All language subtitles for The Bible Rules s01e03 War

On this episode of The Bible Rules, war.

In the ancient world, a daily event.

You are all soldiers all the time.

The constant struggle for land, food,
and security cause brutal conflict.

Leave nothing that breathes alive.

And The Bible Rules provide a gripping
play -by -play of war's devastation.

did shock and awe before we ever did
shock and awe.

Every bloody aspect of the reality of
war covered in this biblical battle

manual. You want to make them from
running out of the city begging for

What was the ancient world really like?

The answer may be hidden in thousands of
rules and commandments in the Bible.

Some are shocking.

Some mysterious.

All reveal lost details about the world
that was.

The past is now.

The Bible is one of the best -known
books in the world. Most people have

of its Ten Commandments. But what many
don't know is it actually contains

2 ,000 rules and laws that the ancients
lived by, providing an unexpected portal

into the ancient world.

We kick off our investigation with a
surprising rule that you wouldn't think

belongs in a war manual.

If you besiege a town for a long time,
making war against it in order to take

it, you must not destroy its trees by
wielding an axe against them.

So in one of the war laws of the lunar
army, Israel is commanded to not cut

fruit trees.

A very weird law indeed.

What is behind it?

Why, amid all the devastation that war
wreaks on the land, was God so concerned

with preserving trees?

A clue to the origins of this rule might
lie in Israel's own experience of siege

warfare. Jerusalem was besieged in
around 701, and the Assyrian king,

Sennacherib, probably did destroy all of
the trees around the city.

The Assyrians, one of Israel's greatest
foes, cut Jerusalem's trees down to make

ladders and weapons.

But they had another reason, too.

You want to make it impossible for these
people to feed themselves?

You want to starve them out.

You want to make them come running out
of the city begging for mercy.

And one way to do that would be to
destroy the natural resources.

The destruction of their fruit trees
would have been a disaster not easily

forgotten by the Israelites.

Because they lived in a desert climate,
vegetation was often difficult to

cultivate and maintain.

In desert terrain, life was right on the
edge.

Agriculture in antiquity had an almost
quasi -sacred status.

So, if their own precious trees had been
destroyed, why were the Israelites

instructed by God not to do the same to
their enemy?

Could this law be one of the earliest
examples of what we know as

conservationism? The law is Baal
Tashchit, which means that wanton

is prohibited.

There's really no need to be cutting
down trees just for the sake of

somebody.

Imagine a people at war and thinking
about the trees. We are struggling for

territory, but let's keep the trees so
that the next one can have fruit.

But while this rule may appear to be
compassionate, there's also a very

practical self -interest at its heart.

The fruit trees are very precious items.

An olive tree takes several years before
it starts producing olives. It's not

something you can go out the next year
and plant.

And although this battle rule was
written over 2 ,000 years ago, its

significance still resonates today.

In the modern age, you'll remember an
incident in the West Bank when the

Israelis first began to put up the wall.

That separated them from the
Palestinians. The wall ran through a

olive grove, and the Israelis cut down
the olive trees. There was an

immediate uproar throughout the entire
Middle East. You didn't do this.

While this rule about trees calls for
respectful consideration of the land

during wartime, this next one seems to
command the exact opposite.

But as for the towns of these people
that the Lord your God is giving you as

inheritance, you must not let anything
that breathes remain alive.

In other words, there are specific lands
that God wanted for his people. The

Israelites were not only to invade them,
but also to destroy every living thing

they found there.

The ancients were no strangers to the
devastation wrought by bitter conflict.

War is a constant state of affairs, a
fact of life for everyone.

You are all soldiers all the time,
always ready to be sent out in combat

someplace or other. You're not talking
about well -formed nations. You've got

tribal people who are contesting always
whose land belongs to whom.

and vying for supremacy.

People were constantly being conquered
or defending themselves.

War and violence were part of the
everyday reality of people in the

world.

But the level of destruction this rule
promotes is unusual.

To crack this biblical code, we need to
go back to the story of the Exodus.

