The Bible in the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Introduction
Portion of the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Qumran caves; cropped. Photo credit: Unknown | Wikimedia.
The Goal
On October 7th, 2023, Hamas, the nominal government of Palestinian Gaza, launched a brutal attack on Israeli citizens. Israel responded with an overwhelming assault on Gaza. This occasion brings fresh urgency to the question of how people quote and deploy the Bible regarding the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
My intended audience here is anyone who wishes to consider or reconsider the biblical foundations of Christian and Jewish Zionism, including anyone who feels skepticism and animosity towards the biblical texts as the result of the conflict, and anyone who feels some level of devotion to and appreciation of them. I do this because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been influenced by theological voices - Jewish, Christian, and Muslim - which make it arguably unique among other conflicts.
What is Zionism? Although there was, in the nineteenth century, a soft version of Zionism involving Jewish migration back to the land of Israel-Palestine to farm and work without necessarily having an organized state, Zionism is defined here using the Oxford Dictionary definition: the political ideology supporting the State of Israel as such; the State of Israel is considered to be the proper “homeland” of Jewish people; its territorial land claims vary but are inspired from biblical times and informed by biblical texts.
How Scripture is understood by Jews and Christians in the U.S. affects other decisions, such as the level of U.S. military aid to Israel, or whether Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank goes uncriticized. Between 60 to 80 percent of U.S. evangelicals believe that the 1948 formation of the State of Israel was an act of God[1] on the biblical prophetic timetable, and that the State of Israel is, or will be, basically identical with ancient biblical Israel as portrayed in Scripture. In January 2007, commentator Hillel Halkin wrote, “Apart from Jews, evangelical Christians provide the strongest source of popular support that Israel has in America, or for that matter anywhere in the world.”[2] Little has changed. Biblical interpretation and theology are by no means the only important factors behind the conflict, but they cannot be ignored, either. Peacemaking will not come simply by reading the Bible more carefully. But peacemaking will certainly not come without it.
Admittedly, it seems highly presumptuous and contentious that Christians should involve themselves in matters that concern Jewish people. However, given that Protestant Christian Zionism preceded and influenced Jewish Zionism and continues to resource it,[3] Christian silence might very well prove to be a disservice as well. It is true, after all, that Jesus of Nazareth, the movement he started, and the community standing behind the New Testament understood themselves as standing firmly within the Jewish tradition and taking part in the debates emerging from the Scriptures of ancient Israel.
What does this particular essay contribute to the discussion? I believe the latest understandings of biblical intertextuality and literary-canonical analysis makes stronger conclusions possible. Also, this essay is unusual in that it considers the relationship between the Protestant doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement and Protestant conceptions of the relationship between the church and Judaism.
While I cannot comment on all aspects of the conflict, such as whether Augustine’s just war criteria do or do not apply to Hamas’ October 7 attack (Russell Moore argues they do)[4], or the question of whether or not Zionism makes Jewish people, not least Israelis, safer, or whether a one, two, or three state solution is feasible, I want to comment on how we read Scripture on some very basic and fundamental questions because many people invoke Scripture in ways that are troubling. Those ways actually limit and misdirect peacemaking efforts.[5]
Examples of the Use of Scripture
On the one hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu[6] and Reformed theologian-pastor Peter Leithart[7]compared the current conflict to the historical conflict narrated in Scripture between the Israelites and the Amalekites, as portrayed in 1 Samuel 15, for example. Such an invocation might seem to take Scripture seriously on some level, but it raises uncomfortable questions: What was the theological rationale of the original conflict as portrayed in Scripture? Can we use incidents from the Bible like that? Why or why not?
That is one of the most extreme examples of a larger pattern. Christian and Jewish Zionists alike use the Abrahamic covenant from Genesis 12:1 - 3 and 15:18 - 21 and/or “end times prophecies” to justify virtually unqualified support for the State of Israel, and U.S. support for the State of Israel, because they believe that doing so is connected to Jesus’ second coming and/or Israel’s messianic destiny. What, then, about the Palestinians and their displacement into refugee camps and what is now the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem? Are they “neighbors” that Jesus called us to love? What about Palestinian Christians? How do Jewish Christians, American Christians, and other Christians express our unity in Christ with Palestinian Christians?
On the other hand, some people criticize the Bible itself - primarily the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament - for its record of violence, or even for its very notion of Israel as a chosen people. They raise serious questions about a God who took human life and commanded the Israelites to do so, at times. This converges with a tradition of scholars from the 1800s starting in German universities who theorized about the human side of the origins of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. I also note the standard Muslim interpretation which comes from the Qur’an and Hadiths, which asserts that the Jewish people corrupted the revelation they received from God.[8] Claims like these question the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament in its entirety and the confessional foundation of both Jewish and Christian faith. In what sense is the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament reliable and still normative for ethics?
This essay covers:
Chapter 1: Land. Does Someone “Own” the Holy Land? God’s Promises and Their Fulfillment
Chapter 2: Enemies. Why Did God Create Ancient Israel and Protect Them from Opponents?
Chapter 3: Temple. Does Israel Need a Temple Today?
Chapter 4: Protestantism. Why Is Christian Zionism a Protestant Phenomenon?
Conclusion
[1] Bump, Philip. “Half of Evangelicals Support Israel Because They Believe It Is Important for Fulfilling End-Times Prophecy.” Washington Post. May 14, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/14/half-of-evangelicals-support-israel-because-they-believe-it-is-important-for-fulfilling-end-times-prophecy/.
[2] Halkin, Hillel. “Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren.” Commentary. January 2007. https://www.commentary.org/articles/hillel-halkin/power-faith-and-fantasy-by-michael-b-oren/.
[3] Lewis, Donald M. “A Very Short History of Christian Zionism.” Edited by Cannon, Mae Elise. A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishing. 2017. 109. See also Lewis, Donald M. A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021.
[4] Moore, Russell. “American Christians Should Stand with Israel under Attack.” Christianity Today. October 7, 2023. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/october-web-only/israel-hamas-middle-east-war-christians.html.
[5] Gushee, David P. “Christian Just Peacemaking and Israel-Palestine: A Quick and Dirty History of What We Call Israel-Palestine.” Edited by Cannon, Mae Elise. A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishing. 2017. 123 - 131. See also Gushee, David P. In the Fray: Contesting Christian Public Ethics, 1994–2013. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishing. 2012.
[6] Alsharif, Mirna. “Netanyahu Invokes 'Amalek' Narrative in Speech About Expanding Ground Operation in Gaza.” NBC News. October 29, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/israel-hamas-war-gaza-attacks-hamas-idf-netanyahu-long-fight-rcna122651#rcrd23808.
[7] Leithart, Peter J. “Hamas Is Borrowing Tactics from the Amalekites.” The Gospel Coalition. October 13, 2023. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hamas-tactics-amalekites/.
[8] Meah, Shaykh Jamir. “Is There Any Evidence That Previous Scriptures Were Corrupted?” Seekers Guidance: The Global Islamic Academy. September 15, 2017. https://seekersguidance.org/answers/islamic-belief/is-there-any-evidence-that-previous-scriptures-were-corrupted/.