The Bible and Terrorism

After a brief hiatus thanks to holidays and conferences about nothing, regular blogging should be back. I’ve yet to catch up on the blogging-the-Bible posts but I was spurred to write about the Bible and terrorism thanks to this recent post by Keren Tuch

The Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) has just finished — the festival commemorates the events of the Exodus where the Israelites were taken out of slavery in Egypt by YHWH. One of the most salient parts of the exodus is the slaying of the firstborn, the culmination of the 10th plague, where YHWH himself killed the firstborn in every Egyptian family over a single night in order to show himself to be a badass and to get people to plead with the pharaoh to let the Israelites go. The Biblical text itself has nothing but gloating over YHWH’s slaughter: pharaoh wants to let the Israelites go but YHWH specifically hardens his heart (ie. impinges on pharaoh’s “free will”) in order for Israel to make a much more dramatic exit over the wailing of tens of thousands of mothers.

Naturally the worldview even in the first few centuries of our era was different. A midrash (rabinnic parable) tells of the angels rejoicing when YHWH drowns pharaoh’s army in an incident that comes shortly after the 10th plague. YHWH is furious: “my creatures are dying and you rejoice?”. This is supposed to be profound in that paradoxes and contradictions are often meant to be profound within religious systems. But even so, the whole slaying of the firstborn is 100 times more uncomfortable to most reasonable Jews today*, hence Keren’s post about whether or not the killing of the firstborn.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about something like the 10th plague but others have said it already, and better than I would have. What I found interesting is that the Bible contains some of the world’s first documented cases of terrorism. What YHWH did to the Egyptians (let’s ignore the non-historicity for a second and look at only the lesson presented!) is to attack civilians for the specific purpose of terrorising the population. The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” (Ex 12:33). It wasn’t even collateral damage, YHWH deliberately chose to do it in the most dramatic, bloodthirsty way possible for its own sake.

This brings me to Samson from the book of Judges. This story is commonly known: his strength from his long hair (actually his Nazirite vows), Delilah cutting it off and Samson losing his strength, his capture by the Philistines, the putting out of his eyes and so forth. Let us look at the end of the story:

And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said: ‘Call for Samson, that he may make us sport.’ And they called for Samson out of the prison-house; and he made sport before them; and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand: ‘Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house resteth, that I may lean upon them.’ Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the LORD, and said: ‘O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, O God, that I may be this once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.’ And Samson took fast hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and leaned upon them, the one with his right hand, and the other with his left. And Samson said: ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’ And he bent with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead that he slew at his death were more than they that he slew in his life.

Here, he is killing others by killing himself as a simple tactic of trying to maximise Philistine casualties — civilian or otherwise. There’s obviously no indication of any kind of condemnation for the act. Furthermore, the story of Samson is so ubiquitous, so widely taught and well-known that most people probably class him as a hero by default, without actually thinking about his actions.

A lot of political talk from the side of Israel says, correctly, that targeting civilians is never ok, that it is always, completely and forever off limits. It’s quite ironic that some of the same people who condemn Hamas praise the supposed historical equivalents like Samson (and of course YHWH himself).

Attitudes like collective punishment, attacking civilians, mass slaughter and xenophobia were very common in the ancient world. The Bible is nothing special in glorifying these. It is however special in sitting in such an ironic position with respect to religious people’s anti-terror rhetoric.

*Although a lot of people will give excuses about why it wasn’t so bad, I think the mere fact that they’re giving excuses shows their discomfort. Someone at the extremes of fundamentalism will not give any excuses.