Violence and the X-Rated Bible

The last three chapters of Judges (Judges 19-21) tell one of the most violent stories in the whole Bible. It's the kind of story that would get a movie rated "R" or worse, and that would cause me to avoid it and recommend others do the same.

Matthew Henry captures it well:

Into the book of the wars of the Lord the story of this chapter must be brought, but it looks as sad and uncomfortable as any article in all that history; for there is nothing in it that looks in the least bright or pleasant...

I have to wonder what purpose there is in including such a story in the Bible. What spiritual benefit is there to reading such a story? It seems to be a pointless and offensive description of appalling behavior by a bunch of mostly anonymous Israelites.

In North America we live in a pretty safe and stable society. We are mostly insulated from evil on the scale described in this story. We hear about such things on the news, but they often don't impact us directly. We are shocked when we are confronted with the things that happened at the World Trade Center, Virginia Tech, Waco, and Oklahoma City.

Our personal experience of evil is more abstract, more lightweight. It revolves around things like gossip, greed, lust, lying, overeating, and cussing. Now these things are sin, but they don't seem to rise to the level of the rape, murder, and kidnapping that we find in the Bible. We have a tendency to trivialize the evil in our lives and see our sins as mostly minor and unimportant. That's a dangerous attitude.

So, what's the point of the story of the Levite and his concubine? Perhaps it shows us what happens when we take things into our own hands and make our own decisions. We think we're good people, but then the Israelites were God's chosen people and look how they behaved when "everyone did whatever they wanted." (Judges 21:25) Left to our own desires we seem to make poor choices about moral matters. If unrestrained, there seems to be no limit to the extent to which we will allow evil to spread until we are consumed.

The only solution to the dilemma seems to be that we constantly strive to figure out what God wants us to be doing. Even this is imperfect, because we aren't able to fully understand God, and so we will regularly misunderstand his instructions. Still, this is better than simply doing what ever we want.

Here are what others have to say on the topic...
Why is there evil in the world?
Violence in the Bible
Does biblical violence cause aggressive readers?

Getting Even

One of the most famous and least understood figures in the Bible has got to be Samson. Everybody learns as a child in Sunday school about the strongman whose strength was lost when his hair was cut, but who knocked down the temple when he recuperated.

But how many people actually ever go read Judges 14 & 15 to find out what Samson was really like. He was a nasty, dangerous man with an ego the size of Texas. He was the kind of guy who always got even. You didn't mess with Samson and live to tell about it.

There's something attractive in revenge. We really like to see the bad guys get nailed...so much so that we're happy to set things right ourselves if it looks like nobody else is going to do it. To prove this all you have to do is cut somebody off, or drive too slowly in the left lane on one of Houston's freeways!

One observation from the story of Samson (especially Judges 15) is that revenge is never done. It always escalates. I take revenge on someone who then feels justified in getting even with me, then I need to get them back, and so on.

So my questions... What is it in us that wants to get even? The Bible says we are created in the image of God. Is this a part of God's character? ..."It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. - Rom 12:19 (NIV) (Of course, you need to read the first part of that verse as well where it says, "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath,...)

So which is it to be...revenge or not...and more important why? The Sunday school answers "blessed are the meek," "love everybody," and "turn the other cheek" aren't really good enough to explain why we seem to be driven to make people pay for their wrongs. Does God turn the other cheek? Samson didn't, and he was a hero, right?