A Biblical Perspective on the Root of

Violence in the Context of Missions

Beth Snodderly

Summary of Ralph D. Winters

Missiological Interpretation of
Genesis 1

alph Winter sees Genesis 1:1 as a local new

beginning in the Middle East after a major
disaster, such as an asteroidal collision, had
wiped out life in that part of a pre-Genesis 1:1 creation. 1 This disaster would have been the result of
judgment, as is the case prior to other biblical new
beginnings such as the Flood, the calling of Abraham,
and the coming of Jesus the Messiah. The origin and
Fall of Satan (see Ezekiel 28: 12-17) and the existence of the vicious life forms seen in the fossil record
(Winter 2005b) all belong to this pre-Genesis 1:1
creation in Winters interpretation. Genesis 1 shows
God preparing the land for a new humanity, made in
His image for the purpose of working with Him to
bring order out of chaos and to defeat the intentions of
the adversary. Winters major concern that is addressed
in his interpretation of Genesis 1 is to show that the
battle between good and evil has been present from
before the beginning and humankind was created
to join that battle. Included in that battle is the mandate to fight disease along with other evils in working
with God to restore order to his good creation and to
restore His glory and reputation.
In his call to the evangelical world to include fighting disease as an aspect of mission, Winter is echoing
biblical themes that have their origin in Genesis 1:2. It
is the thesis of this paper that tohu wabohu is anything
that is the opposite of creation and order and that it is
a description of the root of human problems around
the world, including violence found in missions settings. It is fighting tohu wabohu to do anything that
brings order out of chaos. This is the origin of a theology
of disease. (Dis-ease is the opposite of ease; the opposite of order; the opposite of Gods intentions = tohu

wabohu.) What did God do in Genesis 1 to overcome

tohu wabohu? The first few verses show the pattern for
the rest of the chapter and give the key to the entire
Bible. Something opposite to Gods intentions exists
and is described in Genesis 1:2. The rest of the Bible
explains how to overcome and/or avoid tohu wabohu at
various levels (physical, personal, family, social, political) or it shows what happens when tohu wabohu is
not overcome. The whole theme of Scripture is to fight
back against the opposition to Gods intentions. This is
the biblical worldview demonstrated throughout Israels
history, in the prophets interpretation of that history,
in Jesus activity and words, and in Pauls description of
living in the Kingdom. Where Gods Kingdom does
not yet exist, tohu wabohu reigns (including disease and
violence) and missionary activity is needed to destroy
the works of Gods adversary, the devil.
Abstract: This paper takes an exegetical approach to
exploring the implications of the term tohu wabohu and
concludes that Genesis 1:2ff is the theological basis for
fighting evil. As a description of the root of all human
problems, including violence in missions, this figure
of speech also contains within itself the solution to
those problems. These verses show that God has evil
under control and patiently counter-acts it with acts of
creativity, including the creation of humans to join Him
in fighting back against tohu wabohu. Believers have the
privilege of allowing Gods Spirit (ruach elohim) to work
through them to demonstrate His glory, by bringing order out of chaos and by overcoming evil with good (Hebrew, tob, a word play with the similar-sounding tohu).
Believers are called to overcome tohu wabohu at all levels
of existence: personal, family, society, and cross-culturally through mission activity. Tohu wabohuwherever
it is foundis not Gods will. Demonstration of Gods
will and Gods glory is the responsibility of the Body of
Christ, so that all peoples can come to know and obey
Him, in fulfillment of the Great Commission.

A Biblical Perspective on the Root of Violence in the Context of Missions

There is an urgent need for a hermeneutic that allows

culture and experience to play a role in the formulation
of our understanding and theology of spiritual conflict.
The basis and test of such a theology is Scripture.
(Moreau 2002: xxvii)

bereshit bara elohim et hassamayim weet haeretz

wehaeretz
hayeta tohu wabohu
wehosek al-pene tehom
weruach elohim merahepet al-pene hammayim
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.
As for the earth,
it was destroyed and desolate (tohu wabohu),
with darkness on the face of the deep,
but the Spirit of God stirring over the face of the
waters. (Genesis 1:1, 2; authors translation from
the Hebrew).

