Conclusion

Summary

The ‘grammars of violence’ detailed in this book each reflect particular patterns of representation by which biblical writers portray and critique violence. These patterns of representation frequently cut across biblical genres, and to that extent can be said to reflect recurrent cultural assumptions about what the problems of violence included and excluded. Of course local variation exists in the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, one might also argue that the Hebrew Bible itself reflects changing conceptions of violence through time and tradition, as each biblical textual ‘layer’ could be analysed on its own. To that extent this study is only one step toward a fuller recovery of changing representations of violence in the Hebrew Bible. Nonetheless, patterns of representing violence recur with enough frequency across the Hebrew Bible’s texts and traditions to sustain my categories of analysis.