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Kindle Edition eBooks Details
  • B078RWXDS9
  • 254 pages
  • $9.99
Paperback Details
  • 01/2018
  • 0999430602
  • 254 pages
  • $12.99
Matthew Fleischer
Author
The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence
In The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence, Fleischer cuts through the rhetoric and popular misperceptions to provide a compelling, scripturally based, and highly readable case for a good, just, and loving God, one who is not only not bloodthirsty but who actually hates violence. If you have ever struggled to understand or appreciate what God was doing in the Old Testament, you will love this book. You might even discover a deity who is more beautiful than you have ever imagined.
Reviews
Addressing Christians who struggle with reconciling Old Testament images of a violent God with New Testament images of a peaceful Jesus, Fleischer, an attorney, argues that God engages in “incremental ethical revelation,” gradually revealing Christianity’s nonviolent moral standard. Beginning with a comprehensive listing of Old Testament accounts of God committing or ordering Israel to commit violence, Fleischer acknowledges that humans throughout millennia have used these stories to justify slavery, apartheid, slaughter of indigenous peoples, and other atrocities. Fleischer claims that Israel’s Mosaic Law, compared to contemporaneous ancient Near Eastern religions, offered significant moral advancement in warfare policy, treatment of the disadvantaged, and management of bloodlust. Arguing that God’s “introductory moral lessons” included teaching obedience and trust in God rather than military might and temporarily sanctioning limited violence while leading people from retribution to restorative justice, Fleischer contends that God’s “end goal” was always the revelation of the “universally applicable moral code” of nonviolence and enemy love preached by Jesus. In a section entitled “Maybe God Didn’t Do It,” Fleischer suggests that human misinterpretation may be responsible for the violent portrayal of God. While some biblical scholars may quarrel with Fleischer’s argument for chronological divine revelation, Fleischer makes a strong argument for a Christian embrace of nonviolence based on both testaments. (BookLife)
Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration

"In the first six pages of his new book, Matthew Curtis Fleischer describes the problem of divine violence in the Old Testament as well as anyone ever has. In the following 200-plus pages, he offers Christians committed to biblical authority an intelligent and humane way of interpreting those passages, leading humanity from violence to nonviolence in the way of Jesus. Fleischer is an attorney, and he makes his case with clarity that would win over any unbiased jury." - Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration

Dr. Bob Rambo, Lead Pastor, Christ United Methodist Church

"Who would have thought that the Old Testament reveals God’s hatred of violence and his desire to rid the world of it?  Yet that’s exactly the case Matthew Curtis Fleischer makes – in a compelling manner – in this book.  Fleischer gives us a portrait of a God who consistently chooses nonviolence over violence – and who expects his followers to do the same." - Dr. Bob Rambo, Lead Pastor, Christ United Methodist Church, Jackson, Mississippi

Gerard Casey, Professor Emeritus, University College Dublin

“An outstanding treatment of what is often taken to be the intractable problem of the dubious moral character of the God of the Old Testament....  An attentive reading of Fleischer’s crisp yet comprehensive account will dispel many of the pangs of conscience that have troubled believers over the years, while the honest agnostic or atheist reader should come away from his reading of The Old Testament Case for Nonviolence with a somewhat shaken faith that the God of the Old Testament is a moral monster.” – Gerard Casey, Professor Emeritus, University College Dublin

Willard M. Swartley, Professor Emeritus, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

“In an effort reminiscent of fellow lawyers and lay theologians Jacques Ellul and William Stringfellow, Matthew Curtis Fleischer has produced a work of significant worth.”  – Willard M. Swartley, Professor Emeritus, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Formats
Kindle Edition eBooks Details
  • B078RWXDS9
  • 254 pages
  • $9.99
Paperback Details
  • 01/2018
  • 0999430602
  • 254 pages
  • $12.99
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