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Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence
Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd tackles the Bible's biggest dilemma.
The Old Testament God of wrath and violence versus the New Testament God of love and peace-it's a difference that has troubled Christians since the first century. Now, with the sensitivity of a pastor and the intellect of a theologian, Gregory A. Boyd proposes the "cruciform hermeneutic," a way to read the Old Testament portraits of God through the lens of Jesus' crucifixion.
In Cross Vision, Boyd follows up on his epic and groundbreaking study, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus reframes the troubling violence of the Old Testament, how all of Scripture reveals God's self-sacrificial love, and, most importantly, how we can follow Jesus' example of peace.
The Old Testament God of wrath and violence versus the New Testament God of love and peace-it's a difference that has troubled Christians since the first century. Now, with the sensitivity of a pastor and the intellect of a theologian, Gregory A. Boyd proposes the "cruciform hermeneutic," a way to read the Old Testament portraits of God through the lens of Jesus' crucifixion.
In Cross Vision, Boyd follows up on his epic and groundbreaking study, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. He shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus reframes the troubling violence of the Old Testament, how all of Scripture reveals God's self-sacrificial love, and, most importantly, how we can follow Jesus' example of peace.
280 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2018
241 people are currently reading
868 people want to read
About the author
Gregory A. Boyd
94 books350 followersGregory A. Boyd is the founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and founder and president of ReKnew. He was a professor of theology at Bethel College (St. Paul, Minn.) for sixteen years where he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor.
Greg is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (BA), Yale Divinity School (M.Div), and Princeton Theological Seminary (PhD). Greg is a national and international speaker at churches, colleges, conferences, and retreats, and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He has also authored and coauthored eighteen books prior to Present Perfect, including The Myth of a Christian Religion, The Myth of a Christian Nation, The Jesus Legend (with Paul Eddy), Seeing Is Believing, Repenting of Religion, and his international bestseller Letters from a Skeptic.
Greg is a graduate of the University of Minnesota (BA), Yale Divinity School (M.Div), and Princeton Theological Seminary (PhD). Greg is a national and international speaker at churches, colleges, conferences, and retreats, and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He has also authored and coauthored eighteen books prior to Present Perfect, including The Myth of a Christian Religion, The Myth of a Christian Nation, The Jesus Legend (with Paul Eddy), Seeing Is Believing, Repenting of Religion, and his international bestseller Letters from a Skeptic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
January 29, 2019
I wanted to give this book four stars. And I wanted to give it two or one. I disagree with much in this book. Some things I vehemently disagree with. But it's hard for me to imagine and better book of this nature.
For Boyd, God must be completely nonviolent. Completely. He set out to find a consistent hermeneutic that would justify this and crafted a theory on about how to read the Cross and Jesus taking on sin into every violent part of the Bible. He succeeds in some places more than others. In the most difficult moments he argues that the author or prophet in the Old Testament simply misheard God. That while the Scripture is completely inspired, it records human beings mistaken views of God and what He said.
Along with all the things in this book that I can't accept, is a truly beautiful picture and reminder of God's love and wealth of information about the Old Testament. Boyd's work on ANE myths, cosmology, and how it fits into the biblical picture is fascinating and highly valuable. This book is too, but I can only recommend it to those who have a good head on their shoulders, a firm footing in their faith, and a clear idea of what they are getting into.
I think Boyd's theory is important, and will yield fruit in my life as I consider it in the light of Scripture. A lesser version or lesser application of Boyd's theory may win me over one day. Some days, I wish Boyd was right. For me, CROSS VISION was an excellent read, with which I highly disagreed.
For Boyd, God must be completely nonviolent. Completely. He set out to find a consistent hermeneutic that would justify this and crafted a theory on about how to read the Cross and Jesus taking on sin into every violent part of the Bible. He succeeds in some places more than others. In the most difficult moments he argues that the author or prophet in the Old Testament simply misheard God. That while the Scripture is completely inspired, it records human beings mistaken views of God and what He said.
Along with all the things in this book that I can't accept, is a truly beautiful picture and reminder of God's love and wealth of information about the Old Testament. Boyd's work on ANE myths, cosmology, and how it fits into the biblical picture is fascinating and highly valuable. This book is too, but I can only recommend it to those who have a good head on their shoulders, a firm footing in their faith, and a clear idea of what they are getting into.
I think Boyd's theory is important, and will yield fruit in my life as I consider it in the light of Scripture. A lesser version or lesser application of Boyd's theory may win me over one day. Some days, I wish Boyd was right. For me, CROSS VISION was an excellent read, with which I highly disagreed.
December 20, 2017
I recognize that the violence attributed to God in the Bible is a problem for many of us. Finding a solution to that problem is itself a challenge. Marcion solved it by attributing the violence of the Hebrew Bible and in the Gospels to the demiurge -- a lower, creator god -- but not the God revealed in Jesus.
Gregory Boyd attempts to resolve this problem by appealing to the cross of Jesus. In the process, as I read the book (and I finally gave up after chapter 9 and skipped to the end) Boyd understands God accommodating God's self to the cultural dynamics, and allows God's self to be portrayed as a warrior God, with that culminating in the cross, where God shows God's true nonviolent self. I found Boyd running in circles trying to accommodate his understanding of God (non-violent love) with his insistence of keeping adherence to a conservative hermeneutic and an affirmation of infallibility. Ultimately, what have is a supersessionist view that sees the original covenant, which included sacrifices, etc., as somehow less than stellar, and which must be replaced by the new covenant in Jesus, which is a better covenant.
As I read the book, I recognized the reason why I gave up on infallibility. It makes you juggle too many balls. Perhaps this will help some, but for this former adherent of infallibility and penal substitution (he says he doesn't affirm penal substitution, but it sure looks like it to me) I shall move on to other books. That said, having read less than 150 pages and finding myself ready to move on, I can't imagine reading the 1500 word academic version.
Gregory Boyd attempts to resolve this problem by appealing to the cross of Jesus. In the process, as I read the book (and I finally gave up after chapter 9 and skipped to the end) Boyd understands God accommodating God's self to the cultural dynamics, and allows God's self to be portrayed as a warrior God, with that culminating in the cross, where God shows God's true nonviolent self. I found Boyd running in circles trying to accommodate his understanding of God (non-violent love) with his insistence of keeping adherence to a conservative hermeneutic and an affirmation of infallibility. Ultimately, what have is a supersessionist view that sees the original covenant, which included sacrifices, etc., as somehow less than stellar, and which must be replaced by the new covenant in Jesus, which is a better covenant.
As I read the book, I recognized the reason why I gave up on infallibility. It makes you juggle too many balls. Perhaps this will help some, but for this former adherent of infallibility and penal substitution (he says he doesn't affirm penal substitution, but it sure looks like it to me) I shall move on to other books. That said, having read less than 150 pages and finding myself ready to move on, I can't imagine reading the 1500 word academic version.
June 3, 2024
Cross Vision is one of those books that is game-changer for me. As many people have, I have struggled with the acts God apparently asks the Israelites to do (or that He, Himself, does) in the Old Testament. Boyd goes a long way towards showing that those “commands” are just that, apparent.
Boyd rests his case largely on the verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. If we look at all of the Old Testament through the eyes of the cross, then we must conclude that “something else is going on” in those commands of genocide, etc. He maintains that God allowed Himself to be viewed falsely while showing Scriptures where “true”, contrary revelation broke through. Simultaneously, he holds the evangelical view that the OT is inspired and that God is not a mushy God, but a God of justice.
His points are all thought provoking, and if true, could solve the problem of OT violence. However, there were some parts that didn’t hold together as well for me. For example, the section dealing with the flood and God wiping out everyone on earth save Noah and his family. This said, I am intrigued enough that I would really like to read the 1,400-plus-pages-previous-edition of this book. I need to continue thinking about the implications of some of his points, but overall, I think they deserve a hearing.
Boyd rests his case largely on the verse in Hebrews that says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. If we look at all of the Old Testament through the eyes of the cross, then we must conclude that “something else is going on” in those commands of genocide, etc. He maintains that God allowed Himself to be viewed falsely while showing Scriptures where “true”, contrary revelation broke through. Simultaneously, he holds the evangelical view that the OT is inspired and that God is not a mushy God, but a God of justice.
His points are all thought provoking, and if true, could solve the problem of OT violence. However, there were some parts that didn’t hold together as well for me. For example, the section dealing with the flood and God wiping out everyone on earth save Noah and his family. This said, I am intrigued enough that I would really like to read the 1,400-plus-pages-previous-edition of this book. I need to continue thinking about the implications of some of his points, but overall, I think they deserve a hearing.
September 24, 2017
I waited many long years for “Crucifixion of the warrior God” to be printed, once it was released I quickly went through volume one, but then got too busy preparing for another school year to finish the remaining volume. So I was glad to see his popular version—Cross vision was on audible, for no matter how packed my days are, I can always find time for audiobooks.
