What is the Scripture & Violence Project?

Show/hide transcript...

Today, many people worry that religion leads to violence. Figuring out how to respond can be difficult, especially when they point to violence in scriptural texts – right there in black and white.

For those of us from religious backgrounds, there are probably scriptures we find difficult to explain to others, and sometimes even to ourselves. What should we do? Avoid talking about those passages? Pretend they don’t exist? Proclaim, “Our religion teaches peace”? Or is there a more satisfying way to respond to concerns about our scriptures and our faith?

And what about other religions? Some of us might wonder whether their scriptures are worse than ours, and maybe even whether those people are more prone to violence. Are they? If not, how do we make sense of scary-looking texts in their scriptures?

If you’re part of a church, mosque, synagogue, interfaith group, or student religious group, or if you teach about religion at a university or college, we can help you and your group tackle tough questions like these.

At scriptureandviolence.org, you’ll find resources to help your group learn to engage with scriptural passages from the Bible and the Qur’an that seem to condone or encourage violence. You’ll also learn how to recognize common assumptions about religion, scripture, and violence – assumptions one encounters all the time on the internet, in the media, and in daily life. You’ll practice responding to those assumptions, gaining confidence, building skills, deepening your understanding of scripture, and getting equipped to help build a stronger society, where people of all faiths and none can live together in harmony.

The Scripture & Violence Project is based in the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at the University of Cambridge.

To find out more, go to scriptureandviolence.org.

10 Questionable Assumptions about Religion, Scripture, and Violence

Show/hide transcript...

In this video, we talk about 10 questionable assumptions that people make about religion, scripture, and violence. Whether you’re on social media, watching the news, or just listening to the neighbors talk next door, you’ll encounter assumptions like these. Learning to recognize them can help you avoid making them yourself and is the first step to developing a good response. So here are ten assumptions, which we also talk about more in other videos – and which you can practice recognizing and responding to using other resources on our website.

Number 1: Religious people are more likely to be violent than other people.

People often talk as if violence is only a problem that religious people have, as if everyone else in society is completely peaceful all the time. But is that really true? Are religious people actually more violent on average than anyone else?

Number 2: The Quran is more likely to encourage violence than other religious texts.

This is a very common assumption. But it rests on misunderstandings about the content of the Quran and the Bible, and lack of familiarity with the way that religious communities actually interact with their sacred texts.

Which brings us to assumption Number 3: The New Testament is all sunshine and strawberries.

A lot of Christians think that while the Quran and the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible contain a lot of stuff about violence and judgment, the New Testament is only about love and peace. That’s not actually true, though. The Quran and the Old Testament have a lot about love and peace. And the New Testament has plenty of judgment and violence.

So should the New Testament be banned? Not necessarily. Sometimes people talk as if (Number 4:) the presence of violence in a scriptural text is likely to make religious people act violently.

But that doesn’t actually seem to be the case. Many religious people throughout the world read and love scriptures, and don’t act violently as a result. So scriptures don’t seem to be as dangerous as some people think.

Number 5: Many people assume that religious people who don’t act violently are not taking their scriptures seriously.

They think that if you took these scriptures seriously, you definitely would be violent. And if you’re not, it’s because you’re either not serious about the scripture or have misunderstood it. But actually, many religious people take their scriptures very seriously, and still don’t act violently as a result of reading them.

So why do people assume otherwise? Well, partly, there’s confusion about how scriptures work. It’s often assumed that (Number 6:) scriptures consist entirely of timeless instructions for how to live life, all of which religious people can or should apply directly to their own lives.

Actually, however, both the Bible and the Quran contain lots of stuff that doesn’t fit that description at all. They contain stories about things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. They contain poetry. Accounts of dreams people had. If you actually read them – which many people don’t – you might discover that they’re not exactly what you thought they would be. Religious people often do draw lessons from scriptures for their own lives. But deciding how a text that talks about things that happened thousands of years ago should shape life today is often more complicated than you might think.