Moses has led the Israelites out of
Egypt through the barren desert to Mount

Sinai. Deprived of their own land, the
Israelites are searching for territory.

The place they set their sights on is a
land called Canaan. But the Canaanites

didn't share the Israelites' faith.

It appears to be a command of the deity
who says to Moses in regard to the war

in Canaan, go up upon the land that I
have given you for your inheritance and

leave nothing that breathes alive.

Well, that's a pretty clear condemnation
of everyone who doesn't share the...

monotheistic faith. The Hebrew God
commands his followers to punish the

Canaanites for their pagan beliefs.

They are to visit God's justice against
the Canaanites and wipe them out so that

the Canaanites don't pollute Israel.

Perhaps for that reason, this Bible rule
mandates a very specific level of

destruction. The Israelite soldiers are
fighting a holy war and they should give

no quarter to the enemy.

There is an idea in the Bible of
divinely commanded genocide.

The idea that you are supposed to wipe
out not only every man, woman, and

but every living thing, and then burn
the city to the ground.

But what happened if you failed to
annihilate every living thing?

As King Saul discovered, the punishment
was severe.

After winning one battle, he tried to
keep some animals alive.

But God's representative, the prophet
Samuel, found out.

He says, what is this bleeding of sheep
and lowing of cattle in my ears?

And Saul says, oh, I was just saving the
best stuff to sacrifice to the Lord.

As a result, he loses his kingship.

God dethrones him because he failed to
do a ritual genocide.

As we dig deeper into this biblical war
manual, we uncover a rule that deals

with the more practical aspects of
combat.

What to do with the spoils. But we're
not talking about silver or gold. It may

be hard to believe, but there's a rule
in the Bible for how to treat a prisoner

of war.

Suppose you see among the captives a
beautiful woman whom you desire.

Bring her home to your house. She shall
shave her head and shall remain in your

house a full month.

After that, you may go into her and be
her husband.

With a population depleted by warfare,
women of childbearing age were a

commodity. So this rule gives
instructions about how to deal with a

prize. But there's more to it than meets
the eye.

One of those rules where the head was to
be shaved. Why would that be the case?

And the answer would be to establish her
as a foreigner.

And remember, her society was much
smaller and closer then. And as her hair

grew, she would be gradually accepted.
They would know how to behave towards

her. But why would they have to wait a
month?

Greek philosopher Philo of Alexandria
thought this rule clearly demonstrated

moral superiority of the Bible.

The woman...

Family has been destroyed in war.

She's lost her city.

If she was married, she lost a husband,
children.

In any case, she lost parents.

So Philo thinks waiting 30 days is an
exceptional gesture of

mercy and kindness.

Well, what must the other people have
been thinking about this time? Two days

enough? I can't get over the idea that
this looks like real...

generosity of spirit to save 30 days.
But if we delve a little deeper, we find

that this rule may serve a far more
practical purpose.

It's an ancient paternity test.

The most important thing is to wait for
the month before you can declare her

wife to make sure that she was not
pregnant.

To make sure that she was not carrying
the child of another man, especially if

she was taken from an enemy camp, you
wouldn't want it to bring into your own

camp the child of an enemy. Guys are
always concerned about this. As the

say, motherhood is certain. Paternity is
always doubtful.

Waging war in the ancient world was how
you gain not just land and security, but

also money, food, and yes, even women.

These were the rewards of war that made
the constant risk of imminent death

worthwhile. For the average soldier to
lay claim on his portion of the spoils,

he needed physical evidence of his
contribution to the cause.

Sometimes that meant capturing a
beautiful woman. Other times it meant

of the kill.

Graphic evidence.

16 severed hands were found in one small
grave.

in order to prove that you had slain an
enemy of course you had to chop off his

right hand present the hand and then you
would be given a reward of a small

amount of gold the payment was awarded
only for the right hand which is the

that holds the weapon

As our investigation continues, we
uncover ancient rules which focus on

outside of war.

If I have a premeditation to commit
homicide, then not only are you entitled

seek my life in return, but according to
Genesis 9, you must.

