Abstract
The world is full of violence committed in the name of religion. Where does this violence come from? What has it to do with religion? This is the question to which this chapter is dedicated. The author examines this question from an Egyptologist’s or antiquarian’s point of view, exploring the earliest occurrences of genuinely religious violence and their historical circumstances.
Originally published in From Akhenaten to Moses: Ancient Egypt and Religious Change (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2014), pp 113–130, © Jan Assmann. It has been revised for inclusion in this volume.
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Notes
- 1.
The sociologist Niklas Luhmann speaks with regard to these differentiations or distinctions of „Leitunterscheidungen“: „Ein Code ist eine Leitunterscheidung, mit der ein System sich selbst und sein eigenes Weltverhältnis identifiziert” (Luhmann 2000, 65).
- 2.
We may even limit the time of composing Deuteronomy to the time period between 672, the date of the loyalty oaths of Esarhaddon, and 612, the end of the Assyrian Empire(see Otto 2007, 119).
- 3.
The authenticity of this decree is, however, highly contestable see Weitzman 2004.
- 4.
“When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the lord your God has given you. Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here.” (Deut 20, 10–15)
- 5.
“But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them – the Hittites and the Ammorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites – just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.” (Deut 20, 15–18)
- 6.
“If you hear it said about one of the towns that the Lord your God is giving you to live in, that scoundrels from among you have gone out and led the inhabitants of the town astray, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods,’ whom you have not known, then you shall inquire and make a thorough investigation. If the charge is established that such an abhorrent thing has been done among you, you shall put the inhabitants of that town to the sword, utterly destroying it and everything in it – even putting its livestock to the sword. All of its spoil you shall gather into its public square; then burn the town and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall remain a perpetual ruin, never to be rebuilt. Do not let anything devoted to destruction stick to your hand, so that the Lord may turn from his fierce anger and show you compassion, and in his compassion multiply you, as he swore to your ancestors, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God by keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.” (Deut 13, 13–19)
- 7.
For the Jewish concept of martyrdom Martyriums (kiddush ha-shem, “sanctifying the name”), see Lenzen 1995.
- 8.
Khalil 2013. I owe this reference to Dorothea Weltecke.
- 9.
- 10.
ibid.., p. 411.
- 11.
ibid., p. 415.
- 12.
BP, 55.
- 13.
BP, 54 f. The new concepts of human rights and of “crimes against humanity that were developed after WW II prove Schmitt to be wrong. “Humanity” in this sense has no need of enemies.
- 14.
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Assmann, J. (2017). Politics, Religion and Violence: The Maccabean Wars. In: Speight, C., Zank, M. (eds) Politics, Religion and Political Theology. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1082-2_10
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