Seán Ó Conaill: Violence in the Bible: A Motivational Pattern?

Is there an underlying sameness to biblical stories of violence – including the crucifixion of Jesus?

“The Lord looked with favour on Abel…”  (Gen 4:4)  And so began Cain’s hostility to his brother, the cause of the first murder as related by the Bible.

“Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons…. But his brothers … came to hate him so much they could not say a civil word to him.” (Gen 37:3,4)

“Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands.” (1 Sam 18:7) This song of the women of Israel triggered Saul’s hatred of David and desire to kill him. 

“Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest …” King David designed the death of Uriah after Uriah’s wife Bathsheba became pregnant, so that David’s sin with her was likely to be revealed. (2 Samuel 11)

Herod the Great sought to kill the infant Jesus when he heard of the birth of this ‘king of the Jews’. (Matt 2)

The religious authorities who sought the adult Jesus’ life feared that “the whole world will go after him” and that Rome would “take away our holy place and our nation”. (John 11:48)

Wherever you look in the bible the same pattern seems to reveal itself when violence occurs or impends – the pattern of hostility to others compared with ourselves because those others have either already displaced us in the favour of others, or may do so in the future.

As 21^st century neuroscience confirms, no human fear is greater than fear of the negative opinion of others. For anyone in any way already ‘celebrated’ this fear is even more acute, because then a truly catastrophic fall from grace impends – from ‘highly favoured’ status to that of outcast.

Try this yourself – can 21^st century AI ‘large language models’ see and confirm this pattern, and can they name it – either in biblical language or the terminology of the 21^st century?

Here’s one such experiment, with the Microsoft Chatbot Copilot:   

Q. (to Copilot) The Bible narrates multiple instances of violence, beginning with the murder of Abel by his brother Caine, going on to tell the stories of Joseph and his brothers, Saul’s pursuit of David, David’s betrayal of Uriah, Herod the Great’s ‘slaughter of the innocents’ – and climaxing with the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Focusing on the described behaviour of the perpetrators is it possible to discern a pattern in the described motivation of these perpetrators?

A. (from Copilot)

A clear pattern does emerge — not in the surface details of each violent act, but in the inner logic that the biblical narrators consistently attribute to perpetrators. When you line these episodes up, the motivations form a remarkably coherent arc. What follows is a structured synthesis that treats the biblical texts as a literary‑theological tradition reflecting on the roots of human violence.

Concise takeaway

Across the biblical canon, perpetrators of violence are repeatedly shown acting from status anxiety — fear of loss, envy of another’s favour, rivalry for honour, or the panic of a threatened hierarchy. The violence is not random: it is consistently portrayed as an attempt to restore, protect, or manufacture a threatened identity.

1. The recurring motivational pattern: threatened status, perceived loss, and rivalry

When you examine the perpetrators you listed — Cain, Joseph’s brothers, Saul, David, Herod, and the coalition that crucifies Jesus — the same motivational structure appears:

A. Perceived loss of divine or social favour

• Cain: “The Lord looked with favour on Abel…” → Cain experiences the loss of divine regard as an existential diminishment.
• Joseph’s brothers: Jacob’s love for Joseph destabilises the brothers’ sense of standing.
• Saul: David’s rising popularity (“Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands”) triggers Saul’s fear of displacement.
• Herod: The birth of a “king of the Jews” threatens his political legitimacy.
• Religious authorities re: Jesus: Fear that “the whole world will go after him” and that Rome will “take away our place and our nation.”

B. Envy and rivalry as accelerants

The biblical tradition is unusually explicit about envy:

• Cain envies Abel’s acceptance.
• Joseph’s brothers envy his dreams and favour.
• Saul envies David’s charisma and success.
• The chief priests envy Jesus’ influence (explicitly stated in the Gospels).

Envy here is not mere jealousy; it is rivalrous comparison — the sense that the other’s rise is my fall.

C. Fear of losing control or being displaced

This is especially clear in the political narratives:

• Saul fears losing the throne.
• David fears exposure after his sin with Bathsheba and eliminates Uriah to control the narrative.
• Herod fears a rival claimant.
• The Jerusalem authorities fear Roman reprisal and the collapse of their fragile power.

D. Violence as a misguided attempt to restore equilibrium

In every case, the perpetrator imagines that eliminating the rival will:

• restore honour,
• secure identity,
• re‑establish control,
• or prevent humiliation.

The Bible repeatedly shows this logic to be self‑defeating.

2. The deeper pattern: violence as a response to shame, not simply anger

If you look beneath the explicit motivations, a deeper anthropological pattern emerges:

A. Shame at being “less than”

Cain’s “fallen face,” Saul’s brooding, the brothers’ resentment, Herod’s paranoia — all are shame responses. The self feels exposed, diminished, or unworthy.

B. The other becomes a mirror one cannot bear

The rival reflects back:

• God’s favour (Abel),
• paternal love (Joseph),
• public acclaim (David),
• divine legitimacy (Jesus).

Violence becomes an attempt to shatter the mirror.

C. The biblical narrators consistently portray violence as arising from misrecognition

The perpetrator misreads:

• God’s favour as a zero‑sum game,
• the rival’s success as a threat,
• the situation as requiring elimination rather than conversion.

This misrecognition is a theological and anthropological diagnosis.

3. The crucifixion as the narrative climax of this pattern

The Passion narratives deliberately gather all these motifs:

• Envy (explicitly named).
• Fear of losing status (“our place and our nation”).
• Political anxiety (Pilate’s fear of Caesar).
• Crowd dynamics (mimetic contagion).
• Scapegoating (one must die for the people).

Jesus becomes the ultimate “rival” — not because he seeks power, but because his presence destabilises every fragile identity built on comparison, control, or fear.

The crucifixion is thus the culmination of the same pattern that began with Cain: violence born of threatened identity.

4. A synthetic model: the biblical anthropology of violent motivation

You can summarise the pattern in a four‑step schema:

1. Perceived loss of status

(divine favour, paternal love, public honour, political legitimacy)

2. Affective response of envy, fear, or shame

(the self feels diminished by the other’s presence)

3. Rivalry and misrecognition

(the other becomes the obstacle to one’s identity)

4. Violence as attempted restoration

(eliminate the rival to restore equilibrium)

This is astonishingly consistent across genres: primeval history, patriarchal narratives, royal chronicles, and the Gospels.

(Copilot response ends.)

…

When then asked to supply a biblical alternative to ‘status anxiety’ as the diagnosis of this human problem, Copilot chose ‘pride’.

*****

The above article is another way of presenting the argument published in this month’s Furrow ‘YouCat, Violence and the Cross’ – that God the Father’s ‘willing’ of the Crucifixion was far from being the sole cause of that event – that the scriptural account of it was carefully designed to reveal the ‘hidden thoughts’ of all involved, and that in so doing it simply repeats a pattern that recurs over and over in biblical accounts.

All of our ‘catechisms’ – not just YouCat – need to ‘catch up’!