But as we'll see, the biblical justice
system had an unexpected loophole for

those hoping to get away with murder.

Digging into the Bible rules, we often
uncover troubling facts about the

world, as in the rule about the
beautiful captive, which cast female

of war as mere possessions.

Life for women could be very harsh.

There was a time where a woman had no
rights at all. And if a man decided he

wanted to kill her, he could kill her.
And because he was a man, he wouldn't

held responsible at all. If he wanted to
just send her away, he could send her

away. A man was able to divorce his wife
by simply writing her a note or

putting her stuff outside the tent, and
that constituted divorce.

But sometimes the Bible took a big step
forward towards a better arrangement

between the sexes, like in this next
rule on divorce.

The elders will take the man and punish
him.

Because this man has given an Israelite
virgin a bad name.

She shall continue to be his wife. He
must not divorce her as long as he

This rule says that any man who tries to
divorce his wife by saying that she was

not a virgin when they married and is
found to be lying about it is suitably

punished and loses his right to divorce
her for the rest of his life.

It seems reasonable to us now, but in
the ancient world, giving a woman even

this small amount of justice was unheard
of.

So now to have a command that says, He
can't just send her away.

She has the right to stay alive.

That's a step up from being sent away or
killed.

So while it wasn't exactly the beginning
of the feminist movement, for its time,

this rule was quite advanced.

So what this forces us to do is to
realize that in the ancient world, they

beginning a journey, a journey that
would eventually lead to equality for

The rules of the Bible serve as a portal
to reveal not only the brutality and

violence of the ancient world, but also
the more moderate tearing side of our

shared past.

This next rule shows us how over 2 ,000
years ago, a justice system was

beginning to take shape.

You shall set apart three cities in the
land that the Lord your God is giving

you to possess so that any homicide can
flee to one of them.

At first glance, this rule might not
make sense. Why would the Bible allow

someone to get away with murder?

Cracking the rules code starts with
actual ancient towns called cities of

refuge. Cities of refuge in the Bible
describe places where someone could

go if they accidentally killed someone
else.

But what made accidental killers so
special that they got their own cities?

In the ancient world, there were blood
feuds.

So if I killed your brother, you could
come after me and demand a life for a

life. And in fact, you were supposed to
if I intentionally went and killed your

brother. Then not only are you entitled
to seek my life in return, but according

to Genesis 9, you must.

So the Bible commands that you seek
revenge for a premeditated murder.

As a result, if you had committed
involuntary manslaughter, you were now

great risk because the brothers and
uncles of the person who died are going

come after you. So they created cities
of refuge.

In effect, this rule was balancing out a
very black and white ancient mentality,

which said no matter the circumstance,
if blood is spilled, there must be more

blood spilled to atone for it.

The rule here allowed for a much needed
gray area.

If there's an accident that I cause and
it causes the death of your brother, I

am not a homicidal murderer.

I am a manslaughter.

And if I'm a manslaughterer, you still
want to seek my life. I've still caused

the death of your brother.

But I have a right to go to a city of
refuge and live out the rest of my days

without your blood vengeance taking
place.

But this enforced exile was still very
much a punishment.

Once a manslaughterer made it to a city
of refuge, he was safe from those

seeking revenge but could not leave the
town.

This was a life sentence.

So... Effectually, the city of refuge is
like a prison. It's a place of

incarceration. And it does limit the
amount of blood that's going to be shed.

But there was one escape clause from the
manslaughterer's imprisonment. If the

high priest of the town died, he would
be free to go.

The rule is that a manslaughterer lives
in the city of refuge until the death of

the high priest.

The death of the high priest was seen as
a general atonement, an expiation of

the sin that was committed.

The biblical rules on war and justice
cover a wide range of ideas, from total

annihilation on the battlefield to an
appropriate sentence for manslaughter.

These rules provide a portal to the
battlefields of the ancient world, and

this next one, the portal opens again,
putting us right on the front lines of

conflict.

