The Bible for a Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric People


One project I promised myself to do in retirement was work through and write up in as comprehensive a way as I could manage a coherent look on the vexing question of how to read a book, the Bible, birthed in and reflecting a bloody, brutal, and barbaric time as a text for insight and nurture guidance, indeed, a Word of God, for us today. That’s a gargantuan project, of course, but I’m ready to take a run at it. I’ve found a major assist in the recent book published by William Webb and Gordon Oeste, Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric: Wrestling with Troubling War Texts. They have gathered much of the relevant data on these texts and the issues surrounding them and subjected them to analysis with what I have come to myself, with some different nuances, as the kind of approach needed to fairly and faithfully hear their message as God’s word to us today. I will provide a thorough report on each chapter of their book as a first phase of this project. Then I will add some reflections on their work and additional sections on other relevant matters ranging a bit wider than the book’s focus on war texts and attendant issues. Obviously, this will take some time. I’ll report my findings on my blog (marginalchristianity.blogspot.com) for any interested readers in a section by section fashion. I will begin posting every few days, I hope, next week. I have tentatively titled this study The Bible for a Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric People. Hope you’ll read along as I post and share any feedback you have.

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