Woe to those who do their work in darkness

You turn things upside down, as if the potter were
thought to be like the clay! (Isaiah 29:16, NIV)

These [men] have turned the world upside down. (Acts

17:6, KJV)

A Biblical explanation for the origin

of violence in missions
When a portion of the world is drastically and violently upside down from Gods intentions (which in turn
are upside down from human expectations), Scripture
shows that God often decides to shake that world
through judgment and start over with a person or people who are open to His leading. 1 An exegetical study
of the Hebrew figure of speech, tohu wabohu, shows
that the term is an integral part of the original description of the pattern of judgment and new beginnings in
Scripture. Tohu wabohu describes both the opposition
to Gods purposes and the consequences of that opposition. Tohu wabohu, then, describes the root cause of
violence in missions, namely, people and societies operating in opposition to Gods intentions for this world.
Diseases, natural disasters, famines and droughts, accidents, socio-political disorders, economic oppressions
and the like could be either the consequences of divine
judgment, satanic assaults, human sinfulness or some
combination of these factors. (Moreau 2002: 9) That
is a good assessment of the meaning and connotations
of tohu wabohu. It refers to both the circumstances that
are the cause of judgment and the consequences experienced as a result of judgment, which is often simply
a withdrawal of Gods protection of a society from the
evil tendencies of humankind.
Since judgment is always associated in Scripture with
the word tohu, 2 it is logical to assume that the first
occurrence of the word in Genesis 1:2 would have had
the same connotation. In fact, it could have been the
original use of the term that other writers of Scripture
had in mind in their own use of the term. It might
seem natural to ask, what could have been in existence
before the Genesis 1 creation account that God would
have seen a need to judge? Merrill Unger represents a
conservative evangelical understanding that the first
verses of Genesis may speak of a judged earth that is
about to be re-created:
Genesis 1:1, 2 evidently describes not the primeval
creation ex nihilo, but the much later refashioning of
a judgment-ridden earth in preparation for a new order
of creation-man. The Genesis account deals only with
Gods creative activity as it concerns the human race in
its origin, fall and redemption. (1958: 28)
God did not create the earth in the state of a chaos of
wasteness, emptiness, and darkness ( John 38:4, 7; Isa.

Beth Snodderly

45:18). It was reduced to this condition because it was

the theater where sin began in Gods originally sinless
universe in connection with the revolt of Lucifer (Satan) and his angels (Isa. 14:12-14; Ezek. 28:13, 15-17;
Rev. 12:4). The chaos was the result of Gods judgment
upon the originally sinless earth. (Unger 1981: 5)

The term tohu wabohu is not limited, however, to the

physical condition of the land before the creation
events of Genesis 1. Satan is still active in this world
deceiving people into ongoing rebellion and violence.
Tohu wabohu can also describe chaos at a societal level
(and other levels of existence), as will be seen in the
following studies of the historical and literary context
of the term. This exegetical study will highlight implications for other societies as we see that the conditions
described as tohu wabohu are not Gods will and that
He wants to work through His people to correct these
conditions. (Be fruitful and multiply, and subdue the
earth [Genesis 1:28].) We will see that overcoming
tohu wabohu foreshadows Gods ultimate intentions for
this world and demonstrates His glory.

Historical Context: Original

audiences understanding of tohu
wabohu
In seeking for a biblical perspective on the origin of
violence in missions and its solution, the question
needs to be asked, what would Moses audience have
understood tohu wabohu to mean? The original audience must have heard Genesis 1 spoken aloud as part
of the oral literature of ancient Israel. (Fox 1983: ix)
What would they have envisioned as they heard the
description in Genesis 1:2 of the condition of the land
before God made it habitable for humans?
The earth was destroyed and desolate (tohu wabohu)
with darkness on the face of the deep.

