Violence and Warfare

My primary research interest relating to the Old Testament has been in the area of violence and warfare. This page groups that research into the following categories:

The Divine Warrior
Warfare in Israel and the Ancient Near East
The Imprecatory Psalms
Genocide and the Canaanites

Divine Warrior

My dissertation focused on the topic of YHWH as a divine warrior in the exodus narrative (Exodus 1-15) and was published by Gorgias. For an overview of my argument, see the blog post below, and some samples of the book can read at my academia.edu page.

“YHWH Fights for Them!” The Divine Warrior in the Exodus Narrative (Gorgias: Piscataway, 2014)

YHWH Fights for Them: An Interview with Charlie Trimm (Good Book blog)

During my research on the divine warrior I came across an interesting metaphor: the nose of YHWH that breathes fire. Since I did not know very much about metaphors, I enlisted the help of my friend and fellow Wheaton College PhD student Brittany Kim, who specialized in metaphors. Here’s the abstract for the article:

In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh is often depicted as a divine warrior, executing vengeance against his enemies. Some of these texts employ the image of Yahweh as a dragon-like creature who pours forth smoke from his nostrils and fire from his mouth. This article surveys the background of this metaphor by describing deities and monsters that breathe fire in the literature of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, as well as the dragonlike Leviathan in Job (41.10-13 [Eng. 18-21]). Against this background, the article examines the two texts that most clearly exhibit the metaphor (2 Sam 22.9 // Ps 18.9 [Eng. 8]; Isa 30.27-33) and considers its implications for the translation of ’ap in these and other passages (Isa 42.25; Deut 32.22; Num 11.1). Although the LXX and modern translations uniformly render ’ap as “anger” in most of these passages, this article argues that it is more consonant with the dragon metaphor to translate the term as “nose” or “nostrils” (i.e., “the burning of his nostrils”).

“YHWH the Dragon: Exploring a Neglected Biblical Metaphor for the Divine Warrior and Its Bearing on the Translation of ’Ap” (with Brittany Kim) The Bible Translator 65 (2014):165–84

One of the first unique observations I made about the divine warrior in the Old Testament was related to the story about the Amalekites attacking Israel. I noted that two ancient Near Eastern parallels helped readers to understand that Moses raising his hands was at least partially intended to mean that he was praying. This began a long journey of getting these ideas published, a story that I talk about in the blog post below. The Zakkur Stela, shown in the picture in the Louvre in Paris, played an important role in my argument in this article.

“God’s Staff and Moses’ Hand(s): The Battle against the Amalekites as a Turning Point in the Role of the Divine Warrior” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44 (2019): 198–214

The Long Process of Writing an Academic Article (Good Book Blog)

I wrote a blog post early in my time at Biola about the draw of a divine warrior, even in today’s culture.

Why We Want a Divine Warrior (Good Book Blog)

Because of my work on surveying the field of warfare in the Old Testament, I was asked to join a panel honoring the work of Susan Niditch in that particular field. Since her book focused on different approaches to violence in the Old Testament, I followed in her footsteps by looking more specifically at how the divine warrior fights in different ways: as a general, weapons supplier, public relations expert, a leader at the front of his troops, a hero fighting by himself, and a trickster. The reasons he fights include as a just warrior to bring justice, a mercenary hired by someone else, a commissar [a term from the USSR] to spread political conformity, and a traitor against his own side. Just for fun, I added in comparisons not only to ancient Near East divine warriors, but also superheroes from the DC and Marvel universes.

“Divine Warrior Motif: Diversity in the Motif” (2013 SBL Annual Meeting)

My book on warfare in the ancient Near East includes a chapter on divine warriors, though it can only give a glimpse at all of the data. The sections include divine combat, calls for divine help, messages from the divine warrior, divine abandonment, divine weapons, and presence in battle.

Fighting for the King and the Gods: A Survey of Warfare in the Ancient Near East (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017)

One important aspect of divine warriors in the ancient Near East is divine weapons, as reliefs depict them with such weapons and texts describe their use. In addition, they frequently pass these weapons to human kings, signaling their approval and presence with these kings. However, while YHWH has divine weapons in the Old Testament, he never gave these weapons to Israelite kings. I explore this theme in a festschrift for John Walton, who has done such important work in the area of reading the Old Testament in light of its ancient Near Eastern context. In the image above, the Egyptian god Amun is depicted giving a divine weapon the Pharaoh Ramses III.

“The Sword of YHWH: The Human Use of Divine Weapons in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 293–304 in For Us, but Not to Us: Essays on Creation, Covenant, and Context in Honor of John H. Walton. Edited by Adam E. Miglio, Caryn A. Reeder, Joshua T. Walton, and Kenneth C. Way. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020.

