Biblical Violence and ‘Monotheism'
When explaining biblical violence, some have argued that ‘monotheism' is central. However, biblical violence is not exceptional within the ancient cultural milieu. As biblical authors represented their lived experience, they incorporated familiar types of violence.
Israelite and Judean depictions of violence are comparable to contemporary portrayals of violence from Egyptian, ancient Syrian and Mesopotamian sources. Shared discourse regarding violence across ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean societies indicates that the notions of ‘monotheism' or ‘polytheism' should not be central within our scholarly explanations and interpretations of ancient violence.[1174] Bruce Lincoln makes the important point that scholars must approach religious texts with the same scrutiny and standards we use for nonreligious texts.[1175] The same applies to biblical texts within the realm of ancient literature. There should be no sense of biblical exceptionalism or use of peculiar notions that we would not also use for other ancient data to account for biblical data, violent or otherwise.
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