And that brings us to assumption Number 7: People often think, “This snippet of scripture looks problematic to me, so it definitely is problematic.”

People especially tend to think this about other people’s scriptures rather than their own. And they often forget to ask themselves whether their gut instinct is necessarily right. In every religious tradition, there is debate among scholars about how to interpret scriptural passages. So your gut instinct might tell you a passage is about one thing, but it could be that most other people actually understand it some other way – including most people from the religious tradition who consider that text sacred. And maybe the way they understand it, it wouldn’t seem so problematic after all.

Assumption Number 8: In order to reduce violence, religious people should either avoid reading certain passages of scripture or explicitly reject them.

As we’ve seen, though, that is not actually necessary. Religious communities have lots of strategies for reading difficult passages of scripture without acting violently as a result. And many strategies don’t involve rejecting those passages.

That is not to say, however, that scriptures are inherently safe. It’s also problematic to assume that (Number 9:) no one would ever use scriptures to justify violence.

There are plenty of historical examples from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions where people have done just that. So asserting that scriptures or religions are inherently peaceful is just as problematic as claiming that they are inherently violent.

And that brings us to assumption Number 10: People who talk about religion, scripture, and violence usually know what they’re talking about.

Lots of claims are made about religion, scripture, and violence on the internet and on the news and in conversation every day. And people can sound pretty confident. But that doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. So when you hear someone say something, don’t assume that they’re right, or that they’re giving you the whole picture. Ask questions. Get a second opinion. Find out more.

In this video, we heard 10 questionable assumptions that people make about religion, scripture, and violence. We talk more about these assumptions in other videos, and you can practice recognizing and responding to them using other resources on our website.

Should we stop talking about “religious violence”?

Show/hide transcript...

What counts as “violence”? Who decides that some types of violence are a problem, and other types are a good thing? Do some people talk about religion and violence so that they can focus on other people’s violence rather than their own? Does the phrase “religious violence” make sense? That’s what this video is about.

What counts as “violence”? Everything that causes physical injury to other people? But what if I’m defending myself? And does surgery count as “violence”? It hurts, but it helps at the same time. And what if a pedestrian is about to get run over by a truck, and I push him out of the way? Is that “violence”? And do only physical actions count as “violence,” or can the words I say be “violent,” too? Or what about things I don’t do, like seeing someone in need, and doing nothing? And what about actions that don’t involve other people, like killing mosquitoes, or mowing the lawn, or pulling a muscle in my own leg while jogging? Do those count as “violence”? For some of us, all of these examples might represent “violence.” For others of us, only some of them would.

So how do you use the word “violence”? When you talk about “violence,” what sort of things are you usually talking about? Are there things that maybe could be called “violence,” but you don’t tend to label that way? You might like to pause the video now and think about that.

As you’ve been thinking about it, you may have realized that when we talk about “violence,” we usually use the word only for things that other people are doing, not for things we’re doing ourselves. And that we tend to use the word “violence” only for things we don’t like, not for things that we think make our own lives better. That’s also the case for the phrase “religious violence.” If you hear someone talking about “religious violence,” they’re probably blaming someone else for the fact that there is violence in the world. Maybe they’re blaming religious people. Maybe they’re blaming Muslims. It’s usually someone else.

And people who talk about “religious violence” usually don’t talk about all the ways that they themselves are complicit in violence as members of modern society. Do we live in a nation with an active military? Does violence occur in prisons in our country, or in nursing homes? Does rape happen? Has violence ever been carried out on our behalf in the name of “freedom” or “security” – at home or abroad? Or so that we can continue to live at our current standard of living? Is the absence of violence in our daily lives the result of violence in the past or in other parts of the world? Using the phrase “religious violence” can distract us from asking tough questions like these, by focusing our attention on “other people’s problems with violence.”