God’s Divine Weapons in the Old Testament: Article Summary (Good Book Blog)

Warfare in Israel and the Ancient Near East

My major work in the area of warfare is a survey of warfare in the ancient Near East (including examples from Israel).

Fighting for the King and the Gods: A Survey of Warfare in the Ancient Near East (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017)

My very first article on warfare in the Old Testament was an article surveying the past twenty years of academic research on the topic of warfare. Since I needed to do this research for my dissertation anyway, it made sense to publish it as well. It remains one of my most read and cited articles.

“Recent Research on Warfare in the Old Testament” Currents in Biblical Research 10 (2012): 1–46

I was asked to contribute most of the articles on the ancient Near East and the Old Testament to an encyclopedia on faith and warfare.

Fourteen entries in Wars of Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict (eds. Timothy Demy and Jeffrey Shaw; Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2017)

David is usually portrayed very positively in the Old Testament, to the point that some scholars think much of the material about David was written specifically either by David’s men or to glorify the Davidic monarchy. I take issue with this positive portrayal, and argue that the narrator actually critiques him more than is usually noticed. In this paper I highlight David’s problems in his international wars. The picture of the sandals from the tomb of Tutankhamun is a wonderful example of imperialism: the Pharaoh has had pictures of his enemies put on his sandals so that he can walk on these enemies everywhere he goes.

“Imperialism and the Israelite Kingship: The Narrator’s Critique of David’s Behavior as King in His International Wars” (2020 IBR National Meeting)

One specific area of warfare I have written on is intelligence gathering. After a brief survey of the practice in Assyria and Egypt, I survey the data in the Old Testament and argue that it often serves as a test for the people of Israel: will the people trust YHWH even with a bad scouting report? Will they not try for what appears to be an easy victory based on a scouting report when YHWH has not given them guidance? I wrote a blog post to summarize my take on A Theology of Scouting.

“Warfare and Intelligence Gathering in Ancient Israel.” Pages 317–31 in The Ancient Israelite World. Edited by Kyle Keimer and George A. Pierce. London: Routledge, 2022.

Imprecatory Psalms

The imprecatory psalms, those that call down curses on the enemies of the psalmist, are among the most ethically difficult texts in Psalms. Since my research area is violence, I started talking about these texts in my class and thinking about how they might relate to life today. I was able to join the Center for Christian Thought at Biola University for one semester during a research leave when they focused on love and I was able to research enemy love in the context of imprecatory psalms. These two articles are the result of that research.

In the first article I restrict my focus to the Old Testament, looking at the apparently contradictory calls to love the enemy and curse the enemy. Nowhere is this exemplified more clearly than Jeremiah’s call to pray for the peace of Babylon (Jer 29:7) when contrasted with the psalmist curse of Babylon (Psalm 137). I argue that the core to these apparently contradictory statements is a desire for injustice to cease, and both kinds of prayers are valid; in essence, they are offering God options for ways to bring an end to the injustice.

In the second article I briefly summarize the first article and ask whether the New Testament views the imprecatory psalms as part of the Old Testament to be renounced. I argue that it does not, and indeed the New Testament contains a variety of imprecatory prayers within it. The article concludes with some guidelines for praying imprecatory prayers today.

“Praying for the Peace or Destruction of Babylon? The Intersection of Enemy Love and Imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament” Criswell Theological Review 17 (2020): 13–33

“Praying against Enemies: Biblical Precedents, Ethical Reflections, and Suggested Guidelines,” pages 69-84 in Righteous Indignation: Christian Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on Anger (ed. Gregory L. Bock and Court D. Lewis; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2021)

Biola’s podcast Think Biblically, led by Scott Rae and Sean McDowell, invited me onto the podcast to talk about the imprecatory psalms.

Curse Our Enemies (Think Biblically Podcast)

Genocide and the Canaanites

Because the destruction of the Canaanites bears so many similarities to genocide, I thought it was important to be conversant with the field of genocide studies. It is depressing reading! But important for many reasons, as genocide remains an all-too present reality in our broken world today. I was privileged to contribute an article on genocide in the ancient Near East to a book on the history of genocide, focusing in particular on the causes of genocide in that time period.

“Causes of Genocide,” in The Cultural History of Genocide Volume 1: The Ancient World (ed. Tristan Taylor; London: Bloomsbury, 2021)

Talbot Magazine, the magazine produced by Talbot School of Theology, asked me to write a two page introduction to the Canaanite problem. Not much can be said in two pages, but this was my attempt to do so.

YHWH and Genocide (Good Book Blog)

I recently wrote a short book on the most difficult ethical problem in the Old Testament. Many scholars have written on this in recent years, so I decided my most useful contribution would be a survey of the various approaches to the topic. It is not a “happy” book, but I hope that it is helpful for you as you think through this very difficult topic. I wrote a blog post to summarize the book, and I appeared on several podcasts to talk about the book (links are below).

Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022)

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