A recent string of popular-level books written by the New Atheists have leveled the accusation that the God of the Old Testament is nothing but a bully, a murderer, and a cosmic child abuser. This viewpoint is even making inroads into the church. How are Christians to respond to such accusations? And how are we to reconcile the seemingly disconnected natures of God portrayed in the two testaments?

In this timely and readable book, apologist Paul Copan takes on some of the most vexing accusations of our time, including:

God is arrogant and jealous
God punishes people too harshly
God is guilty of ethnic cleansing
God oppresses women
God endorses slavery
Christianity causes violence
and more

Copan not only answers God's critics, he also shows how to read both the Old and New Testaments faithfully, seeing an unchanging, righteous, and loving God in both.

Contracapa
Is the God of the Old Testament nothing but a bully, a murderer, and an oppressor?

Many today--even within the church--seem to think so. How are Christians to respond to such accusations? And how are we to reconcile the seemingly disconnected natures of God portrayed in the two testaments?
In this timely and readable book, apologist Paul Copan takes on some of the most vexing accusations of our time, including:

God is arrogant and jealous
God punishes people too harshly
God is guilty of ethnic cleansing
God oppresses women
God endorses slavery
Christianity causes violence

Copan not only answers the critics, he also shows how to read both the Old and New Testaments faithfully, seeing an unchanging, righteous, and loving God in both.

"This is the book I wish I had written myself. It is simply the best book I have read that tackles the many difficulties that the Old Testament presents to thinking and sensitive Christians. Paul Copan writes in such a simple, straightforward way, yet covers enormous issues comprehensively and with reassuring biblical detail and scholarly research."--Christopher J. H. Wright, international director, Langham Partnership International; author of Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

"Lucid, lively, and very well informed, this book is the best defense of Old Testament ethics that I have read. A must-read for all preachers and Bible study leaders."--Gordon Wenham, emeritus professor of Old Testament, University of Gloucestershire

"The New Atheists have attacked the morality of the Old Testament with a vengeance. In honesty, many Christians will confess that they struggle with what looks like a primitive and barbaric ethic. Paul Copan helps us truly understand the world of the Old Testament and how it relates to us today."--Tremper Longman III, Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, Westmont College

"Copan takes on current New Atheist biblical critics and powerfully addresses virtually every criticism they have raised. I know of no other book like this one, and it should be required reading in college and seminary courses."--J. P. Moreland, distinguished professor of philosophy, Talbot School of Theology; author of The God Question

"There's virtually no scholar I'd rather read on these subjects than Paul Copan. This handbook of responses to tough ethical issues is able to both diminish the rhetoric as well as alleviate many concerns."--Gary R. Habermas, distinguished research professor, Liberty University and Seminary

Paul Copan (PhD, Marquette University) is the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. He is the author or editor of many books, including When God Goes to Starbucks.

--Este texto se refere à edição paperback.

Sobre o Autor
Paul Copan (PhD, Marquette University) is the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. He is the author of several apologetics books and lives with his wife and five children in Florida. --Este texto se refere à edição paperback.

A recent string of popular-level books written by the New Atheists have leveled the accusation that the God of the Old Testament is nothing but a bully, a murderer, and a cosmic child abuser. This viewpoint is even making inroads into the church. How are Christians to respond to such accusations? And how are we to reconcile the seemingly disconnected natures of God portrayed in the two testaments?

In this timely and readable book, apologist Paul Copan takes on some of the most vexing accusations of our time, including:

God is arrogant and jealous
God punishes people too harshly
God is guilty of ethnic cleansing
God oppresses women
God endorses slavery
Christianity causes violence
and more

Copan not only answers God's critics, he also shows how to read both the Old and New Testaments faithfully, seeing an unchanging, righteous, and loving God in both.

Within our modern cultural bubble, we are guided by the current rules of our society. Had we been born outside of the West or several millennia prior, we would most certainly speak and think differently. When it comes to understanding ancient people groups in history we tend to forget that values, customs, and the economy would had looked drastically unfamiliar to us. For the Semitic people living during the time of the Torah, they too were the result of their cultural bubble and those of their regional neighbors.