Because of Boyd's confidence in the trustworthiness of Jesus, and Christ conviction that all scripture speaks of Him, Boyd feels obliged to affirm this. Boyd believes all scripture is“God-breathed” and is “infallible” and that it all somehow reveals Christ and Him crucified.
The New Testament authors understood Christ and Him crucified as the supreme revelation of what God is like, that in God there is no unchristlikeness at all. So now God is love, and we know what love is because Christ laid his life down for us. Because of Christ example, we learn the ultimate revelation of God is enemy embracing love; instead of hating and killing enemies, God humbled Himself and allowed himself to be killed by his enemies.
But with this conviction the huge problem arises, for there are multitudes of passages in the Old Testament that seem unworthy of God; presenting evil as if it was good; injustice as if it was righteous; and representing God as the utter antithesis of Jesus, how could that which is so contrary to Jesus be God-breathed? How could this reveal Christ and Him crucified?
Most evangelicals simply seek to harmonize the depiction of violent portraits of God in the O.T with what we see in Christ. Boyd however like me is deeply troubled and opposed to gratuitous violence that fills the Old Testament, and he is too honest and morally sensitive to be satisfied with the pitifully flimsy, repugnant, ethically dubious and paper-thin justifications and excuses evangelicals give to try to justify genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, the slaughter of the innocent for their parents sin, and biblical claims that God rapes woman, makes parents eat their children and even finds delight and pleasure in such twisted activities.
The way forward may be to approach the Old Testament accounts, similar to how Jesus and the New Testament authors did, who sometimes even contradicted, challenged and radically reinterpreted O.T passages from a new perspective. Christians have the responsibility to read the Old Testament violence passages in light of the revelation of the cross, and believe something deeper is going on beneath the ugly surface. The perfect standard is Christ and Him crucified, here we have the supreme revelation of what God is like. This revelation isn't simply alongside and equal to others, but Jesus is the substance, and what is conveyed in the OT is like a shadow compared to Christ.
So when we find the biblical authors ascribe evil to God, or claim God commanded or did what is completely out of alignment with the revelation of the cross, we must recognize that this was the human author expressing their fallen understanding of God. When we find such in our holy scriptures it also somehow reveals Christ and crucified, for when we look deeper, we see how God in such moments was allowing himself to be misunderstood and was bearing their sin, as He did on the cross.
Boyd gives a very helpful example to help us think about this. Some missionaries went to a place in Africa that practiced female genital mutilation. The missionaries were deeply grieved by the practice and had to regularly bear this sin, hearing the screams of the girls, truly weighed heavily upon them. They didn't yet have a foundation upon which they could challenge the practice though. But because they loved these people, they lived among them, and from an outside perspective appeared to approve of the practice of female genital mutilation, for they brought them better surgical tools, sanitation, and painkillers for the girls, the missionaries allowed themselves to seem champions of the barbaric practice. Once the village became Christians however, they finally had a firm place to share how the practice was wrong, at which time the people saw everything in a new light.
So now in a similar way God is the divine missionary, who loved a primitive people living in a barbaric age so much, that he was willing to bear their sin, allow himself to be misunderstood as tribal warrior deity, who totally supported, commanded and engaged in enemy hatred, but finally in Christ, He was able to set the record straight and make it clearly known who He is. And now from the vantage point of the cross, we see clearly and learn he never supported the violence, but often accommodated and worked in subtle ways to wean them away from such cultural dictated understanding of God.
Concerning the Canaanite conquest, I did appreciate Boyd's emphasizing the significance of passages (the land would vomit them up, and that he'd send in hornets) that implied God intended to somehow motivate the Canaanites to leave the land, without Israel engaging in violence and warfare. We can then consider, that possibly like Jesus' disciples who couldn't grasp the notion of a non-violent messiah, no matter how many times Jesus made it clear, likewise, Moses couldn't grasp the idea of waiting for God to motivate the Canaanites to leave, and convinced himself that genocide was a better way to bring about what God had planned. Abraham decided to help God out, and we got Ishmael, maybe Moses is seeking to help God out, and we got genocide.
Boyd argues that the wrath of God in the O.T is his withdrawing, and allowing evil to consume evil, allowing people to experience the consequences of their sin. Because Boyd believes in the demonic realm, and raging cosmic forces that God is holding at bay, even things like the Genesis flood can be understood as a grieving God taking a step back. He understands the wrath of God against sin, when Jesus died on the cross, as God withdrawing, and in doing so evil had its way and imploded, destroying itself.
Boyd points out how figures in the O.T seemed to be given a certain power, and could misuse it, for example, Moses disobeyed God and struck the rock, and yet the miracle happened, making it looked like God supported his disobedience. So possible when we see Elijah call down fire down from heaven upon innocent men, it is Elijah misusing his power for needless destruction of life, and when we see Elisha cursing the youths, and two she-bears coming out, to be another example of this.
Because of Boyd's confidence in the trustworthiness of Jesus, and Christ conviction that all scripture speaks of Him, Boyd feels obliged to affirm this. Boyd believes all scripture is“God-breathed” and is “infallible” and that it all somehow reveals Christ and Him crucified.
The New Testament authors understood Christ and Him crucified as the supreme revelation of what God is like, that in God there is no unchristlikeness at all. So now God is love, and we know what love is because Christ laid his life down for us. Because of Christ example, we learn the ultimate revelation of God is enemy embracing love; instead of hating and killing enemies, God humbled Himself and allowed himself to be killed by his enemies.
But with this conviction the huge problem arises, for there are multitudes of passages in the Old Testament that seem unworthy of God; presenting evil as if it was good; injustice as if it was righteous; and representing God as the utter antithesis of Jesus, how could that which is so contrary to Jesus be God-breathed? How could this reveal Christ and Him crucified?
Most evangelicals simply seek to harmonize the depiction of violent portraits of God in the O.T with what we see in Christ. Boyd however like me is deeply troubled and opposed to gratuitous violence that fills the Old Testament, and he is too honest and morally sensitive to be satisfied with the pitifully flimsy, repugnant, ethically dubious and paper-thin justifications and excuses evangelicals give to try to justify genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, the slaughter of the innocent for their parents sin, and biblical claims that God rapes woman, makes parents eat their children and even finds delight and pleasure in such twisted activities.
The way forward may be to approach the Old Testament accounts, similar to how Jesus and the New Testament authors did, who sometimes even contradicted, challenged and radically reinterpreted O.T passages from a new perspective. Christians have the responsibility to read the Old Testament violence passages in light of the revelation of the cross, and believe something deeper is going on beneath the ugly surface. The perfect standard is Christ and Him crucified, here we have the supreme revelation of what God is like. This revelation isn't simply alongside and equal to others, but Jesus is the substance, and what is conveyed in the OT is like a shadow compared to Christ.
So when we find the biblical authors ascribe evil to God, or claim God commanded or did what is completely out of alignment with the revelation of the cross, we must recognize that this was the human author expressing their fallen understanding of God. When we find such in our holy scriptures it also somehow reveals Christ and crucified, for when we look deeper, we see how God in such moments was allowing himself to be misunderstood and was bearing their sin, as He did on the cross.
Boyd gives a very helpful example to help us think about this. Some missionaries went to a place in Africa that practiced female genital mutilation. The missionaries were deeply grieved by the practice and had to regularly bear this sin, hearing the screams of the girls, truly weighed heavily upon them. They didn't yet have a foundation upon which they could challenge the practice though. But because they loved these people, they lived among them, and from an outside perspective appeared to approve of the practice of female genital mutilation, for they brought them better surgical tools, sanitation, and painkillers for the girls, the missionaries allowed themselves to seem champions of the barbaric practice. Once the village became Christians however, they finally had a firm place to share how the practice was wrong, at which time the people saw everything in a new light.
So now in a similar way God is the divine missionary, who loved a primitive people living in a barbaric age so much, that he was willing to bear their sin, allow himself to be misunderstood as tribal warrior deity, who totally supported, commanded and engaged in enemy hatred, but finally in Christ, He was able to set the record straight and make it clearly known who He is. And now from the vantage point of the cross, we see clearly and learn he never supported the violence, but often accommodated and worked in subtle ways to wean them away from such cultural dictated understanding of God.
Concerning the Canaanite conquest, I did appreciate Boyd's emphasizing the significance of passages (the land would vomit them up, and that he'd send in hornets) that implied God intended to somehow motivate the Canaanites to leave the land, without Israel engaging in violence and warfare. We can then consider, that possibly like Jesus' disciples who couldn't grasp the notion of a non-violent messiah, no matter how many times Jesus made it clear, likewise, Moses couldn't grasp the idea of waiting for God to motivate the Canaanites to leave, and convinced himself that genocide was a better way to bring about what God had planned. Abraham decided to help God out, and we got Ishmael, maybe Moses is seeking to help God out, and we got genocide.