When you go to war against your enemies
and see horses and chariots and an army

larger than your own, you shall not be
afraid of them.

This rule makes specific mention of a
major player in ancient warfare, the

chariot. But where did chariots come
from, and why would they have been a

for fear?

Chariots seem to have evolved over time.

Different inventions, different
innovations are made in different

So, for instance, in ancient Turkey with
the Hittites, we've got a two -person

chariot that may become, over time, a
three -person chariot.

Much like today's sports cars, chariots
were constantly being redesigned and

improved upon to create the perfect
balance of strength, speed, and

One of the most important design
innovations was made by the Egyptians

something called a U -joint.

The U -joint.

which is where the pole between the two
horses connects to the chariot. Instead

of it being hard connected, it was tied
with rawhide so that it could move, flex

with the movement of the horses.

And that meant you could move much more
quickly and a lot more freely, which in

ancient warfare could be the key to
victory.

Chariots tilted the field of battle
quite a bit when they came in. And just

one might imagine, when a new weapon is
introduced, it can really change the

battlefield. And so whoever's got the
new weaponry is probably going to win

day.

But as we were about to find out,
sometimes victory came in the most

way. Take these 300 people who were
picked last for their team in high

and they're the ones who massacre
thousands of Midianites.

As we decode the biblical rules on war
and violence, we uncover one that makes

specific reference to a major player in
ancient warfare, the chariot.

When you go to war against your enemies
and see horses and chariots and an army

larger than your own, you shall not be
afraid of them.

The first Israelite king known to use
chariots in battle was Solomon. And as

testament to how critical this machine
was to ancient warfare, a cluster of the

cities where Solomon's bloodiest battles
took place became known as chariot

cities. Which were cities scattered
throughout the land of Israel that

key approaches to the land and to
protect it from invasion.

If you take a map of those 12 chariot
cities and superimpose it on modern

Israel, you'll see that most of the
modern Israeli army's defensive

are in the exact same place.

But chariots were not the only means to
strike fear into your enemy's heart. An

ancient soldier had a whole arsenal of
weapons at his disposal.

As early warfare was largely hand -to
-hand combat, weapons were designed to

brutally effective at close quarters.
And the most common weapon was the mace.

Which would have been a rounded rock
attached by leather thongs to a stick

used to bash your brains in.

But around 2500 BC, the helmet was
invented, and the protection it offered

rendered the mace useless.

And point of fact, it was very
effective.

With a helmet, it becomes impossible to
kill or even render someone unconscious

with the mace. The result is, that drove
the mace from the battlefield.

Not much later, a new weapon developed,
which was a game changer.

It was called the Penetrating Axe.

A penetrating axe is a small axe, maybe
two feet long, in which the head

is not only pointed, but cast as one
piece into a socket so that it could be

fixed with two rivets to the axe handle.

Now you could deliver enough force with
a single arm by narrowing the edge of

the axe. That would then pierce both the
helmet and the armor. So now you had a

revolution.

This revolutionary development happened
during an overall boom period for

weapons in the ancient world that had a
lasting effect.

That set of weapons that were developed
between roughly 3200 BC and maybe

1800 BC in Sumeria gradually spread
through the Middle East and remained the

basic weapons of all armies for at least
2 ,000 years.

For a long, long time,

warfare remains the same. And then a new
weapon comes in, and it changes

everything.

And that's pretty much how the history
of warfare has gone. It's really largely

a history of weaponry. Superior weaponry
could certainly help you win the day in

the ancient world, but the size of your
army was equally important.

Now look closely at that final line. It
urges a warrior to be fearless, not only

when facing superior weaponry, but even
when outnumbered.

The idea is that victory is God's will,
and nothing can change that outcome.

There's a telling story from the book of
Judges where God is so convinced he's

going to win, he actually reduces the
size of General Gideon's army before

into battle.

God says, there are too many troops that
you have. You have to get rid of some.

So Gideon tells some of them to go home.
God says, no, there are still too many

troops. Gideon has some more of them go
home.

And then God says, nope.

