05 May 2011 By Juan Cole In his book
The
Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the
Crusades), anti-Muslim Catholic apologist Robert
Spencer calls the Quran a "book of war" that is
"violent and intransigent." In contrast, he argues,
"there is nothing in the Bible that rivals the
Qur'an's exhortations to violence." This view is held
by the general public as well; in the words of Prof.
Philip Jenkins: In the minds of ordinary Christians – and Jews –
the
Koran teaches savagery and warfare, while the
Bible offers a message of love, forgiveness, and
charity. This viewpoint is used to promote bigotry against
Muslims and Islam, and to fan the flames of
Islamophobia. Fortunately, we've "utterly
destroyed" this viewpoint (see parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
of this Series), and have categorically shown that the
Bible is far more violent than the Quran. As Prof.
Jenkins puts it: In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of
terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American
theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far
more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does
the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more
extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Bible sanctions genocide, something that one
simply cannot find any equivalent of in the Quran. In
the Bible are verses calling for the slaughter of
civilians, with explicit calls for the butchering of
women, children, and even babies. Even the most
violent-sounding passages in the Quran do not come
close to saying this. The "Descriptive vs.
Prescriptive" Defense Keenly aware of the fact that the horribly violent
verses in the Bible sound far worse than anything in
the Quran, Robert Spencer and other anti-Muslim
ideologues have to explain why these Biblical passages
"don't count" (whereas the violent sounding
Quranic
verses always "count"). This follows an
important rule of thumb employed by Islamophobes, as
we explained in a previous article: All violence in the Quran "counts" whereas
whatever is peaceful in the Quran "doesn't count",
and whatever is violent in the Bible "doesn't count"
and whatever is peaceful in the Bible "counts".
Heads I win, tails you lose. Islamophobes argue that the violent passages in the
Bible "don't count" because "the Biblical verses are
merely descriptive, not prescriptive like in the Quran."
In other words, the Bible only records and
describes the violence committed by
Judeo-Christian prophets, without prescribing
believers of today to carry these acts out. According to this view, the God of the Bible only
commands war against the people of the Seven Nations,
who simply do not exist any more. Since they
don't exist any more, those Biblical verses are
effectively dead letters. This is how the
pro-Christian argument goes anyways. The ultra-conservative Catholic organization The
American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family
and Property summarizes Spencer's argument in a
sympathetic review of his book: Biblical references record God's commands to
specific people to wage war against certain groups
for a particular purpose and a limited time period.
These passages are a historic account of God's
dealings with His people. Conversely, the Koran's
more numerous violent passages call upon Muslims of
all times to fight unbelievers with impunity and
spread Islam with the sword. And in Robert Spencer's own words (found on
pp.28-31 of his book): Islamic apologists more often tend to focus on
several
Old
Testament passages: * "When the LORD your
God brings you into the land where you are entering
to possess it, and clears away many nations before
you, the Hittites, and the Girgashites and the
Amorites and the
Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites
and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and
stronger than you. And when the LORD your God
delivers them before you and you defeat them, then
you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no
covenant with them and show no favor to them" (Deuteronomy
7:1-2) * "When you approach a
city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms
of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and
opens to you, then all the people who are found in
it shall become your forced labor and shall serve
you. However, if it does not make peace with you,
but makes war against you, then you shall besiege
it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand,
you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of
the sword. Only the women and the children and the
animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil,
you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall
use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your
God has given you. Only in the cities of these
peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an
inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that
breathes" (Deuteronomy 20:10-17). * "Now therefore, kill
every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman who has known man intimately. But all the
girls who have not known man intimately, spare for
yourselves" (Numbers 31:17-18). Strong stuff, right? Just as bad as "slay the
unbelievers wherever you find them" (Qur'an 9:5) and
"Therefore, when ye meet the unbelievers in fight,
smite at their necks; at length, when ye have
thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them"
(Quran 47:4) and all the rest, right? Wrong. Unless you happen to be a Hittite,
Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite,
or Jebusite, [the Seven Nations] these Biblical
passages simply do not apply to you. The
Qur'an exhorts believers to fight unbelievers
without specifying anywhere in the text that only
certain unbelievers are to be fought, or only for a
certain period of time, or some other distinction.