Boyd argues that the wrath of God in the O.T is his withdrawing, and allowing evil to consume evil, allowing people to experience the consequences of their sin. Because Boyd believes in the demonic realm, and raging cosmic forces that God is holding at bay, even things like the Genesis flood can be understood as a grieving God taking a step back. He understands the wrath of God against sin, when Jesus died on the cross, as God withdrawing, and in doing so evil had its way and imploded, destroying itself.
Boyd points out how figures in the O.T seemed to be given a certain power, and could misuse it, for example, Moses disobeyed God and struck the rock, and yet the miracle happened, making it looked like God supported his disobedience. So possible when we see Elijah call down fire down from heaven upon innocent men, it is Elijah misusing his power for needless destruction of life, and when we see Elisha cursing the youths, and two she-bears coming out, to be another example of this.
December 11, 2019
This is a popularized version of a more scholarly work: The Crucifixion of the Warrior God.
That work has been on my radar to read for a while now but when I saw this, I figured I would read it quickly first to see if the other is worth my time. It is.
Two phrases keep popping out that, when explained help explain the main thrust of this book. Boyd keeps talking about the missionary activity of a loving God. By this Boyd is basically saying that God is willing to meet people where they are at, to lead them to where He wants them to be. The theory is good in and of itself. He is talking about progressive revelation but I think Boyd takes it a bit further than I would. He is saying that God is willing to accommodate people's false understanding of who He is until they are ready for a more full revelation (of which Jesus is the ultimate "exact representation" Hebrews 1:1-3) Again, I agree with the principle but not his level of application.
The second phrase that Boyd will often use is to urge us to look through the cruciform looking glass when seeing OT examples of the violence of God. In using Alice and Wonderland's looking glass that changes how everything is seen, Boyd asks us to look at the apparent violence through the lens of the cross.
He not only presents his ideas, but Boyd layers them with many examples of how we can look at some of the most difficult and challenging scriptures in the Old Testament like the slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the conquests of Canaan. If these, and other scriptures have given you pause then I would strongly recommend this book. Even if you do not fully agree with him, it is definitely food for thought.
That work has been on my radar to read for a while now but when I saw this, I figured I would read it quickly first to see if the other is worth my time. It is.
Two phrases keep popping out that, when explained help explain the main thrust of this book. Boyd keeps talking about the missionary activity of a loving God. By this Boyd is basically saying that God is willing to meet people where they are at, to lead them to where He wants them to be. The theory is good in and of itself. He is talking about progressive revelation but I think Boyd takes it a bit further than I would. He is saying that God is willing to accommodate people's false understanding of who He is until they are ready for a more full revelation (of which Jesus is the ultimate "exact representation" Hebrews 1:1-3) Again, I agree with the principle but not his level of application.
The second phrase that Boyd will often use is to urge us to look through the cruciform looking glass when seeing OT examples of the violence of God. In using Alice and Wonderland's looking glass that changes how everything is seen, Boyd asks us to look at the apparent violence through the lens of the cross.
He not only presents his ideas, but Boyd layers them with many examples of how we can look at some of the most difficult and challenging scriptures in the Old Testament like the slaughter of the firstborn of Egypt, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, and the conquests of Canaan. If these, and other scriptures have given you pause then I would strongly recommend this book. Even if you do not fully agree with him, it is definitely food for thought.
June 8, 2019
I approached Cross Vision: How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence quite hopefully, for a number of reasons. Greg Boyd's Letters to a Skeptic was really important to me when I was younger. I found his soft theodicy really compelling, and I was his honest look at difficult passages while offering hopeful readings. I ultimately rejected Boyd's theory of Open Theism in God of the Possible, but I was attracted to the concept--again, because I felt like he was unwilling to turn away from difficult aspects of Scripture. On a personal level, I admire how Boyd has been able to be a voice of nonviolence and social ethics while holding together pastoral responsibilities, cultural engagement, and academic research.
Finally, I am curious about the implications of what Boyd calls "the cruciform character of God" (43, 59) and his use of God's self-sacrifice in the cross as the primary lens for reading Scripture, forming Christian thought, growing in spiritual life, and extending our witness of Christ into the world. It is what I am doing in my work on C.S. Lewis and the Spiritual Life, and I admire others who call for this point of view in their areas (like Stanley Hauerwas, who says the cross is the model of our response to violence, or Michael Gorman and Richard Bauckham, who see the cross in the stories that St. Paul tells about spirituality, or Jürgen Moltmann in how he envisions the transformation of society as it begins in Christian life, or L. Ann Jervis in how she imagines the Christian response to suffering). I want to see the consequences of what we call "crucicentric" (cross-centred) approaches to life. Boyd's Cross Vision is about how we read the Scriptures, particularly the Hebrew Bible.
To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. This is a deeply troubling book. Boyd is honest about his commitment to what he calls a "conservative hermeneutic," a way of reading Scripture that believes it to be God-breathed and inspired, and therefore true regardless of its genre or whether a particular story refers to something that happened in history. This is a good approach, overall, and Boyd is able to trace the growth of how God is revealed to God's people as it connects with their capacity to see the truth, beauty, and goodness of God in their cultural moment. Ultimately, this leads to God's self-revelation the cross.
I agree that God reveals God's self perfectly upon the cross, and there are others who talk sensibly about the growth of understanding in God's people (like Henry Webb). But it is not twisting Boyd to say that God lies about who God is to a people that can't bear the full reality of God. It isn't just that we don't see God fully in the Exodus or the giving of the law or a particular prophetic or worship moment. Do we ever? But that God pulls on a cloak of evil in order to, ultimately, show good. The Bible is intentionally misleading when picturing God as a violent God, not just limited or foggy or that something else is going on textually (though he uses each of these solutions at times).
Primarily, Boyd is focussed on violence, and I'll return to his evaluation of that in a moment. But the distance between the New Testament portrayal of God and the Old Testament portrayal is drawn out to absurd differences in this book. Frankly, the picture is deeply troubling as it portrays the Hebrew people, and Boyd seems ignorant of how deeply anti-Jewish (and sometimes antisemetic) biblical interpretation has been in academia. I did a masters degree on Christian antisemitism, and it was hard for me to read this book at points because Boyd doesn't seem to be able to answer the question of what deep and meaningful truth, goodness, and beauty Israel is given from God that is particular to Israel. If God is a self-sacrificial God--which I believe is true--then Israelite and early Jewish religion as given to them in Scripture bears that out as faithfully for them--not just a feint. Though this book is meant to defend a "violent portrait of God in the Old Testament," I am left with, now, a deceptive God who fakes a religion for a while until some of them capture the vision of the cross. It could be a chapter in the book could have addressed this, but that chapter isn't there.
On the question of violence and God, Boyd is no doubt correct to speak to it. The two stars on this review (instead of one) is because of his desire for honesty, and for his affable way of translating what are two complex volumes of exegesis into a popular-level book. And I have said I admire his evangelical social ethic.
But he pushes this too far sometimes, and leaves other questions open. For example, at one point Boyd rejects any violence by God, including violence against animals. This is an intriguing point, as God set up an entire system of animal sacrifice and used animals cut in half to confirm the covenant with Abraham. In his admirable animal rights stance, Boyd presses too far in saying that "we later learn that God doesn't actually approve of animal sacrifices" (73). That's certainly a too severe representation of prophetic criticism of empty sacrifice, and Christian and Jewish theologians in history have talked about how worship and community formation ultimately moves past animal sacrifice.
Beyond this, Boyd argues that God perpetuates no violence at all. But I think this isn't a good enough statement as:
1) at times God has given the job of violence to others (Body is correct that much of this is the natural, organic violence that emerges from the community, but not all);
2) God has gifted people, entities, and empires with powers to perpetrate violence of a special kind (like fireballs from heaven, earthquakes, superhuman strength, etc.); and
3) God has designed this world as one soaked in violence.
I suppose a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim will respond and say (in their own way) that the world we have is broken because of choices we make. I think that's true, though God leaves us a historical record in the earth of untold violence before the first humans awoke to see the choice of sin before them. But the "Fall of humanity" is not a surprise to God. God does not live in time, rolling with the punches, so that the temptation of Adam and Eve could go either way. God spins no theoretical wheels; there is no "what if?" in God's character. In loving, God makes; and in making, God introduces violence to the world. In the moment of your reading this line, there are a billion deaths on this planet.
To say that these deaths and the actions in the Hebrew Bible are not caused by God is to say because God is one or two degrees removed is, in my mind, like saying the general who commanded the gassing of people in Auschwitz was innocent because he never killed a single Jew, Polish person, disabled child, or homosexual.
And can we ever say that "violence" is something other than a spectrum? It is violent to restraing a knife-wielding madman rather than submit to his violence. Childbirth is violence, and even loving sex that produces those children is a kind of violence at times, even minute. Agriculture, engineering, policing, medicine--all these vocations involve a kind of violence to them. The most loving zoologist brings death, in its season.
