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When reading Judeo-Christian sacred literature, it’s astounding how quickly the idea of religion and violence merge. In the earliest part of the Book of Genesis there is this odd account about a sacrifice that eventuates in murder. After reading this text, many questions remain as we’re given scant detail – did God command the sacrifices or is it just a story about two brothers following rituals similar to those performed by the surrounding culture(s) of the day? [I guess you figured out I don’t take the story literally…]
What, exactly, was expected (commanded?) regarding these sacrifices that would make Abel’s sacrifice more acceptable than Cain’s? And even though the New Testament tells us that Abel’s sacrifice was ‘better,’ it still doesn’t tell us exactly ‘why.’ We can make good guesses and frame adequate hypothesis but are still left without certainty. And so it is with the post-murder claim summation of God to Cain – “your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” What, exactly, does that mean?
By looking at the earliest traceable religious cultures in history, blood begets blood, i.e., ‘revenge.’ And this is what seems is going on in the Genesis text: The blood of Abel is crying out for revenge against his brother. This interpretation seems bolstered by Cain’s protestation that his banishment will bring about his death via the revenge of another on behalf of Cain. To protect against this, God puts a mark upon Cain so that all will know not to take his life.
Contrasting this theory of the ‘blood of Abel crying out from the ground for revenge’ is what the Book of Hebrews says regarding the blood of Jesus: “…Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the [his] sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).
By comparing the death of Jesus and his final words “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” with the report of Abel’s blood crying out from the ground, it does not seem much of a stretch to see the text as contrasting a defiled religion attaching itself to ‘revenge’ with a pure religion attaching itself to ‘forgiveness.’ After all, just a few verses earlier in the Hebrews text is the call to “make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy” (Hebrews 12:14).
Based on our sacred literature then, it seems our ‘religious’ options are that we can cry out for ‘revenge’ or ‘forgiveness.’ One of them is clearly in line with an old system where bloodshed begets more bloodshed, while the other leads to forgiveness and the way of the cross and the last words of Jesus.
In listening to the rhetoric today among Christians, which of these two options is more consistently called for? Could it be that the blood of Abel is presently crying out more loudly than the blood of Jesus – even among Jesus’ own followers? If so, wouldn’t that go down in history as one of the cruelest of ironies? Assuming, that is, that there will be a civilization around to even record such a history, if the revengers have their (our?) way.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called ‘children of God.’”
19 comments to “Religion: When Blood Cries Out”
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Tim….good explanation and contrast! I believe heart-change that awakens us to the way of Love is a work of the Spirit, yet providing an alternative context or “framework” of understanding through which people can process the violence and war they see described in the Old Testament is also essential to having the “eyes of the heart” opened to pathways of peace, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Jesus used a similar strategy repeatedly as he taught the people (for example, Matthew 5) “You’ve heard that it was said…….but I tell you”……We can’t deny the presence of these passages in our sacred literature, but just as the people of Jesus’ time, we must grow in our understanding of their presence and purpose.
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Tim,
Great article and great analysis. Maybe it’s wrong. But, I’m beyond spending a lot of time trying to redeem stories like Cain & Abel. It’s clear to me that violence is wrong, in the name of God or in the name of revenge or for whatever reason. Passages in the “sacred literature” that seem to call for violence are either wrong or misinterpreted in my opinion.
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Great blog. I love it. Keep up the good work.
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Tim Great post, it has always been my thought that folks back in Biblical times and even now have used God to justify thier human behavior saying things like GOD SAID or GOD TOLD ME or similar statements to show others that the reason they were killing or maiming or whatever is because GOD told them to do it. It keeps us from being responsible for our own actions, it worked in biblical times and it continues to work today.
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Tim, Just for clarification in your clarification to Brian, I believe you meant to add the word “just” in the verse making it say, “I did not JUST give them commands about burnt offerings… It may have been clear, I JUST wanted to make sure. (If you don’t think this post is necessary, don’t publish it and I’ll deal with you later)
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When it comes to violence against the innocent, I’m reminded of the Stephen King short story and fantastic movie “The Mist”. There is Mrs. Carmody, a ” good christian woman” who sees the mist a sign that God is mad with us and wants to give God a blood sacrifice in accordance with the old testament. She meets with being shot and killed.
We live in a culture that loves violence. People are told not to just roll over and take it. I think that we let the violence take over because we don’t grow up. We still play war and never turn our attention to taking care of each other. We let the world define who we are, not God.The world says it is a violent terrible place. God says it is good, and he has never left us alone.
