Flood and Fury - by Matthew J Lynch (Paperback)

About the Book

Old Testament violence proves one of the most troubling topics in the Bible. Without softening or ignoring the most troubling realities of the text, Old Testament scholar Matthew Lynch addresses violence related to misogyny, racism, and nationalism in the Old Testament, yielding surprising insights into the goodness and mercy of God.

Book Synopsis

What do we do with a God who sanctions violence?

Old Testament violence proves one of the most troubling topics in the Bible. Too often, the explanations for the brutality in Scripture fail to adequately illustrate why God would sanction such horrors on humanity. These unanswered questions leave readers frustrated and confused, leading some to even walk away from their faith.

In Flood and Fury, Old Testament scholar Matthew Lynch approaches two of the most violent passages in the Old Testament - the Flood and the Canaanite conquest - and offers a way forward that doesn't require softening or ignoring the most troubling aspects of these stories. While acknowledging the persistent challenge of violence in Scripture, Flood and Fury contends that reading with the grain of the text yields surprising insights into the goodness and the mercy of God. Through his exploration of themes related to violence including misogyny, racism, and nationalism, Lynch shows that these violent stories illuminate significant theological insights that we might miss with a surface reading.

Flood and Fury challenges us to let go of the need to rescue the Old Testament from itself and listen afresh to its own critiques on violence.

Review Quotes

"Flood and Fury helps Christians to see what violence is doing in their Scriptures--even in the mouth of Jesus! Lynch helps us to navigate the Bible's grammar of violence as people who are thankfully estranged from systemic and brute use of force. Like few scholars can, Lynch plainly maps how the New Testament authors engage the violence of the Old Testament as fruitful for the coming kingdom. Of the myriad books on violence in Scripture, Lynch marries his scholarly work with his winsome writing so that the church can properly wrestle with what the biblical texts say about human and divine violence."

--Dru Johnson, associate professor of biblical studies at The King's College

About the Author

Matthew J. Lynch is associate professor of Old Testament at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of First Isaiah and the Disappearance of the Gods, Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary and Cultural Study, and Monotheism and Institutions in the Book of Chronicles: Temple, Priesthood, and Kingship in Post-Exilic Perspective. He is the co-founder of the OnScript podcast, a podcast focused on providing engaging conversations on Bible and theology.