It is true that we each have moral responsibility within our sphere. It is also true, I believe, that human sin has caused great unnecessary human suffering that griefs all who are good. Moreover, I believe that in God's self-sacrifice on the cross--a moment of significant violence--God is taking violence upon God's self not just in that moment but in all history. Thus, we are to live differently because of it, so that being Christlike is a radical life choice.
But Boyd's theodicy is not convincing.
I am very disappointed, so there is heat in this review that may be unwarranted. Greg Boyd is a Christian brother whom I admire. Boyd is trying to do a good thing, but I think the problem remains. I think we are meant to live in these troubling Scriptures as we are meant to live in the troubling world, where death is all around and mortality a constant, heart-breaking, and transformational truth.
And there is our cultural moment, too. We believe death to be evil itself, and yet we bring death with our lifestyles, or politics, and our desire for comfort. Was it Rafael Rodriguez who laughed at our culture that says "look at your violent God" and then obsesses over Game of Thrones (https://onscript.study/podcast/rafael...)? There's that.
And, of course, I may be wrong. Ultimately, I think we need to turn to Boyd's two-volume Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Matt Lynch of Westminster Theological Centre has done a careful, four-part review of Boyd's academic version of this approach. I would encourage you to follow up as part of the problem with the book is the breezy way it moves through questions that are centuries in the making.
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/08/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/09/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/09/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/12/cr...
Finally, I am curious about the implications of what Boyd calls "the cruciform character of God" (43, 59) and his use of God's self-sacrifice in the cross as the primary lens for reading Scripture, forming Christian thought, growing in spiritual life, and extending our witness of Christ into the world. It is what I am doing in my work on C.S. Lewis and the Spiritual Life, and I admire others who call for this point of view in their areas (like Stanley Hauerwas, who says the cross is the model of our response to violence, or Michael Gorman and Richard Bauckham, who see the cross in the stories that St. Paul tells about spirituality, or Jürgen Moltmann in how he envisions the transformation of society as it begins in Christian life, or L. Ann Jervis in how she imagines the Christian response to suffering). I want to see the consequences of what we call "crucicentric" (cross-centred) approaches to life. Boyd's Cross Vision is about how we read the Scriptures, particularly the Hebrew Bible.
To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. This is a deeply troubling book. Boyd is honest about his commitment to what he calls a "conservative hermeneutic," a way of reading Scripture that believes it to be God-breathed and inspired, and therefore true regardless of its genre or whether a particular story refers to something that happened in history. This is a good approach, overall, and Boyd is able to trace the growth of how God is revealed to God's people as it connects with their capacity to see the truth, beauty, and goodness of God in their cultural moment. Ultimately, this leads to God's self-revelation the cross.
I agree that God reveals God's self perfectly upon the cross, and there are others who talk sensibly about the growth of understanding in God's people (like Henry Webb). But it is not twisting Boyd to say that God lies about who God is to a people that can't bear the full reality of God. It isn't just that we don't see God fully in the Exodus or the giving of the law or a particular prophetic or worship moment. Do we ever? But that God pulls on a cloak of evil in order to, ultimately, show good. The Bible is intentionally misleading when picturing God as a violent God, not just limited or foggy or that something else is going on textually (though he uses each of these solutions at times).
Primarily, Boyd is focussed on violence, and I'll return to his evaluation of that in a moment. But the distance between the New Testament portrayal of God and the Old Testament portrayal is drawn out to absurd differences in this book. Frankly, the picture is deeply troubling as it portrays the Hebrew people, and Boyd seems ignorant of how deeply anti-Jewish (and sometimes antisemetic) biblical interpretation has been in academia. I did a masters degree on Christian antisemitism, and it was hard for me to read this book at points because Boyd doesn't seem to be able to answer the question of what deep and meaningful truth, goodness, and beauty Israel is given from God that is particular to Israel. If God is a self-sacrificial God--which I believe is true--then Israelite and early Jewish religion as given to them in Scripture bears that out as faithfully for them--not just a feint. Though this book is meant to defend a "violent portrait of God in the Old Testament," I am left with, now, a deceptive God who fakes a religion for a while until some of them capture the vision of the cross. It could be a chapter in the book could have addressed this, but that chapter isn't there.
On the question of violence and God, Boyd is no doubt correct to speak to it. The two stars on this review (instead of one) is because of his desire for honesty, and for his affable way of translating what are two complex volumes of exegesis into a popular-level book. And I have said I admire his evangelical social ethic.
But he pushes this too far sometimes, and leaves other questions open. For example, at one point Boyd rejects any violence by God, including violence against animals. This is an intriguing point, as God set up an entire system of animal sacrifice and used animals cut in half to confirm the covenant with Abraham. In his admirable animal rights stance, Boyd presses too far in saying that "we later learn that God doesn't actually approve of animal sacrifices" (73). That's certainly a too severe representation of prophetic criticism of empty sacrifice, and Christian and Jewish theologians in history have talked about how worship and community formation ultimately moves past animal sacrifice.
Beyond this, Boyd argues that God perpetuates no violence at all. But I think this isn't a good enough statement as:
1) at times God has given the job of violence to others (Body is correct that much of this is the natural, organic violence that emerges from the community, but not all);
2) God has gifted people, entities, and empires with powers to perpetrate violence of a special kind (like fireballs from heaven, earthquakes, superhuman strength, etc.); and
3) God has designed this world as one soaked in violence.
I suppose a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim will respond and say (in their own way) that the world we have is broken because of choices we make. I think that's true, though God leaves us a historical record in the earth of untold violence before the first humans awoke to see the choice of sin before them. But the "Fall of humanity" is not a surprise to God. God does not live in time, rolling with the punches, so that the temptation of Adam and Eve could go either way. God spins no theoretical wheels; there is no "what if?" in God's character. In loving, God makes; and in making, God introduces violence to the world. In the moment of your reading this line, there are a billion deaths on this planet.
To say that these deaths and the actions in the Hebrew Bible are not caused by God is to say because God is one or two degrees removed is, in my mind, like saying the general who commanded the gassing of people in Auschwitz was innocent because he never killed a single Jew, Polish person, disabled child, or homosexual.
And can we ever say that "violence" is something other than a spectrum? It is violent to restraing a knife-wielding madman rather than submit to his violence. Childbirth is violence, and even loving sex that produces those children is a kind of violence at times, even minute. Agriculture, engineering, policing, medicine--all these vocations involve a kind of violence to them. The most loving zoologist brings death, in its season.
It is true that we each have moral responsibility within our sphere. It is also true, I believe, that human sin has caused great unnecessary human suffering that griefs all who are good. Moreover, I believe that in God's self-sacrifice on the cross--a moment of significant violence--God is taking violence upon God's self not just in that moment but in all history. Thus, we are to live differently because of it, so that being Christlike is a radical life choice.
But Boyd's theodicy is not convincing.
I am very disappointed, so there is heat in this review that may be unwarranted. Greg Boyd is a Christian brother whom I admire. Boyd is trying to do a good thing, but I think the problem remains. I think we are meant to live in these troubling Scriptures as we are meant to live in the troubling world, where death is all around and mortality a constant, heart-breaking, and transformational truth.
And there is our cultural moment, too. We believe death to be evil itself, and yet we bring death with our lifestyles, or politics, and our desire for comfort. Was it Rafael Rodriguez who laughed at our culture that says "look at your violent God" and then obsesses over Game of Thrones (https://onscript.study/podcast/rafael...)? There's that.
And, of course, I may be wrong. Ultimately, I think we need to turn to Boyd's two-volume Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Matt Lynch of Westminster Theological Centre has done a careful, four-part review of Boyd's academic version of this approach. I would encourage you to follow up as part of the problem with the book is the breezy way it moves through questions that are centuries in the making.
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/08/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/09/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/09/cr...
http://theologicalmisc.net/2017/12/cr...
April 21, 2019
Trash.
Boyd argues that God, before Christ, said things about himself and the world that are untrue so that the Israelites could learn to trust him. This he calls “accommodation.” God accommodated to their cultural assumptions about deity so that eventually they could learn what he’s really like. He calls God a “heavenly missionary,” being sensitive to our existing cultural assumptions. But how are we to know which “portraits of God” are true and which are accommodations to cultural assumptions? By what standard are we to judge the Bible’s descriptions of God? Boyd’s standard is his own conscience. Pass.
Boyd argues that God, before Christ, said things about himself and the world that are untrue so that the Israelites could learn to trust him. This he calls “accommodation.” God accommodated to their cultural assumptions about deity so that eventually they could learn what he’s really like. He calls God a “heavenly missionary,” being sensitive to our existing cultural assumptions. But how are we to know which “portraits of God” are true and which are accommodations to cultural assumptions? By what standard are we to judge the Bible’s descriptions of God? Boyd’s standard is his own conscience. Pass.
