Warfare in the Old Testament has long posed a problem for Christian readers. Does it offer a justification for war on religious grounds? And how can the warlike God of the Old Testament be the same divinity as that revealed in the New Testament, the God of love incarnate in Jesus Christ? Recent events lend an extra urgency to these questions. This timely study engages fully with the difficult questions by paying attention to the texts themselves. It shows how ambivalent the Old Testament actually is about warfare, and offers some reflections on how we read the Old Testament in the light of the New.
