Israel's Holy Wars ii

This is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Israel Holy Wars series. The rest of the content can be found here: https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Holy-Wars .

We will be picking up just where we left off last session. When we ended, we had been discussing two passages from Deuteronomy, chapters 7 and 20. Our final discussion question was, Why might it be that we find ourselves reacting in the way we do when we encounter such passages?

Of course, the passages are disturbing; This would be true whether we encounter such passages in our own books, or even reading of them in a work of fiction.

What I'm wondering is whether we think that our reaction is of either a different quality, or to a different degree, when we find them in the passages of our TaNaKh.

Here are the passages again:

And secondly;

Let's consider this for a moment:

As many of us read the works in the TaNaKh, we often end up wrestling with one or more contradictions. The contradictions are generally philosophical, and are the result of feeling compelled to try to hold onto all of the following assumptions:

• YHWH is all-good;
• YHWH is all-loving;
• YHWH is all-powerful;
• The TaNaKh is the word of YHWH;
• The narrative passages of the TaNaKh describe events that occurred as the TaNaKh describes them;
• When YHWH is quoted, he is quoted accurately and honestly.

But what do you think: Is it possible to read passages such as the ones from Deuteronomy above while accepting these axioms as truth? And if not - which of the above would you reframe, or maybe even reject?

I want to take a look together at two comments from the Jewish Study Bible commentary together. The comments are quite dense and will require a lot of unpacking; but it should provide some fascinating perspectives worth thinking about:

From JSB Commentary on chapter 7:

The law of the ban is an anachronistic literary formulation.

It first arose centuries after the settlement; it was never implemented because there was no population extant against whom it could be implemented. Its polemic in favor of religious purity is directed at internal issues in 6th century Judah. Often the authors of Deut. use the term "Canaanite" rhetorically to stigmatize older forms of Israelite religion that they no longer accept.

What approach are the writers of this comment taking? How does this relate to our discussion of the list of axioms above? Are they merely giving us an objective scholarly background? Or might they be wrestling with our questions as well?

If you find it surprising that this comment states that the law of the ban arose "centuries after the settlement" when the Torah attributes it to our liberator Moses, that is because the commentary is assuming something called the "Documentary Hypothesis." We won't spend the time on this topic that it deserves, but suffice it to say for our purposes that what would come to be referred to as the "5 Books of Moses" were actually written by different authors, over a very long period of time, only to be redacted in the form as we have it now by Ezra, appropriately called The Scribe. (For further reading, see Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?)

As for the claim made in the JSB commentary specifically - that "Canaanite" refers to earlier forms of Israelite religion, well consider this passage from the oracles of Ezekiel:

Yikes; He does not sound so happy about something.

But what do you think about this Ezekiel's statement, compared to our historical narrative that we usually think of?

And what do you think, reading this together with the comment from the Jewish Study Bible commentary? Can it help us with our question above, as far as what kinds of assumptions we should have and prioritize as we approach texts from the TaNaKh?

Let's now take a look at this other comment, this one from chapter 20. Some of you might find it helpful, and others might not; What I'm personally interested in is that it points us towards one of the most important archaeological finds for Biblical scholarship, and which should help contribute to our greater discussion:

From JSB Commentary chapter 20:

Although wars of conquest would normally be waged for the sake of empire building and profit, Israel's holy war is fought for religious reasons: to extirpate iniquity and to create a covenantal community organized by divine law. Accordingly the usual seizing of plunder - property, animals, and humans - is prohibited. Throughout the Near East the kinds of spoils taken in war would include men, for their labor, and women, for sex, labor and child--rearing. For that reason, the rules for holy war must stipulate that no prisoners be taken. All the normal spoils of war had to be devoted exclusively to God, like the sacrificial "holocaust" offering from which neither priest nor lay Israelite could take any portion.

A contemporary inscription, the Moabite Stone establishes that similar theologies of holy war were shared by a number of nations. In the case of Deut., it is important to recognize that the conception of the conquest as a holy war represents, paradoxically, a highly schematized idealization, formulated half a millennium after the settlement, at a time when ethnic Canaanites would already long have assimilated into the Israelite population.

The importance of the Mesha Stele can in no way be overstated. So let's turn our attention over its way, starting with a quote from the Wikipedia entry:

Wikipedia on the Meshe Stele:

The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. Mesha describes his many building projects.^[1] Some say it is written in the Phoenician alphabet, but others say it is written in the Old Hebrew script, which is closely related.

Before turning to an English translation of some relevant passages, take a look at the Steles themselves. (Fun tidbit; when Passover rolls around again and you fulfill the mitzvah to watch Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, watch very carefully when Charleton Heston - I mean Moses! - receives the 10 commandments, and you'll see this script in all of its fiery glory! The Prince of Egypt animated film got it right too :- ) !)

Here's something even more amazing. The language of the Moabites and of the Israelites were so similar that if you know how to read Phoenecian (aka Paleo-Hebrew) characters, you would be able to decipher a lot of the above. (Who knew that you could read and understand ancient Moabite????)

See lines 1-6, 14-18, 31 at this link: http://www.lloydthomas.org/1-IsraelTimeLine/2-MosesManasseh/MeshaStele.html

What's really interesting is when we start cross-referencing with passages from the TaNaKh. And while we don't have anything which matches up in all of its details, there are certainly a few passages with which the Moabite Stele should be read.

Firstly, it's important to note that the Israelites and Moabites, while neighbors, were never friends, with legends being told of their rivalry going back to before the Israelites ever took root in Canaan. (Remember Bilaam?)

Here a few passages which touch upon this ongoing feud:

Now let's fast-forward several hundred years, and skip over a whole book of the TaNaKh.

This next passage is part of a section detailing King David's victories, as he strives to finally establish Israel and Judeah's dominance over all her neighbors, transforming the family-turned-tribe-turned-confederacy-turned-kingdom into an emerging Empire:

Here's a graph which shows the extent of David's politico-geographical rule:

Okay, well do you remember the name of the King of Moab during the war described in the Mesha Stele? Let's take one more look at that above; Then let's jump forward yet another book and another century, and here's what we get:

Interesting!

Note that in the Mesha Stele, the King of Moab blames King Omri and his son. Who do we get in 2 Kings? The death of Ahab! Is there any parallel? Here's an Israelite Kings chart:

This is one of those amazing instances where we have extra-biblical evidence corroborating a historical passage as described in the a text in the TaNaKh itself - which is always a home-run. How many parallels between the Mesha Stele and the story in the TaNaKh do you notice?

The rest of the passage is important for us here, in which we learn of the end of this particular moment of this ongoing Moabite saga:

This is an utterly fascinating passage from our TaNaKh. What does the end of it seem to imply?

Okay time to zoom way back out; What are we doing with all of this Moabite stuff?

Recall the comment in the Jewish Study Bible commentary that one should turn to the Mesha Stele in order to find similar language as that in Deuteronomy, in which we see gods expecting their peoples to engage in aggressive, no-holds-barred military campaigns. Our looking into these passages of war with Moab was to provide some context and comparison.

In addition to that which is being mandated by deities, there are other interesting parallels between the Mesha Stele and some of what else we've seen in these passages from the TaNaKh. Do you notice any? (It might help to open up the Mesha text in one half of the screen, and then to go through the TaNaKh-ic passages once more.)

Is there any way that this might help us with the question we started with today, regarding the assumptions with which we approach the TaNaKh? Does this inform the way we see some of these more difficult passages in ways that are helpful?