March 8, 2019
Hmm, not sure how to review this book. Every part of my heart, soul & mind want to believe his position, but at this moment, I cannot. I like how this book challenged my thinking & pushed me into some uncomfortable contemplations. I will take his position & put it on a back burner.....
November 26, 2025
Despite having been a Christian since age twelve, I have been deeply uncomfortable with the Old Testament throughout most of my life and have thus generally avoided it—until about four years ago, when I first encountered Boyd’s work. The God that gets depicted in the Old Testament often struck me as radically different from the God that I fell in love with in Jesus. I struggled to feel love for a God who would command genocide and other such apparent atrocities. Thus, for 15 years, I merely endeavored to put the best possible spin on these stories, while trying not to think about the matter too often. Greg Boyd changed everything for me. I had already read several authors who held similar stances to Boyd’s—authors such as Bradley Jersak, Matthew DiStefano, Michael Hardin, and Randall Rauser. These theologians’ ideas consistently resonated with my soul, but I was not quite won over by their arguments. Boyd was the first one to put all the pieces together for me.
In Cross-Vision: How The Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence, Gregory Boyd puts forth a “cross looking glass” method of interpreting divine violence in the Old Testament. He argues that the character of Jesus (the definitive revelation of God) and his crucifixion in particular (the most important event in human history) reveal God to always be nonviolent and non-coercive. Thus, he maintains that any depiction of divine violence in the Hebrew Scriptures reveals the fallen, culturally conditioned understanding of the Biblical authors. Boyd argues that because God refuses to “lobotomize people,” He must sometimes meet people where they are at. Much like the surrounding nations, Israel wanted to worship a warrior God who would protect them and fight on their behalf.
Therefore, God likely resolved, with a grieving heart, to allow Israel to perceive Him this way—which illustrates how far He will stoop in order to meet anyone where they are at. Just as the cross illustrates the lengths that God will go to non-coercively meet humanity in its darkest places, so also does His willingness to be misrepresented in the Old Testament. In this manner, even Old Testament stories containing unspeakable divinely commissioned violence foreshadow Jesus and the cross.
Boyd confesses that he initially set out to write a very different book, one in which he would endeavor to put the best spin that he could as to why such divine violence was necessary during Old Testament times—but he gave up after about 50 pages, now deeming his arguments deeply insufficient. And, more importantly, he found himself at a loss as to how such violence pointed to Jesus—the very Figure whom Boyd knew that all of scripture was intended to point to. So Boyd began exploring ideas from a different angle. He ultimately realized how texts involving divine violence can be deemed “God-breathed” without insisting on their precise historical accuracy.
Boyd gladly concedes that God judges the world and inflicts punishment. However, Boyd suggests that God simply withdraws His hand of protection and allows matters to play out as they naturally would, rather than directly causing the violence that such judgments must entail—whether this means that He allows individuals’ free choices play out, or whether He permits Satan and demonic forces to temporarily wreak havoc, or whether He simply withdraws His divine hand from subduing the fallen and chaotic creation. This, Boyd contends, is what true Biblical wrath looks like. In order to establish this point, Boyd illuminates numerous scriptural passages where the authors temporarily break away from attributing violent punishment directly to God and instead attribute the violence to the work of man, evil forces, or even the fallen creation itself. Often, this occurs regarding events that the same authors had just finished attributing directly to God—which Boyd perceives as the Spirit breaking through into the text, despite the cultural conditioning and clouded understanding of the authors. One of Boyd’s points of evidence that most thoroughly blew me away concerned the hardships that befall the Israelites in the wilderness. The author of Numbers suggests that God directly inflicted these punishments. Yet when Paul recounts these events in 1 Corinthians, he attributes these tragedies to “the agent of destruction,” which served as an unambiguous reference to Satan and/or his demons during that time period. Did Paul have a similar hermeneutic to Boyd? This seems feasible, if not probable.
Ultimately, I would not go as far as Boyd does in asserting that God never directly utilizes violence in order to accomplish restorative means—although I am certainly open to the possibility that He might refrain entirely from violence, based on the evidence that Boyd provides in this book. Personally, though, the concept of divine violence does not bother me tremendously in and of itself. For me, Biblical texts in which God orders humans to commit violence are the passages that most demand an alternate interpretation.
I am ever so thankful for Boyd’s work for stirring my soul and opening a door for me to understand—and even love—the Old Testament. As an aspiring author, I am a sucker for a good story with inspiring and thought-provoking themes integrated into the work that one may not notice at first glance—and I am starting to perceive how the Biblical narrative from beginning to end makes for the most astounding and beautiful story in existence. In Act 1, mankind tries to make sense of God, but largely creates Him in its own image. But God still meets mankind where they are at; He bears their sins and their misconceptions of Him. In Act 2, God steps into humanity and becomes a man in order to reveal to His creatures what He is truly like. He lays His life down for them—bearing their sin and delivering them in the process. Cross Vision helped me glimpse this. The only reason for four stars instead of five is that Boyd’s tome on this same topic, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, is even more thorough; in fact, it is my favorite theological book of all time. Boyd wrote Cross Vision to function as a condensed, layman’s version of it. As brightly as Cross Vision shines, I hesitate to give five stars to a condensed version of any book.
In Cross-Vision: How The Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence, Gregory Boyd puts forth a “cross looking glass” method of interpreting divine violence in the Old Testament. He argues that the character of Jesus (the definitive revelation of God) and his crucifixion in particular (the most important event in human history) reveal God to always be nonviolent and non-coercive. Thus, he maintains that any depiction of divine violence in the Hebrew Scriptures reveals the fallen, culturally conditioned understanding of the Biblical authors. Boyd argues that because God refuses to “lobotomize people,” He must sometimes meet people where they are at. Much like the surrounding nations, Israel wanted to worship a warrior God who would protect them and fight on their behalf.
Therefore, God likely resolved, with a grieving heart, to allow Israel to perceive Him this way—which illustrates how far He will stoop in order to meet anyone where they are at. Just as the cross illustrates the lengths that God will go to non-coercively meet humanity in its darkest places, so also does His willingness to be misrepresented in the Old Testament. In this manner, even Old Testament stories containing unspeakable divinely commissioned violence foreshadow Jesus and the cross.
Boyd confesses that he initially set out to write a very different book, one in which he would endeavor to put the best spin that he could as to why such divine violence was necessary during Old Testament times—but he gave up after about 50 pages, now deeming his arguments deeply insufficient. And, more importantly, he found himself at a loss as to how such violence pointed to Jesus—the very Figure whom Boyd knew that all of scripture was intended to point to. So Boyd began exploring ideas from a different angle. He ultimately realized how texts involving divine violence can be deemed “God-breathed” without insisting on their precise historical accuracy.
Boyd gladly concedes that God judges the world and inflicts punishment. However, Boyd suggests that God simply withdraws His hand of protection and allows matters to play out as they naturally would, rather than directly causing the violence that such judgments must entail—whether this means that He allows individuals’ free choices play out, or whether He permits Satan and demonic forces to temporarily wreak havoc, or whether He simply withdraws His divine hand from subduing the fallen and chaotic creation. This, Boyd contends, is what true Biblical wrath looks like. In order to establish this point, Boyd illuminates numerous scriptural passages where the authors temporarily break away from attributing violent punishment directly to God and instead attribute the violence to the work of man, evil forces, or even the fallen creation itself. Often, this occurs regarding events that the same authors had just finished attributing directly to God—which Boyd perceives as the Spirit breaking through into the text, despite the cultural conditioning and clouded understanding of the authors. One of Boyd’s points of evidence that most thoroughly blew me away concerned the hardships that befall the Israelites in the wilderness. The author of Numbers suggests that God directly inflicted these punishments. Yet when Paul recounts these events in 1 Corinthians, he attributes these tragedies to “the agent of destruction,” which served as an unambiguous reference to Satan and/or his demons during that time period. Did Paul have a similar hermeneutic to Boyd? This seems feasible, if not probable.
Ultimately, I would not go as far as Boyd does in asserting that God never directly utilizes violence in order to accomplish restorative means—although I am certainly open to the possibility that He might refrain entirely from violence, based on the evidence that Boyd provides in this book. Personally, though, the concept of divine violence does not bother me tremendously in and of itself. For me, Biblical texts in which God orders humans to commit violence are the passages that most demand an alternate interpretation.