Moses listeners, who had recently escaped from the

chaos of slavery and non-entity in Egypt (evidences of
societal tohu wabohu) and had experienced deliverance
from the destructive waters of the Red Sea (physical
tohu wabohu), would have been caught up in the imagery evoked by the words and sounds of Genesis 1:1, 2.
Their own recent experiences would have caused them
to resonate with the word play and meaning of the
rhyming tohu wabohu and the assonance of ruach/mera-

hepet. (The consonant and vowel sounds of the first syllables in merahepet [stirring] echo the sound of ruach
[spirit]. [Kselman: 1978: 164]) The juxtaposition of
these two sets of word plays must have been a reassuring sound to the people of Israel as Moses began to
explain to them how their God had prepared a place
for them to live. First God had brought order and
goodness to a land that was tohu wabohudestroyed
and desolate, turned upside down (thats like us! they
would have recognized). Then Moses explained that
God had never left that land (or the people) without
the presence of His ruach merahepet (spirit stirring). 3
In conjunction with this historical background, the
well-known Hebrew literary trait of parallelism further
illumines the meaning of the term tohu wabohu. In the
first two lines of Genesis 1: 2, darkness and deep
are in a parallel construction with tohu wabohu and
serve as an elaboration of the meaning of this figure
of speech. (Cassuto 1944: 23) Both the words darkness/hosek and deep/tehom would no doubt have
sent shivers of remembered horror down the spines of
Moses listeners. They had just escaped from slavery
(societal tohu wabohu) in the land of Egypt where the
plague of darkness had helped change Pharaohs mind
about letting them go. It was also in the darkness of
night that the final plague of the death of the Egyptian
firstborn sons took place. Moses audience had also
just escaped from the deeps of the feared sea by the
ruach/wind of God (Exodus 15:10, another allusion
from Genesis 1:2) separating the water and making a
dry path, followed by the drowning of their enemies
(physical tohu wabohu). There is no doubt but that the
imagery conjured up by the language in the parallelism
of Genesis 1:2 would have meant to Moses audience
that the land at the beginning, before God started
making it livable, was a chaotic, ominous, hostile and
even violent place.
The account of how God shaped the worthless land
into a livable place would also have served as a metaphor for the people to see how God was making them
into a nation. The Book of Exodus shows God bringing the people out of chaos, a situation most societies
throughout history and across cultures can identify
with since chaos and violence are often associated with
a society that is not yet ordered according to Gods
plan. (For example, according to a report at the U.S.
Center for World Mission from a missionary with
Operation Mobilization, 30,000 prostitutes live and

A Biblical Perspective on the Root of Violence in the Context of Missions

work in one street in Nepal. These are girls who have

been kidnapped and sold into slavery.) The story of the
formation of the people of Israel into a nation begins
with emphasis on the negative, chaotic conditions under which they were living in slavery in Egypt, just as
Genesis 1:2 begins with emphasis on the negative, chaotic condition of the earth before God started making
it habitable. Israels deliverance from the tohu wabohu
of slavery, with God drying up a path through the
sea, echoes the separation of the waters from dry land
in creation. Both of these events also foreshadow the
fulfillment of history when, in a final new beginning,
God will dry even the smallest amounts of salty water,
the tears spoken of in Revelation 21:4, representative
of the troubles and chaos the ancient Hebrew people
traditionally associated with the sea.

Patterns of overcoming tohu wabohu

in biblical history
Gods acts in history foreshadow His ultimate intentions for the earth when He shakes it one last time and
starts over with a new heaven and new earth. What
responsibility do believers have to join God in demonstrations in the present that foreshadow what it will
look like when His will is being done on earth as it
is in heaven? Throughout Scripture we see patterns
that can help answer this question. God never gave up
trying to bring order out of chaos. He never gave up
trying to win a people who would demonstrate His
glory to the rest of the world.
Movement from a state of chaos and trouble, including
social disorganization, to a state of peace in the land,
is the pattern Richard Clifford sees in the poetic accounts of the Exodus (Psalm 77:15-19; 78:42-55 and
Exodus 15). (1985: 510, 511) Somehow this pattern
needs to be repeated within all cultures and societies,
most noticeably those in which violence prevails. A
new creation of these societies is needed, following the
pattern found in the Exodus account and in Genesis 1.
Can the work of missions be seen as the equivalent of
the ruach elohim, the wind and Spirit of God (and the
weapon of God, see Zechariah 4:6 4), that prepared the
way for Gods new beginning in each of these creationsof a society and of the land?
The pattern we are examining for applicability to missions today begins with the description of the uninhabitable condition of the earth or land in Genesis

