Fields of Blood (80 page)

15.
Leviticus 25:23–28, 25:35–55; Deuteronomy 24:19–22; Gottwald,
Hebrew Bible,
p. 162.

16.
I have described this process in
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
(London and New York, 1993).

17.
Psalms 73:3, 73:8, 82:8, 95:3, 96:4ff, 97:7; Isaiah 51:9ff; Job 26:12, 40:25–31.

18.
Genesis 11:1–9.

19.
Genesis 11:9.

20.
Genesis 12:3. Strictly speaking,
Yahweh called
Abraham from Harran in modern
Iraq; but his father,
Terah, had left Ur but only got as far as Haran. Yahweh himself backdates
the call to Abraham, taking responsibility for the entire migration, telling Abraham: “I … brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 15:7).

21.
Hazony,
Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture,
p. 121.

22.
Ibid., pp. 122–26.

23.
Genesis 12:10.

24.
Genesis 26:16–22; cf. 36:6–8.

25.
Genesis 41:57–42:3.

26.
Genesis 37:5–7.

27.
Genesis 37:8, Fox translation.

28.
Genesis 37:10, Fox translation.

29.
Genesis 41:51, Fox translation.

30.
Genesis 41:48–49.

31.
Genesis 47:13–14, 47:20–21.

32.
Genesis 50:4–9. After
Jacob’s death, the brothers were permitted to take his body back to
Canaan, accompanied by “a very large retinue” of chariots and cavalry, while their children and possessions were held hostage in
Egypt.

33.
Genesis 12:15, 20:2, 26:17–18, 14:11–12, 34:1–2; Hazony,
Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture,
pp. 111–13, 143.

34.
Genesis 14:21–25.

35.
Genesis 18:1–8, 19:1–9.

36.
Genesis 18:22–32.

37.
Genesis 49:7.

38.
Genesis 49:8–12, 44:18–34.

39.
Exodus 1:11, 1:14.

40.
Exodus 2:11.

41.
Hazony,
Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture,
pp. 143–44.

42.
Exodus 24:9–11.

43.
Exodus 31:18.

44.
Exodus 24:9–31:18; William M. Schniedewind,
How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient
Israel
(Cambridge, UK, 2004), pp. 121–34.

45.
E.g., Judges 1; 3:1–6; Ezra 9:1–2.

46.
Regina Schwartz,
The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism
(Chicago, 1997); Hector Avalos,
Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence
(Amherst, NY, 2005).

47.
Mark S. Smith,
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(New York and London, 1990); Smith,
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
(New York and London, 2001).

48.
Joshua 24; S. David Sperling, “Joshua 24 Re-examined,”
Hebrew Union College Annual
58 (1987); S. David Sperling,
The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers
(New York and London, 1998), pp. 68–72; John Bowker,
The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God
(Oxford, 1978), pp. 58–68.

49.
Exodus 20:3, Fox translation.

50.
Susan Niditch,
War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the Ethics of Violence
(New York and Oxford, 1993), pp. 28–36, 41–62, 152.

51.
Compare a similar deal in Numbers 21:2.

52.
Joshua 6:20.

53.
Joshua 8:25.

54.
Joshua 8:28.

55.
Lauren A. Monroe,
Josiah’s Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement;
Israelite Rites of Violence and the Making of a Biblical Text
(Oxford, 2011), pp. 45–76.

56.
Mesha Stele
15–17, in Kent P. Jackson, “The Language of the Mesha Inscription,” in Andrew Dearman, ed.,
Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab
(Atlanta, 1989),
p. 98; Norman K. Gottwald,
The Politics of Ancient Israel
(Louisville, KY, 2001), p. 194; cf. 2 Kings 3:4–27.

57.
Mesha Stele
17.

58.
H. Hoffner, “History and the Historians of the Ancient Near East: The Hittites,”
Orientalia
49 (1980); Niditch,
War in the
Hebrew Bible,
p. 51.

59.
Judges 21:25.

60.
Judges 11:29–40.

61.
Judges 18.

62.
Judges 19.

63.
Judges 20–21.

64.
I Samuel 8:5.

65.
I Samuel 11:18.

66.
Gottwald,
Politics of Ancient Israel,
pp. 177–79.

67.
Niditch,
War in the Hebrew Bible,
pp. 90–105.

68.
I Samuel 17:1–13; Quincy Wright,
A Study of Warfare,
2 vols. (Chicago, 1942), 1:401–15.

69.
2 Samuel 2:23.