I am ever so thankful for Boyd’s work for stirring my soul and opening a door for me to understand—and even love—the Old Testament. As an aspiring author, I am a sucker for a good story with inspiring and thought-provoking themes integrated into the work that one may not notice at first glance—and I am starting to perceive how the Biblical narrative from beginning to end makes for the most astounding and beautiful story in existence. In Act 1, mankind tries to make sense of God, but largely creates Him in its own image. But God still meets mankind where they are at; He bears their sins and their misconceptions of Him. In Act 2, God steps into humanity and becomes a man in order to reveal to His creatures what He is truly like. He lays His life down for them—bearing their sin and delivering them in the process. Cross Vision helped me glimpse this. The only reason for four stars instead of five is that Boyd’s tome on this same topic, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, is even more thorough; in fact, it is my favorite theological book of all time. Boyd wrote Cross Vision to function as a condensed, layman’s version of it. As brightly as Cross Vision shines, I hesitate to give five stars to a condensed version of any book.
October 9, 2018
I’m inclined to agree with Boyd as someone who is committed to nonviolence and whose religious upbringing was based on the notion that evil in the world didn’t/doesn’t reflect God. It’s a popularized version of his much bigger tome and pretty easy to follow.
April 30, 2022
I am thankful for Greg Boyd’s thorough walkthrough all of his evidence and supporting claims of Jesus on the cross being the fully realized picture we have of God and his unending mercy and compassion.
If you have ever questioned and struggled with Old Testament depictions of a violent God this is the book for you.
If you have ever questioned and struggled with Old Testament depictions of a violent God this is the book for you.
May 25, 2022
This is such a frustrating book. On the one hand, Boyd does an excellent job of laying out how violent events in the Old Testament often have other, underlying, implicit things going on which are not at first obvious. On the other hand, Boyd delves into some straight universalism and white-washing of the Old Testament portrayals of God. That said, his chapters where he interprets stores like the Red Sea Crossing and Elisha summoning bears to kill a bunch of kids are top-tier in their approach to the scripture from a culturally-contextual point of view. The simple fact of the matter is that the Old Testament was written in the context of other Ancient Near-Eastern myths and religions, and it often interacts with those myths and religions in interesting and non-obvious ways. Today we have so sanitized and westernized the Bible that we miss half of the cultural subtext and therefore grossly misrepresent what it says.
Any book, when separated from its cultural context, may be made to say whatever you want. Furthermore, any book, when properly place into its cultural context, may not always say what you expect or think it should.
Boyd attempts to put the Bible in its context, but then chooses his own feelings over the more obvious answers. And for a book which aims to interpret all Biblical violence in light of Christ on the cross, it is very odd and annoying to me that Boyd never deals with Jesus cleansing the temple or the prophecies of his return where he slaughters armies. It's a case-in-point example of cherry picking and hoping the audience doesn't think about those stories because they're inconvenient to deal with.
Was Jesus pacifistic? Yes. Would Christians today do well to be more pacifistic and like Jesus? Absolutely. Does Boyd make a good argument for God's preference for pacifism? I think so. But when the pacifistic character of the sacrificial Christ is our interpretive lens (and it's a good one, to be sure) for all scripture which seems to contradict this character, what do we when the sacrificial Christ himself acts in violence? Reading this book will not answer this question because Boyd never deals with it.
Also, Boyd is so wishy-washy on whether or not scripture is inspired as to cause eye-rolling. How can the scripture be both inspired and (in places) inaccurate? But Boyd is certain this is the case, since anytime violence is attributed to God it is the mistake of the author (based on their worldview). So was the author inspired or mistaken? Can they be both? How does that work? If the author was wrong about this (pretty fundamental) understanding of God's character, then what else might they be wrong about? Boyd never addresses this (and, to be fair, such is outside the scope of his book), but it leaves a gaping hole in his book that is otherwise well researched, sourced, and (at times) even well reasoned.
As an apologetic text, this book is somewhat successful (only somewhat). It also opens the gate to a better cultural understanding of the Bible, which is highly helpful, even if a significant portion of what Boyd writes is only half-baked or entirely unbaked altogether. But it is so fundamentally uneven and annoying that I can in no way recommend it as anything except a bibliography of better books and papers on the same subject matter.
Any book, when separated from its cultural context, may be made to say whatever you want. Furthermore, any book, when properly place into its cultural context, may not always say what you expect or think it should.
Boyd attempts to put the Bible in its context, but then chooses his own feelings over the more obvious answers. And for a book which aims to interpret all Biblical violence in light of Christ on the cross, it is very odd and annoying to me that Boyd never deals with Jesus cleansing the temple or the prophecies of his return where he slaughters armies. It's a case-in-point example of cherry picking and hoping the audience doesn't think about those stories because they're inconvenient to deal with.
Was Jesus pacifistic? Yes. Would Christians today do well to be more pacifistic and like Jesus? Absolutely. Does Boyd make a good argument for God's preference for pacifism? I think so. But when the pacifistic character of the sacrificial Christ is our interpretive lens (and it's a good one, to be sure) for all scripture which seems to contradict this character, what do we when the sacrificial Christ himself acts in violence? Reading this book will not answer this question because Boyd never deals with it.
Also, Boyd is so wishy-washy on whether or not scripture is inspired as to cause eye-rolling. How can the scripture be both inspired and (in places) inaccurate? But Boyd is certain this is the case, since anytime violence is attributed to God it is the mistake of the author (based on their worldview). So was the author inspired or mistaken? Can they be both? How does that work? If the author was wrong about this (pretty fundamental) understanding of God's character, then what else might they be wrong about? Boyd never addresses this (and, to be fair, such is outside the scope of his book), but it leaves a gaping hole in his book that is otherwise well researched, sourced, and (at times) even well reasoned.
As an apologetic text, this book is somewhat successful (only somewhat). It also opens the gate to a better cultural understanding of the Bible, which is highly helpful, even if a significant portion of what Boyd writes is only half-baked or entirely unbaked altogether. But it is so fundamentally uneven and annoying that I can in no way recommend it as anything except a bibliography of better books and papers on the same subject matter.
May 16, 2018
There are a lot of really great things in this book. Boyd’s take that the picture of the violent God we see in the Old Testament may not be a complete or accurate picture of that God is (mostly) well-argued. I give this book 4 stars because I think it’s extremely thoughtful and articulate in explaining something that has been difficult for Christians (and former Christians) to understand.
But this book also has some pretty significant weaknesses. The biggest one being the particularly weak section of the book where Boyd deals with the parts of the book where God seems to enact violence through chaos (e.g., the drowning of the Egyptian Army, the Flood, the grumblers being swallowed by the earth, etc.)
Boyd’s argument is that God doesn’t actually commit violence against anyone. He just stops holding the evil forces at bay for a while so they can do it.
This is basically a divine “Guns don’t kill people, bullets do.”
If the only entity capable of protecting you from chaos just decides not to protect you from that chaos because you’re being kind of a jerk, that entity is still responsible for what happens to you.
Boyd makes this argument based on what he calls the Conservative Hermeneutic Principal, which is essentially that we must take everything in the Bible at face value unless we have a good reason not to (i.e. Jesus). The problem with this hermeneutic is that it basically ruins the point that Boyd is trying to make. God hates violence, but God will intentionally let violent forces break through and kill you if you don’t do what God wants. Then God gets to keep God’s hands clean, but also wipe you out if he wants. This is how Boyd tries to maintain God’s nonviolence while also maintaining as literal of a reading of scripture as possible.
This hermeneutic almost ruined the whole book for me, because it just seems like such a lame attempt for Boyd to have his cake and eat it too. It doesn’t actually address the difficulty of the passages in question. It just kicks the can down the road. True skeptics will not be satisfied by this answer. I sure wasn’t.
But the rest of the book is extremely solid. Boyd does an excellent job of explaining how God can meet us where we are to move us away from our violence.
The church would have a much more compelling message for the world if we took seriously the idea that the God who is present in Christ is also present in the seemingly horrific stories in the Old Testament. We should be able to read Christ back into the Old Testament and recognize that the loving, peaceful, merciful God is also startlingly present throughout those texts as well. God has always been peaceful, merciful, and loving. God will always be peaceful, merciful, and loving. Boyd’s book does an excellent job explaining that.
Just... skip the third quarter of the book.
But this book also has some pretty significant weaknesses. The biggest one being the particularly weak section of the book where Boyd deals with the parts of the book where God seems to enact violence through chaos (e.g., the drowning of the Egyptian Army, the Flood, the grumblers being swallowed by the earth, etc.)
Boyd’s argument is that God doesn’t actually commit violence against anyone. He just stops holding the evil forces at bay for a while so they can do it.
This is basically a divine “Guns don’t kill people, bullets do.”
If the only entity capable of protecting you from chaos just decides not to protect you from that chaos because you’re being kind of a jerk, that entity is still responsible for what happens to you.
Boyd makes this argument based on what he calls the Conservative Hermeneutic Principal, which is essentially that we must take everything in the Bible at face value unless we have a good reason not to (i.e. Jesus). The problem with this hermeneutic is that it basically ruins the point that Boyd is trying to make. God hates violence, but God will intentionally let violent forces break through and kill you if you don’t do what God wants. Then God gets to keep God’s hands clean, but also wipe you out if he wants. This is how Boyd tries to maintain God’s nonviolence while also maintaining as literal of a reading of scripture as possible.