Plus, “religious violence” is an artificial category that doesn’t actually help us understand what’s going on when violence occurs. Suppose we tried to divide up all acts of violence into two boxes, “religious” and “non-religious.” How would we decide which actions to put in which box? The decision would be pretty arbitrary. Partly because no one is just “religious.” People who participate in religious communities are also citizens of various countries, members of political parties, students, teachers, doctors, mothers, fathers, rich, and poor. And there are always many different factors and circumstances that lead up to an act of violence – there is never just one “reason” someone does something. So it doesn’t make sense to label someone’s action “religious violence” just because that person happens to be Christian or Muslim or Jewish.

Imagine a man named Andy. Andy is a Christian. He goes to church. He loves Jesus. As a child, Andy was beaten by his father. Now he is a soldier. He’s under a lot of strain. One day he hits a fellow soldier. Last week, that same soldier said that Andy had a stupid accent. Today that soldier insulted Jesus. Andy hit him. Would we want to put Andy’s act in a “religious violence” box? What about a box for “non-religious violence”? Neither of these labels captures the whole reality of the situation.

Now suppose that this story I just told you was about a Muslim soldier named Ahmed, instead of a Christian soldier named Andy. Would boxes for “religious” and “non-religious violence” be helpful in that case? Does it matter if the guy is a Muslim rather than a Christian? Obviously not.

Ok, now suppose that the guy in the story wasn’t a soldier, but a plumber. Or, what if we didn’t know anything about the guy except for his religious affiliation, because the newspaper didn’t report anything else? Now should we use boxes for “religious” and “non-religious violence” – because we don’t happen to know about the other factors that led up to his violent act? That doesn’t seem like a very good idea.

The truth is, if we want to get the whole picture, and not a distorted picture, it’s best to throw these boxes away, and not to use the phrase “religious violence” at all. Instead, when we hear about an act of violence, let’s make sure to find out all the relevant facts, and be careful about what labels we put on people’s actions.

In this video, we heard that people tend to use words like “violence” and “religious violence” when they’re talking negatively about other people’s actions, not their own. We asked how we might be complicit in violence ourselves as members of modern societies. And we considered other reasons not to use the phrase “religious violence,” including the fact that there are always many factors leading up to a violent act.

To think more about these topics, you can check out the other resources on our website.

7 Tips for Grappling with Scary-Looking Scriptures

Show/hide transcript...

How can we grapple with scary-looking texts in the Bible and the Quran? That’s what this video is about. We can’t sum up everything there is to know about reading scripture in a short video, but here are 7 tips to get you started the next time you come across a scary-looking text.

First:

1. Read the whole passage. Something in scripture might look scary when you read just a few words, but it might seem less problematic when you read the whole passage, and ask what the passage as a whole is actually about.

Also:

2. Think about the historical context. Suppose you come across a scriptural text that reads, “May God curse our enemies!” Ask about the historical context. Is the person who is cursing his enemies a powerful emperor who is complaining about a few people who object to his reign? Or is the speaker a member of a persecuted minority, whose life is in danger?

The texts that make up the Bible and the Quran were written down many centuries ago in different historical and cultural contexts, so it’s good to ask:

• When was this text written? Where?

• What was going on at the time?

• How was society structured? Who was in charge?

• Were the people for whom the text was first written part of a persecuted minority? Did they have political power?

You can ask other questions, too. In fact, it’s a good idea to:

3. Ask a lot of questions about the text – and remember that there aren’t always clear “answers.” The Bible and the Quran were written a long time ago in other languages and other cultural contexts, and they can be hard to interpret. Even trained scholars often find it hard to reconstruct the historical circumstances behind scriptural texts, and to figure out what the authors of scripture were trying to communicate, or how the texts might have been understood by their earliest audiences.

To make things even more complicated, what each person sees when they read a text is influenced by the lenses through which they read: their own background, assumptions, and life experiences. As a result, within every religious tradition, there tends to be a lot of debate about the interpretation of scriptural passages.

