A Different Kind of War: Deuteronomy 20:1–14 and Luke 10:1–24 in Dialogue

Abstract

Abstract Passages promoting divinely approved violence permeate the biblical account. One Christian interpretative strategy, favored in premodern times but largely considered too arbitrary today, attempts to view these laws and stories of war as depicting battles against invisible forces of evil. This article attempts to strengthen this hermeneutical approach by focusing on a possible intertextual echo in Luke’s Gospel. It compares two sets of instructions—Israel’s military strategy against hostile cities in Deut 20:1–14 and the missionary blueprint, commanded by Jesus, for proclaiming the kingdom in Luke 10:1–24—and proposes that, in contrast to Israel’s rules for warfare, Luke’s account encourages Jesus’s disciples to approach the encountered cities nonviolently and turn their imagined swords against spiritual enemies. Consequently, the study suggests that the explored intertextual link might also function contrariwise and contribute toward establishing the metaphorical reading as a lasting option for interpreting biblical war narratives.