70.
2 Samuel 5:6.

71.
I Chronicles 22:8–9.

72.
Gosta W. Ahlstrom,
The History of Ancient Palestine
(Minneapolis, 1993), pp. 504–5.

73.
I Kings 7:15–26.

74.
Richard J. Clifford,
The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament
(Cambridge, MA, 1972), passim; Ben C. Ollenburger,
Zion, City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult
(Sheffield, UK, 1987), pp. 14–16; Margaret Barker,
The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem
(London, 1991), p. 64; Hans-Joachim Kraus,
Worship in Israel: A Cultic History of the Old Testament
(Oxford, 1966), pp. 201–4.

75.
I Kings 9:3; David Ussishkin, “King Solomon’s Palaces,”
Biblical Archaeologist
36 (1973).

76.
I Kings 10:26–29.

77.
I Kings 9:3, 5:4–6.

78.
I Kings 4:1–5:1.

79.
I Kings 5:27–32, which contradicts I Kings 9:20–21. The Deuteronomist authors were eager to blame Solomon’s idolatry for the catastrophe, because of their reform.

80.
I Kings 11:1–13.

81.
I Kings 12:4.

82.
I Kings 12:17–19.

83.
Psalms 2:7–8, 110:12–14.

84.
Psalm 110:5–6.

85.
Andrew Mein,
Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile
(Oxford and New York, 2001), pp. 20–38.

86.
Amos 2:6.

87.
Amos 3:10.

88.
Amos 7:17; 9:7–8.

89.
Amos 3:11–15.

90.
Amos 1:2–2:5.

91.
Isaiah 1:16–18.

92.
Gottwald,
Politics of Ancient Israel,
pp. 210–12.

93.
Finkelstein and Asher,
Bible Unearthed,
pp. 263–64.

94.
Ibid., pp. 264–73.

95.
2 Kings 21:2–7, 23:10–11.

96.
Psalms 68:17; Ahlstrom,
History of Palestine,
p. 734.

97.
Schniedewind,
How the Bible Became a Book,
pp. 91–117; Calum M. Carmichael,
The Laws of Deuteronomy
(Eugene, OR, 1974); Bernard M. Levinson,
Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation
(Oxford, 1997); Moshe Weinfeld,
Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School
(Oxford, 1972); Joshua Berman,
Biblical Revolutions: The Transformation of Social and Political Thought in the Ancient Near East
(New York and Oxford, 2008).

98.
2 Kings 22:8.

99.
Exodus 24:3,7; Schniedewind,
How the Bible Became a Book,
pp. 121–26.

100.
Exodus 24:4–8. This passage was inserted into the older traditions by the reformers; it is the only other place in the Bible where the phrase
sefer torah
is found.

101.
Deuteronomy 6:4.

102.
Deuteronomy 7:1–4.

103.
Deuteronomy 28:64, 68.

104.
2 Kings 22:11–13.

105.
2 Kings 23:5.

106.
Jeremiah 44:15–19; Ezekiel 8.

107.
2 Kings 23:4–20

108.
Levinson,
Deuteronomy and Hermeneutics,
pp. 148–49.

109.
Deuteronomy 7:22–26.

110.
Deuteronomy 13:8–9, 12.

111.
Niditch,
War in the
Hebrew Bible,
pp. 65, 77.

112.
I Kings 13:1–2; 2 Kings 23:15–18; 2 Kings 23:25.

113.
2 Kings 24:16. These numbers are disputed.

114.
Ezekiel 3:15; Schniedewind,
How the Bible Became a Book,
p. 152.

115.
Mein,
Ezekiel,
pp. 66–74.

116.
Anshan is called Elam in the Hebrew sources.

117.
Garth Fowden,
Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity
(Princeton, NJ, 1993), p. 19.

118.
Cyrus Cylinder 18. Quotations from the Cyrus Cylinder are taken from the translation by Irving L. Finkel in John Curtis,
The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning for the Middle East
(London, 2013), p. 42.

119.
Bruce Lincoln,
Religion, Empire, and Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Graib
(Chicago and London, 2007), pp. 36–40.

120.
Cyrus Cylinder 12, 15, 17, p. 42. Shuanna is another name for Babylon.

121.
Isaiah 45:1.

122.
Isaiah 45:1, 2, 4.

123.
Isaiah 40:4–5.

124.
Flavius Josephus,
The Antiquities of the Jews,
trans. William Whiston (Marston Gale, UK, n.d.), 11.8.

125.
Cyrus Cylinder 16, p. 42.

126.
Cyrus Cylinder 28–30, p. 43.

127.
Lincoln,
Religion, Empire, and Torture,
p. ix.

128.
Ibid., pp. 16, 95.

129.
Bruce Lincoln, “The Role of Religion in Achaemenian Imperialism,” in Nicole Brisch, ed.,
Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond
(Chicago, 2008), p. 223.

130.
Clarisse Herrenschmidt, “Désignations de l’empire et concepts politiques de Darius I
^er
d’après inscriptions en vieux perse,”
Studia Iranica
5 (1976); Marijan Molé,
Culte, mythe, et cosmologie dans l’Iran ancien
(Paris, 1963).

131.
Darius, First Inscription at Naqsh-i Rustum (DNa) 1, cited in Lincoln,
Religion, Empire, and Torture,
p. 52.

132.
Ibid., pp. 55–56.

133.
DNa 4, cited ibid., p. 71.

134.
Darius, Fourth Inscription at Persepolis, cited ibid., p. 10.

135.
Ibid., pp. 26–28.

136.
Ibid., pp. 73–81; Darius, Inscription 19 at Susa, cited ibid., p. 73.

137.
Cross,
Canaanite Myth,
pp. 293–323; Mary Douglas,
Leviticus as Literature
(Oxford and New York, 1999); Douglas,
In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers
(Oxford and New York, 2001), pp. 58–100; Niditch,
War in the Hebrew Bible,
pp. 78–89, 97–99, 132–53.

138.
Leviticus 25.

139.
Leviticus 19:34.

140.
Douglas,
Leviticus as Literature,
pp. 42–44.

141.
Genesis 32:33.

142.
Numbers 20:14.

143.
Genesis 1:31.

144.
Nehemiah 4:11–12.

145.
Numbers 31.

146.
Numbers 31:19–20.

147.
2 Chronicles 28:10–11.

148.
2 Chronicles 28:15.

149.
Isaiah 46:1.

150.
Zechariah 14:12.

151.
Zechariah 14:16. See also Micah 4:1–5, 5; Haggai 1:6–9.

152.
Isaiah 60:1–10.

153.
Isaiah 60:11–14.

1.
Luke 2:1.

2.
Robert L. O’Connell,
Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression
(New York and Oxford, 1989), p. 81.

3.
E. N. Luttwak,
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire
(Baltimore, 1976), pp. 25–26, 41–42, 46–47; Susan P. Mattern,
Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate
(Berkeley, CA, 1999), pp. xii, 222.

4.
O’Connell,
Arms and Men,
pp. 69–81; John Keegan,
A History of Warfare
(London and New York, 1993), pp. 263–71.

5.
W. Harris,
War and Imperialism in Republican Rome
(Oxford, 1979), pp. 56, 51.

6.
Tacitus,
Agricola,
30, Loeb Classical Library translation.

7.
Harris,
War and Imperialism,
p. 51.

8.
Martin Hengel,
Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period,
trans. John Bowden, 2 vols. (London, 1974), 1:294–300; Elias J. Bickerman,
From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees
(New York, 1962), pp. 286–89;
The Jews in the Greek Age
(Cambridge, MA, and London, 1990), pp. 294–96; Reuven Firestone,
Holy War in Judaism: The Rise and Fall of a Controversial Idea
(Oxford and New York, 2012), pp. 26–40.

9.
Daniel 10–12.

10.
Daniel 7:13–14.

11.
Richard A. Horsley, “The Historical Context of Q,” in Richard A. Horsley and Jonathan A. Draper, eds.,
Whoever Hears You Hears Me: Prophets, Performance, and Tradition in Q
(Harrisburg, PA, 1999), pp. 51–54.