Because Christianity (in my view) has influenced the world over the last two millennia, it is challenging to reconcile the actions of this ancient people group in the Near East. However, the author Paul Copan in his book, “Is God A Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God” reminds his 21st Century readers in an objective way, the world in which the ancient Israelites find themselves. While their global economic and cultural structure was their reality, the God of Abraham worked within their unprincipled system. Their God worked within His volunteered restraint of His free-willed creatures, all the while revolutionizing how people approached Him vs. other/false spirits, issues of forced labor, the role of women in society, and more.
Whether you are a bible student or you take an interest in the subject matter, Copan applies proper hermeneutics when deciphering between descriptive text and proscriptive elements within the framework of the ancient Israelites. Good read! ( )

Let me begin by stating that I am an atheist, I was an atheist before any of the "Four Horseman": Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris published their "New Atheist" books, and there were centuries of atheists before that. I first became aware of Dawkins and Dennett because of their writings about biology. I would suggest looking up "atheist" in Wikipedia and following the links. There is strong atheism, weak atheism, implicit atheism, explicit atheism, agnostic atheism (not to be confused with its cousin agnosticism), apatheism, igtheism, etc. I personally prefer the definition of atheism as lacking a system of belief about god(s).. In his book, The World of Christopher Marlowe, David Riggs, argues that the combination of religious upheavals, and the use of the vernacular began to discredit religious belief, and in 1540, Sir John Cheke coined the use of the word "'Atheists' to describe people who do not 'care whether there be a God or no [...].'" Some form of the word has also been used for millennia to describe people who don't worship the speaker's god(s), no matter how many deities they worship.

This book reminds me a great deal of A Short History of Atheism by Gavin Hyman, who, like Paul Copan, dismisses popular writers on the subject of atheism. Gavin instead describes the history through a select collection of philosophers. I'm not convinced that that constitutes the entire, or even main history of atheism. Copan complains that atheistic writers don't show show any nuanced understanding of theology. I'm not sure that matters, though. In the first place, theology generally presupposes belief, and a conviction that God is good, no matter what, convictions that professed atheists are unlikely to accept. Moreover, theologians have widely varying ideas. Copan says "God isn't some abstract entity, or impersonal principle as Dawkins seems to think he should be." I know a deeply religious college professor of religion, influenced by Paul Tillich, who believes that God is not a being, but Being itself." The professor does not believe that God confers salvation or eternal life, listens to prayers or intervenes in human affairs, except to lay down a lot of rules. He believes that Jesus was a fully human prophet, and that there are many ways to God, i.e, different religions. I asked if he therefore considered Mohamed and the Buddha to be prophets, but he is still thinking about that

I also question the importance of theology because I am skeptical of how much self-professed Christians know. In tests of religious knowledge, like those from the Pew Forum. whether about religions in general, or Christianity in particular, atheists, Jews and Mormons do the best. Many atheists who left Christianity did a great deal of reading and thinking before hand. Some even went to seminary or were ordained. There is a website started by Gretta Vosper, the self-professed atheist minister in the United Church of Canada, for clergy who have lost their faith.

In R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s article "The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy: It's Our Problem", he says 'Researchers George Gallup and Jim Castelli put the problem squarely: "Americans revere the Bible--but, by and large, they don't read it."' "Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels. Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples. [...] 60 percent of Americans can't name even five of the Ten Commandments.' 'A Barna poll indicated that at least 12 percent of adults believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. Another survey of graduating high school seniors revealed that over 50 percent thought that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife. A considerable number of respondents to one poll indicated that the Sermon on the Mount was preached by Billy Graham.' "The survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that non-believers were able to answer more questions about religion correctly than believers, even when one controlled for educational background. It also showed that people were also ill-informed on some of the questions related to their own religion. A majority of Protestants, for example, were unable to identify Martin Luther as the primary figure behind the Protestant Reformation." At least the atheists that Copan is complaining about have read the Bible enough to complain. I've read it in its entirety.

On to the book itself. At the end of Chapter 1 ("Who Are the New Atheists"), Copan speaks of the "profound, well-documented influence of Christian faith in the world [...] preserving literature, advancing education, laying the foundations of modern science [a rather mixed record, that], cultivating art and music, promoting human rights and providing better working conditions, and overthrowing slavery," Many of these things are done by many other religions and secular institutions. For those who say that, if not for Christianity, we would not have all those lovely Madonnas done by such-and-such an artist, no, but he would have painted something else equally lovely. Martin Luther King, Jr. was apparently not impressed with the churches commitment to civil rights, as evidenced by his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." African slavery in the Americans was established by Christians. The 18th and 19th century fight to end slavery did not include only Christians; a number of atheists were protesting as well. More, the people that they were fighting against were, by and large, professing Christians who pointed to the Bible to justify slavery. In the United States, some churches went into schisms, North vs South on the issue of slavery.

