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World peace and "holy war"

two sides of the same theological concept

Irmtraud Fischer

pp. 151-165

There Is a long-standing tradition in Christianity that reproaches the Hebrew Bible, the so-called Old "Testament, with the fact that it is violent, that its image of God affirms force, and that it is therefore an incitement to acts of belligerence. This tradition (which is nothing other than an anti-Jewish interpretation) reads texts like Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 as eschatological passages that speak of a future beyond time (often conceived in Messianic terms) and thus have no real meaning for the practical politics of the contemporary world. Because of their distant perspective, these texts with their visions of peace did nothing to correct the image of a warlike Old Testament.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-10442-7_9

Full citation:

Fischer, I. (2008)., World peace and "holy war": two sides of the same theological concept, in R. Cohen & R. Westbrook (eds.), Isaiah's vision of peace in biblical and modern international relations, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 151-165.

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