Tim Mackie on Divine Violence in the Bible & Jesus
Tim Mackie takes us to the Bible’s stories of divine violence which can, understandably, trouble us; they not be explained away. Mackie reads Noah’s flood as a “decreation” that accelerates the violence humans had already unleashed, followed by God’s promise never to do it again. The conversation with Tim explores how to think about Jesus alongside texts that raise hard and critically important questions.
A few takeaways:
Decreation: A look at the flood story echoes the seven-day creation account in reverse, with Noah’s family as a floating “Eden.”
Genesis 8:20–22: God sees the human heart is unchanged, yet commits to sustaining creation rather than repeating the flood.
Still troubling: Sodom, the plagues and Passover, and the conquest of Canaan can (again, understandably) challenge us, and perhaps they’re supposed to.
Two-way reading: Jesus is the lens for the Old Testament, but Jesus only makes sense within Israel’s story: the episode looks at both continuity and surprise as important elements of Scripture.
Unresolved on purpose: Tim says the tension never goes away, but he finds it productive.
Listen in Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Watch on YouTube
The BibleProject's Tim Mackie gives his take of divine violence in the Bible and the way of Jesus, including his death for enemies. How does he hold a "mosaic" of images that come from Scripture together? This is the second part of our interview with Tim. The first part looked at the origins of evil and key patterns in Genesis 1–11.
Description
Tim Mackie, co-founder of BibleProject, joins Scott Rice and Greg Fung for part 2 of our conversation about divine violence in the Bible and what it means to follow Jesus. In part 1, we looked at the origins of evil and key patterns in Genesis 1–11. Here we take on the harder question: how do Christians read passages where God commands or carries out violence in light of Jesus’ death for his enemies?
Greg opens by asking Tim to trace violence, and divine violence, from Genesis forward. Tim walks through Noah’s flood, explains why he sees it as “decreation,” and shares why these texts still trouble him. There is also an interesting part about how we rethink some of our positions on topics through ongoing reading of Scripture in community, and the work of theology. The episode was published here on July 2, 2026.
The conversation also reflects on:
The King James rendering of Genesis 6:11–13 and why it is helpful
God’s promise to sustain creation in Genesis 8:20–22
Sodom, the plagues and Passover, and the conquest of Canaan
Reading the Old Testament through Jesus, and Jesus through the Old Testament
Why Tim treats the tension as an invitation rather than a problem to solve
Resources
📚 Learn more about the BibleProject at www.bibleproject.com
Frequently Asked Questions Section
What does Tim Mackie say about divine violence in the Bible?
He says passages where God uses or commands violence (Noah’s flood, Sodom, the plagues, the conquest of Canaan) are deeply troubling, and he thinks there is something to this. He holds them alongside Jesus, whom he calls God’s ultimate response to human evil, and says the tension never fully goes away.
What does “decreation” mean in the story of Noah’s flood?
Tim describes the flood as a cosmic undoing: the story reverses the structures of the seven-day creation account as the waters above and below collapse back together. He sees God accelerating the violence humans had already begun, in partnership with creation, rather than acting unilaterally.
How does Bible translation change how we read Genesis 6?
Tim prefers the King James phrasing of Genesis 6:13 because it suggests humanity’s violence was already bringing about its own end. He says several modern translations read as a one-sided divine decision.
Why did God promise never to flood the earth again?
In Genesis 8:20–22, God acknowledges the human heart hasn’t changed but commits to sustaining creation. Tim argues that repeated decreation would undercut God’s original goal of partnering with humans, so God plays “the long game” through covenant.
How should Christians read violent Old Testament passages, according to Tim Mackie?
Through Jesus, who responds to evil by letting his enemies kill him rather than destroying them. But Tim says Jesus only makes sense within the Old Testament story, so the reading runs in both directions.
Does Tim Mackie think the tension is resolved?
No. He calls it a genuine tension Christians have wrestled with since the second century, and says he’s learned to treat it as an invitation to keep learning.
