PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

LECTURE

1

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PEACE THEOLOGY 101Introduction to Peace Theology.

This course will help the students to appreciate and to evaluate a biblical understanding and contemporary practice of Peace Theology. Such evaluation will be done within the framework of social sciences and informed from the perspective of biblical theology.

The students will be intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally involved in the current discussions on the meanings, proposals, and tasks of Peace Theology.

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

INTRODUCTIONAND

TANAKHORIENTATION

ANCIENT MIDDLE EAST

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

NEVI’IM. The Prophets ( 7ִב4יִא4ים (Prophetsְנ

Joshua - (Y'hoshua יהושע) .6Judges - (Shophtim שופטים) .7Samuel (I & II) - (Sh'muel שמוִאל) .8Kings (I & II) - (M'lakhim מלכים) .9Isaiah - (Y'shayahu ישעיה) .10Jeremiah - (Yir'mi'yahu ירמיה) .11Ezekiel - (Y'khezqel יחזקִאל) .1213. The Twelve Prophets ( עשר (תרי

a. (הושע Hoshea) - Hoseab. (יוִאל Yo'el) - Joelc. (עמוס Amos) - Amosd. (עוִבדיה Ovadyah) - Obadiahe. (יוְנה Yonah) - Jonahf. (מיכה Mikhah) - Micahg. (ְנחום Nakhum) - Nahumh. (חִבקוק Havakuk) - Habakkuki. (צפְניה Ts'phanyah) - Zephaniahj. (חגי Khagai) - Haggaik. (זכריה Z'kharyah) - Zechariahl. (מלִאכי Mal'akhi) - Malachi

TANAKH ORIENTATION

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

TORAH. The Torah (הZת\ו]ר literally "teaching“).

1. (Bereshit ִברִאשית)Genesis

(Shemot שמות) .2Exodus

(Vayikra ויקרִא) .3Leviticus

(Bamidbar ִבמדִבר) .4Numbers

(Devarim דִברים) .5Deuteronomy

TANAKH ORIENTATION

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

TANAKH ORIENTATION

Psalms - (Tehillim תהלים) .14Proverbs - (Mishlei משלי) .15Job - (Iyov ִאיוִב) .1617. ( השירים – (Shir Hashirim שיר Song of SongsRuth - (Rut רות) .18Lamentations - (Eikhah ִאיכה) .19Ecclesiastes - (Kohelet קהלת) .20Esther - (Esther ִאסתר) .21Daniel - (Dani'elדְניִאל)) .2223. ( וְנחמיה (Ezra v'Nechemia עזרִא Ezra-Nehemiah24. ( הימים (Divrei Hayamim דִברי Chronicles (I & II)

KETUVIM (ִב4ים\ \7תו ("Writings כ

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

What does it mean for biblical theology that Yahweh is a warrior?

YAHWEH IS A WARRIOR

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

A. CHARACTERISTICS OF YAHWEH’S WAR:

1. PROPHET-LED. The fundamental paradigm was miracle, not human-made weapons.

2. YAHWEH WAS THE KING. The people’s leader was not a violent, divinely-appointed hero. The political structure was “prophetic.”

3. BASIS WAS YAHWEH’S CHARACTER. It was directed not only against Israel’s enemies but at times against Israel herself.

1. YAHWEH AS WARRIOR

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

B. WORKING THROUGH PRIMARY HISTORY WITHIN BIBLICAL TEXTS

1. PRIMARY HISTORYGenesis - 2 Kings:: contains oldest traditions of warfare:: provides foundation for understanding warfare in biblical writings

2. SECONDARY HISTORYChronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah

1. YAHWEH AS WARRIOR

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

C. WAS THE MIRACULOUS NATURE OF HOLY WAR DERIVED FROM HISTORICAL EVENTS?

1. TYPE A: No, the miraculous nature of Holy War was not derived from historical events.

Schwally, Pedersen, Von Rad, & Miller

2. TYPE B: We disagree with those Type A scholars above with our respective varying reasons.

Smend, Glock, Stolz, Weippert

1. YAHWEH AS WARRIOR

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

1844-1918FRIEDRICH SCHWALLY

Completed his PhD in Old Testament Studies1888; in 1889 he obtained a teaching credential for Religion, Hebrew and German; did a comparative method in his study of ancient warfare

:: Observed that all ancient peoples claimed the gods’ participation in their battles; because the gods’ fought, the warriors were to fight all the harder. Within ancient Israel, the claim was that divine help made it unnecessary for the warriors to fight

:: Ascribed this to late Judaic historical writing because of its interest in edification, exaggerated the importance of faith in divine help…

(Der heilige Krieg im alten Israel, Leipzig,1901)

TYPE A

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

1883-1977JOHANNES PEDERSEN

He was a noted theologian and linguist. Pedersen believed that "objective thought, that is to say, inactive, disinterested thought" does not exist in most instances. Pederson was committed to the assumption that the full social context is necessary to understanding written texts.