1:2. The violent, hopeless nature of the land is implied

by its description as tohu wabohu. What was needed to
turn it upside down so that it could be described as the
opposite of tohu wabohutob/good? God gives a pattern in Genesis 1 for overcoming evil. In making the
land ready for humans to live in, the first thing God
did was to correct the darkness associated with tohu
wabohu by calling for light to appear. He called the
light good/tob. John Sailhamer calls attention to the
word play with similar sounds: tohu describes the land
before God made it tob/good. (1996: 63) Tob could
even possibly be seen as an ellipsis of tohu wabohu. In
this sense, the figure of speech, tohu wabohu, shortened
to tob, contains within itself the solution to anticreational chaos and violenceovercoming evil with
good. 5
After light appeared, in a series of unhurried creative
acts, God prepared the land as a place for humans to
live peacefully. The next thing He did was to make
some basic structural divisions (between the waters
above and the waters beneath, then separating the dry
land from the water) to be followed later by filling in
the details. He wasnt in a hurry to get everything ready
at once. Instead He worked within the framework of
evenings and mornings toward His goal of making a
land habitable for humans, who could then continue
working with Him according to His example of how
to work and live well in the land.
Through reflection on the pattern of the six days of
creation, the Israelites could learn important lessons
about God and their relationship to him. Is it possible that principles from the Creation account may
also serve as a pattern for missiologists in constructing
creative strategies for reaching a violent society with
the shalom of the Gospel; or for the society itself to repattern itself after the principles of Gods Word?
One of the lessons Moses audience would have learned
from the Creation account comes from the emphasis
on the word land/eretz in verse 2. By placing this
word in an emphatic position at the beginning of the
verse, Moses called attention to the covenant that God
was making with the people, of which the land was a
visible representation. In his covenant with Israel at
Sinai, God promised to give them a good land where
they could enjoy his blessing and have fellowship
with Him. They had to remain faithful and obedient,
however. (Sailhamer 1996: 73) The lesson learned by
the link between land and covenant is that obedience

Beth Snodderly

is necessary, otherwise judgment on the land and loss

of the land will follow. The rest of the Old Testament
can be seen as a commentary on this relationship
between the land and obedience to the covenant. To
help emphasize the importance of not incurring Gods
judgment through disobedience, the tohu wabohu condition of the land prior to the creation events serves as
advance warning.

Historical Context: Other

occurrences of the term tohu wabohu
The warning in Genesis 1:2 was not enough, however,
to prevent the recurrence of tohu wabohu. Among many
other judgments, two particular examples describe the
condition of land as tohu wabohu. In each of these occurrences (Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23), the term
indicates that something is opposite or upside down
from Gods intended order. (A transliterated French
expression, tohu bohu, still carries this meaning that is
equivalent to the English phrase, topsy turvey. [Barnhouse 1965: 15])
In Isaiah 34:11, the prophet refers to the measuring
line of chaos/confusion (tohu) and the plumb line of
desolation (bohu), using imagery of building construction to indicate just the opposite: the tearing down of
a civilization and the resulting emptiness of a howling desert. David Stacey points out that the immediate context (vs. 9, 10) sounds like a description of the
results of volcanic activity: Edoms streams will be
turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her
land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched
night and day; its smoke will rise forever (Isaiah
34:9, 10). He suggests this description could also be
an allusion to the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. (Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on
Sodom and Gomorrah and [Abraham] saw dense
smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace [Genesis 19:24, 28].) Christopher Seitz sees in
this chapter, in which a variety of wild animals mates
are mentioned three times, an allusion to the chaos of
Noahs flood. (1993: 237) Isaiah seems to pile up as
much imagery in chapter 34 as he can think of, including the allusion to the chaos preceding creation (tohu
wabohu), to make his point that Edom will be judged!
In Jeremiah 4:23 the prophet warns that God is sending an agent from the north to destroy the people of
Israel. As in Isaiah 34, the towns will be ruined and

will become desert again. All this would happen because Gods people foolishly refused to know and obey
Him. Their moral values were completely reversed (upside down). They are skilled in doing evil; they know
not how to do good (v. 22). In this passage we see that
the earth has become empty, shaken, ruined and shattered because of the Lords anger against evil. Creation
is being reversed and undone in a sense. Elliott Binns
remarks, The trembling of the mountains represents
the overturning of all that is stable and trustworthy.
(1919: 45)

