The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide

Sara E. Brown, Stephen D. Smith, Sara E. Brown, Stephen D. Smith

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000471908
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: Holocaust History

The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide explores the many and sometimes complicated ways in which religion, faith, doctrine, and practice intersect in societies where mass atrocity and genocide occur.

This volume is intended as an entry point to questions about mass atrocity and genocide that are asked by and of people of faith and is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, historical events, and heated debates in this subject area. The 39 contributions to the handbook, by a team of international contributors, span five continents and cover four millennia. Each explores the intersection of religion, faith, and mainly state-sponsored mass atrocity and genocide, and draws from a variety of disciplines.

This volume is divided into six core sections:

• Genocide in Antiquity and Holy Wars
• The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
• Religion and the State
• The Role of Religion during Genocide
• Post Genocide Considerations
• Memory Culture

Within these sections central issues, historical events, debates, and problems are examined, including the Crusades; Jihad and ISIS, colonialism, the Holocaust, desecration of ritual objects, politics of religion, Shinto nationalism, attacks on Rohingya Muslims; the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, responses to genocide; gender-based atrocities, ritualcide in Cambodia, burial sites and mass graves, transitional justice, forgiveness, documenting genocide, survivor memory narratives, post-conflict healing and memorialization.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Genocide is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in religion and genocide, religion and violence, and religion and politics. It will be of great interest to students of theology, philosophy, genocide studies, narrative studies, history, and international relations and those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, sociology, and anthropology.

SECTION 1 Genocide in antiquity and holy wars

1 Genocide in antiquity

Shawn J. Kelley

DOI: 10.4324/9780429317026-3

This chapter investigates the logic of the common practice of mass extermination in the ancient world, paying particular attention to the Roman assault on the Jews of Jerusalem in 70 CE (Kelley 2016, 7–15). I will begin by identifying examples of genocide, focusing on exterminatory commands and imperial assaults on the ancient Jewish people, arguing that genocide in the biblical world is best understood in terms of imperial assaults, rather than the exterminatory commands. I will then use a single example—the Roman destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE)—as a way of illuminating how and why genocide was conceived, carried out, and justified in the biblical era.

Genocide in the Bible

Before we turn to violence perpetrated against the Jews, I want to address the biblical texts that show the Jewish people carrying out genocide against their neighbors. My argument will be that these disturbing texts do not alone shed light on the practice of mass killing in the ancient world. Because of their prominence and disturbing nature, they do help inform our shared understanding of genocide in the Bible.

There are numerous genocidal Divine commands throughout the Hebrew Bible. These commands identify a range of targets, such as the Amalekites (I Sam 15:3), but are mostly directed against the Canaanites. These peoples—if we assume the Bible’s chronology—occupied the land promised to the Hebrew tribes returning from Egypt (Josh 1:1–4). The following command is typical and illustrates the command and reasoning behind it:

You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do the abhorrent things that they do for their gods and you thus sin against the Lord your God.

(Deut 20:17)

Scholars have long doubted the historical reliability of these scenes (Dozeman 2015, 3–94; Dozeman 2017). The notion that the returning Hebrews carried out a quick and decisive conquest of the land conflicts with most historical reconstructions, the textual evidence, and most especially with the archaeological evidence. Most scholars are skeptical of the entire Exodus-conquest narrative and posit that the book of Joshua, which narrates the extermination, reached its final composition stage somewhere between the late monarchy (sixth century BCE) and after the exile (fifth century BCE) (Dozeman 2015, 9–20). This widely held historical consensus pushes the analysis from the historical events of the thirteenth century BCE to the narrative goals of an anonymous author in the sixth or fifth century BCE. The biblically sanctioned slaughter of the Canaanites tells us less about how genocide was implemented in the biblical era and more about how it was imagined by the (then supine) Jews living under powerful, hostile empires. This methodological shift also does little to solve agonizing literary questions (e.g. what is the appeal of this myth of origins?) or theological questions (e.g. how can the faithful worship a God who commands mass slaughter in the name of ethnic purity?) (Kelley 2016, 26–42).