Copan goes on to argue to God's pride or arrogance is actually almost a synonym to humility, both of which are to be considered as an accurate assessment of one's strengths and weaknesses. As for jealousy, Copan links this to love, the natural reaction of a loving husband who wants to reconcile with his erring wife. Copan glosses over the fact that after leaving Egypt, this resulted in thousands of deaths: entire households being exterminated it if the head of the household displeased God. the Levites killing three thousand, and a plague killing fourteen thousands. Generally, when someone quotes the Bible at me, I quote back a contrary verse, but I will tell the persistent that I cannot see how the Bible can be considered to be authoritative if they are going to quote what they like and ignore what they don't.

Copan argues that Mosaic law was always understood to be temporary, to be revised as Israel's moral understanding grew, and that it is always superior to any other Near Eastern code.. Other Near Eastern legal system, however, allowed the wife to seek a divorce as well, and protected her property rights, which the Mosaic law doesn't mention. He cites the case of requiring a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce, which Jesus later denounced as being a concession to human hard-heartedness,, as proof that Mosaic law was intended to be revised, However, God never ordered divorce, as he ordered various other penalties, so it was always optional. He argues that the lex talionis, i,e,, an eye for an eye, was never to be taken seriously. His evidence is the special case of a slave owner knocking out the eye or tooth of a slave - the owner isn't dealt a similar injury, but the slave goes free. While this is more humane than many other systems of slavery, it doesn't necessarily apply to free persons. Obviously they cannot be set free to punish the aggressor.

Moving on to genocide, Copan argues that the order and claim to kill everyone was an exaggeration, since there will still Canaanites, but I will point out that that appears to have applied specifically to city dwellers, which would have eliminate the educated and military, political, and religious leaders, leaving peasants. These could have been reduced to serfdom or slavery, but assuming, as Copan does, that Moses lived in the 13th century BC/BCE, Copan tells us that they were no longer an identifiable entity by 1000 BC/BCE. Yes, as Copan tells us, other people were equally bad, we have only the argument the the Children of Israel were God's chosen people to make them any better. This is what horrified me when I tried to read the Bible as a teenager - these were supposed to be the Good Guys. This is when I began turning away from Christianity, and then religion altogether.

While I understand what Copan is saying about debt slavery, it remains that women were not freed in the seventh year. In certain cases they could be redeemed, but what if their family wasn't interested in redeeming them, or if they couldn't, because they hadn't recovered from the debt that made them sell her in the first place? She couldn't be sold to a foreigner, but could she be sold to another Israeli? If a male debt slave decided to be permanently enslaved in order to remain with his slave wife and children, was there any guarantee that the family wouldn't by broken up by sale? Since part of the willingness to become a permanent slave was that he liked his master, did this mean that he (and his family) couldn't be sold?

The special pleading goes on. I would join the first reviewer, TonyMilner, in recommending the much more thorough review of this book by Thom Stark, "Is God a Moral Compromiser?". (It's longer than this book.) ( )

"A mistake critics make is associating servanthood in the Old Testament with antebellum (prewar) slavery in the South—like the kind of scenario Douglass described. By contrast, Hebrew (debt) servanthood could be compared to similar conditions in colonial America. Paying fares for pas- sage to America was too costly for many individuals to afford. So they’d contract themselves out, working in the households—often in apprentice-like positions—until they paid back their debts. One-half to two-thirds of white immigrants to Britain’s colonies were indentured servants."

"Dawkins is quite wrong in asserting that the Christian faith—like Islam— was spread by the sword. If he took an honest look at Christian history, he would have to acknowledge that the earliest Christian movement was one of the politically and socially dis-empowered. This movement was first called “the Way” (Acts 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22) in honor of its Savior (John 14:6), and it often gathered to itself slaves and members of the lower classes. In the first three centuries, the church grew by deeds of love and mercy and the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus. Holy wars had no place in this nonviolent movement. " ( )