Literary context for the meaning of

tohu wabohu
These historical contexts for the phrase tohu wabohu
make it clear that this term is related to the causes and
consequences of Gods judgment on the land, and that
the negative physical conditions can serve as a metaphor for societal and other levels of disorder. What
further insights can be gained from a literary analysis
of the biblical text that would be useful for cross-cultural workers trying to help a particular society escape
from the chaos and violence of tohu wabohu?
The figure of speech in the Hebrew, tohu wabohu,
startles the listener or reader with its rhyming quality
and calls attention to the fact that something surprising and significant is being said, possibly something
unexpected that will throw the reader and listener off
balance. Perhaps the rhyme gave a playful, as well as
memorable, twist to the depiction of anti-creational
chaos. Job seems to do something similar in his description of the feared sea monster, Leviathan, in Job
41:5: Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook?
Can you make a pet of him?
Perhaps by the whimsical sound of the words he was
inspired to choose, tohu wabohu, Moses was reassuring
the people that God has chaos under control and that
even conditions contrary to Gods will can be turned
to His good purposes. This larger perspective can also
be reassuring to cross-cultural workers who at times
might become so focused on current severe problems
that they could lose sight of Gods long-term plan
to bring all peoples to himselfa plan that is being
worked out within the context of a world still filled
with tohu wabohu. (A current example of this would be
the boy soldiers of Uganda who are trained to kill.)
In addition to this whimsical quality of the term, its

A Biblical Perspective on the Root of Violence in the Context of Missions

etymology may contain an allusion to a state of being

jumbled, mixed up or upside down. Although the
word tohu occurs 17 times in Scripture (three times
as part of the term tohu wabohu), the word bohu never
occurs alone. This could be because, as Robert Alter
speculates, it may have been invented for the purpose
of rhyming with tohu. (2004: 17) The short etymology
of bohu proposed here illuminates the significance of
the combined term. For the purposes of this etymology, we consider the possibility suggested by Michael
Fishbane that tohu wabohu falls within the category
of the figure of speech known as paronomasia. (1971:
161) The Oxford English Dictionary defines paronomasia as, to alter slightly in naming; a playing on
words that sound alike; a word-play; a pun. If this
proposal is accepted, the mixed-up origin of the phrase
already hints at the meaning of the term tohu wabohu,
communicating by its sound a mixed up, disordered
state of being. The original word that was mixed up
in creating the new term may have been one used in
2 Kings 17:15. In this passage the people fell under
judgment for going after the vain or worthless thing/
hahahval (idols) (Strongs # 1891) and they themselves
became vain, worthless/wahebalu (Strongs # 1891). If
we consider the phrase tohu wabohu (a variation of tohu
wehabalu) to be a pun, we could speculate that former
inhabitants of the earth or land (prior to Genesis 1:1,
2; cf. Ezekiel 28: 15-17) had similarly followed vain
and worthless things and had themselves become
worthless (wehabalu). (As a side note, compare this to
Matthew 5:13: You are the salt of the earth. But if
the salt loses its saltiness, it is no longer good for
anything [it is worthless], except to be thrown out and
trampled under by men.)
Describing the condition of the earth with the mocking rhyme, tohu wabohu, would have communicated
to Moses listeners that something had gone wrong,
was out of order, contrary to Gods intentions, before
He began setting things back in order through Creation. The value of rhyme for bringing out this upside
down connotation of tohu wabohu can also be seen in
Isaiah 45:18, one of the passages in which tohu occurs alone. Because of the close links to Genesis 1:2, 6
the rhyme in Isaiah 45:18 may indirectly be giving us
another example of the meaning of the full phrase, tohu
wabohu. In the Hebrew it can be seen that Isaiah 45:18
contains a poem that both rhymes and has the same
number of syllables, something that is not necessary or

usual in Hebrew poetry:

