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Philip Jenkins
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Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses Hardcover – October 25, 2011

by Philip Jenkins (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 48 ratings
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Philip Jenkins delivers a fearless examination of the darkand violent verses of the Bible—and a call for us to read them anew in pursuitof a richer, more honest faith. From “one of America’s best scholars ofreligion” (The Economist), this daring exploration of the Scripture’smost difficult passages forces us to confront and accept the violence that wasas integral to the formulation of Christianity’s message as it was for manyother of the world’s religions, and shows us how a full understanding of theScripture will allow us to finally move towards a more peaceful, spiritualworld. Readers of Bart Ehrman’s God’s Problem,John Selby Spong’s The Sins of Scripture, andJenkins’s own The Jesus Wars, as well as every Christian eager to squarethe recurrent violence of the Scripture with Christianity’s enduring message ofpeace, will find these difficult questions explored in full in Laying Downthe Sword.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    HarperOne
  4. Publication date
    October 25, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    006199071X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0061990717
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A provocative and timely comparison of the legacies of violence in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. With verve and sweeping insight, Jenkins challenges all of our stereotypical assumptions about religion, bloodshed, and terror.” — Thomas S. Kidd, author of God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution

“This book is a wonderful example of the kind of rigorous work Christians must do if they are to retain intellectual credibility.” — Patrick Allitt, The American Conservative

“Jenkins has outdone himself. This is by far the best piece of work he has ever done, dealing with one of the most controversial issues Christians struggle with day-in and day-out.” — Tony Campolo

From the Back Cover

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions—all are in the Bible, and all occur with a far greater frequency than in the Qur’an. But fanaticism is no more hard-wired in Christianity than it is in Islam. In Laying Down the Sword, “one of America’s best scholars of religion” (The Economist) explores how religions grow past their bloody origins, and delivers a fearless examination of the most violent verses of the Bible and an urgent call to read them anew in pursuit of a richer, more genuine faith.

Christians cannot engage with neighbors and critics of other traditions—nor enjoy the deepest, most mature embodiment of their own faith—until they confront the texts of terror in their heritage. Philip Jenkins identifies the “holy amnesia” that, while allowing scriptural religions to grow and adapt, has demanded a nearly wholesale suppression of the Bible’s most aggressive passages, leaving them dangerously dormant for extremists to revive in times of conflict. Jenkins lays bare the whole Bible, without compromise or apology, and equips us with tools for reading even the most unsettling texts, from the slaughter of the Canaanites to the alarming rhetoric of the book of Revelation.

Laying Down the Sword presents a vital framework for understanding both the Bible and the Qur’an, gives Westerners a credible basis for interaction and dialogue with Islam, and delivers a powerful model for how a faith can grow from terror to mercy.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperOne (October 25, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 006199071X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061990717
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.05 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

About the author

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Philip Jenkins

Philip Jenkins

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Philip Jenkins is the author of The Lost History of Christianity and has a joint appointment as the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of the Humanities in history and religious studies at Penn State University and as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe and has been a guest on top national radio shows across the country.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
48 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

J. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars Historical context is necessary
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2011
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This book is quite eloquently written. At first it may seem that Jenkins is attacking Christianity, but he is not. In fact, he stands up in defense of Christianity several times in the book, especially against Evangelical Atheists who desire to rid the world of religion because they mistakenly believe that religion, and not humans themselves, contain all the negative aspects of culture and society.

But it's Jenkins' thesis that Christians need to understand their religious text in a historical sense that really hits home with me. Research has proven that madrasas (Islamic schools) actually prevent Muslims from becoming terrorists, and I believe that's because of the emphasis of WHY violent verses were revealed. Without the context of what was going on in Mecca/Medina, one is left with a narrative that can be twisted in order to fuel any hate-filled agenda.

And, indeed, the same issues exist in both Christianity and Judaism because this historical context is lacking. Jenkins is not asking for anyone to abandon Christianity or Judaism, nor is he suggesting that either religion is backwards. He is merely stating a simple yet eloquent observation, that without studying and understanding the context behind these verses which seem so foreign to the modern world, regular Christians have no way of stopping extremist Christians. There's no way of explaining to the next McVeigh or Breivik that their understanding of Biblical texts is skewed when the texts are no longer studied.