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Tim Mackie (Tim Mackie) (00:00)
But I also struggle with that because the only reason I'm reading these texts is because I follow Jesus. And I confess that Jesus is God's ultimate revelation of his response to human evil. And so holding together the Jesus as God's response ultimately to evil, with these portraits of God as decreator in the Old Testament, it's a genuine tension. It will never go away. Every generation of followers of Jesus from the second century onward.
Have struggled to hold those two pictures together in one collection of scriptures. But I also keep experiencing that tension personally as productive, as generative, like it keeps me searching and it keeps me open-minded instead of closed-minded to certain options.
Scott Rice (00:46)
Hey, it's Scott and welcome to Theology Lab. I am here with Greg for this introduction to the second part of our conversation with Tim Mackie. Hey Scott.
Tim Mackie (00:54)
Good to be here.
Scott Rice (00:56)
The second episode took a r it takes a real shift from the first one. We talked to Tim almost exclusively, keeping with the theme of evil and destruction in the Bible, but about about violence, about violence that's done by characters in the Bible, but also divine violence and the challenge that that presents. And I think the thing that really got me in this episode was that I am kind of familiar with some of the ways that Tim has talked about the relationship between God and violence in the Bible and this kind of God coming and making accommodations to us, but then
In this interview, Tim seems to kind of show that like his mind has changed a little bit around this topic, or that he's clearly re-processing the challenge of violence in the Bible. And there's some interesting comparisons made to the teachings, the ways of Jesus, and the tensions that that brings up for Tim in a what he notes in a really productive way. So I think that's one of the richest things that we explore in this conversation.
Tim Mackie (01:49)
So, I mean, Tim is famous for having answers about the Bible. It's where you go when you are confused about the Bible and you want a thoughtful, well-researched, historically grounded answer for something. It's tough. And violence in the Bible is one of the toughest issues. And in this episode, we hear how Tim wrestles with something that seems almost impossible to unpack. So, how does he do it?
Scott Rice (02:17)
viewers, if you enjoy Theology Lab, if you want more videos, go ahead, take a moment, and hit the subscribe button below to get more Theology Lab videos as soon as they are released. Here's our conversation with Tim Mackie.
Tim Mackie (02:44)
Could could we trace actually going back to Genesis through the gospels through Paul, maybe something like violence being there? Violence is seen as evil, clearly evil in the beginning of Genesis, and yet you also see violence as a form of resistance to evil. The story of Noah, Exodus, or you see divinely sanctioned or divinely s sanctioned violence as a response to evil.
Greg Fung (03:07)
Divine violence.
Tim Mackie (03:12)
Yeah. How how do you see that theme and and as as the Bible kind of wrestles or believers in the Bible wrestling with these two sides of violence and and evil?
Greg Fung (03:22)
Great. Yeah. That's such an important question.
in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus summarized what he thought the Hebrew scriptures are about, he has the summary in in Luke chapter 24 when he says, didn't you know what the Torah, the law, and the prophets were all about? That the Messiah would suffer and be killed and then raised from the dead so that forgiveness of sins,
Could be announced in his name beginning at Jerusalem. So he's got this idea of got of God's chosen anointed one going into death and suffering for others, and then coming out the other side of it. so so that life and goodness and all the good stuff can then go out to everybody else. So that's his summary of what he thinks the Old Testament's about. So
So whatever I'm getting out of it, you know, it certainly wasn't that for a long time, especially when I first started reading it, but that's kind of his like sh short cliff notes. And what hit me over a number of years ago was there is kind of a fundamental arc to the that story, that you have somebody who is appointed by God, like a messiah means someone who's designated as God's chosen appointed one for a vocation or task.
And for some reason they're gonna have to go from that ideal state as God's chosen one into suffering and death. and then go through it and out the other side. And it struck me that there's something like a a storyline that really does map on to a pattern at work in the early chapters of Genesis, which is of creation and an appointment of an an image of God or repr a representative of that going horribly wrong.
