Normalising Violence: Part 2

To recap from the previous post: The Hebrew theologians looked at the world as it was in the aftermath of the destruction of all they knew and loved, and realized that violence was, at the least, endemic in human society; and that its roots can be found in the primeval past. The impulse to kill a perceived rival—even a brother—is a common human response to differences of opinion. From the earliest times stronger men bullied and dominated other men, and banded together to bully and dominate other groups of men; the pattern of a strong man of influence declaring himself the ruler over the others is seen in tribe, city, and nation. It seems assumed that it is normal for the strongest to force control over those around them—to seek to dominate all others, and to force them to obedience and slavery. Thus the strong man, the warrior, is most valued by society for the ability to bully, to plunder, and to kill for his own community’s prosperity.

[The Flood is a painting by Bill Bell which was uploaded on 15 September 2025]]

This, the theologians of Genesis 1-11 saw. The Flood Narrative begins with a starkly pessimistic statement: ‘God saw that the wickedness of men multiplied on the earth, and that every intention of the human heart was only evil continually’ (6:5). That word ‘intention’ stands in counterpoint to Gen 2:7—the basic sense of the word yester/yatsar is ‘form’. ‘The Lord God formed the human out of the ground…’. After Eden the human yester becomes malformed by persistent abuse.

So, God decides the only solution to this corrupt and violent society is to return the earth to the primordial formlessness that was ‘in the beginning’, before he began to create. The prophet Jeremiah draws a helpful picture of this very action as he watches a potter forming clay into vessels for food and drink. “I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him … Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel” (Jer 18:3-4,6). This is a promise of re-formation of the malformed.

Two matters to note by the end of the Flood story. One, there is one family of humanity that survives for the new beginning, ‘Noah finds grace’. Two, the conclusion is not a vision of peace and human kindness, as might be expected. Rather than ‘they lived happily ever after’, the tone is nearly as stark as the beginning of the story: “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth” (Gen 8:21). This leaves one asking, why go through all the bother of de-creation for nothing to change afterwards?

There is no neat answer to this, and it is not my purpose here to offer a nuanced response. I will just point to a subtlety of the narrative itself found in verse 21. Note the difference at the end; in 6:5, the formation of the human heart is ‘only evil continually’. Here, the depravity is not total; ‘from youth’ is a way of saying ‘from the age of moral responsibility’.

Which leads to our first note in the paragraph above: Noah found favour. We will come back to this.

Normalizing Violence, Part 1

  Genesis 6:11-13: ¹¹ Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹² And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. ¹³ And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. [NRSV]

 

[From the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The earliest writing in the region, 7th C BCE. The pottery handle is inscribed: 'Mine']

This is a story about violence. How one understands its meaning depends on where one starts. It is common in recent times to see the violence and condemn God for bringing about the genocide of humans and animals. This, unfortunately, is not only to miss the point but to ascribe to it quite the opposite of the story’s purpose.

The starting point for hearing the Flood Account is not from our modern, liberal and sceptical rationalism; nor is it from a simplistic literalist approach that considers this a historical account. To appreciate the genius and subtlety of this ancient story we need to place ourselves in the room with those who seek to explain theologically ‘how we got to the mess we are in’. This starting point has to look back from the end of the long ‘historical’ narrative of the people of Israel found in 2 Kings 25—following the destruction of Jerusalem and Temple and the deportation of the population except for the lowly ‘people of the land’. The position we need to take is that of the Wise Men of Judah, in Babylon, seeking to make sense of what had just happened. Was everything they had believed in false? Or, had they missed the point of God’s engagement with them completely?

‘How did we get to the mess we are in?’ Looking at the story of humanity, grasping that ‘every inclination of the human heart was only evil continually’ (Gen 6:6), the theologians came to the rational conclusion that the basic human state is a violent one. And violence leads to destruction.

At the heart of the Hebrew account of how things came to be the way they are, and of how God is involved in it all, is the acknowledgement of the normality of violence in human life. The ‘rest of the story’ in the Bible is about how God deals with this basic reality.

Of course, this part of the story is not the beginning. The earlier narrative describes, without any attempt to gloss over it, how the first human family was torn apart by murder, when Cain slayed his brother. And this is shown to flow directly from the violent decision of the first couple to choose their own way in life, saying of the fruit of the tree, ‘Mine’.

Those early theologians looked past this first ‘sin’ and saw a world of lost potential for human well-being in relation to God. There was a better way of being, but it was lost in what we now call ‘The Fall’.

What does this mean for our troubled present? It means the strong will use violence against those deemed weak. As we read through the story of humanity we see that power is in the hands of the physically strongest, with the best weapons; the bullies. Such has it been, such it is, and such—it seems—it will ever be. This is where we are. Why are we surprised?

The rest of the story? ‘Noah found grace’. That is for another time.