Among ancient peoples, Pedersen observed, weapons alone did not decide the issue in warfare.

“…it was infinitely of greater importance that those who were to use them possessed the proper psychic force and the efficiency of the weapons themselves in the battle depended on their consecration and consequent pervasion by holiness.”

“By a very slight change the narrator has created quite a new picture of war out of the old elements.”

(Israel, It’s Life and Culture III-IV, London, 1934, pp.1-32)

TYPE A

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

1901 - 1971GERHARD VON RAD

He was a German Lutheran pastor, University professor and an Old Testament scholar. With the experience of two World Wars, the German-speaking world began to turn "anti-Old Testament". Disturbed by this, Rad turned to the study of the Old Testament and gradually started to bring back its message. His lively papers achieved a renewal of interest and research in Old Testament studies.

:: According to Von Rad, the emphasis on miracle in those narratives that excludes or downgrade the value of human fighting is not historical but theological in origin.

:: Von Rad maintained that this emphasis arose from the changed situation during the time of Solomon (due primarily to the “enlightenment,” the impact of the international wisdom literature upon Israel).

(Der heilige Krieg im alten Israel, Göttingen,1952)

TYPE A

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PATRICK D. MILLER, JR.Patrick D. Miller is Charles T. Haley Professor of Old Testament Theology Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. He is the author of numerous books, coeditor of the series Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching and the Westminster Bible Companion series, and served as editor of Theology Today for twenty years.

“As the centuries passed and the tradition grew, there came a tendency to ascribe the victory solely to the miraculous intervention of Yahweh apart from any participation of the people, but in the early period of Israel’s history there was no such abdication on the part of the people.”

(The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, 1973, p.156.)

TYPE A

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

1851-1913RUDOLF SMEND

YAHWEH IS A WARRIOR

He was a German theologian who was born in Lengerich, Westphalia. He was an authority on constitutional and ecclesiastical law.

:: He interpreted the spiritualization of war narratives as a later rewriting, but he argued that this revision was not a case of theologizing in a vacuum, but rather of theologizing based upon a foundational covenant event (Sinai) in tension with the foundational war event (the exodus) that had occurred at the very beginning of Israel’s history as individual clans.

(Jahwekrieg und Stämmebund, 1963, pp. 134f.)

TYPE B

A. GLOCK

A. Glock finished his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1968.

:: Mari existed 600 years before Israel – progress in war technology symbolized by the horse and chariot

:: Glock claimed that Israel’s failure to emply these contemporary weapons was not merely a result of political necessity, but represented a deliberate, conscious choice, a form of resistance to a caste system and to monarchy.

(Warfare in Mari and Early Israel, Michigan,1968)

TYPE B

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

1942-2001FRITZ STOLZ

A German biblical scholar and orientalist and a professor of general history of religion and religious studies at the Theological Faculty of the University of Zurich . He was one of the most famous German scholars of religion.

:: He claimed that the idea of divine power as contrasted with human powerlessness originated not in Israel’s political experience with the superior power of the Canaanites, but rather in the pre-Israelite cult of Jerusalem inherited by David.”

(Jahwes und Israel’s Krieg, Zurich,1972, p. 7)

TYPE B

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

MANFRED WEIPPERT

1965-68 Administrator of a scientific assistant in Göttingen, Tübingen; in 1968-71 and in 1971 PhD and Habilitation in Tübingen; in 1971-76 research assistant and lecturer at Tübingen; in 1976-83, full professor of Semitic languages  at Utrecht in 1983 ; currently Full Professor of Old Testament theology in Heidelberg.

:: He noted that outside of Israel as well as within, victory was often expressed not as an action of the army but as an action of the gods alone.

:: According to him, Yahweh in an incomparable measure was the god of the people, the “God of Israel.”

(Heilieger Krieg’ in Israel und Assyrien, 1972, pp. 460-493.)

TYPE B

PEACE THEOLOGY 101

PEACE THEOLOGY 101