And then of humans beginning to unleash ra like the opposite of goodness in the world. And that's you know, that's what's happening in the scaling of Adam and Eve's deception and disorder desire and bad decision gets a twist in the next generation, seven generations down, now all of a sudden, you know what I mean? You've got violence towards women and violence towards each other. And that's the picture in Genesis chapter four and six.
and so God's response to that. I'll I'm gonna zero in on the flood story as an example of what you're talking about. God's response, this is in Genesis six, verse eleven to twelve, is super important. And actually, unfortunately, it's really important what translation you're reading to get the sense. And this is a chance where the King James just hit the ball out of the park 400 years ago. and our mo more contemporary translations, I think, kind of missed the boat.
What God says is the end of all flesh. Well, first God sees all of the chamas, the violence, and the bloodshed that's happening in the land. And then what God says is the end of all flesh has come up before me. So what I'm going to do is bring an end to all flesh by means of the land. What our contemporary English translations read there.
Is I have made a decision to bring an end to all flesh. So it's just kind of unilateral, like, I'm done with this. Humans are violent, and so I'm going to destroy them all. But that's not actually what it says. So go with the King James. What it says is humans, the end of humanity is risen up before me. It's like in like a news bulletin. what humans are doing to each other is becoming really evident and clear.
as it were before the divine court, you know, before the divine council room. And so the end of all flesh is something humans are doing to each other. And that's been what's under the microscope in Genesis three, four, five, and six. and so what God does is, as it were, accelerate that process in partnership with creation itself. And it's as if God accelerates creation's rejection of human
evil and the shedding the blood of the innocent on the land. And so it's very much a cosmic decreation. And the flood story is all keyed into the language of undoing all of the structures God put into place in the seven day story. So the like the land splits open, the division between the waters and the waters collap collapses as it were when the heavens break open and the waters come up from below. So it's really not depicted as a local or a global flood. It's
depicted as the collapse of the entire cosmos. The collapse of the Genesis seven creation story. And then but you've got a little floating Eden there with the guy, you know, in in the floating in the waters with his family, the remnant. So the reason why that story is important is it even is showing that when God uses d decreation as a response to evil, it's not a unilateral
As it were, it's always in partnership with creation and in as a response to what humans are doing or accelerating the end that humans have already begun. And man, it took me a lot of years to really hone in on that, but that's really profound. I think it's really profound. And there's a little twist at the end of the float story that
also really blew my mind. So when, you know, the flood subsides and the the story of the flood subsiding is all of this echoing language of the s six days of creation. So it does have a word like a decreation. And then there's day and and night and a bunch of cycles of seven as he's waiting for the birds. but he gets off and he builds an altar Noah sorry, Noah gets off the boat, builds an altar on the mountain, and God sees the sacrifice that Noah makes. And
What God says in response to the sacrifice is so weird. This in Genesis 8, verse 20 and 21, God says, You know what I know about humans? I know exactly what I knew before, which is the heart of humans is raw. and their desires are raw from their youth. And you're like, wait, Noah just got off the boat and he's like doing the right thing, you know, like immediately surrendering, you know, precious, something precious to God.
Yeah. And the very reason that God sent the flood, is still holds for humanity, like God can see it coming. But then what God says is, Okay, but instead of a r a flood response, I'm never gonna d do that cosmic decreation again. What I am gonna do is create a state a realm of order and it's the little poem and there's gonna be day and night and summer and winter and sowing and harvest and reaping.
And it's the statement, as it were, that God is actually going to hold and sustain creation. It is on the table that God could just do decreations for everything in response to human raw. And in one sense, you could say that might be a just response. But also that would be compromising God's commitment on page one, which is to have a world of human partners who God is partnering with to oversee creation. So if God did pull a flood every time, there just wouldn't be any more humans.
So there in in Genesis eight, and then God swears, you know, writes his name in a covenant on the dotted line with Noah to say, instead of just doing the flood move all the time, what we're gonna do is like the long game. And God is going to make a covenant with chosen ones and commission them and just restart the Eden project, but just on a smaller scale, more local levels.
and sustain creation despite human evil, even when evil threatens to undo it. So the flood story is super important about this picture of divine violence. And what I began to notice then is that all of these stories that still bother me. I mean I 100% still bother me. Whether it's Sodom and Gomorrah g getting roasted, you know, from from the skies. whether
It's the ten plagues, which I understand from one perspective, but also, you know, the t the taking the life of the firstborn on Passover. every church community I've ever taught on Passover, like that's the number one thing they're thinking about. obviously the use of Israel, sending them in to confront the Canaanites in the promised land and the book of Joshua, like these stories about God either directly or directly.