This book is for anyone who wants to go beyond understanding what extremists believe and wants to stop the cycle before more innocent people (of any faith, race, ethnicity, or nationality) are killed again.
58 people found this helpful
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Dewey Cheatham Howe
4.0 out of 5 stars Why wipe out Amelek?
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024
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The topic is fascinating, though, unfortunately, the author feel felt the need to compare Judeo-Christian genocide tendencies to a non-existent example in Islam.
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Ron Eberhardt
5.0 out of 5 stars Must Reaf
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2013
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Very helpful without being overly academic. Might not want to purchase if you were hoping to prove Islam is more violent than Christianity. As a Christian I was educated and humbled.
13 people found this helpful
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GKC1951
3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting point, superficially made
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2014
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As a Catholic, I have a basic disagreement with both Fundamentalists on the one hand and Mr. Jenkins on the other as the principles for understanding the Bible: I accept neither textual literalism nor the historical-critical method that focuses solely on the development of the Bible as a human document. That said, however, I note that the Christian offenders--in his view--are almost exclusively Protestants, and in the Calvinist tradition at that (my blood, if not spiritual, ancestors, in some cases); I do agree with his thesis that we must not ignore the more cruel parts of the Old Testament (the massacre of the Canaanites, and so on), which are bowlderized not only (as he notes) in the Common Lectionary, but also in the Liturgy of the Hours (the last verses of Ps 137, the entirety of Ps 109). His method of using them, however, includes putting himself above the text and not treating it as part of divine Revelation, which I find unacceptable. (Not to mention that after condemning the "genocide" of the Canaanites, he proceeds to explain that it never happened.) His writing is also rather superficial and shallow; when he talks about European history, he is clearly ill-informed. For example, the speaks of the late seventeenth-century philosophers as recoiling against "centuries" of religious warfare. Even if you characterized all the European wars from the Schmalkaldic War through the 30 Years' War as religious (a dubious proposition when Cardinal Richelieu and Gustavus Adolphus were on the same side in the latter, and when you take into account the nonreligious origins of many conflicts), that only adds up to barely one century. If one only reads the first few chapters of the book, one could think that he is heading for a wholesale condemnation of Christianity and Judaism, with an unfavorable comparison to Islam. Perhaps this is overstated. He then changes direction, and the latter part of the book is, in my opinion, more valuable. He does return to terrorism in the name of Islam, with which he began, at the end. His point is that much of the use of the Qur'an by terrorists, and the impression given to Western non-Muslims about the Qur'an and Islam in general, is unjustified. That's as may be, but the terrorists are real, however theologically muddled, and one does not see mainstream Muslim religious leaders or masses of ordinary Muslims pointing out their errors. When he can explain why Palestinians danced on the streets when the World Trade Center fell, I will take his arguments more seriously.
19 people found this helpful
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DorothyR
5.0 out of 5 stars Especially useful if one has not ever studied the Bible in ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2014
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Arrived in time and was the topic of a class. Especially useful if one has not ever studied the Bible in an academic way.
3 people found this helpful
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jfd
1.0 out of 5 stars deceptive subtitle for non-Biblical polemic
Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2015
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This book does not exactly deal with the Bible as written. More precisely it is an interesting and useful examination of "dark passages"--especially as found in Deuteronomy and Joshua of the Hebrew Tanakh. The overwhelming thrust of the book is advocate moral equivalence with Islam. Undoubtedly he considers "religion" to be somehow good but his readers to need improved "balance" by minimizing problems in Islam and accentuating violence in the Hebrew Bible. His opinions grapple with the text by dismissing it: (1) Deuteronomy-Joshua are fabrications embellished by prophetic era editors to promote intolerant monotheism; (2) the Exodus simply never happened; (3) Christians/Jews have only too happily appropriated Amalek for self-evidently nefarious purposes. Do not search here for a discussion of Abraham or God's Promises to his descendants. Do not expect to find any consideration of future fulfillments of the Prophets he off-handedly dismisses. And, relax, Judgement Day must have gotten misplaced somewhere... If supercilious contempt is how you prefer to deal with "religion"-- or at least the Hebrew Bible, well, this is it and all for you, with lots of footnotes thrown in.
12 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Paul Williams
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, disturbing, compelling.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2017
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A must read, but an utterly shocking exposé of the reality of scripture.
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PhilipM
5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible's awkward verses
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 28, 2013
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I found this very interesting as I have done many of his books. It also deals with some of the Koran.

Declaration of interest - I know the author who was in school with me!
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Jacques S Venter
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2012
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Best I have read for a while. His exposition of the Old Testament that we have come to ignore as preachers has put the love of the Old Testament back in it.
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