An Interview on Sex and Violence … in the Bible (Matthew Claridge)

Who says the Bible is prudish? Who says the Bible is tame? Not the author of the recently published Sex and Violence in the Bible: A Survey of Explicit Content in the Holy Book. Here to scintillate and educate us on the Holy Book’s seedier side is Joseph W. Smith III, a teacher of English at Loyalsock High School, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. He formerly worked for sixteen years as a film critic for the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Its a pleasure to have Mr. Smith featured here on Credo to fill us in on the juicy details.

Tell us a little bit about how you were drawn to the subject matter of this book and what reader expectations should be for it?

Nearly everyone can recall reading some explicit Bible passage and thinking, “Whoa — does it really say THAT?”  In many cases, the answer is YES — and I wanted to confirm this, because those are the very passages we seldom hear about in sermons and Sunday school.  I don’t know — have you ever heard a sermon on Onan in Genesis 38 or Eglon’s grisly murder in Judges 3?  I don’t think I have — despite a lifetime of regular church attendance!  So … I wanted to tackle these passages that we rarely study, and understand what they really say — and how they say it.  That is, I wanted to use the Bible as a sort of “aesthetic guideline” to help Christians understand “how much is too much” — that is, to see where the writers of Scripture draw the line with graphic content.  What I found was that they are indeed sometimes quite blunt — but not too often; it’s a very small percentage compared, for example, to a Stephen King novel or a Tarantino film.

You raise the point that Christians should not be squeamish to view R rated content when the Bible itself contains much R rated descriptions.  Some have responded that this argument fails to take into account the profound difference between exposure to visual mediums and to literary mediums.  Any thoughts on that?

Well, I can’t say I had a goal of making it “okay” for Christians to see R-rated films; many of those go far beyond the bounds of moral and even artistic propriety.  (Though I did hope to curb the knee-jerk reaction — “R = NO” — that some folks experience in this area.)

At the same time, you raise a hugely important issue, one that’s somewhat beyond the scope of my book; we might need another volume entirely to deal with the moral distinctions between visual and verbal material!

Clearly, there is a vast difference between reading a Bible story about rape and actually watching some rape scene in a contemporary film; or, for that matter, between reading about nudity and seeing it on screen.  That goes for violence as well, of course.  The “line” all of us constantly try to find when interacting with modern culture does, I think, need to be much more conservative, and much more cautiously drawn, with visual media.  For instance:  Despite the frequent nudity in the Bible (I have a whole chapter on this!), most Christians are profoundly uncomfortable with nude scenes — and rightly so.  At the same time, the mere fact that certain material is verbal instead of visual does not make it automatically OK; the recipient can process this sinfully too, of course.  Even Bible content could conceivably be abused in this way — as in the final scene of Clockwork Orange.

For this reason, my own feeling is that much of the “OK / not OK” question depends on individual viewers and readers — whether a given person can process this material in a way that does not lead to sin.  Much self-searching and brutal honesty is necessary here, and I don’t think the “line” is by any means the same for every person.  The issue, as I suggested, needs much more space than I have here; but I will also observe that every Christian needs to have a line he or she won’t cross — especially with visual material.  If you have no boundaries, you haven’t been thinking biblically on this matter.

Unpack this statement for us: “[the Bible’s] approach to indecent matters is not that of a twenty-first-century schoolboy, nor is it that of a nineteenth-century Victorian housewife.”

Good pick on that line, Matthew — it’s kind of a thesis statement for the book.  Like the Bible, we aren’t to be obsessed with sex and violence the way so many folks are today (and not just schoolboys either!) — constantly cracking raunchy jokes, finding (and enjoying) unseemly implications all over the place, and using these hot-button items merely to generate interest, humor, excitement — even lust!  On the other hand, it’s insane to pretend these issues don’t exist or aren’t important.  We all know, for example, how much behavior is driven by sex; it’s certainly a factor in numerous Bible stories!  In addition, all parents are familiar with vomit and excrement (topics also covered in my book) — these are a huge part of life, and not something we can simply ignore.  The Bible approaches these issues in a boldly matter-of-fact manner — not obsessed, not ashamed — frank, but not detailed or pornographic.  I suspect this ought to be our approach as well.

What makes Ezekiel 23:20 a good candidate for the grossest verse in the Bible?

Well, it’s got male genitalia, semen and implied bestiality; and it talks about the donkeys having unusually large “members.”  That’s kind of a quadruple whammy.  Incidentally, it’s significant that such strong language — rare in Scripture — is reserved in this case for idolatry and faithlessness on the part of God’s people; if we are so disgusted by this verse — well, that’s how disgusted God was by the covenant unfaithfulness of his people!

