Biblical violence is a difficult subject matter to comprehend, and it may raise questions to those who read the Old Testament. Some of which include: questioning God’s actions and why God is portrayed engaging in various acts of violence. You can’t help but wonder, is biblical violence necessary? There is evidence of biblical violence can be seen scattered throughout history, in artwork, movies, politics, and especially various elements of popular culture. There are several arguments for each case ranging from “the bible is too violent” to “legitimizing biblical violence,” most of which are very compelling. I would like to talk about the legitimization aspect of biblical violence in film by responding to this article. If you take a look …show more content…
The Prince of Egypt is an animated adaptation of Exodus, which portrays an artistic rendition of the life of Moses while still maintaining the integrity of the original story. As an animated Dreamworks production, this story was targeted towards children, which is nice because it can be very difficult to explain the concept of violence in the Bible to children. While this film is an adaptation there are many accurate depictions of Exodus that the movie does address. As mentioned in the article, many of the violent scenes are depicted with minimalism. The tenth plague for example, “At midnight the LORD smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of the cattle” (NRSV Exodus 12:29). A luminescent fog represents the angel of death, and the only element that alludes to death is seen in the Pharaoh’s son. When the “fog” reaches him, a pot crashes to the floor and his arm gently falls out of a doorway. Another minimalist indication of death from the tenth plague comes as the “fog” passes through their homes of those who’s lentils and posts are not marked with lamb’s blood, an exhale is let out. This film also displays maximization, enhancing an existing act of violence within the Bible (Avalos 2009). In one of the first scenes of The Prince of Egypt, the Hebrew infanticide ordered by Pharaoh is depicted as guards storm into the
The readings of Exodus explain the departure of the Israelites from Egypt and how the covenant was renewed. The rejuvenation made Israel a nation and formed a relationship between god and his teachings. The nature of god’s presence reveals how the Israelites were authentic and productive with how they reproduced and how the land became filled with Israelites. The reality demonstrates how the new king of Egypt stated that, “The Israelite people have multiplied and become more numerous than we are”(Exodus p. 16). This reality proposes how the Egyptians became resentful against the Israelites in order them to suffer brutal slavery and make life difficult for them with intense work and punishment. The texts in Exodus acknowledge the sacrifices Hebrew women had to make in order to live through nature and reality. It states “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are robust and give birth before the midwife arrives” (Exodus p. 16). Gods presence through nature and reality reveals how
Before looking at how the Gospel of Luke justifies a specific form of self-defensive violence, it is important to examine the text’s general attitude towards violence so as to emphasize the significance of its justification of any violence at all. As one would expect from the Holy Book of
In fairy tales, children are pushed into ovens, have their hands chopped off, are forced to sleep in coal bins, and must contend with wolves who've eaten their grandmother. In myths, rape, incest, all manner of gruesome bloodshed, child abandonment, and total debauchery are standard fare. We see more of the same in Bible stories, accentuated with dire predictions of terrors and abominations in an end of the world apocalypse that is more horrifying than the human imagination can even grasp.
The Passion of the Christ does graphically depict the violent, sadistic torture Jesus endured for our sins, but what took place that day can never truly be re-enacted. Some individuals are stating that the Passion of the Christ was grotesquely violent and did not need to be portrayed in such a manner. The Passion is an exceptional manifestation of the certainty of the love of God and the brutal repercussions that it sometimes causes (Assist News Service 2003). How can the scripture be accurately portrayed if it is sugar coated because people hate to see the truth. Films are about impact, imagery, visceral response, and imprinting unforgettable visual effects. This films leaves much more than a visual impact, for it changes people's lives, after seeing what Jesus went through for mankind. People are able to sit thru the most gut wrenching, blood bath horror movies ever conceived by mankind, because of their twisted fairytale meaning for entertainment. When it comes to hearing and seeing the truth it is called, too violent? The Passion of the Christ was not by any means as graphic as the representation in the
Before answering the question posed, first the etymology of the word ‘violence’ will be examined:
One distinction not mentioned is the reference to historical features allocated to the setting of the Bible’s stories. Coming with the passage of time arrives different societal norms; therefore, it is important to put historical context into play when examining the violence in the Bible. It is well known that earlier time periods were subjected to more extreme forms of violence as a part of everyday life and culture. Hence, the violence, specifically the ban, was not an uncommon feature or reality to the people represented by the Bible. Thus, one can question whether the violence set forth in the Bible should be ridiculed as severely due to its origin stemming from such a harsh time in human history.
