Christological Hermeneutics and Biblical Violence

Today blogger and Fuller Seminary New Testament professor J.R. Daniel Kirk wrote the following words about "the point" of the Bible for Christians:

What is the Bible and what are we supposed to do with it?  

"Inspired" is an answer that many of us give right off the top of our heads:  

"Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character." (2 Tim 3:16, CEB)  

But in general we’re not so up on the lead-in:  

"Since childhood you have known the holy scriptures that help you to be wise in a way that leads to salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim 3:15,CEB)  

Scripture is not just about “learning things” that God wants us to know. And it’s not just about finding out “what we should do.” The things we are to learn, and the things we are to do are located within the work of God that has a specific end and goal in view.  

We read scripture with full faithfulness not merely when we say, “This is God’s word,” but when we read and interpret it as a witness to the salvation that God has made available to us in Christ. It’s not enough to read the Bible. We have to read it with a Christological hermeneutic.

I haven't read much else that Kirk has written but I find this short post to be some of the most sound advice I could give anyone who finds themselves bored, confused, irritated, or otherwise befuddled with what they find when they read the biblical text.

But I have a problem taking Kirk's advice when it comes to passages such as the following from 2 Samuel 8:

In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines.' David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute. Moreover, David defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his monument at the Euphrates River. David captured a thousand of his chariots, seven thousand charioteers and twenty thousand foot soldiers. He hamstrung all but a hundred of the chariot horses. When the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David struck down twenty-two thousand of them. He put garrisons in the Aramean kingdom of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to him and brought tribute. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went.

I have enough problems with the wanton and at times apparently arbitrary violence displayed by so many members of that "great cloud of witnesses" we find in the Bible. However, what I really find difficult -- no, the word is untenable -- is the assertion of the text that "The Lord gave David victory wherever he went."

How would one read such a text and such an assertion through the "lens" of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ? What ultimate good does such violence do in the context of God's kingdom? I find the question of "what do we do with this text" to be very appropriate because I simply do not know what Christians are to do with the "information" that our patriarchs often appear to be wantonly murderous people who executed thousands (apparently) at the command of God.

I suspect many (if not most) Christians approach this text in one of two different ways:

1. David was right to lead his armies to attack and massacre entire groups of people because these people were deemed "evil" in God's sight and, thus, we deserving of destruction. David simply carried out God's command.
   
   OR
2. David acted on his own whims and used his faith in God to justify his actions. These passages belong to a savage and antiquated worldview and really have no spiritual or ethical implications for us today. 

I find both of these responses to be profoundly dissatisfying. If we choose option one then any contemporary acts of violence and destruction could be potentially justified if one were to say, "God commanded me to do it." We currently live in a world where the fruits of this sort of interpretation are borne out daily in terrorism and the bombing of abortion clinics (for example). If we choose options two then we might as well ignore just about everything else in the bible since it is (and always will be) all bound to a worldview much different than our own.

So blame on a deficit in my reading on the subject. Or maybe I missed the classes in seminary when we discussed the ethical implications of biblical violence in seminary -- but I just don't know how to read such a text as a Christian without "doing violence" either to to the text or to the way of life to which Jesus points us.