I honestly found your discussion of the Lord’s use of sexual terminology to describe his relationship with his people quite shocking. Give us an idea where and why the Lord uses such language, and how we should tread carefully here.

Yeah, I was surprised by that too, Matthew — and I tried to tread carefully, as you say.  But we’re really talking only about two short passages — Ezek. 16:7-9 and John 3:29, in which coitus is used (metaphorically, of course) to describe God’s relationship with his people; so it’s not exactly a major strand in Biblical writings.

But I think the main thing to say is — maybe it’s time for folks like you and me to not be so shocked by our heavenly father’s attitude toward sex.  As my pastor sometimes says, “Let’s not try to be holier than God!”  (I almost used this as the subtitle for my book.)  Sex is a good thing — a great thing, as Song of Solomon makes abundantly clear.  God created it — he’s the one who made it so great!  Like so much else in creation (food, sunsets, animals, work, music), he didn’t have to make it that good; but he did, because that’s his nature:  He likes to make and bestow really good things!  There’s absolutely nothing “unholy” about enthusiastic marital sexuality (again I point to Solomon’s Song) — any more than there is about good wine or fresh-baked bread (both also used to help us understand God’s love).  Since most of us are very familiar with the intimacy, the joy and even the spiritual depth of biblical sexuality, God is trying to tell us something about the kind of relationship we can have with him.  Yes — it can be that good!  And maybe one adjunct he’s trying to convey is:  This weird reaction we have when we think sex is somehow separate from God, something we must not connect with him?  Sorry, that’s not biblical.

I’m hoping very much that my book helps demonstrate this.

(Your question also cautions about treading carefully, so I will add that we don’t tread much differently here than we do when eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood; obviously that’s not literal — it would be gross and silly to approach it that way; and we accept God’s use of sex here in a similarly figurative manner.)

What’s distinctive about the way the Bible describes “rape” in comparison to other violent acts?

I think the most significant difference is that all three of the principal “rape narratives” in the Old Testament express strong condemnation for the act.  In Judges 19, one character calls it a “vile thing” (v. 23 — he’s talking about the threatened rape of the man earlier in the chapter — but the idea is the same); and later the people of Israel are amazed at the depravity, for “such a thing has never happened” (v. 30).  Similarly, the rape of Tamar by her half-brother (2 Sam. 13), and of Dinah by Shechem (Genesis 34), are both accompanied by the narrator’s statement that “such a thing is not done.”  It’s actually somewhat rare to see such blatant and consistent condemnation of violent acts in the Old Testament; usually, the narrator simply reports them without much editorial comment.  But apparently, there is something especially objectionable about rape that elicits these denunciations.

How can the topic of sex and violence in the Bible actually be an apologetic for the Bible?

Let me quote from a recent review of my book at the “Schaeffer’s Ghost” blog on the Patheos website:  “Religion is useless if it only deals with the polite aspects of life.  Life is messy, earthy, full of pain and death and sex.  If your religion doesn’t have a category for these things, you aren’t doing it right” (Paul D. Miller).

And … from my own conclusion:  “We want a religion that is true not just for some of life — for spirituality, worship and service — but for all of our experience. The wide range of Scripture on sex, violence and other uncomfortable material helps us to see that the Judeo-Christian tradition is true for all of life — that it does not prudishly overlook or sidestep certain issues; rather, it concerns itself — often quite closely — even with mundane bodily matters like menses, skin disease and nocturnal emissions.”

In recent decades, our culture has gotten very good at acknowledging the seamy parts of life — movies, for instance, are sometimes praised for their “realism” in depicting life with all its unsavory messiness.  Well, folks — welcome to the Bible, which was doing this 3500 years ago.

 Have you found it awkward describing this project to others?

Once they get over the mild shock of hearing my title — deliberate on my part, of course; it’s a great attention-getter — then actually:  No, it hasn’t been very awkward.  Christians are really quite interested in this material, and some express gratitude at my willingness to tackle it.  I’ve been surprised at the number of much older women who wanted a copy — one told me frankly that when she was growing up, nobody ever talked about this stuff.

If there’s any awkwardness, it’s in having to assure folks that my angle on this is not a negative one — that I’m not attacking the Bible.  There are several books on these topics (esp. violence) that mean to undermine God and his word.  (Funny, that so many pooh-pooh the Bible for its violence but have no problem personally slaughtering thousands in some gory video game every day!)  But once I’ve assured them of my respect for God’s word, the general response has been keen interest.  I guess that’s why it’s been selling pretty well!

Matthew Claridge is an editor for Credo Magazine and is Senior Pastor of Mt. Idaho Baptist Church in Grangeville, ID. He has earned degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married to Cassandra and has three children.