make sense of that, um, and so we have within our tradition, um, a number of different rationales or, or theologizings about that event.
Um, I think for me, and this is more of a faith statement than my own kind of academic scholarly work. I, I would want to say that, that the, the, the Easter event and the resurrection, um, is, is a claim, I think, is a theological claim that violence isn't the end, um, that the violence of the cross, um, is the violence of empire and domination.
Um, and that ultimately that's not the will of God, um, the systems of, of God are not the systems of domination. Um, and for me, um, I, that's where I find meaning in, in, in that, in that event.
Jared: That's it, see you later.
Pete: That was a good answer. That was helpful. Thank you.
Jared: Yeah. Bye. No, I'm just kidding. [00:41:00] Um, yeah, no, I, I think that's a great, uh, I think that was a good place to end.
I'm kind of thinking through the trajectory of where we go from kind of starting in the flood in Genesis 18 and trying to understand that the Hebrew Bible and then through to the crucifixion and, um, you know, understanding the violence, uh, that we find there through, um, that particular lens, and so I appreciate in particular, you know, Caroline kind of that, can we see it through this context?
Um, and then also Emily, then through the lens of, of theology or, or from a faith perspective. I think those are both helpful ways. And it, what it does is kind of remind me what we started with as we think about these texts, that there is an understanding of context that can be helped by more academic or scholarly, you know, historical critical, what is the context?
But then there's this faith and theological element that we inevitably have to engage in if we're going to be people of faith in the 21st century.
Pete: And that conversation doesn't end [00:42:00] quickly. Right. It keeps going. It keeps going.
Jared: And what I love is that they can be in conversation with each other.
They're not mutually exclusive.
Pete: And kill you if I disagree with you.
Jared: Right.
Pete: So we have, we learned nothing here today.
Jared: Good. So thank you so much for coming in and sharing that perspective on this. Again, this is a, a perennial question that we get over and over again, so thank you for your perspective on it.
Caroline: Thank you very much.
Emily: Thank you.
Jared: Well, thanks to everyone who supports the show. If you wanna support what we do, there are three ways you can do it. One, if you just wanna give a little money, go to thebiblefornormalpeople.com/give
Pete: And if you wanna support us and want an all access pass for our classes, ad-free livestream of the podcast, and a thoughtful community of people asking tough questions about the Bible and faith, you can become a member of our online community, the Society of Normal People at thebiblefornormalpeople.com/join
Jared: And lastly, it goes a long way. If you just wanted to rate the podcast, leave a review, and tell others [00:43:00] about our show. In addition, you can let us know what you thought about the episode by emailing us at info@thebiblefornormalpeople.com
Outro: You've just made it through another episode of the Bible for Normal People. Don't forget, you can catch our other show, Faith for Normal People, in the same feed wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was brought to you by The Bible for Normal People team: Brittany Hodge, Stephen Henning, Joel Limbauan, Savannah Locke, Melissa Yandow, Tessa Stultz, Danny Wong, Lauren O'Connell, and Naiomi Gonzalez.
[Beep signals start of blooper clip]
Jared: Alright everybody, it's that time of year again.
Pete: Sorry, I was thinking about the bleep. Do it, do it again. I'm sorry. My mind, my ADHD mind was in another tab at that for the moment. They're good.
Jared: All right. We good?
Pete: Yeah. The live class in q and a are happening on Thursday, June 26th from 8 to 9 PM [00:44:00] Eastern time.
Jared: Nope. It is 8 to 9:30 PM
Pete: I, that's, I was gonna say that. I'm testing you
Jared: 8 to 9:00 PM Eastern time-30 Is that what you're gonna do?
Pete: It's the pressure of getting through all these in the time we have. I'm just-
Jared: Oh, we got plenty of time.
Pete: It's too much for.
