“You Have Shed Much Blood, and Waged Great Wars”: Killing, Bloodguilt, and Combat Stress

ABSTRACT

Are all warriors who have killed somehow polluted and prevented from an intimate relationship with God? This essay seeks to answer this question both affirmatively and negatively by correlating biblical literature, psychology, and the experience of veterans. Although killing in war defiles soldiers with bloodguilt and mars their relationship with the divine and with humans, ritual acts of purification in conjunction with appropriate psychological and pastoral care may cleanse this bloodguilt and restore relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Bloodguilt
• killing
• ritual purity
• religion
• stress

Notes

1. All biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated.

2. Holmstedt has conducted numerous interviews with female veterans whose stories are not widely known. Women soldiers have engaged in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some have been decorated for valor.

3. Raymond Monsour Scurfield discusses this phenomenon and its denial. He notes the controversial remarks by Marine Lieutenant General James Mattis who spoke of how “It's fun to shoot some people.” He notes that “Mattis was rebuked for speaking too candidly about having fun shooting the enemy. But he was not rebuked for the fact that he enjoyed killing other human beings. That combatants may get a kick out of killing is the nasty secret of war—and for some, it is an intoxicating emotional rush. Of course, this is almost always minimized if not denied in public. And some such combatants may feel no guilt or shame or remorse or sadness at all” (Scurfield, 2006, p. 129).

4. Dr. Heide Squier Kraft reports the story of a soldier who experienced guilt over not killing. A small child threw a paper bag at his convoy. He saw it coming and knew that protocol clearly required him to “neutralize the threat” (children sometimes threw explosives), but he hesitated to kill a child. He realized that he put his convoy and comrades at risk. He came to a psychological officer distraught over his decision (Kraft, 2007, p. 198–99).

5. This expression translates the Hebrew in the New Revised Standard Version. The Hebrew term might be rendered various ways. The word for avenger also means redeemer and the word for blood also means bloodguilt.

6. The term slew is modified from murdered in the New Revised Standard Version, a possible meaning for the Hebrew verb. However, the verb also refers to general killing, including judicial execution and animal slaughter.

7. Modern biblical scholarship theorizes that the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Bible) was collected and edited from four different written sources including a priestly source, abbreviated as P. The theory, known as the Documentary Hypothesis, is not without critics. For more information, see any scholarly introduction to the Old Testament, such as Coogan (2006, p. 21–30).

8. For more detail concerning the Israelite purity system, see Coogan, 2006, p. 142–44; Miller, 2000, p. 149–155; Wenham, 2002, p. 378–394.

9. For more information on the ban, see Niditch (1993, p. 28–77). The ban occurs frequently in the book of Joshua; see Nelson (1997, p. 19–20.) On Numbers 31, see Niditch (1993, p. 78–89); Levine (2000, p. 445–74). The ban is also known from the Moabite inscription by King Mesha of Moab, who boasted of putting the Israelites in Nebo (in Moab) to the ban; see Hallo (1997–2003, p. 137–138).

10. Modified from New Revised Standard Version “Murderer!,” which accurately renders the sense. Shimei identifies David as one burdened with bloodguilt and therefore unworthy to be king. He sees Absalom's rebellion as divine justice.

11. See especially Halpern, 2001; McKenzie, 2000; for more nuanced portraits, see Steussy, 1999; Bosworth, 2006.

12. See, for example, Hallo et al., 1997–2003. p. 2: 155–158. On the importance of royal patronage of temples in the ancient Near East, see Lauderville, 2003, p. 325–331; Miller, 2000, p. 88–90.

13. Stephen Mansfield (2005) interviewed soldiers about their religious faith and notes a variety of spiritual approaches to combat. He evaluates them more in terms of their utility for and coherence with the military mission, although he also notes how these beliefs affect the wellbeing of the soldier.