God at War: Myth, Rhetoric, and Biblical Historiography

God at War: how do you read about this difficult topic in the Bible? Biblical language has its own distinctive characteristics and conventions, are you aware of them? Modern and and contemporary exegetical research grapples with the challenges that biblical texts pose on a historical, literary and theological level. This essay presents some exemples of texts and textual issues on the motif of the divine and human war in the Bible, and reflects on the biblical reference to myth, on rhetoric and on the intertwining of historiography and theology. A deep attention to what is inside and concerns the language and imagery employed in each biblical text can help to develop a critical reading able to appreciate the textual reasonings and the communicative force of the biblical texts.