Divine Violence and the Character of God by Claude F. Mariottini

Abstract

Reviewed by: Divine Violence and the Character of God by Claude F. Mariottini David Penchansky claude f. mariottini, Divine Violence and the Character of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022). Pp. xvii + 437. Paper $47. Thus says the Lord of hosts … go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. (1 Sam 15:3) A violent God commands King Saul to eradicate a community, killing every living thing. [End Page 342] These actions conflict with the standard portrait of the loving, compassionate, forgiving God. Mariottini faces this theological problem head-on. He examines virtually every depiction of divine violence in the Hebrew Bible. He asks and answers the question, How might one reconcile the loving God with a God who can command such atrocities? (pp. xvii, 18). He claims, "My intent is not to defend God but to see how and why God acted the way he did and to understand the reason for divine violence in the Old Testament" (pp. xvi–xvii). However, it appears to me the opposite is true. M. defends the behavior of God at every turn. To do so, he frequently quotes from Exodus: The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Exod 34:6) For M., this quotation suggests that, although Yhwh will occasionally commit acts of violence, it is not in God's nature to do so. Yet why should this particular declaration in Exodus be privileged, and why should one prefer what God says over what God does? For M., the presence of divine violence is a problem to be solved, a question to be answered, a nut to be cracked. First, he must establish the presence of divine violence in the Hebrew Bible. He does this by examining in detail the following: • God kills all humans and animals in the flood, except those on Noah's boat (Genesis 6–9). • God commands Joshua to kill all the inhabitants of Canaan in order to make room for Israel (Joshua 6; 8). • God tells Moses that he will punish the children and grandchildren of those who violate the covenant (Exod 20:5). • God destroys the city of Sodom, killing the innocent along with the guilty (Genesis 18–19). • God sends the Assyrians to destroy Israel, subjecting them to terrible suffering and death (2 Kings 17; Hos 13:16; Isa 10:5–13). Although one might discount the stories of divine violence, M. insists on their relevance. He defends God's violence by demonstrating how these actions conform to the affirmation of a merciful, gracious, and loving God. For M., the OT God gets hurt, angry, confused. M. draws from Abraham Heschel's notion of "divine pathos" to justify how God, enraged by human perfidy, commits acts of violence (p. 64). Therefore, he finds instances of divine violence both reasonable and necessary, manifestations of "the dark side" of God (p. 155), which is only a mask. Therefore, God is not responsible for the resulting carnage. These are his arguments: • God becomes violent to secure justice by punishing sinful behavior, an appropriate, congruent, and proportionate response to human violence (pp. 82, 116, 245). • God commits violence only reluctantly, but feels bad about it afterwards (pp. 63, 67, 69, 80). • Divine violence is necessary to save Israel from their enemies (pp. 247, 370). • God has proven merciful because, when Abraham, and then Moses, protested Yhwh's intended violence, God relented (pp. 78, 124, 141, 144–47, 202). • In the prophets, God sends foreign armies to punish Israel. These foreign armies are violent. If they are excessively brutal toward Israel, God is not to blame (pp. 162, 172, 176). [End Page 343] • The ancient world was a violent place. Those who single out divine violence as extraordinary and gratuitous read the Bible anachronistically (p. 84). Mariottini discerns an underlying, unifying narrative in the Christian Bible (OT and NT). In his view, God seeks to reconnect with humans after the Garden, trying first with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and then through Israel as a nation. Each...