By means of human agents, employing decreation or violence as a form of decreating as a response to human evil. They're deeply troubling. And I think they're supposed to trouble us. it and you know, for a while I was satisfied saying it's sort of like a divine compromise of dealing with humans in a language they understand.
But I also struggle with that because the only reason I'm reading these texts is because I follow Jesus. And I confess that Jesus is God's ultimate revelation of his response to human evil. which is not to kill us, it's actually to let us kill him. And so holding together the Jesus res as God's response ultimately to evil, with these portraits of God as De Creator in the Old Testament, it's a genuine tension.
It will never go away. Every generation of followers of Jesus from the second century onward have struggled to hold those two pictures together in one collection of scriptures. But I also keep experiencing that tension personally as productive, as generative. Like it keeps me searching and it keeps me open minded instead of closed minded to certain options. And but I also just want to acknowledge it it's
I think one of the most glaring points of tension within a a Christian view of reality is these two pictures. I won't say two, these the mosaic of God's character in the Bible that has both Joshua sending in the Canaanites, you know, and also Jesus dying, you know, for the sins of his enemies. So that was a lot. Yeah.
I think it was mostly coordinated as a response to your question, Greg, but I'm I'm happy to go further.
Tim Mackie (14:42)
Yeah.
Scott Rice (14:43)
Tim, if I can jump in here, because you you've actually just named and I think in what other ways answered the question I I wanted to pose to you, which is I think from so many of us would say that the Bible project and the readings of the Bible project bring out the patterns and themes of the texts that are just the the hyperlinks that are there in a way that that shed light on on the biblical stories in such new, beautiful ways. You see how sophisticated these texts are. And going in like you know, you go in and out of the flood story with these themes.
So in one sense, it's like, this is really beautiful. And yet, I still kind of have this story in and of itself in the flood story that still has these very challenging images and questions that it raises about God. And and so out and for you to name, right, that you see these beautiful meanings, these patterns, and it's still a really hard story. My question was going to be how how are you able to be able to sit with both of those things? And I the way I hear you say that, you know.
There's there is this portrait of the person of Jesus that compels me kind of to see the goodness of God in a productive way, that I'm able to hold to him. It doesn't answer all the questions, but hold to him as this deep revelation of God that shows me how good God is. I I find that helpful, pretty satisfying. so like I said, I think a lot of it you've answered my question. If there's anything you'd want to add to it, please feel free to to jump in.
Greg Fung (16:06)
Maybe just two two things in my mind. One that's just something I'm learning about being human. and that is I find that when there are the deepest questions that I have about the world and life and purpose and meaning and evil and goodness, when things appear like contradictions to me, what I find is when I don't let go of it.
And I keep learning, finding the smartest people I can find, and then returning to scripture to read it all and synthesize it and have lots of cups of coffee with my friends and talk about it. What felt like contradictions to me 20 years ago, I don't feel those anymore. I just feel new ones. But what I'm finding is that there's something about what I think is a contradiction.
Actually I'm trying to learn how to reframe that as that's the invitation. Like lean in there and go there. And there's something transformative. I think for as humans, as we learn wisdom is as as you c there's always like a d the deeper issue under the issue under the issue. And I so I mean I've had the privilege of spending the last like thirty years just I can't believe
The life God has given me, but to just like read and learn and think and write and preach and teach and be with people who want to talk and learn about this stuff. And so the questions I'm asking now are so different than the questions 30 years ago. But I feel like I'm still a baby. Like I just I still feel like there's so much, but it's different. Like it I really have developed in what it ha what and things that bot used to bother me don't bother me anymore. So I just have to trust that that's something about the nature of being.
creature made in God's image is that we have a s a taste and a sense of what goodness really is. But because we're creatures, we're always going to be going on a journey towards it and towards greater understanding. And learning to sit with the questions that bother me and not ignoring them, I I've learned is really important. So God's violence in the Bible is one of those for me. And
So that's that thought there. I think the other pieces, and maybe we'll go into this or I I'm not sure, but I think the Jesus as the ultimate and kind of like foundational response of God to human evil is really important. and that that is the set of that that should be the set of glasses through which I think about all of God's behavior in the old testament.