Still too many. And God had a very
curious way of selecting those who were

fight for him. I want you to go and make
your men drink from the stream there.

And the ones who cup the water in their
hands, like regular people, tell them to

go home. The ones who bend down and lap
up the water like dogs, those are the

ones who are going to fight with you.
Take these 300 people who were picked

for their team in high school, and
they're the ones who massacre thousands

Midianites.

At all times, war takes a heavy toll,
even long after the battle is over.

So perhaps this Bible rule is meant to
help and harden soldiers facing the

gruesome tests of combat.

In wartime, it gave a kind of
psychological support to people, even

of these horrific...

Encounters, bloodied and killed and
slaughtered all over the place.

Just the solidarity, the expectation
that what you were doing was right.

Moral encouragement helped to establish
a band of brothers amongst the ranks.

You band together, you fight together,
you die together. People are quite

capable of doing dangerous things as
part of a group, if only because they

want to let their fellows down.

And thus, in the Bible, that's what you
see. I'm not crazy.

We're all crazy.

This solidarity might have provided a
crucial support system to an ancient

warrior. Recent research indicates that
soldiers then, like today, suffered from

post -traumatic stress disorder.

He might come back morally wounded. He
might come back physically wounded if

he's gone off to war. He might come back
scarred for life.

In our own time, studies show that post
-traumatic stress disorder has affected

up to 20 % of soldiers coming back from
the recent wars in the Middle East.

soldiers fighting battles back then
suffered in the same way perhaps even

so the life of a soldier day -to -day
combat was so brutal modern military

research says the closer you get to the
victim the more traumatic the experience

in more recent warfare when the person
you're shooting at is 500 yards away you

lose the immediacy of having killed
someone

In antiquity, you saw the victim that
you slew with your own hand. If you kill

someone at what used to call knife
range, now you see the real terror of

you have done.

There's even evidence to suggest that
the ancient world's most storied

Alexander the Great, also suffered from
PTSD.

After 13 years of war, he suffered from
almost every symptom of post -traumatic

stress.

that we now know is related to that
syndrome from explosive anger violence

cruelty alcoholism depression and at
least two suicide attempts he may have

conquered the world but at what cost he
completely lost control and the ability

to inhibit his own emotions by the time
alexander died he was clearly clinically

insane

Looking at this rule as mere words on a
page, we can easily overlook the deep

toll it took on those who waged war in
the ancient world and those soldiers

still fighting today. There are
unintended and unexpected consequences

warfare.

When they sleep at night, you hear
people cry. You hear people moan. You

others grab their comrades and hold them
and tell them it's okay. You hear

people have nightmares.

We're struggling with this in our
culture today.

We want to make our warriors into
heroes.

And in so doing, we don't let them tell
the truth about their pain.

But in the ancient world, the dirty work
of war still needed to be done. And as

we'll reveal, to be victorious, it was
important to stay on God's right side.

The God of Israel is called the cloud
rider.

The earth quakes, the sky fills with
clouds, and then the clouds drip rain.

The storm is coming.

The Bible rules can be seen as a manual
for ancient warfare, assigning everyone

a special rule, including the high
priest.

Before you engage in battle, the priest
shall come forward and speak to the

troops and shall say to them, Do not
lose heart or be afraid, for it is the

your God who goes with you to fight for
you against your enemies.

And certainly in Israel, right up until
the time of Alexander the Great, priests

accompanied the army, where in order to
bless the army, they would take a female

dog, cleave it in two, move the legs to
either side, and the army would march in

between in a way of being purified
before going into battle.

And elsewhere in the ancient world, the
priest had a more significant role than

giving the pre -war speech.

In Rome, for example, it was the priest
who actually authorized the battle.

The Romans had a doctrine of a just war.

And when you attacked an enemy, you had
to have approval by

priests who were called fishalor, that
the allies in Latin. And they even had

their own way of kicking off the combat.
When they decided that the war was

legitimate and approved by the gods.

They would cast a spear into the enemy
territory that you were now about to

invade, and this justified the invasion.

