The Bible and Violence

Although I don't like to express my pious behaviour in what I like to call a secular blog, I find a characteristic that is consistent in the Bible that I find it rather interesting and I would like to share it with you all today.

Every night before I sleep, I like to read five verses of the Bible. Little by little, I have progressed through Genesis, through the book of Judges, through the Acts of the Apostles and many more. Sooner or later I find myself in the book of Judges, a time after the death of Moses. I find that the book of Judges is rather interesting: the book tends to spend endless lines detailing the brutal death of a main character rather objectively without a form of remorse. The scenes mentioned are also very interesting for the way that these people die are rather unorthodox.

For example, in Judges 4:21:

"Then Jael Heber's Wife took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died." 

In Judges 3:21 to 23:

"And Ehud came to him; and he was sitting in a summer parlor, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have a message from God to you. And he arose out of his seat. And Ehud pur forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly: And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed on the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly; and the dirt came out."

The book of Judges is known to be one of the books where we see clearly the brutality of mankind and I feel that the idea that this book is giving the impression that evil inherently lives in the hearts of men lives true even today. Left alone, two men will find different and interesting ways to kill one another. Men will always find that there is a better way to cheat the other party and get away with it. Women will always find a way to whoring themselves for money. Men will always find a way to cheat. This is rather interesting to me because it means that if we were to start all over again, it would not take long for us to reach to the stage where we are today. Where the use of narcotics is very common and casual sex is very frequent in our everyday lives and even if we were to get rid of these things from society, someone will independently come up with these ideas all over again. 

It is rather depressing that we think of these things. But on the other hand, we must also admit that humans have an inherent sense of caring for one another. We crave the justice for the sake of another person. We have the need to help someone who has been hurt. We have the need to make someone else happy. But the fact is that the media would rather report a case when someone gets killed out of hatred rather than a case where a person gets saved from a big accident out of the caring heart of another. So if you ask yourself why we see so much evil in the world, know that there is just as much good in the world, we just don't see it yet. 

Cheers,

Matthew Tan