Prof. L. Daniel Hawk on Violence in the Bible

Hole Academic HA 309

March 27, 2023 1:00 pm - March 27, 2023 2:00 pm

The CUE Research Cluster on Christian Philosophy & Theology is pleased to announce a public lecture by the distinguished Biblical scholar Prof. L. Daniel Hawk of Ashland Seminary (Ohio).

Event Details

Monday, March 27 ┃ 1 p.m. MST (Edmonton, Alta. time) ┃ HA 309

While Prof. Hawk will be delivering the lecture remotely (via Google Meet), we will still be having a live gathering on campus to watch the lecture together on the big screen and engage in a question-and-answer session with him afterwards. Attendees who are on campus that day can join us in Hole Academic Room HA 309 (where a free lunch — pizza & pastries — will be provided), while those off campus can still access the lecture via Google Meet. 

‘They Left No Breathing Thing Alive’: Making Christian Sense of the Book of Joshua

Few biblical texts are as problematic for contemporary Christian witness as the book of Joshua. What are Christians to make of a book that tells a tale of conquest and extermination, executed in obedience to God’s command? While most responses to this question follow a theological or historical approach, Daniel Hawk proposes that we should begin by reading the book carefully and viewing its incongruities as a key device to understanding how Joshua engages its readers. Drawing on contemporary narrative approaches and tools, Hawk reveals a narrative of remarkable sophistication and nuance – one that weaves multiple voices and perspectives together into a contentious conversation about violence, ethnic conflict, and Israel’s God. Rather than shunning Joshua, he argues that Joshua constitutes a vital biblical resource for discerning how to live faithfully in a violence-saturated world.

About the Speaker

L. Daniel Hawk (Ph.D., Emory) is Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Ashland Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. His most recent book is The Violence of the Biblical God: Canonical Narrative & Christian Faith (Eerdmans Press, 2019), available for purchase at Amazon.ca