Clerical involvement is still very much
a part of modern warfare.

Right through World War I in the Russian
army, every battalion had a priest.

That performed all kinds of religious
rituals before the men went into battle.

American armies now still go into battle
with priests or chaplains along with

them.

But let's look at this rule about the
high priest more closely. It

points out that the Hebrew god is among
the soldiers, a fellow warrior fighting

the enemy right beside them. It's a
striking concept.

There's a common image of the storm god
marching out to battle for his people.

Now, in Hebrew, the god of Israel is
called Hokei Vakavot, which means the

rider.

And he's marching forth from his
mountain.

The earth quakes, the sky fills with
clouds, and the clouds drip rain.

And God goes straight to the front lines
to take the enemy head on. In a way,

God marches in front in the form of his
tabernacle, which is kind of his battle

chariot. And with God at the head of
their army, this rule shows how the

Israelites were setting themselves apart
from other nations in the ancient

world. In the ancient world.

My God and your God, if we're enemies,
are probably not the same God. And so if

you defeat me, then I have to worship
your God alongside mine and perhaps

acknowledge that your God is more
powerful. One of the things that

the Israelites is their refusal to
worship other gods, or at least their

official refusal to worship other gods.

There's a legendary story from ancient
Rome that embodies just how powerful

God's influence in war could be.

The time, 312 AD, to place the banks of
the river Tiber just outside Rome.

Two Roman emperors, Constantine and
Maxentius, are vying for supremacy and

to square off in battle.

On the eve before the battle,
Constantine has a vision that eventually

the course of human history.

One of the more interesting aspects of
Constantine was, of course, the famous

vision.

that he has at the Milvern Bridge.

He had seen, I believe it was a fiery
cross in the sky, which said, In

this sign, you will conquer.

The legend goes that the image so
impressed Constantine that upon winning

battle, he immediately pledged his faith
to the Christian God, and the Roman

Empire began a slow conversion to that
faith.

That's the story of his conversion and
the story of his decision to impose a

and very different religion on Rome.

Very different indeed. In converting the
Roman Empire to Christianity,

Constantine elevated the religion from a
small sect to the faith of an empire.

The vision at the Milvian Bridge was the
first step towards making Christianity

a major religion in the world, today
practiced by more than 2 billion people.

So this rule touches on modern issues
that still resonate today.

When we read the Bible and believe in
God, we believe he is on our side,

fighting our battles and helping us to
win.

You see it in sports events. You'll see
athletes, when they win a game or if

they get a home run, they look up and
they think, thanks, as if God had

something to do with it.

god is on our side and it's a natural
tendency whether or not it's always a

helpful one i'm not so sure because
there's always an opposing team there's

always someone therefore who god wasn't
on their side if on a national scale

we're going to wage war

Deep in our narrative as a nation, we
believe that we are a God -fearing

And we have to know that it is
validated, verified by not just

human rationale, but by a divine edict.
In the case of modern warfare

or sports, everybody's worshiping the
same God. And so the question is, whose

side is this one God on?

To keep God on your side, you had to
follow the rules of the Bible, or the

could be devastating.

It could reduce the population of a city
drastically. We're talking about huge

numbers here.

Yet another portal into the past is
about to open.

What was war like in the ancient world?

What did a soldier's daily life in war
look and feel like? There are clues

throughout the rules of the Bible.

Like in this next rule, which forbids
something you can't even control, and

which you'd probably be a little
embarrassed to admit to.

If one of you becomes unclean because of
a nocturnal emission, then he shall go

outside the camp. He will not come
within the camp.

Why would God care if a soldier engaged
in battle had a wet dream?

Something that is defiling, like
emissions, impurities on the skin, any

things are considered to be defiling
because they render a person impure.

And as we've already discovered, while
fighting a war on God's behalf, a

needed to conform to specific spiritual
standards.

The Israelite warriors, they're to be in
a state of ritual purity when they go

into battle. They're to be clean.