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I doubt that most believers love violence, but see it as a necessary evil. A sort of situational ethics. All of us have no doubt wrestled to some degree with self defense and I would guess there are differing views on this. Can I, would I, should I defend my wife and children with a violent act against an intruder in my home? I would guess many believers have concluded in their hearts that if forced to defend their family with violence, they would reluctantly do so. Some believers would do so without any reluctance. Some believers have concluded even defending their family is wrong.
The justification goes back to one of the 10 commandments “Thou shalt not murder”, not “Thou shalt not kill”. The understanding/conclusion being murder is wrong, but sometimes killing is not wrong.
I’ve never heard of Girard before today. If I understood what you have said about his “Mimetic Theory”, then my conclusion is he must believe the 10 commandments were not from God, but rather influenced by the current culture of the day.
“Mimetic Theory” may be right on. I don’t know. But on the surface, it looks like it becomes a tool to pick and choose parts of scripture to defend a position.
I know many believers that hate war, but believe one of the responsibilities of government is self defense. The defense of this position has its roots in the commandment mentioned above. I would guess most of these people are not some sort of radical religious right, but good, law abiding, peaceful people who hate violence, but justify it as a last resort.
Many of these no doubt believe in a vengeful God and an unending place of torment, a violent God who believes in delivering unmerciful pain to those who deserve it. For those who believe in such a God, it would not be a stretch to conclude this God would accept some violence from humanity in certain situations.
Having said that, as I discover more and more about “how we got the Bible”, it is looking more and more like some of the Old Testament may not be as inspired as I once thought. It may be that what we have that is “written” contains things that were verbally handed down for centuries and finally penned into words – quite possibly altered by the word-of-mouth-hand-me-downs and influences by the “secular” word-of-mouth-hand-me-downs. If what we have was influenced by things other than a direct revelation from God, then that needs to be understood by those of us trying to make sense of the message of the Bible. Girard has no doubt dealt with this to some degree.
Entertaining such a thought would be heresy for many believers, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I am intrigued by your take on violence, Tim. As an old man once told me when I was a young man, “no board ain’t so thin, but what it has two sides”.
Whether you are right or wrong, I am looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.
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Why do we assume that we’re *not* to pick and choose from the scriptures…?
I see that we’re given discernment … and we’re to take every thought captive. I see that much of the Bible is written from the perspective of the human ego … so we see excruciating details about HOW to sacrifice … read it to see whether it even sounds like God … it sounds more like lawyers and priests…! And so it was … the original law was simple, i.e., “here’s where the rubber meets the road in how to live out ‘Love God’ and “Love your neighbor.’” It was after the Israelites returned from captivity in Babylon, and were desperate to restore order and group-identity as the “chosen few,” that the priests went back into the text, and added all manner of legalese to it — in an attempt to *make* the Jews become pure enough to *make* the Messiah come (the same motivation Christians have today in doing the “great commission” — “we must tell everyone our version of the ‘gospel’ so that we can *make* Jesus show up and rescue us out of this wretched life!”).
Later, we have God saying, through the prophets, “I never wanted sacrifice — I want mercy.”
He’s the same One who says, “I’m not your Master — I’m your Husband.”
Since we weren’t listening, Jesus shows up, and says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”
Can you imagine Jesus saying, “yeah, go out there and slaughter every man, woman and child of the ‘enemy’ camp.” Or, “slaughter all the men in the enemy camp, and then take the women for your sexual concubines.” Or, “yeah, bash that enemy-baby’s head against the rocks”….?!? Does that sound like Jesus? Like God?!?
That all sounds more like a rampaging, self-justifying, blood-lusting EGO to me, than like God.
God created us in His own image, and we’ve been returning the favor ever since …
One of the best things I ever did was to fire the old “god” in my head, and ask the real God to please stand up. He’s bigger and “gooder” than anything I could have fathomed…!
The Bible is a historical account of mankind coming into more and more awareness of God — complete with 3 steps forward and 2 steps back … and then we go and theologize, dogmatize and institutionalize the *backwards* steps, rather than seeing them as lessons in “what NOT to do.”
I figure the Spirit can, and does (when I allow Him to) show me what’s of God and what’s of man in all things — including the scriptures.
Yeah, I have an absolute right and responsibility to pick and choose from the scriptures … dying to my ego’s perspective, and repenting (changing my mind) … choosing to ask God to replace my old (lie-based) perspective with His (truth-based) perspective.
The truth, I keep discovering, really does set me free…!
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BTW — my last comment wasn’t intended to be *at* you Bob — I very much admire your gracious response to Tim — you are clearly a man of deep thought and integrity.
This is just my own meandering blathering, directed at no one in particular, and perhaps at my “old” self … my old once-unquestioned thinking that permeated and plagued my every moment. I’ve been on a roller-coaster of a ride from fear to love, from lies to truth, from ego to God, for the past uber-intense five years … and it’s only picking up in intensity – wheeeeee!