Lo tohu beraa
Lasebet yesara
He did not create it to be [tohu]
But formed it to be inhabited

Since most Hebrew poetry does not rhyme, the fact

that this is the second occurrence of rhyme in association with the word tohu indicates something significant
is being said that needs extra thought. Could it be that
Isaiah introduced this word play because he had the
rhyming sound of tohu wabohu in mind when he chose
to use the word tohu in this context? In that case then,
we would have a fourth (implied) context for the term
tohu wabohu. This playful rhyme in Isaiah 45:18 shows
that God wants to turn the original conditions upside
down that are described by the rhyming words tohu
wabohu. He wants to reverse the judged state of the
land (described earlier in Isaiah 45), to make it inhabited and life-giving. The context shows that Cyrus,
as Gods servant, is going to rebuild what God had
allowed to be destroyed (confirmation of the fact that
God works through humans to accomplish his purposes in the world).

Translations of tohu wabohu

The synonymous parallelism of Isaiah 45:18 shows
that tohu, in this case, specifically means uninhabited,
empty, or purposeless. God did not create the world to
be purposeless or meaningless, as it would be if there
were no inhabitants. The mission and purpose of Gods
people is specified a few verses later: Turn to me and
be saved, all you ends of the earth Before me every
knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear (Isaiah
45: 22, 23). God wants all nations to be included in
this rebuilding, another reassurance for those working
with societies still trapped in dysfunctional and violent
patterns of existence (tohu wabohu).
Translations for tohu wabohu by various commentators
range from topsy turvey, extremely empty, unproductive and uninhabitable, to desert-like, not producing or
supporting life, wreck and ruin, destroyed and desolate,
the opposite of creation. These layers of meaning (from
whimsical to deadly and anti-creational) can apply in
the cultural, societal and personal (mental or physical)
realms as well as to the negative, mixed-up state of the

Beth Snodderly

physical creation. Jon Levenson, in Creation and the

Persistence of Evil, extends the meaning of tohu wabohu
in Genesis 1:2 beyond the merely physical conditions
of the earth to take it as an affirmation that God as
the Creator of the world is directed against the forces
that oppose him and his acts of creationthe forces of
disorder, injustice, affliction, and chaos, which are, in
the Israelite worldview, one. (1988: xix) This is a key
insight with implications for cross-cultural workers.
Tohu wabohu emcompasses all forces of disorder.

Conclusions and applications to

cross-cultural work
Once they were settled in their land, the disorder the
Israelites feared most was represented by the concrete
imagery of the desert, the tohu wabohu that was always
waiting in the wings to take over if they didnt care for
their land or if their enemies destroyed it. Von Rad
points out that people have always known that evil
lurks in the background of their experience. Man has
always suspected that behind all creation lies the abyss
of formlessness; that the chaos, therefore, signifies
simply the threat to everything created. (1972: 52)
What represents the lurking evil and chaos for other
societies? If a society does not have righteous leaders
and godly vision (see Proverbs 29:18) what form of
chaos takes over? Senseless violence is one of the characteristics of a society that has fallen into the condition
of tohu wabohu. Where Gods Kingdom does not yet
exist, tohu wabohu reigns (including disease and violence) and missionary activity is needed to destroy the
works of Gods adversary, the devil. Until the chaotic
conditions that are caused by the works of the devil are
overcome, the people cannot understand or respond to
the gospel.
Tohu wabohu is a metaphor for the root of the problems of human existence that must be addressed by
cross-cultural workers, bringing order out of chaos
wherever they go as representatives of the kingdom
of God. The extremely negative imagery associated
with tohu wabohu indicates that, wherever it is found,
it is not Gods will. In each occurrence of this term
it describes a judged and destroyed state of the earth
and this emptiness and meaninglessness comes about
because it is deserved. (Motyer 1993: 271) It implies
the existence of evil and the need to overcome that evil
in order for Gods will to be done (on earth as it is in
heaven). The whole earth is under judgment because

