Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian English Spanish Portuguese

Hello Father Angelo and thank you for the courtesy of reading this letter of mine.

I write to you because when I am asked about the violence present in the Old Testament and about God’s role in it, I never know exactly what to answer.

How should we interpret the laws and orders attributed to God which not only allow for the use of ferocious violence and justice based more on the principles of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and even encourage atrocities and barbarism against the enemy peoples of Israel speaking of extermination rather than being inspired by forgiveness and compassion?

How do we,followers of Christ, make this description of God coexist with that of love and mercy revealed to us by His Son?

Can we say that perhaps the Israelites exploited their privileged relationship with God to justify violence and atrocities, allowing themselves to attribute them to Him, or is all of this, even in its harshness, part of a divine plan aimed at achieving our good also through ways unknown to us?

And what might have been God’s plan for all the victims?

Thank you again for your attention and may God bless you always,

Riccardo

Priest’s response

Dear Richard,

1. When reading the Old Testament it is necessary to remember two things above all.

First: God’s revelation is progressive.

Second: very often an anthropomorphic language is used whereby speaking of God. He is presented in a human way: in fact we read of a God who gets angry, of a God who changes his mind and repents, of a God who commands to exterminate entire populations including women and children.

2. With reference to revelation which is progressive, it should be kept in mind that God addresses those populations that are still fairly primitive in such a way in order to make Himself understood. Very often the narration of some completely immoral facts is done as if they were the most logical thing in this world.

While the deeper meaning is to say that when man moves away from God he degenerates to the point of exchanging evil for good.

It is on this humanity that God bends down and gradually (here is the progressive revelation) leads us to salvation.

3. With regard to the so-called anthropomorphic language, it should be remembered that it is particularly present in the Old Testament writings, especially in the more ancient ones.

Thus, for example, with regard to original sin we read that “The Lord God then called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9).

Could it be He didn’t know that? God is omniscient.

But this language is used because it is the man who becomes aware of his mistake.

Likewise: “Who let you know you are naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Gen 3:11).

4. With reference to the construction of the tower of Babel we read that ” Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men had built” (Gen 11:5). Here the anthropomorphic language is very evident: God descends as if He were a man to go and see how people behaved.

The same thing happens for the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah likewise: “I want to know it!” I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out.”(Gen 18:21).

With this language God is presented as one who asks in order to make man become aware of the evil he has done.

5. The same goes for wars as well. The command of war and His will to vote the entire population to extermination are placed in the mouth of God.

How come?

It should be remembered that in those days the law of retaliation was in force and sounded like this: “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.

This law of retaliation, which for us is horrendous and cruel, instead constituted a mitigation against the previous barbarism, when the evil suffered was avenged seven times as much and even more, as emerges from these statements: ” If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.” (Gen 4:15). And: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Gen 4:24).

So with this anthropomorphic language about wars the awareness of what appeared to the people as the most just thing according to the law in force, that of retaliation, which was applied both to individuals and to communities, is put into the mouth of God.

6. In Ezekiel we even read that God said: “Therefore I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances through which they could not live”. (Ez 20:25).

It is unthinkable that God acts like this. For this reason the Jerusalem Bible appropriately notes: “Primitive theology attributes to Jahwè the institutions and deformations for which men are actually responsible”.

It seems that here Ezekiel is referring to the prescription of offering the firstborn (Ex 22:28-29), which the Israelites often interpreted with a scandalous materialism”.

7. Finally, a word should also be said about narratives that are only apparently historical.

At the beginning of the last century the question was submitted to the Pontifical Biblical Commission whether in the Sacred Scriptures there were historical narratives only in appearance.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission expressed its authoritative judgment on June 23, 1905.

Here is how the biblical scholars E. Galbiati and A. Piazza present the answer: “Naturally the Commission replied that this supposition cannot be admitted as a general principle, to be applied indiscriminately to the historical books of the Bible. And in this the answer is fully justified also from a strictly scientific and methodological point of view.

The disapproved principle would in fact have resolved any difficulty of a historical nature right from the start, dispensing from a thorough investigation of the question.

However, in its prudence, the Commission did not exclude that there could be some rare cases in which the hagiographer (i.e. the sacred writer, editor’s note) did not want to present a true and proper story, but intended to propose under the appearance and form of history a parable or allegory or a sense in any case different from the properly literal or historical meaning of the words. He only demanded that this intention of the inspired author be demonstrated with solid arguments” (E. Galbiati – A. Piazza, Pagine difficile dell’Antico Testamento, pp. 53-54).

Here are some criteria for knowing how to read the Old Testament.

I thank you for the question, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo