Violence and the Bible

“The violence in the Bible is appalling,” wrote Christopher Hitchens — a provocation that invites not dismissal but investigation. This course takes that challenge seriously. Violence and the Bible explores how the Bible constructs, authorizes, ritualizes, and at times contests violence — physical, social, epistemic, and divine. No body of literature has been more influential for Western and colonial imaginaries of gender, sexuality, race, and peoplehood than the Bible.

Through close readings we will examine scenes of gendered harm, conquest and displacement, divine wrath, law and punishment, and the moral worlds these narratives make possible. We will also trace how these ancient texts have been mobilized in later histories — from empire and nation-building to contemporary religious and political rhetoric.

The violence of the Bible has long provoked readers: divine destruction, ritualized punishment, conquest, and the regulation of bodies and boundaries. These texts have been mined for historical reconstruction (What really happened?) and theological justification (What does God command?). These are precisely the questions we will not be asking in this course on violence and the Bible. Instead, we will read Pentateuchal narratives with attention to how violence is narrated, authorized, gendered, and resisted — and to the interpretive traditions that have amplified or challenged these scripts across time.

No prior knowledge of the Bible required.