Justice and History in the Old Testament: The Evolution of Divine Retribution in the Historiographies of the Wilderness Generation

Long had the ‘still small voice’ been spoke in vain,But God now thunders in an awful strain!Commercial woes brought down our nation’s pride,Our harvest fail’d, and yet we God defy’d:But now the ‘voice’ cries loud to all the Land,The ‘Rod’ is felt, Oh! may we see the Hand.’Tis God who speaks – ’Tis He who ’points the blow,’Tis God who’s laid the pride of Britain low!In these lines, written in November 1817, a lady member of a Newcastle-upon-Tyne Nonconformist congregation unambiguously attributed the death of Princess Charlotte to specific divine intervention. This conviction reflected that of her minister, James Pringle, in a recent sermon preached on an Old Testament text widely expounded at that time, the chastening rod (or voice) of God in Micah 6: 9. Such a perception of adverse national events as divine retribution for sin, comparable to prophetic interpretations of the history of Old Testament Israel, was a noticeable strand in early nineteenth-century British evangelical discourse.

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Tinjauan Kritis-Multifaset Terhadap Tuduhan Genosida Atas Catatan Penaklukan Kuno Tanah Perjanjian

Veritas : Jurnal Teologi dan Pelayanan ◽

10.36421/veritas.v18i2.332 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 107-123

Author(s):

Hendra Yohanes

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

Old Testament ◽

Contextual Approach ◽

Moral Argument ◽

Near Eastern ◽

Promised Land ◽

Divine Retribution ◽

Present Context ◽

Cultural Gaps

Tujuan dari artikel ini adalah untuk menyajikan suatu tinjauan kritis-multifaset terhadap tuduhan bahwa Allah Yudeo-Kristen telah memerintahkan genosida kepada bangsa Israel dalam penaklukan Tanah Perjanjian. Sehubungan dengan itu, penulis mencoba memikirkan ulang apa yang dipersoalkan secara esensial dalam tuduhan tersebut dan membedah tuduhan tersebut dalam tiga faset meliputi faset terminologi hukum, penafsiran, dan moral-filosofis. Dengan menganalisis kriteria genosida di dalam hukum internasional, penulis berargumen bahwa catatan penaklukan kuno Tanah Perjanjian di Perjanjian Lama tidak memenuhi kriteria ini sehingga penaklukan ini secara keliru telah diklasifikasikan sebagai genosida. Penulis juga mengumpulkan beberapa contoh kekeliruan penafsiran terhadap catatan penaklukan Tanah Perjanjian. Penulis menyetujui bahwa bahasa figuratif-hiperbol merupakan sebuah perangkat sastra yang umum dalam catatan penaklukan kuno dan ideologi perang dipandang sebagai penghukuman ilahi dalam pandangan dunia Timur Dekat Kuno. Kemudian, penulis mengambil Yosua 9-11 sebagai sebuah studi kasus biblikal untuk menunjukkan jurang sejarah-budaya antara konteks Timur Dekat Kuno dari catatan penaklukan dengan konteks kekinian kita. Pada faset terakhir, penulis secara ringkas berargumen bahwa ada pendekatan yang lebih kontekstual yang berdasarkan argumen moral teistik ketimbang tuduhan kaum Ateis Baru. The purpose of this article is to deliver a critical-multifaceted review against the accusation that the Judeo-Christian God have commanded genocide to Israelites in the conquest of the Promised Land. Correspondingly, I try to reconsider what matters essentially in the accusation and dissect the accusation into three facets, included legal terminology, interpretive and moral-philosophical facets. By analysing criteria of genocide in the international law, I argue that ancient conquest account of the Promised Land in Old Testament dissatisfies these criteria, thus the conquest was incorrectly classified as genocide. I also gather some examples of misinterpretation of the conquest account of the promised land. I agree that the figurative-hyperbolic language as a common literary feature in the ancient conquest account and the ideology of war viewed as the divine retribution in ancient near eastern worldview. Then, I take Joshua chapters 9-11 as a biblical case study to demonstrate historical-cultural gaps between ancient near eastern context of the conquest account and our present context. In last facet, I tersely argue that there is a more contextual approach which based on theistic moral argument instead of the New Atheist accusation.

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