This hermeneutic almost ruined the whole book for me, because it just seems like such a lame attempt for Boyd to have his cake and eat it too. It doesn’t actually address the difficulty of the passages in question. It just kicks the can down the road. True skeptics will not be satisfied by this answer. I sure wasn’t.
But the rest of the book is extremely solid. Boyd does an excellent job of explaining how God can meet us where we are to move us away from our violence.
The church would have a much more compelling message for the world if we took seriously the idea that the God who is present in Christ is also present in the seemingly horrific stories in the Old Testament. We should be able to read Christ back into the Old Testament and recognize that the loving, peaceful, merciful God is also startlingly present throughout those texts as well. God has always been peaceful, merciful, and loving. God will always be peaceful, merciful, and loving. Boyd’s book does an excellent job explaining that.
Just... skip the third quarter of the book.
November 17, 2025
This book is important in that it gives a non-mainstream evangelical interpretation of violence in the OT that maintains that the Bible is inerrant while also insisting that the God of the Bible is completely loving. If you are frustrated by OT violence and lackluster interpretations for the "why" behind it, this is worth reading, even if many of his theories seemed like a stretch to me.
Reading the subtitle of this book, I *wanted* to believe whatever was in its pages. While I found some theories compelling, many just seemed like they took a great deal of mental gymnastics and imagination to come to. The Bible makes clear that God does not always reveal things clearly to all people at all times, but would God really hide things SO many layers under the surface text that only one random theologian in the Century can find them?
But, Boyd says in his postscript that to see the OT violence in this new way takes time and great imagination. Granted, I've only read it once and that was in segments here and there over a year. perhaps a second read will kindle my imagination and change my biblical worldview. I find it unlikely, but nevertheless, I appreciated reading his perspective.
Reading the subtitle of this book, I *wanted* to believe whatever was in its pages. While I found some theories compelling, many just seemed like they took a great deal of mental gymnastics and imagination to come to. The Bible makes clear that God does not always reveal things clearly to all people at all times, but would God really hide things SO many layers under the surface text that only one random theologian in the Century can find them?
But, Boyd says in his postscript that to see the OT violence in this new way takes time and great imagination. Granted, I've only read it once and that was in segments here and there over a year. perhaps a second read will kindle my imagination and change my biblical worldview. I find it unlikely, but nevertheless, I appreciated reading his perspective.
February 18, 2021
Greg Boyd delivers another solid argument in this academic yet accessible book on Old Testament violence. As usual, Boyd’s approach is very well researched and footnoted. I appreciate his use of story and metaphor to help reorient readers’ preconceived notions and allow for new ideas to take root.
The primary idea here is that God is like Jesus, so, if we see un-Jesus like portrayals of God in the OT, we must be willing to look deeper and interpret these portrayals through the looking glass of Christ crucified. In doing so, Christians can see how culturally conditioned ancient near eastern authors portray God’s words an actions through their own imperfect perspectives. With the knowledge of Christ and his sacrificial love, today’s Christians can see the work of God breaking through the often disturbing violent stories of the Bible.
This Boyd book won’t land with everyone. It is a very different view. However, I recommend Cross Vision to any modern Christian that struggles with concepts of Biblical literalism, inerrancy, and inconsistent portrayals of God.
The primary idea here is that God is like Jesus, so, if we see un-Jesus like portrayals of God in the OT, we must be willing to look deeper and interpret these portrayals through the looking glass of Christ crucified. In doing so, Christians can see how culturally conditioned ancient near eastern authors portray God’s words an actions through their own imperfect perspectives. With the knowledge of Christ and his sacrificial love, today’s Christians can see the work of God breaking through the often disturbing violent stories of the Bible.
This Boyd book won’t land with everyone. It is a very different view. However, I recommend Cross Vision to any modern Christian that struggles with concepts of Biblical literalism, inerrancy, and inconsistent portrayals of God.
June 17, 2018
This book and its longer version, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God, is a systematic theology. Systematic theologies start with a premise, then interpret all of Scripture by that premise. For instance, Reformed theology emphasizes a conception of God's Sovereignty that makes little or no allowance for free will and second causes. Dr. Boyd's starting premise is that God looks like Jesus, and most specifically Jesus on the cross. From this premise, Boyd works to explain the 'ugly portraits of God' in the Old Testament.
This is novel approach, something Boyd admits. And there's a lot to digest. All other teaching I've heard on this subject has generally been from one of two angles: (1) the so-called ugly portraits of God are actually expressions of love, they just don't look like it to humans (God's ways are higher than our ways), or (2) it's just a mystery, and we're too finite to understand. Boyd spent 10 years working to give us a better solution. I, for one, appreciate his work.
For several years, my 'stake in the ground' has also been 'God looks like Jesus'. The 'ugly portraits of God' in the Old Testament remained a mystery to me. I had to accept there was something I just didn't understand. Could Boyd's solution be it? We'll see. What if we could fully accept that God is love, good, and beautiful, without having to defend his 'dark side' in the Old Testament?
I look forward to criticisms and other views. But I will expect those to be as thorough as Boyd's. Please do the work.
This is novel approach, something Boyd admits. And there's a lot to digest. All other teaching I've heard on this subject has generally been from one of two angles: (1) the so-called ugly portraits of God are actually expressions of love, they just don't look like it to humans (God's ways are higher than our ways), or (2) it's just a mystery, and we're too finite to understand. Boyd spent 10 years working to give us a better solution. I, for one, appreciate his work.
For several years, my 'stake in the ground' has also been 'God looks like Jesus'. The 'ugly portraits of God' in the Old Testament remained a mystery to me. I had to accept there was something I just didn't understand. Could Boyd's solution be it? We'll see. What if we could fully accept that God is love, good, and beautiful, without having to defend his 'dark side' in the Old Testament?
I look forward to criticisms and other views. But I will expect those to be as thorough as Boyd's. Please do the work.
December 1, 2021
Conflicted about the book. I guess I'm not totally on board.
I felt like the first part, where Boys introduces his thesis, was actually pretty good. But then, when he started to show how all of this works from Scripture, I became less and less convinced.
I start to believe that all accounts and explanation of OT violence will be unsatisfactory to one degree or another.
I felt like the first part, where Boys introduces his thesis, was actually pretty good. But then, when he started to show how all of this works from Scripture, I became less and less convinced.
I start to believe that all accounts and explanation of OT violence will be unsatisfactory to one degree or another.
November 8, 2024
Crucifixion of the Warrior God is a modern theological masterpiece. Cross Vision serves as a fantastic distillation of that tome.
Is there a word beyond "recommend"? Maybe: I implore you to read this book if you are a Christian?
Is there a word beyond "recommend"? Maybe: I implore you to read this book if you are a Christian?
June 16, 2018
got to listen to this while traveling ....
very encouraging, thought-provoking ... a great primer on ANE culture and religious beliefs / practices.
MUCH to ponder ... some descriptions of what the prophets WROTE and what God apparently MEANT, sound like a bad game of "telephone", but not knowing how, exactly, God breathed the scripture through His prophets, I am open to that interpretation.
I wholeheartedly believe that if you want to know what God looks like, then look at Jesus, and Greg's Cross Vision helps pull the OT and NT threads together.
again ... lots to ponder.
very encouraging, thought-provoking ... a great primer on ANE culture and religious beliefs / practices.
MUCH to ponder ... some descriptions of what the prophets WROTE and what God apparently MEANT, sound like a bad game of "telephone", but not knowing how, exactly, God breathed the scripture through His prophets, I am open to that interpretation.
I wholeheartedly believe that if you want to know what God looks like, then look at Jesus, and Greg's Cross Vision helps pull the OT and NT threads together.
again ... lots to ponder.
February 25, 2019
"If we trust the Bible to do what God inspired it to do, and if we are interpreting it correctly, it will not fail us. But the all-important question is, what did God inspire the Bible to infallibly accomplish?...God inspired all Scripture to point us to Jesus, and more specifically to the cross that culminates everything Jesus was about." pg 56
This took me nearly a year to read but I'm glad I stuck with it. Boyd breaks down all the ugliest moments of the Old Testament in reframes them historically, philosophically, and exegetically in ways that restore faith and paint a healthier image of God.
This took me nearly a year to read but I'm glad I stuck with it. Boyd breaks down all the ugliest moments of the Old Testament in reframes them historically, philosophically, and exegetically in ways that restore faith and paint a healthier image of God.