Which brings us to Number 4:

4. Find out how other people understand the passage.The first time you read a scriptural passage – or even the 14th time – don’t assume you “know what it means” or how other people might understand it, especially if the text is from a religious tradition other than your own. Instead, find out how other people actually understand it, by talking to people or reading books. This is especially important if the text is from a different religious tradition, but even if it’s from your own tradition, you may discover that it has been read in many different ways.

Number 5:

5. Keep questions about contemporary “application” of scriptural texts separate from questions about historical circumstances. In any religious community, two people might have the same understanding of the historical circumstances that gave rise to a particular scriptural passage, and even agree about what an ancient author was trying to communicate, but they might still disagree about how that text ought to influence the actions of people today.

That’s because “what people do with scriptural texts today” is a different question than what was going on when the Bible and the Quran were originally put together. These texts were not written as “Manuals for How to Live in 21st Century Societies,” so people in religious communities have to think together about what guidance they think the scriptures offer for life today – not to mention that many things in these scriptures don’t sound like “instructions” at all, but like poetry, songs, stories, history, and prophecy.

Which brings us to Tip Number 6:

6. If you’re wondering how people from a particular religious tradition think a scriptural text ought to influence the actions of people today, don’t just guess – ask!And ask more than one person, because there may be debate within the tradition, even among people who love the scriptural text and take it seriously.

Affirming scriptural texts as sacred does not necessarily mean that communities treat the texts as something to be enacted naively. You’ve probably read books or watched movies where someone acts violently. Did you treat that as an example to be imitated? Or not necessarily? In the same way, most people in religious communities don’t assume that they should do something violent just because violent acts happen to be recounted in scriptural texts.

And even when violence is presented in scriptural texts as a divine command, that doesn’t mean everyone thinks God is commanding them to do the same thing today. Even people who think of scripture as the Word of God and divinely inspired often still think that commands in scripture were only given for particular historical situations, or would only apply if certain very strict conditions were met – especially when it comes to violence.

In fact, many religious communities have well-developed strategies for avoiding violent application of scripture today – not to mention that both the Bible and the Quran also have passages encouraging peace and forgiveness, and when deciding how to live today, many communities choose to emphasize those passages.

Finally:

7. If someone from a particular religious tradition does something violent, don’t assume it was because of something they read in their scriptures. There are always many factors and circumstances that lead up to a particular act of violence – there is never just one “reason” someone does something.

And it’s not very likely that scripture was the main culprit in any given case. The average person in a religious community doesn’t spend much time reading scripture, and even people who do read scripture usually don’t become violent as a result, even if they read scary-looking passages.

In fact, even if someone cites scripture after the fact to justify an act of violence they performed last week, that doesn’t necessarily mean scripture was what motivated them to do it in the first place.

These are seven tips for grappling with difficult texts in the Bible and the Quran. You can try them out the next time you come across a scary-looking scriptural text.

War in the Bible, Jewish Tradition, and Beyond

Show/hide transcript...

In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, God commands the ancient Israelites to go to war against people living in the Land of Canaan.

The texts of classical rabbinic Judaism treat these verses as sacred scripture – but they think that this type of violence cannot be legitimately carried out in their own day.

These rabbinic texts include the Babylonian Talmud and date from the third to sixth centuries CE. They argue that God’s people can only wage war in God’s name if they receive a direct command from God telling them to do so.

The rabbinic texts say that the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Bible did receive direct commands from God, so they were justified in going to war.

But communities in their own day, the classical rabbis said, were no longer in a position to receive these sorts of direct commands from God, because the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed, authoritative prophecy had ceased, and the Urim and Tumim – special objects used by the ancient Israelites to discern God’s will – had been lost.

Basically, the rabbis thought that to wage war in God’s name, you needed the equivalent of a text message directly from God – but the whole network had gone out of service, so no text message would be coming through.

What would it look like today if societies made going to war dependent on these types of restrictions?