As well, I’m overcoming a cold, so we can blame this ranting on a fever or medication — your choice…!
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Dena, I enjoyed reading your comments and didn’t see anything pointed towards me. Sorry you’ve been battling a cold. Just hope you chose a good medication….. something like Jack Daniels!
I guess I’m uncomfortable with the idea of “picking and choosing” scripture to justify any religious belief. I’d much prefer to believe there is a consistent message in scripture and any time I find an apparent conflict within scripture, what needs to be changed is my understanding, not scripture.
Having said that, if we are all totally honest with ourselves, we all tend to pick and choose.
I really like what you said when you said, “The Bible is a historical account of mankind coming into more and more awareness of God — complete with 3 steps forward and 2 steps back … and then we go and theologize, dogmatize and institutionalize the *backwards* steps, rather than seeing them as lessons in “what NOT to do.”
When I think about the progress “christianity” has made socially in my lifetime, I have much hope for the world – hopefully in the near future. Just as science and technology has grown by leaps and bounds, society has made some major improvements in the last few decades. Specifically, we’ve made some big improvements in equality with races and women in church and society. I’m hoping that somewhere in the future, most will look back at us and say, they didn’t get it all, but at least they got things started in the right direction.
Hope you enjoy the holidays – lots of football and turkey! Just don’t overindulge.
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I assume that this is geared to evil against the innocence? However the entire time I am thinking through the moment when Moses came off the hill and found the people worshiping the calves…his solution was to strap swords to their sides and cut in half those who chose to stand against God.
I think for me…and perhaps only me…is that God is a very jealous God…and He is going to ensure that the heavens and the Earth He has created will bring Glory to His Name.
How that plays out in our own minds and lives I am not all that sure. Because I would rather show people the blood of Jesus rather than Able…But I find it interesting that Abel’s plea for justice is a bad thing…
I have served in West Africa as families were slaughtered…and it was clear they were crying out to God…they not only wanted justice…but they wanted the killing to stop.
I think as we struggle with peace and war…and evil and good…that we don’t leave Justice on the side of the road
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Stopping the killing and having justice are two different things. If justice means revenge, then justice simply creates more situations in need of relief from the killing. If justice means “to behave justly” then that could be taken care of by stopping the killing. In some ways of thinking, it would seem that one way to do that is by killing the killers. But then, more killers are born. Everyday. And the killing continues.
What if we could instead change our thinking about killing as a means to stop killers, and instead begin to negotiate with those who believe that violence and death suits their purposes in order to persuade them that other means suit the attainment of happiness ever so much better than any form of justice or poetic justice or getting someone back.
Cuz right now the whole world, as Gandhi once said, is blind and toothless (without the power they really need for getting what they really want out of life). Instead the way we’re going about it means that NO ONE gets what they want without paying many times the price for it in eyes, teeth, arms, legs. You name your happiness that doesn’t cost, I’ll name your happiness peace.
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Hi Tim… thanks for giving voice to thoughts that many of us have. The bottom line is who do people of faith want to believe God is? …. The Father of Christ who gave us the unfathomable thought of turning the other cheek or the Vengeful, Jealous God who strikes down the transgressor. The Later just does not square with the free gift of salvation anyway you look at it. It may not be popular with the established denominations, etc. but those of faith that want to live as Christ did and be His have to be brave, step out , step up, and leave violence out of that which is of God’s. Christ did not get justice but I would rather be like him than the Sanhedrin.
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When we are told that ALL of scripture was inspired of God we need to put a * next to that statement. Our sacred text may be inspired of God, however our interpetation of that text certainly is not in many cases. If our interpetation was and is correct then I would guess we would have but one real denomination, instead what we have are probably 100′s of so called Christian denominations proclaiming they have the REAL TRUTH. I would also suspect that over the last several thousand years truth has become relative or maybe irrelavent. Everyone of us (and I would also add as well) those folks who gave us the Bible, has or had diffrent life experiences and we develop beliefs of varying degrees from those life experiences, it doesn’t mean that it is right or wrong it just means for ME it is right, for me to say YOU are wrong for believing the way you do probably comes from my own insecurities about my own life, so I want to confirm my own life’s experience by trying to convince others that what I believe about the BIBLE or about moral issues or whatever is the real TRUTH. Anyway now I am really confused!!. I am hoping what I am trying to say comes out clearer then the way I wrote it!! Thanks all, everyone here are tops in my book!!
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Makes perfect sense to me, Andy. I got ya.
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I John 4: 7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is is born of God, and knoweth God.”
Let us continue on and be messengers of “LOVE”!
(very good article, Tim!)