This methodological shift from events to narrative goals does, however, resolve an important historical question. Despite the many narrative claims to the contrary, there was no Joshua-led genocide of the Canaanites. To get a grasp of how genocide was carried out in the ancient world, we need to move to more solid historical ground. This ground can be found with the many imperial powers who occupied the territory and found genocide to be a useful tool to maintain empire. The Jewish people were under constant genocidal threat at the hands of a succession of powerful empires: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Hellenistic Seleucids, and the Romans (from the eighth century BCE through the second century CE). These imperial powers regularly threatened mass slaughter and occasionally crossed the line into annihilation. The final, murderous action usually came at the end of a prolonged siege of a major city such as the frequently besieged Jewish capital of Jerusalem. Of the numerous examples, the most striking include the following: the Assyrian destruction of the Northern Kingdom and ensuing forced population movements in 722 BCE (II Kings 17–18); the Assyrian assault on the Southern Kingdom and near destruction of Jerusalem, which was averted when a plague struck the Assyrian army in 701 BCE (II Kgs 18:13–16, 17–37, 19:35–7); the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple and the ensuing exile in 586 BCE (see II Kgs 24, Jer 52); various threats to Jerusalem and its rebuilt Temple; the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE (which will be discussed in detail below); and the Roman response to the Simon Bar Kokhba revolt from 132–135 CE. It is the task of this chapter to understand how and why genocide against the Jews emerged out of this complex history. Before taking up these questions, several historical-critical and source-critical questions need to be addressed.

Ancient texts took up the question of why the Jews experienced the trauma of mass extermination. They tend to describe the events as Divine punishment for the people’s idolatry and sin (Jer 2:20–35, 4:5–18, 25:8–13; II Kgs 17:7–23, 24:1–20); the rebel leader’s pollution of the Temple through blood crimes (War 4.159, 5.406–415, 562–566); and, with the advent of Christianity, for Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus (Luke 19:41–44, 21:20–23, 22:27–32). This study will require bracketing the questions that most preoccupied ancient writers, such as how did the events reflect the will of God or the Gods? Instead, I will focus on historical questions. This will require a careful and critical approach to these fascinating and complex texts.

My analysis of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE) will primarily rely upon classical sources and the Jewish general turned captive turned historian Josephus (MacLaren, 1999). His Jewish War, the most important ancient source for these events, begins with the Jewish line of Kings (i.e. the independent Hasmoneans 171 BCE, the vassal Herod the Great 37 BCE) and culminates with the destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE). The war and its aftermath take up much of Josephus’s lengthy narrative and this volume is the only source for detailed information on the revolt. While scholars turn to his narrative for information, they cannot ignore his narrative’s heavy hand. It is difficult to definitively know whether Josephus was interjecting editorial comments into a largely accurate narrative or whether he regularly created material for dramatic effect (Goodman 1987, 20–21; Mason 2016, 130–137; MacLaren 1999, 49–50; Schwartz 2013, 96; Sharon 2017, 23–27).

I see Josephus as being similar to other ancient historians; he was a creative writer rather than a compiler, and occasionally interjected commentary into his sources. Woodman makes a compelling case for seeing ancient history writing as more similar to rhetoric and epic poetry than to modern, scientific historiography (Mason 2016, 71–130; Woodman 1988, x, xi, 3–4, 169, 178, 197). Woodman argues that the use of direct speech in ancient writings is rooted in a concern to imitate and surpass Homer. Upon determining the general gist of what was said, the historian would recreate the majority of the speech (Woodman 1988, 3–4, 11–14). Through the speeches, we get insight into the motivations of the Jewish and Roman characters, and we can conclude that Josephus was primarily responsible for most of their content. While this relatively recent appreciation for Josephus’s artistry has produced a great deal of insight into the construction of the complex narrative, it also presents difficulties for those interested in using this text as a historical resource. I will proceed by reading Josephus critically, putting his text in dialogue with other perspectives on the revolt and its aftermath, and then draw cautious conclusions about how and why these events occurred.

The classical sources give us a modest amount of direct information on the Roman sacking of Jerusalem. The Jewish revolt erupted during the rule of the emperor Nero. The Roman response was initially carried out by the general (and future emperor) Vespasian, and was completed by his son Titus, who would also become emperor. Roman historians are extremely interested in, and provide significant historical detail about, this period (66–72 CE). Their narratives detail the chaotic and ultimately failed Nero rule and his forced suicide, the civil war that erupted with his death, Vespasian’s victory, and his rise to emperor and his new imperial line (the Flavians, who replaced the Caesars). Unfortunately for our project, the classical sources provide the modern reader with few details about the events in Judea and Jerusalem.

