Religion and metaphor of war

Abstract

Perhaps nowhere is the metaphor of war more ingrained than in the realm of religion. This is particularly true of the sects whose roots are planted in the Middle East (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). The scriptures of these three great religions are bloody‐minded texts. In the Old Testament we find verses such as: “He shall thrust out the enemy before thee; and shall say, Destroy them—He teaches my hands to war.—Yea, for thy sake we killed all the day long.” The Koran contains the following: “Slay them wheresoever you find them, and expel them from whence they have expelled you, for sedition is more grievous than slaying.” The New Testament is just as sanguineous: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword—And power was given to them that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” By far, the most bloody text is the Old Testament, parts of which are accepted as canon by all three sects. The Old Testament epitomizes what Joseph Campbell refers to as the myth of war, and he notes that the mythology of the Old Testament is very much alive in the Middle East.