It's almost as though they are to
present themselves for warfare the same

that they would present themselves for
worship at the temple or the tabernacle.

So what would you have to do if that
embarrassing thing happened in the

of the night?

They need to wash, they need to change
their clothes, and then they're made

again. Their impurity that they contract
from coming into contact with sexual

emissions or substances isn't sinful.

It's not immoral. It simply renders them
unfit to approach the holy.

And since the battle is another arena
touched by the holiness of God, a

needs to be pure while fighting, so pure
that he can't even have sex.

You could not have sex while you were
engaged in a holy war.

In the story of David and Bathsheba,
after David has gotten Bathsheba

he sends for her husband, Uriah, who's
out on the battlefield in a holy war.

and wants to get him to go home and
sleep with Bathsheba so that the child

will eventually be born will be thought
to be Uriah's. But Uriah refuses

because, in effect, he is engaged in a
holy war and will not have sex with his

wife.

We're beginning to sketch out what it
meant to be a Hebrew soldier engaged in

holy war.

Was the Bible shaping a different kind
of warrior? And how did they match up to

other soldiers fighting wars elsewhere
in the ancient world?

In ancient Greece, a good warrior would
have to show arete, which means

literally excellence, but not just on
the field of battle, but he had to be an

excellent civic citizen. He had to be an
excellent father.

The code was to be kind to everybody.

A mindset formed thousands of years ago
in the ancient world, which has helped

to shape the modern warrior.

And that Greek concept, by the way.

permeates Western society all the way
down to the modern time.

So a butcher is not a good warrior. In
our army, a man who kills

indiscriminately, as happened in a few
instances in Afghanistan, is punished.

They say how a nation fights its wars
reveals a lot about that nation. The

of the Bible create not just a mindset,
but a series of practical guidelines to

help the ancient Israelites win wars.

like this next one, which deals with
latrine duty.

You shall have a designated area outside
the camp. You shall have a trowel. When

you relieve yourself outside, you shall
dig a hole with it and then cover up

your excrement.

It's funny to think there's a rule like
this in the Bible, but it was actually

an unprecedented and very valuable
military tactic.

Disease represents a much more likely
cause of casualties than enemy

fire. The Israelites have the first
example that we know of in history of

hygiene, which is to say that you will
defecate out and urinate outside the

camp, and even then you will cover it
with a special paddle.

This simple rule would have helped to
keep the Israelite army healthy and

probably saved many lives.

The vast majority of people who died in
conflicts did not die from violence.

Anytime you got a large number of people
together, sanitary conditions went

south. Clean water was very hard to
provide. It was very hard, for instance,

keep people from drinking out of rivers,
even if those rivers were being used as

sewers.

Surprisingly, this rule was later
abandoned as a military tactic, with

consequences. By the time you get to the
Middle Ages, any attempt at hygiene in

a field camp had disappeared completely.

And as a consequence, the armies of the
Middle Ages, right up to the Civil War,

been decimated by disease with simple
things like troops urinating in the

from which drinking water was drawn,
defecating near the chow hall, all kinds

rather obvious things that the armies of
antiquity seemed to be pretty good at

avoiding. But what was unavoidable about
war in the ancient world was the

devastation it caused to whole cities.

This rule may have helped an army stay
alive while in battle, but what did the

aftermath look like? War took a major
toll. It could reduce the population of

city drastically. Even a city like
Athens lost unbelievable percentages of

population. Ten percent.

Serious loss. Can you imagine? We're
talking about the United States losing

maybe 20 million.

People in war. We're talking about huge
numbers here.

Huge numbers of dead.

Thousands of rotting corpses.

Think of it. The visual effect of it.
The stench of it.

How did the ancients deal with it? When
it comes to body disposal, the Bible is

the go -to manual.