While the classical sources may not answer all the modern historian’s questions, they remain of value, because they provide insight into the chaotic events in Rome in this period and into important Roman leaders. They show that the waning days of the Nero era were fertile ground for provincial revolts. Furthermore, the classical sources also provide a great deal of insight into how Rome responded to unrest in the provinces and why Rome besieged and sacked cities. It will be profitable to compare Josephus’s account of Roman behavior with what we know from classical sources. By moving critically between Josephus and the classical sources, we will be positioned to draw reasonable inferences about the events and the motivation of the Roman leaders.

The Roman destruction of Jerusalem, 70 CE

The field of genocide studies has developed a rich repertoire of theoretical categories and methodological insights. Three important assumptions, drawn from this field, shape my argument. First, genocide scholars have shown that, rather than being a regime’s first choice and the direct result of exterminatory ideology, genocide emerges at the end of an escalation process (Mann, 2005; Mommsen 1991). This analysis will be attentive to the process by which this genocide emerged out of contingent historical events. Second, scholars have identified the complex nature of the genocide impulse—an impulse related (but not identical) to the impulse toward domination. A paradoxical tendency lurks within genocidal regimes. The desire for domination is attached to an equally strong sense of vulnerability—a sense that the targeted people can bring about the dominant people’s collapse (Straus 2015, 56). This analysis will be attentive to both Rome’s need to dominate and its perception of its own vulnerability. Third, much work has been done to unpack the logic of modern genocides and to draw out connections between fundamental features of genocide and of modernity (Kelley 2016, 20–21). This chapter seeks to translate these insights into the radically different context of antiquity (see also Taylor 2021). My analysis will attend to how this genocide’s logic reflects the fundamental values of ancient imperial empires, using Rome as an example.

If genocide is the result of an escalation process driven by contingent historical events and imperial values, then our analysis needs to monitor where the process begins and how it reaches its exterminatory climax. We need to be attentive to how the range of options narrowed to the point where extermination was perceived as Rome’s sole honorable option.

Perhaps because the turbulent years before the revolt parallel the life of Jesus and the emergence of the early Church, there has been a plethora of scholarship on this time period (Hengel 1989, 82–149; Horsley 1993, 38–41; Mason 2016, 262 ff; Sharon 2017, 212–225). Josephus provides much fodder for this analysis, as he narrates ethnic insults (War 2.169–178, 2.184–187, 2.224–226, 2.230), interethnic conflicts (War 2.234–235, 2.266–270), Roman misrule (War 2.175–177, 2.271–335), and the subsequent violence (War 1.176–178, 1.236–237, 1.310–316, 1.648–655, 2.4–7, 2. 39–79). The situation escalated in the years immediately preceding the revolt, with the emperor Nero’s decadence and purges creating a political crisis in Rome (Annals 14.14–15, 15.37; The Twelve Caesars, 6.37; War 2.250–251) and his profligacy fomenting an economic and political crisis in the provinces (Mason 2016, 315–324). The crisis in Judea was exacerbated by the famously corrupt Roman procurator Florus, who retained Nero’s support as he looted the Jerusalem treasury (War 2.294), escalated tensions (War 2.278, 294), and unleashed the army on the protesting crowds (War 2.305–329). While these events did not make the revolt inevitable, especially given the long period of exploitive Roman occupation (see Sharon 2017, 98, 109–110, 239–253), they did mark the start of the conflict that culminated in annihilation.

These outbursts inevitably put the Judean population on a collision course with their Roman rulers. Susan Mattern argues that Rome’s imperial/military actions were primarily driven by a set of values that elevated terror as essential to Rome’s security and believed that any sign of weakness invited destruction (Mattern 2002, 116). Mattern demonstrates that Rome believed that its empire depended upon its reputation for ruthlessness: “Rome’s success, its very safety, ultimately depended less on the force that it could wield… than on the image of the force it could wield and its apparent willingness to use that force at whatever th...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Section 1 Genocide in antiquity and holy wars
• Section 2 The genocide of indigenous peoples
• Section 3 Religion and the state
• Section 4 The role of religion during genocide
• Section 5 Post genocide considerations
• Section 6 Memory culture
• Epilogue: what we know and what we still need to know
• Index