MEMBACA TEKS KEKERASAN DALAM YOSUA 11 DAN IMPLIKASINYA BAGI KEKERASAN ATAS NAMA AGAMA DI INDONESIA

This research addresses the problem of violence in the name of religion increasingly widespread in Indonesia. Ironically, the violence is getting legitimacy of scriptural texts, including the Bible. This means, that violence is not only driven by external motives such as political, economic and social development. Internal motives can also make a major contribution, even a major problem. Violence has theological roots, one of them, related to the interpretation of religious texts which, when understood literally, is able to present the figure of a violent religion. Solutions offered in this study is the reading of narratives of violence, with the text of Joshua 11 as an example, using the method of narrative analysis. The results showed that the text of Joshua 11 violence can not justify a Christian to be violent. The image of God as the Divine Warrior is ambiguous, kherem implementation that does not ignore the grace of salvation for outsiders to be insiders, and Israel's war put the violence in the name of religion in a position that is not relevant to the lives of Indonesia plural. Violence texts as core testimonies need to be matched with texts of peace as counter testimonies.AbstrakPenelitian ini membahas masalah kekerasan atas nama agama yang semakin marak di Indonesia. Ironisnya, kekerasan ini mendapatkan legitimasi dari teks-teks kitab suci, termasuk Alkitab. Hal ini berarti, kekerasan tidak hanya dipicu oleh motif-motif eksternal seperti kepentingan politik, ekonomi dan sosial. Motif internal juga dapat memberikan kontribusi yang besar, bahkan merupakan masalah utama. Kekerasan memiliki akar teologis, yang salah satunya, terkait dengan interpretasi teks-teks keagamaan yang ketika dipahami secara literal, mampu menghadirkan sosok agama yang penuh kekerasan. Solusi yang penulis tawarkan dalam penelitian ini adalah pembacaan narasi kekerasan, dengan teks Yosua 11 sebagai contoh, dengan menggunakan metode analisis naratif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa teks kekerasan Yosua 11 tidak bisa dijadikan pembenaran orang Kristen untuk melakukan kekerasan. Citra Allah sebagai Divine Warrior yang ambigu, pelaksanaan kherem yang tidak menutup anugerah keselamatan bagi outsiders sehingga menjadi insiders, dan perang Israel yang bersifat kasuistik, menempatkan kekerasan atas nama agama pada posisi yang tidak relevan dengan kehidupan Indonesia yang majemuk.Teks-teks kekerasan sebagai core testimony perlu ditandingkan dengan teks-teks perdamaian sebagai counter testimony.

The Characterization of the Deity Yahweh

Chapter Eight intentionally juxtaposes Yahweh as Warrior and Yahweh as Parent. In the ancient world gods were perceived as and needed to be powerful—to right the wrongs, protect one’s crops and vanquish one’s enemies. Moreover, the notion of Yahweh as Divine Warrior transcended the mundane to include what has been labelled “cosmic” warfare where a super-endowed deity could vanquish seven-headed dragons who threatened society at large. Alternative voices provided a counter narrative that God is a force of peaceful existence. Thus Chapter Eight balances tales of divine warfare with powerful rhetorical aspirations of disarmament. According to the prophet Isaiah, people can choose to beat their swords into plowshares, to learn of war never more. Using the language of family religion, this chapter describes the compassionate side of divinity, how Yahweh is portrayed as a caring father to Israel his child, like a mother nourishing her newborn.

From Kings to Monsters: Jewish Perspectives on the Hellenistic and Roman Empires in Sibylline Oracles 3 and 5

Both the third and fifth books of the Sibylline Oracles engage with the threat and challenges of the political powers of their day, the Hellenistic and Roman respectively (Sib. Or. 3:657-714; 5:28-34, 155-161, 342-359). Both books also construe these powers as part of the reason for the arrival of God as Divine Warrior to execute judgement. In contrast to Alexandria Frisch, who argued that the Hellenistic Empire was the cause of greater Jewish critique, this article demonstrates that within the Sibylline tradition, the development in use of Jewish combat myth of the Divine Warrior across the two books actually shows the reverse. The texts from Sibylline Oracles 5 escalate the threat of the political enemy, not only depicting the Roman Empire and emperor within the cosmic drama, but as a force of chaos and agent of evil.

God’s staff and Moses’ hand(s): The battle against the Amalekites as a turning point in the role of the divine warrior

The account of the battle against the Amalekites in Exodus 17.8-16 contains several contested portions, including the interpretation of the raising of Moses’ hands, the significance of the staff of God, and the number of hands Moses holds up. This article will argue that the ambiguity surrounding the presence/absence of the staff and the number of upraised hands functions to portray the episode as a transition in the narrative (a high-level Janus parallelism) in relation to the role of the divine warrior in Israelite combat. The presence of the staff of God in the one hand raised by Moses recalls the great works of God in the exodus and emphasizes divine initiative in battle, while the raising of two hands signifies prayer (as supported by parallels in the Zakkur stela and Egyptian reliefs) and looks forward to Israel fighting at its own initiative in future battles.

Jesus as Goat of the Day of Atonement in Recent Synoptic Gospels Research

Do the Synoptic passion narratives portray Jesus (and Barabbas) as one (or both) of the goats of the Day of Atonement? This question currently has no consensus in biblical scholarship but four contrasting positions: The evangelists portray (1) Jesus as the abused scapegoat in his maltreatment by the Roman soldiers (Mk 15.16-20 parr.); (2) Jesus as a pharmakos-like scapegoat patterned after Hellenistic motifs of redemptive suffering; (3) Barabbas as the scapegoat and Jesus as the immolated goat (Mt. 27.15-26 parr.); and (4) Jesus as neither goat, but the typological fulfillment of alternative (suffering) figures: Isaiah’s Servant, the Psalms’ Righteous Sufferer, the Son of Man, and the divine warrior. This article reviews and evaluates these four positions, suggesting avenues for future research.

How Song of Songs Became a Divine Love Song

The origin of the interpretation of Song of Songs as a description of God’s relationship with God’s beloved community has been a persistent question in the work’s history of interpretation. Earlier scholarship has provided a number of possible solutions to this problem, none of them conclusive. This article offers another possible answer: the language and imagery of the Northwest Semitic combat myth in Song 8:6-7, which identifies love with Yhwh as the victorious divine warrior, triggers the work’s interpretation as a divine love song. This argument receives support from some of the earliest allusions to Song of Songs in Revelation, which interpret Song of Songs in the context of apocalyptic discourse that likewise draws heavily on the combat myth.