Sanctified Aggression: Legacies of Biblical and Post-Biblical Vocabularies of Violence (JSOT Supplement Series)

261 Pages·2004·14.45 MB·English

by  Jonneke Bekkenkamp

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
400
Editors
Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University
and
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge
Founding Editors
David J.A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay,
Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
BIBLE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SERIES
3
Editor
Athalya Brenner
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Sanctified Aggression
Legacies of Biblical and Post Biblical
Vocabularies of Violence
edited by
Jonneke Bekkenkamp
and Yvonne Sherwood
T8.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL
A Continuum imprint
LONDON • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2003 T&T Clark International
A Continuum imprint
Published by T&T Clark International
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010
www.tandtclark.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd
www.forthcomingpublications.com
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Cromwell Press
ISBN 0-567-08070-6 (hardback)
0-567-08060-9 (paperback)
CONTENTS
Series Editor's Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations x
List of Contributors xi
YVONNE SHERWOOD AND JONNEKE BEKKENKAMP
Introduction: The Thin Blade of Difference
between Real Swords and Words about 'Sharp-Edged
Iron Things'—Reflections on How People Use the Word 1
KLAAS SPRONK
The Daughter of Jephthah: Changing Views on God, Man,
and Violence in Plays and Oratorios since George Buchanan 10
YVONNE SHERWOOD
Textual Carcasses and Isaac's Scar,
or What Jewish Interpretation Makes of the Violence
that Almost Takes Place on Mt Moriah 22
HUGH S. PYPER
Fleshing Out the Text 44
MALACHIE MUNYANEZA
Genocide in the Name of 'Salvation':
The Combined Contribution of Biblical Translation/Interpretation
and Indigenous Myth to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide 60
ATHALYA BRENNER
'On the Rivers of Babylon' (Psalm 137),
or between Victim and Perpetrator 76
ALASTAIR G. HUNTER
(De)nominating Amalek: Racist Stereotyping
in the Bible and the Justification of Discrimination 92
vi Sanctified Aggression
TOD LINAFELT
Purity and Danger at the End of the World:
Priestly and Prophetic Paradigms
in Contemporary Apocalyptic Visions 109
TIMOTHY K. BEAL
The White Supremacist Bible and the Phineas Priesthood 120
DAVID JASPER
Jesus the Actor: Edwin Morgan's
A.D. A Trilogy of Plays on the Life of Jesus (2000) 132
JEREMY PUNT
Messianic Victims or Victimized Messiah?
Biblical Allusion and Violence in The Matrix 139
ELIZABETH LEIGH GIBSON
The Making of Modern Martyrs: The Martyrs of Columbine 156
TODD PENNER AND CAROLINE VANDER STICHELE
The Tyranny of the Martyr: Violence and Victimization
in Martyrdom Discourse and the Movies of Lars von Trier 175
JAN WILLEM VAN HENTEN
Internet Martyrs and Violence: Victims and/or Perpetrators? 193
JONNEKE BEKKENKAMP
Violence and Final Vocabularies:
On Mapping Actual Hopes and Beliefs 213
Bibliography 230
Index of References 241
Index of Authors 245
SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE
Athalya Brenner
This volume is the third in the 'The Bible in the 21st Century' series. This is the
title of our collective research project in the Biblical Studies Section, within the
Department of Art, Religion and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, with
the support of NOSTER (Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology
and Religion) and ASCA (Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis). In this re-
search program, as can be seen from its Internet formulations,1 together with our
international research partners, we endeavour to problematize contemporaneous
authoritative and cultural meanings of bibles by focusing upon the processes of
transmission, readership and actualization of biblical texts up to and including the
Twenty-First Century.
We started the project together with our corresponding department at the Univer-
sity of Glasgow in 2000. The first book of the BTC series, Bible Translation on the
Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion
(A. Brenner and J.W. van Henten [eds], 2002), is a collection of papers problem-
atizing contemporary biblical translations as cultural phenomena. Subsequent BTC
volumes, be they collections or monographs by single authors, have followed and
will follow a similar pattern and present work done locally as well as by inter-
national research partners and colleagues.
The present volume, Sanctified Aggression, is edited by Jonneke Bekkenkamp
(University of Amsterdam) and Yvonne Sherwood (University of Glasgow). It con-
stitutes an engagement with the highly topical issues pertaining to bible usage,
religion and aggression. It doesn't take the easy route of assuming that religion is
inherently violent or, on the contrary, an expression of humanity's best. Rather, as
the editors write on the back cover, the book
works from the premise that biblical, Jewish and Christian vocabularies continue
to resonate, inspire and misfire... The collective conclusion is that it is not possible
to control biblical and religious violence by simply identifying canonical trouble-
spots, then fencing them off with barbed wire or holding peace summits around
them. Nor is it always possible to draw clear lines between problem and non-
problem texts, witnesses and perpetrators, victims and aggressors and 'reality' and
'art'.
1. Visit <http://www.theo.uu.nl/noster/> for the Dutch version, and <http://cf.hum.uva.nl/
bijbelwetenschappen/english/index.html> for the English (following the 'Research' link).
viii Sanctified Aggression
To quote from our local research program,
The cultural-historical significance of 'the bible' results from the fact that bibles
function as canons, i.e. networks or collections of intensely mediated texts that are
considered sources for forms, values and norms by people. The canonical status of
these texts leads to an ongoing process of re-interpretation and actualization, during
which the biblical text is read selectively... Elements that are considered meaning-
ful are being connected with actual views of life. Fragments of biblical texts func-
tion as a source of common values and interests. They form a point of attachment
for the formulation of common identities and a reservoir of images, archetypes,
topoi and model texts that inspire new texts and other forms of expression.
Broadly speaking, this is the mission of the present series. Hopefully, this volume
as well as others will explore features and issues that are oriented to contemporary
culture and the bible's (and religion's) place within it, issues that are gaining ground
but—perhaps—still get less academic attention than they deserve.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank NOSTER, the Dutch research school for Theology and
Religious Studies for supporting the project 'Vocabularies Relating to Views of
Life and Religion: Tanakh, Bible and Qur'an in the Twenty-First Century'. Yvonne
Sherwood would like to thank Richard Davie for his help with proofreading and
further 'Englishing' the essays. (She would also like to thank her Dutch and Hebrew-
speaking colleagues for having the grace and skill to bow to the demands of the
linguistic Empire.)