the whole world is under the control of the evil one

(1 John 5:19).
The context in which the concept of tohu wabohu is
introduced right at the beginning of Scripture, shows
Gods purpose is to correct conditions on this earth
that are contrary to his will. The opening verses of
Genesis give the theological basis for fighting evil and
the way to fight it--patiently overcoming evil with
good. By describing the opposite of Gods intentions
in the context of the Creation account, tohu wabohu
points toward the goal of that creationa place that
can be inhabited by humans in fellowship with God.
This term gives the key to the Old Testament, and to
the entire Bible. An adversary that is hostile to life and
opposite to Gods intentions exists. The whole theme
of existence is to fight back against the disorder and
chaos orchestrated by the adversary to oppose God,
which in extreme cases explodes in violence at both
personal and societal levels. The Creation account of
Genesis 1 points the way to fight back in showing
that it is possible to restore order with creativity and
patience, showing how to overcome evil with good.
At the end of Scripture, in the Book of Revelation, we
see the fulfillment of Gods purposes in history described in terms showing that the state of tohu wabohu
has finally been fully reversed: there is no more death,
crying or pain. Darkness and night have been permanently replaced with light (see Revelation 21: 3, 4; 22:
5). In between this beginning and ending of Scripture,
the rest of the Bible explains how to overcome and/
or avoid tohu wabohu at various levels or it shows what
happens when tohu wabohu is not overcome.
All societies have to answer the question, How shall
we bring order out of chaos? People trying to be submitted to God in any culture need to find their own
particular implications for how to live in right relationship with God within that culture, including overcoming tohu wabohu/evil, with good (Romans 12:13).
Humans allowing Gods Spirit to work through them
to defeat the adversary in this way can turn their world
upside down, as was said of the disciples in the book
of Acts. Or perhaps we should say, they can help turn
the world right side up, restoring it in some ways to
Gods original intentions and bringing Him glory in
the process.
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you
(Genesis 12:3).

A Biblical Perspective on the Root of Violence in the Context of Missions

End Notes

Reference List

1. John Sailhamer, the most outspoken contemporary proponent of the local earth theory, cautions in his book, Genesis
Unbound, that today the word earth too easily calls up images of
the whole planet on which we live. (1996: 58) The modern view
of the universe should not be allowed to control our understanding
of what the author of Genesis would have meant by earth. One
of Sailhamers sources, John Pye Smith, stated, a most important
inquiry is the meaning of the word [eretz] which we render earth.
(1854: 249) He goes on to point out that the ancient Hebrews
could not have had any conception of the planet as we know it
(the spheroidal figure of the earth), so we must base our understanding of the earth in conformity with the ideas of the people
who used it. Frequently it stands for the land of Palestine, and
indeed for any country or district that is mentioned or referred to.
Sometimes [eretz] denotes a mere plot of ground; and sometimes
the soil, clay, and sand, or any earthy matter. (1854: 250)

Alter, Robert. 2004. The five books of Moses: A translation with

commentary. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

2. Examples of Gods new beginnings in Scripture include the

Genesis 1 Creation account, Flood, the calling of Abraham, the
Exodus, the return from Exile, the coming of Jesus the Messiah,
and the final new beginning described in the Book of Revelation,
the new heaven and the new earth.

Boyd, Gregory A. 1997. God at war: The Bible and spiritual conflict. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.

3. A detailed chart tracking the key themes associated with the

word tohu in the Old Testament is included in the Appendix. This
chart shows that apart from Genesis 1:2, each of the occurrences of
tohu is specifically in the context of judgment.

Cassuto, Umberto. 1944. A commentary on the book of Genesis. Part

one: From Adam to Noah. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The
Hebrew University.

4. Does the presence of the Spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 point

not only to Gods presence and care, but also to the need for cleaning up after a battle? Though the enemies of God are numerous
and their tactics and their strategies vary, Gods weapon is singular:
my Spirit. (Moreau 2002: 62) Not by might, nor by power, but by
my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty (Zechariah 4:6, NIV).

Clifford, Richard. J. 1985. The Hebrew Scriptures and the theology of creation. Theological Studies 46: 507-23.