I agree with Professor Stone, when he talked about the violence in The Old Testament, granted in just about every story told in The Old Testament there is a war or some other type of violence. He talks about Pharaoh of Egypt for instance and how he considered himself to be God and he appointed top rulers in about 30 towns of Canaan. Pharaoh sent the Egyptians to Canaan and the surrounding towns and stripped them of their best workers and made them out of salves. Moses by Gods hand freed them from the Pharaoh and was tasked to bring the children of Israel to the promise land. Moses got upset when he came off of the mountain and saw the Israelites worshiping false gods. He broke the Ten Commandments into 1000 pieces and this made God displeased.
One of the instructors, Gary Kruger, claims that this institution uses the instructional period as a way to expose men to the reality that as Christians, they are in a spiritual fight and are called to fight the good fight of faith (Warren, 2011). Arya et al. (2010) argued that there is an experience within sports that can collectively transport the crowd from the state of ordinariness to a state of the sacred. She then continues to explain that rituals foster this passage from the ordinary to the sacred, where the ritualistic behaviour alters the individualistic identity to a collective experience, where the whole is greater than the sum. Girard (1972) discusses through his influential anthological book, Violence And The Sacred, the build-up
Though violence appears in complex ways in the Covenant Code, this research will study only the violence against women recorded in Exod 21:4, 7-11, 20-21, 26-27. In this chapter,
Military activity enacted by a person who leads others in following God is a test of God’s mercy (4:9-12). Both John and Jesus were leading others in following God; one sees violence as an option, the other sees it as a test of God’s mercy. As if this potential for violence wasn’t enough just coming from John and Jesus, the people hearing Jesus' message would respond violently, afraid of Rome’s response to being associated with such people. The prophetic message of Jesus is threatening to its audience because it will put them at odds with the power structures of the day (4:28-29).
“It must be pointed out that resistance of any kind—violent or nonviolent— is not recommended by these saying of Jesus.” This quote is saying that Jesus does not want people to resist anything no matter if the thing is harmful or not. This Scholar’s opinion is one of the many reasons why we must begin to decide if Biblical Hatred is correct or wrong. If he would have the idea of retaliation as a Jesus thing then people would see the book through a different lens. When we begin to look at things through a different lens then we can see that, “[Jesus] refused to become a military messiah … using violence to set things right.” Jesus was against violence even though he was pushed to be violent. Jesus refused to handle anything that way.
There seems to be a lot of violence in the Old Testament because this is where sin began. It also has greedy rulers who thought they were Gods. Groups of people fought over land, family members fighting each other and it displayed so much wickedness and hate that God had to clean house and start over.
Religion and violence are two different word, and both have different definitions. Religion is defined as a belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or Gods. In fact, violence is a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. When putting religion and violence together these definitions turn into a new significance to both word. “Religious violence turns to be a term that covers phenomena where religion is either the subject or object of violent behavior. Religious violence is, specifically, violence that is motivated by or in reaction to religious precepts, texts, or doctrines. This includes violence against religious institutions, people, objects, or when
It is sad to think that the first few people on earth needed no books, movies, games or music to inspire cold-blooded murder. The day that Cain bashed his brother Abel’s brains in, the only motivation he needed was his own human disposition to violence. Whether you interpret the Bible as literature or as the final word of whatever God may be, Christianity has given us an image of death and sexuality that we have based our culture around. A half-naked dead man hangs in most homes and around our necks, and we have just taken that for granted all our lives. Is it a symbol of hope or hopelessness? The world’s most famous murder-suicide was also the birth of the death icon – the blueprint for celebrity. Unfortunately, for all their inspiring
In the Old Testament, there are a number of books that contain violent stories that may astonish a first time reader. Some of these stories seem to encourage not only the slaughtering of enemy armies, but also the murder of innocent civilians including the elderly, women, children and livestock. The book of Joshua has a multiple of narratives that tell of such events. In chapters six through eleven, God instructs Joshua and his fellow Israelites to annihilate dozens of enemy armies, and subsequently orders them to lay their cities and towns to waste. Joshua and the Israelites put to death men, women, children, and livestock by the “edge of the sword.” Biblical