Is God A Moral Monster?: Making Sense Of The Old Testament God (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
A fine book that does an admirable job of articulating the mischaracterizations of the new atheist's claims about the Bible. I don't agree with everything he says, nor do I agree with all of his conclusions, but over all a good job. His discussion of Moses and Abraham struck me as a bit off kilter, and, as one would expect, all of these issues are more fully fleshed out with more nuance in the scholarly literature, but this is an admirable defense. I doubt it would convince an atheist, but were an atheist to read this with an open mind, they would be forced to recognize that maybe they don't fully understand what they are talking about in regards to the text of the Bible. This book is excellent. It breaks down tough Old Testament questions like (among others), "How can God be good if he allowed slavery in Israelite society?" and "How can the wars the Israelites engaged in be considered moral or Godly?" succinctly and in an easy to understand way. Literally anyone can read this book and get a clear understanding of what OT writers were trying to convey about certain aspects of God and certain moral issues faced by the Israelites. The book is couched in the idea that the "New Atheists" (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, etc.) constantly bring up how brutish and barbaric people in the OT acted (even when supposedly under the guiding hand of Yahweh) and how there is no reason to believe that following such a God, if He even exists, actually made a society any better. Copan does a fantastic job of breaking down all of their arguments by going back to the text itself and showing how different Israelite society was when compared to it's Middle Eastern contemporaries. Was it perfect? No. But the book shows how God was intertwined with daily Israelite life and how His rules for their people were progressively moving them towards a more holy society that simply cannot be compared to it's surroundings. The charges of the New Atheists simply do not hold water and are shown to be the unstudied drivel that they are in just a couple of hundred pages. This is a great read for anyone who is confused by many OT passages, stories and rules (I know I was). It is also a great apologetics tool when confronted with said confusing passages by those not of the Christian faith. Highly scholarly, highly recommended.
What do You think about Is God A Moral Monster?: Making Sense Of The Old Testament God (2010)?
I liked it. Paul is a great writer, though some of the defenses seemed strained to me.
—tara
Very helpful and easy to read on this difficult topic.
—chwistee
Good reference book, but not an easy read
—Lik_Iz_Bajke