I I think a lot of the ways scriptures can get misused to justify and that have been used to justify violent means of coercion in the name of Jesus, I think a lot of that has been a result of failing to read the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus with Jesus as the center. so there's a lot more there that I think is important to unpack.
But I just wanted to at least say it in summary summary form.
Tim Mackie (19:34)
I is there anything so I really appreciate that sort of going to Jesus, looking at through this prism of Jesus, does this idea of the creative tension maybe between, say, divine violence, the Old Testament, and this clarity we have in Jesus. Does that in some ways h help you re understand your vision of Jesus, or is it always one directional? We we simply look at the old testament th through the lens of Jesus and
make do with that or is there something that creates in in in that tension there. Yeah.
Greg Fung (20:05)
I see. Yeah.
I I think it has to be both directions. 'cause Jesus only makes the sense that he makes, really, true truly, if you understand the story that you have to I mean, like why is he an Israelite? Why does it matter that he's connected to the line of David? why is Israel s suffering under yet another empire? And why does just all of it, right? So on one sense you need
The story leading up to him. But at the same time, the the element of surprise in the way the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus and Pentecost, the way that went down, also the gospel authors are clearly telling us like blue some categories, while also being recognizable as the next thing God was doing that makes sense of God doing this. So all all I can
The best analogy I have at present is just the nature of like a surprise when someone that you know really well surprises you. You know, let's say, you know, someone who loves you, a family member surprises you for with, you know, something awesome for your birthday. And on one sense, it's like you know that person really well, and you would have some sense of continuity, like, Whoa, you did that for me. Of course you did that for me.
'Cause of that experience we had five years ago and so whatever. We went to that concert and now you got me the t shirt or whatever, you know. But I didn't know you were gonna give me the t shirt this way. And so it's continuity and surprise. And I think you have to hold on to both of those to make sense of the old and new testaments as one Bible. Yeah. and so the surprise is that God would conquer his enemies.
bide and rule over them by letting them kill him and dying for them and taking their violence into himself and letting it do its worst. there were lots of pictures of a suffering deliverer figure coming from the Hebrew Bible. but it clearly didn't it's not like the disciples were just waiting around going, I'm waiting for God to become human.
And suffer and die for our sins. But the moment it happened, they could look back to the scriptures and be like, my gosh, like it was there all along. and I think it really was there all along, but it took the unique events of the life of Jesus to to bring all those pieces together. so that's that's kind of a nerdy theological question about how you hold together, you know, the two parts of the one with the one Christian Bible. When it comes to violence,
I think that's where the the tension can arise. And I just I have to return to like this is these are my basics. is I'm a follower of Jesus. he said that those who live by the sword die by the sword. And that ended up being true, even for all those who God commissions to use the sword in the Old Testament. Is it just continued to work as the
Part of the spiral of of human violence. Also true for the Israelites. You know, it's not like their entry into the land of Canaan and doing what they did to the Canaanit solved anything at all. The book of Judges like makes that really clear. so taking Jesus as God's ultimate fundamental response to human evil. I don't, I d I think to be a Christian is I think to believe that's true and then
Think through the implications of what it means to d to live as a human and then human communities. and to fail to take that seriously, I think, just is a sign that something has gone wrong with me or my community's way of engaging the scriptures. I that's a hot take. But that is that is my take.
Tim Mackie (24:15)
Great, helpful.
Keep exploring!
Begin here! This is Theology Lab’s series for exploring the complexities of faith for a nuanced faith today, one that values both belief and critical thinking — together.
Check out Part 1 of this conversation with Tim Mackie. The episode looks at Genesis 1-11 and how the Bible conveys the beginning but especially the scaling out of human sin and the problem of evil.
