Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments

by Paul Copan

Overview

Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit (Apologetics & Evangelism)

Critics outside the church often accuse the Old Testament God of genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence. But a rising tide of critics within the church claim that Moses and other "primitive," violence-prone prophets were mistaken about God's commands and character. Both sets of critics dismiss this allegedly harsh, flawed, "textual" Old Testament God in favor of the kind, compassionate, "actual" God revealed by Jesus. Are they right to do so?

Following his popular book Is God a Moral Monster?, noted apologist Paul Copan confronts false, imbalanced teaching that is confusing and misleading many Christians. Copan takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts. He explores the kindness, patience, and compassion of God in the Old Testament and shows how Jesus in the New Testament reveals not only divine kindness but also divine severity. The book includes a detailed Scripture index of difficult and controversial passages and is helpful for anyone interested in understanding the flaws in these emerging claims that are creating a destructive gap between the Testaments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781540964557
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	280,375
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Paul Copan (PhD, Marquette University), a Christian theologian, analytic philosopher, and apologist, is the Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Florida. For 6 years, he served as president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He was a visiting scholar at Oxford University in 2017. Copan is the author or editor of more than 40 books, including Is God a Moral Monster?; True for You, But Not for Me; That's Just Your Interpretation; When God Goes to Starbucks; and A Little Book for New Philosophers.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Part 1 The Great Divorce

How Wide the Divide between the Old and New Testaments?

1 The Old Testament God: Critics from Without and from Within 3

2 Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the New? (1): Marcion versus Moses 10

3 Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the New? (2): Moses versus Jesus? 19

4 Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the New? (3): Moses versus Jesus? (Continued) 25

Part 2 Lex Rex (the Law, the King)

What Makes the Law of Moses So Special?

5 "From Heaven or from Human Origin?" Is the Mosaic Law Just Another Ancient Law Code? 35

6 Multiple Sources and Late Dates? Does the Mosaic Law Have Multiple Authors? Was Lighting the Canaanites a Fiction from the Sixth Century BC? 40

7 Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern Laws (1): The Biblical Vision and Worldview 50

8 Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern Laws (2): Human Dignity, Relationship, and Equality 56

9 Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern Laws (3): Poverty and Wealth 64

Part 3 Crime and Punishment

Violations and Penalties in Old Testament Law

10 A Bit of Ancient Near Eastern Context 71

11 Israel's Punishments as Nonliteral in the Pentateuch 74

12 Israel's Punishments as Nonliteral in Old Testament History 82

Part 4 For Whom the Bell Tolls

Harsh Texts and Difficult Old Testament Questions

13 How Was David "a Man after God's Own Heart"? 89

14 Why Does God Harden People's Hearts? 96

15 Divine Smitings (1): Noah's Flood, Egypt's Firstborn, Uzzah's Death 104

16 Divine Smitings (2): Elisha and the Bears, and Punishing Children to the Third and Fourth Generations 113

17 "Bashing Babies against the Rock"? Imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament 122

18 "Let His Homestead Be Made Desolate": Imprecatory Psalms in the New Testament 131

19 Loving Jacob, Hating Esau? Putting Divine and Human Hatred in Perspective 140

Part 5 Of Human Bondage

Women and Servants in Israelite Society

20 Is the Old Testament Really Misogynistic and Patriarchal? 149

21 Espousing Multiple Wives? Revisiting the Matter of Polygamy 155

22 Other Troubling Texts about Women: The Nameless Concubine, the Question of War Rape 161

23 "Servants" in Israel: Persons or Property? 166

24 The "Acquisition" of "Foreign Slaves" (1): A Deeper Dive into Leviticus 25 173

25 The "Acquisition" of "Foreign Slaves" (2): Two Objections and the Runaway Option 181

Part 6 War and Peace

Warfare and Violence in the Old Testament (and the New)

26 Jesus Loves Canaanites-and Israelites Too: "Jesus 101" and the Old Testament's "Dark Texts" 189

27 "We Left No Survivors": Exaggeration Rhetoric in Israel's War Texts 200

28 Revisiting the Translation of Herem: "Utter Destruction," "Consecration," "Identity Removal," "Removal from Ordinary Use"? 207

29 Deuteronomy's Intensified Rhetoric and the Use of Haram 211

30 Did the Israelites "Cruelly Invade" the Land of Canaan? 222

31 The "Actual" God in Old Testament Warfare 227

Part 7 The Heart of the Matter

The Summing Up of All Things in Christ

32 "God Is Christlike, and in Him There Is No Un-Christlikeness at All": Our Critics from Within 239

33 Our Critics from Without (1): Two Important Questions 248

34 Our Critics from Without (2): Five Big Steps 254

Questions for Small Groups 261

Notes 263

Subject Index 289

Scripture Index 297