Did God really command genocide? And what should Christians do with the texts that say so?Jericho put to the sword. Amalek "utterly destroyed," infant and nursing baby. Psalms that bless the one who dashes little ones against the rock. For many believers, these pages of the Bible are a source of quiet anguish. For critics, they are proof that the God of Scripture is a moral monster. Today, the name of Amalek is again invoked in public speech about real wars, and the question can no longer be avoided.Between Terror and Mercy faces the most disturbing texts of the Old and New Testaments head-on, without explaining them away and without abandoning the Bible. Written by an Orthodox priest and biblical scholar whose own family memory includes the war in the Vendée and the shadow of the Holocaust, it offers not a single tidy apologetic but four ways of reading every hard passage:The historical-judicial reading: what the texts claim, and the justice their defenders find in themThe perceptual-developmental reading: revelation received according to the condition of those who received itThe spiritual reading of the Fathers: the true war against the passions and the powersThe Christological reading: every portrait of God measured by the face of Jesus ChristDrawing on the Septuagint and the often-neglected deuterocanonical books, especially the Book of Wisdom's remarkable meditation on God judging Canaan "by little and little" to give "a place of repentance," the author traces a long arc through Scripture:from the protection of Cain to the law of the image of God in every human lifefrom divine patience and warning to the tragic necessity of belonging to peoplesfrom the Book of Judges, where "everyone did that which was right in his own eyes," to the zeal of Phinehas and the Maccabeesfrom the hardened heart of Pharaoh to the promised heart of fleshfrom the treaty-making Suzerain and Divine Warrior to the Father whom Christ called AbbaAlong the way, the book engages in honest dialogue with the major voices in the modern debate, including Stephen De Young, Paul Copan, Gregory Boyd, Eric Seibert, Charlie Trimm, L. Daniel Hawk, Thomas Römer, Phyllis Trible, René Girard, and Raymund Schwager, as well as Origen, Irenaeus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Isaac the Syrian.The book also speaks to the questions of our time: the wars of the present age and their spiritual roots, the misuse of Scripture to justify violence, the death penalty, and the Church's call to proclaim the mercy of the Cross in a world that may grow more violent before the end.Each chapter closes with questions for reflection and group discussion, making the book ideal for parish study groups, seminary courses, and thoughtful readers who refuse both easy rejection and easy endorsement.For anyone who has ever closed the Bible troubled by what they read, and wanted to open it again.About the AuthorFr. Laurent A. Cleenewerck de Kiev is an Orthodox priest, scholar, and publisher, and the editor of the Eastern Orthodox Bible (EOB). He is the author of His Broken Body, From Auctoritas to Potestas, and The Mystical Gospel in The Lord of the Rings, and serves as Chairman of the Oversight Council of EUCLID (Euclid University). Read more
