God is a Warrior: Coming to Terms with Divine Violence in the Old Testament

Especially since 9/11 Christians in the West have been sensitive to descriptions of God acting violently toward his human creatures. Many contemporary Christians find the stories of Noah’s flood, the conquest of Jericho, and other similar accounts of divine violence disturbing. God’s command to “completely annihilate” (herem) the Canaanites troubles many. Reactions to these descriptions have led many scholars today (Enns and Siebert in particular) to provide other explanations or to suggest that the picture of God we get in the Old Testament is out of keeping with the ethics of Jesus. They, therefore, conclude that the God of the text is not the same as the real God. Over against these viewpoints, this lecture will show how the Bible, Old and New Testaments, provide a coherent picture of God’s fight against evil from the Fall until the Consummation.

Tremper Longman III is a professor of Biblical Studies at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA.

To learn more about Tremper Longman III, click here.