The ancient world was an inherently
violent place even outside the

The justice system could be harsh and
unforgiving.

if a crime was committed death was often
the inevitable result and bodies had to

be disposed of when someone is convicted
of a crime punishable by death and is

executed and you hang him on a tree his
corpse must not remain all night upon

the tree you shall bury him that same
day translation if you execute a

by hanging him on a tree you need to
take the body down immediately and bury

but in ancient rome they did things very
differently the body would hang there

for a long time and the entire ugly
decomposition process would be a kind of

ultimate statement don't you dare defy
the authority of the emperor or this is

what will happen to you a dead body
hanging from a tree certainly sends a

powerful message and think of it the
visual effect of it the stench of it the

remains of it and maggots and the whole
ugly side of it

As we've seen before, this code of
ethics which emerges from the rules of

Bible is focused on making the new
Hebrew believers different from their

neighbors.

There's a sense in that command that we
don't want to

excessively glory in gore.

That, okay, the violence has been done.

Let's get the body down. Let's get the
body buried because we don't want to go

too far with this thing.

Digging deeper into the rule unpeels
more layers of the ancient mindset.

How a civilization grapples with and
handles their dead offers insight on how

they actually lived.

Death is the ultimate impurifier in the
Israelite biblical code. In fact, the

highest form of impurity is a dead
corpse. The idea that a person is still

somehow there.

in their body. And in fact, the term in
priestly law that sometimes occurs for a

corpse is a nefesh, which means a life
or a presence or a being.

There's this lingering identity.

There's this leftover personhood that's
still stuck to the corpse, which is why

it's so important to bury them so its
volatile, dangerous quality doesn't mess

with you.

As our investigation concludes, we shift
to perhaps the most memorable but also

misunderstood axiom from the ancient
world.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.

Anyone who maims another shall suffer
the same injury in return.

Fracture for fracture, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth.

When the writers of the Bible were
developing their code of ethics, they

always breaking new ground. Many of
their laws, including this one, were

borrowed from their neighbors.

It's the kind of thing that once you
hear it, you can't forget.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth, which is in the Bible, occurs

any part of the Bible was ever written
in the Code of Hammurabi.

Hammurabi was the first ruler of the
Babylonian Empire, and his rules covered

lot of ground. The Law Code of Hammurabi
has about 272 or so laws.

which cover almost every aspect you can
think of in terms of human society and

culture. Most of the ancient societies,
the Hittites and the Canaanites and the

Babylonians, had law codes.

It's not at all surprising that the
Israelites got them also.

While an eye for an eye strikes us as
very harsh, for its time it was

a revolutionary step towards social
justice.

An eye for an eye is designed to bring
balance to crimes.

Punishments should fit the crime.

It does remove arbitrariness, and it
also places limits on what the avenger

blood can do to those from whom he seeks
compensation.

Up until the time of Hammurabi in
ancient Sumer, the punishments for crime

determined by who you were.

The interesting point about Hammurabi's
code was that for the first time in

Middle Eastern history, we find the idea
of a code which applies equally to all.

So this eye for an eye Bible rule marks
a critical point in the evolution of

social justice.

It may sound harsh to us reading those
words.

But the writers of the Bible were, in
fact, sowing the seeds for the justice

system we have in place today.

When viewed together, the Bible rules on
war, crime, and punishment make an

overall mosaic.

Some pieces strike us as backwards and
bizarre, written for an ancient time we

no longer relate to. But others still
very much resonate today and offer

into our own nature, which we share with
our ancient ancestors.

The management of violence.

is one of the primary functions of
government and religion. And in

most parts of the world, ancient world
and today's world, they work on the

assumption that you need to use violence
to manage violence.

That violence is so powerful, the only
thing powerful enough to deter people is

a threat of violence.

If you are a child in the ancient Near
East, you learn the stories of

maybe on a scroll in one hand, and you
learn how to wield a spear with your

other hand.

And just as we have evolved from when
the Bible rules were first written down,

maybe 2 ,000 years from now, we'll look
back at our own time differently.

Now we're appalled by child soldiers who
are 14 or 15, but we're not appalled by

17 or 19 -year -olds who go to war.

And someday I wonder,

if we'll become equally repulsed by the
idea of sending anyone off to die in the

name of our gods or our national symbols
and so on.