Course Description:
This course will focus on peace and violence as Old Testament themes. It will examine the apparent violence of God, as well as the commands for human violence. It will further unpack the prophetic response to the violence, including the prophecies of the Prince of peace and kingdom of peace. And we will examine how Christ, the apostles and the early church responded to these Old Testament texts.
The course will seek to answer questions such as:
- What do we make of apparent acts of direct divine violence? (e.g., the flood narrative).
- What do we make of apparent commands to divinely-sanctioned human violence? (e.g., so-called genocide texts like 1 Sam. 15)?
- How does the Old Testament itself understand and critique the violence narratives?
- What do we (and the New Testament) make of the Messianic prophecies that include Messianic violence?
- How did Christ and Paul amend and adopt these?
- How might we understand the Old Testament violence texts as revelation of God and of humanity and embrace them as part of a grand narrative of redemption?
Student Learning Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this course, students will:
- recognize the reality of violent worldviews, descriptions and practices in the OT Scriptures of God and how these were associated with divine violence;
- recognize how the themes of peace and reconciliation function across the Old Testament corpus and prepare us for the Prince of peace;
- be able to address the question of Old Testament violence and how it has been misused as a revelation of God and justified Christian malpractice;
- evaluate ‘what about’ questions regarding specific divine or divinely-sanctioned violence texts in the OT, such as the flood, the conquest, Levitical violence and the prophecies of ‘wrath.’
- become critically aware of the powerful lenses through which we approach and thus interpret the Old Testament and how Christ himself becomes our lens.