Taking the texts at face value, the command to make
war against unbelievers is open-ended and universal.
The
Old Testament, in contrast, records God's
commands to the
Israelites to make war against particular
people only. This is jarring to
modern sensibilities, to be sure, but it does not
amount to the same thing. Robert Spencer reproduces Biblical verses to prove
his claim when in actuality these verses are all the
proof needed to refute his claim. One does not need
to go further than his own page in his own book
to see how fallacious his basic argument is! The first passage is Deuteronomy 7:1-2, which
orders the believers to "utterly destroy" the people
of the Seven Nations: When the LORD your God
brings you into the land where you are entering to
possess it, and clears away many nations before you,
the Hittites, and the Girgashites and the Amorites and
the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and
the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than
you. And when the LORD your God delivers them before
you and you defeat them, then you shall
utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with
them and show no favor to them"
(Deuteronomy 7:1-2) The believers are forbidden to sign a
peace
treaty with the people of the Seven Nations
("you shall make no covenant with them"), and they
must be ethnically cleansed ("you shall utterly
destroy them"). The next passage Spencer cites explains what to do
with all nations other than
the Seven Nations: When you approach a city
to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of
peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens
to you, then all the people who are found in it shall
become your forced labor and shall serve you.
However, if it does not make peace with you, but
makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you
shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the
sword. Only the women and the children and the
animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil,
you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall
use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God
has given you. Thus you shall do to all
the cities that are very far from you, which are not
of the cities of these nations nearby. Only in the
cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is
giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave
alive anything that breathes.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-17). In his book, Robert Spencer completely omitted the
verse in red above. Notice how the words in red
(Deuteronomy 20:15) simply do not appear in Spencer's
rendition of the passage. Take a look for yourself
(click on the image to view): This time, Spencer didn't even bother using those
ever so strategic ellipses to manipulate the meaning
of a passage. One wonders at the convenient omission
of Deuteronomy 20:15 and whether or not this is a
mistake or deception. It is certainly a very helpful
"mistake". Furthermore, Spencer didn't reproduce 20:17 either: 20:17
But you shall utterly destroy them; namely, the
Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the
LORD your God has commanded you. Whatever the case, the Biblical passage (the one
that Robert Spencer uses as a proof) is actually
saying that the general rule is
that heathens are to be offered terms of "peace",
which entails being reduced to "forced labor"
(perpetual servitude). (This is the Bible's version
of "peace", and the same type of world "peace" that
Jesus, the "Prince of Peace", will bring during his
Second Coming.) If the heathens reject these terms of
"peace", then in that case they are to be attacked and
every single man (including non-combatants) is to be
killed. Meanwhile, the women and the children are to
be enslaved, and the animals and all property are to
be taken as booty. After stating this general rule,
the God of the Bible clarifies that this
does not apply to the people of the Seven
Nations, who must be "utterly destroy[ed]". The women
and children cannot be taken as slaves
because the believers "shall not leave alive anything
that breathes." In other words, Spencer's
rationalization could be applied to Deuteronomy
20:16-17 (the genocidal verses advocating "utter
destruction") but not to Deuteronomy 20:10-15
(the verses advocating perpetual servitude of
heathens). The Bible thus advocates genocide against heathen
residing inside the
Promised Land, and perpetual servitude of
heathen outside of it. Genocide is the rule for the
Seven Nations (Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites,
Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites),
whereas perpetual servitude is the rule for all
heathens other than this. The enforcement of this
Biblical rule (genocide inside the Promised Land and
slavery outside of it) can be seen in the story of
Gibeon. As infidels, the Gibeonites were forced to
choose between genocide and slavery (both options
requiring forced conversion); we explain this
story here [pdf document]. The Battle Psalms Above have we refuted the argument that the Bible
calls for holy war against the Seven Nations
exclusively. But the juiciest Biblical verses are
actually found in the
Book of
Psalms, including this doozie: Psalms 149:5
Let godly people triumph in glory. Let them
sing for joy on their beds. 149:6
Let the praises of God be in their mouths,
and a two-edged sword in their hands, 149:7
to execute vengeance on the heathen and
punishment on the people, 149:8
to bind their kings with chains, and their leaders
with iron shackles. There's much more in the Book of Psalms, and that's
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