March 7, 2018
I think I need a bit more time to fully digest this book. Initial impressions: I love where Greg Boyd is going with this. His answer to this question that has long been a thorn in my faith is very appealing to me. However the very fact that it is so appealing to me also makes me wary. I found myself several times responding to the authors arguments by saying "I would so like to believe that...but I don't quite buy it". But I also need time to reflect on it. I both appreciate and am cautious of how Boyd blows up the hermeneutical methods I learned in Bible College, and appreciate how he roots is approach in pre Constantine biblical writers (with a heavy debt to Origen). But the whole thing felt a bit like a unfalsifiable argument to me. Anything that doesn't fit the revelation of Jesus on the cross must have been a misrepresentation of God, and the interpreters puzzle is to find how the Crucified God is instead revealed against all normative reading of the passage. Boyd does and amazing job of building methodically on his assumptions and is refreshingly clear on what his assumptions are, but I feel as if his epistemological foundation is cracked and shaky. If the revelation of God can be so misrepresented how do you know the revelation of the crucified God is really the center point and that the authors of the verses you use as your keystone are not projecting their own desires of God onto what is? Also, while the book spends a great deal of time talking about violence of God in the Old Testament it does not address equally problematic stories in the New Testament (Annias and Sapphira and the Book of Revelation come particularly to mind)
A note on the technical side of the writing...Boyd did a good job simplifying what was originally a two volume theological thesis into a readable and approachable book. I deeply appreciate Boyd as a thinker, and writer and a speaker. He however is a horrible reader. I listened to this book as audiobook and Boyd's rushed delivery was very distracting and a times confusing. Pauses and breathes, especially after starting a new point, are really important! It just goes to show that the skills as a writer, a speaker and a reader are very very different and it is worth investing to get a profession to do your reading for you!
A note on the technical side of the writing...Boyd did a good job simplifying what was originally a two volume theological thesis into a readable and approachable book. I deeply appreciate Boyd as a thinker, and writer and a speaker. He however is a horrible reader. I listened to this book as audiobook and Boyd's rushed delivery was very distracting and a times confusing. Pauses and breathes, especially after starting a new point, are really important! It just goes to show that the skills as a writer, a speaker and a reader are very very different and it is worth investing to get a profession to do your reading for you!
November 30, 2017
I had anxiously awaited Boyd's academic book "Crucifixion of the Warrior God" for about 2 1/2 years. I preordered it and jumped right in the minute I received it. That 1300 page tome was good and appreciated in many ways, but I only got 750 pages in and gave up. I'm not sure why. I found myself being compelled at some points, but lost at others, and unconvinced at yet other places. When this popularized version of his work was released several months later I wasn't planning on reading it because I already attempted the deluxe version and gave up. Then I heard other people say Cross Vision was better and I should give it a try.
Well, I am glad that I did! I feel like this book at the very least clearly communicates Boyd's Cross centered interpretation of the Bible and gives a general framework to the reader on how to understand violent portraits of God through the "looking glass" of the Cross of Christ. This book isn't an exhaustive apologetic on all the trouble passages of the bible, but is a method on how to see and interpret biblical divine violence that seems to run counter to the image of the self-sacrificial love of God found in the person of Christ.
As a conservative Christian from a more fundamentalist background I must say that learning a new way to read the bible does not come easy. I still don't even know if Boyd's way is acceptable. However, the way I've always read the bible has presented me with greater problems that I no longer feel the capacity to bear, so I appreciate this effort whether or not it ends up being a framework I build on or not.
Well, I am glad that I did! I feel like this book at the very least clearly communicates Boyd's Cross centered interpretation of the Bible and gives a general framework to the reader on how to understand violent portraits of God through the "looking glass" of the Cross of Christ. This book isn't an exhaustive apologetic on all the trouble passages of the bible, but is a method on how to see and interpret biblical divine violence that seems to run counter to the image of the self-sacrificial love of God found in the person of Christ.
As a conservative Christian from a more fundamentalist background I must say that learning a new way to read the bible does not come easy. I still don't even know if Boyd's way is acceptable. However, the way I've always read the bible has presented me with greater problems that I no longer feel the capacity to bear, so I appreciate this effort whether or not it ends up being a framework I build on or not.
April 19, 2019
Wow. I’ve never heard these arguments before, and his framework makes a lot of sense. I especially like how he analyzed specific passages showing evidence within the passage (or other passages in the Bible) that God di not approve of the violence, or that it was not what God intended. Initially I wasn’t buying it, but some of his arguments are quite compelling. I still need to work through some of the concepts. There are some parts that I don’t agree with at all. For instance, I disagree with his views on the sovereignty of God. He also seems to say that God is always only loving, when I think both the old and new testament presents Him as One with a full range of emotions. I also don’t agree with the full extent that he took some of his interpretations in some places. However, despite these areas that I disagree with, his framework still stands, and I find it very helpful and interesting to think about some of the Old Testament passages with this framework. I’ll need to do some more thinking, pondering, and reading on these topics, because it’s a very different paradigm than I’m used to.
March 4, 2019
Boyd cuts almost every corner in his approach to the Bible. It's hard to know where to begin in reviewing him, except to say that his view of Scripture is historically un-Christian. Even those he cites (e.g. Copan; see his review at gospelcoalition) and whose arguments he seeks to use disagree vehemently with his bizarre take on the Old Testament, where Moses is misguided and hard-hearted. The only way forward using Boyd's hermeneutical lens is to create a divide between the 'textual God' and 'actual God' and to set the OT and NT at odds with one another. (He assumes they are already at odds, but, of course, this foundational premise is why the book is distinctly unhelpful for the church.) I cringed upon reading his opening and closing illustrations; both appeal to the reader on an emotive level in an effort to say, 'Wouldn't it be great if God were more like this...?' Sorry Greg, but God will never fit into the tiny box you've written, no matter how many words and pages you use. 1/5.
January 14, 2018
This book had so much promise but it failed to live up to it. When I got to this, I checked out:
“Here is another seemingly insignificant fact that became significant to me when I began to reflect on it in light of the crucified Christ: Did you ever notice that the only person who claims to have heard Yahweh give the command to slaughter the Canaanites was Moses? Whenever Joshua later repeated this command, it was on the basis of what 'God had commanded his servant Moses.' Now, given their ANE context, we can understand why Joshua and the Israelites sincerely believed Moses. But the important question is, should we? If we remain resolved that the cross is the full revelation of God's true character, I frankly do not see how we can.”
“Here is another seemingly insignificant fact that became significant to me when I began to reflect on it in light of the crucified Christ: Did you ever notice that the only person who claims to have heard Yahweh give the command to slaughter the Canaanites was Moses? Whenever Joshua later repeated this command, it was on the basis of what 'God had commanded his servant Moses.' Now, given their ANE context, we can understand why Joshua and the Israelites sincerely believed Moses. But the important question is, should we? If we remain resolved that the cross is the full revelation of God's true character, I frankly do not see how we can.”
January 21, 2021
Ultimately unconvincing. The author, Greg Boyd, accuses O.T. authors of anthropomorphizing God, but does so himself throughout the entire book, just from the perspective of a different millennium and culture. The two most used logical fallacies by the author I encountered are “begging the question” and “false equivalence”. I want to keep an open mind, but I think this is the last book I’ll read of this type. They all say the same thing anyway. I have more respect for those who say the events of the O.T. never happened than I do for Boyd.
January 27, 2019
Wow! What a thesis, what a book! Very compelling and appealing concept. I have a strong sense of my spirit being drawn to alignment with this view...I will need to do some more reflection on it though.
There are a few points I wish he would have addressed a few questions that seemed to loom over his premise, but there are no more gaps or mysteries in his premise than in the alternative viewpoint of seing the whole Old Testament as depicting God exactly as he is.
There are a few points I wish he would have addressed a few questions that seemed to loom over his premise, but there are no more gaps or mysteries in his premise than in the alternative viewpoint of seing the whole Old Testament as depicting God exactly as he is.
March 3, 2019
God is exactly who you hope he is.
While I almost gave this 4 stars due to how many times Boyd repeats himself, I eventually determined that the impact and power of this book greatly outweighs that personal con.
I c a n n o t recommend this book highly enough. Everyone should read it, and I hope they do. I look forward to diving into the longer, original version that spanned 2 volumes.
While I almost gave this 4 stars due to how many times Boyd repeats himself, I eventually determined that the impact and power of this book greatly outweighs that personal con.
I c a n n o t recommend this book highly enough. Everyone should read it, and I hope they do. I look forward to diving into the longer, original version that spanned 2 volumes.
November 8, 2020
I read this book wanting to understand Boyd's perspectives on Biblical non-violence. I come away from this book with a decent understanding. However, I find that I don't fully agree with many of Boyd's arguments. I also find that Boyd does not deal at all with either the Second Coming or the final judgment in this book, which leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
September 5, 2024
4.5. Agree with 85%. Honestly don’t know how I feel about it all. Still processing a lot of what he proposes. Even if I agree with the view or disagree, it was a super great book for someone who really struggles with violence in the OT. Would recommend for anyone struggling to reconcile Jesus with Yahweh in the OT.
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