5. The concept of overcoming evil with good is foreign to

human cultures. The means by which [North American heroes
such as cowboys, Superman, Spiderman] overcome their enemies
are violent onesthey never seek to redeem the enemy, only to
destroy him. (Moreau 2002: 122) Walter Wink calls the idea that
good violence may be used to overcome evil violence, the myth of
redemptive violence. Jesus response was to submit to the violence
by going to the cross. (Moreau 2002: 123) While Jesus did not
repay evil for evil, neither was He passive in the face of evil. He
repeatedly demonstrated Gods desire to overcome evil with good
by casting out demons and healing the sick.
6. There are at least three links between Genesis 1:2 and Isaiah
45:18:
(a) Both are about the creation of the heavens and the earth.
(b) Both contain the word tohu in a description of the opposite
of Gods intention for creation.
(c) Both verses use rhyme.

Anderson, Bernhard. 1967. Creation versus chaos. New York: Association Press.
______. 1994. From creation to new creation: Old Testatment
perspectives. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Armerding, Carl E. 197475. An Old Testament view of creation. Crux 12:3-4.
Barnhouse, Donald G. 1965. The invisible war. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan.
Binns, L. Elliott. 1919. The book of the prophet Jeremiah. London:
Methuen & Co.
Blocher, Henri. 1984. In the beginning: The opening chapters of
Genesis. Downers Grove: InterVarsity.
Blythin, I. 1962. A note on Genesis 1:2. Vetus Testamentum 12:
120-21.

______. 2001. Satan and the problem of evil: Constructing a

Trinitarian warfare theodicy. Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press.

Childs, Brevard S. 2001. Isaiah. Louisville, KY: Westminster

John Knox Press.

Fishbane, Michael. 1971. Jeremiah IV 23-26 and Job III 3-13:

A recovered use of the creation pattern. Vetus Testamentum
21: 151-163.
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Fretheim, Terrence E. 1969. Creation, fall, and flood: Studies in
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Kaiser, Walter C. 1970. The literary form of Genesis 1-11. In
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Kselman, J. S. 1978. The recovery of poetic fragments from the
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Lewis, Edwin. 1948. The Creator and the adversary. New York:
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Levenson, Jon. 1988. Creation and the persistence of evil: The Jewish drama of divine omnipotence. San Francisco: Harper &
Row.
Moreau, A. Scott, Tokunboh Adeyemo, David G. Burnett, Bryant L. Myers and Hwa Yung. 2002. Deliver us from evil:
An uneasy frontier in Christian mission.
Och, Bernard. 1995. Creation and redemption: Towards a theol-

Beth Snodderly

ogy of creation. Judaism Vol. 44:226-43. Spring.

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Pagels, Elaine. 1995. The origin of Satan. New York: Random

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Waltke, Bruce K. with Cathi J. Fredricks. 2001. Genesis: A commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Rosenbaum, Michael. 1997. Word-order variation in Isaiah

4055: A functional perspective. Assen, the Netherlands:
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Wenham, Gordon J. 1987. Genesis 115, Word Biblical commentary. Waco, TX: Word Books.

Ross, Allen P. 1996. Creation and blessing: A guide to the study and
exposition of Genesis. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Wildavsky, Aaron. 1984. The nursing father: Moses as a political

leader. University of Alabama Press.

Sailhamer, J.H. 1996. Genesis Unbound. Sisters, OR: Multnomah.

Winter, Ralph D. 2005a. Frontiers in mission: Discovering and

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Sarna, Nahum M. 1966. Understanding Genesis. New York:

Schocken Books.
Seitz, Christopher R. 1993. Isaiah 139. Interpretation: A Bible
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Stacey, David. 1993. Isaiah: Chapters 139. London: Epworth
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Tsumura, David Toshio. 1988a. Tohu in Isa 45:19. Vetus Testamentum 38: 361-64.
______. 1988b. AXYB pattern in Amos 1:5 and Ps 9:7. Vetus
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______. 1994. The earth in Genesis 1. In I studied inscriptions
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______. 2005. Creation and destruction: A reappraisal of the
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______. 1981. Ungers commentary on the Old Testament, Vol 1.
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______. 2005b. Planetary events and the mission of the Church.

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