Is God a moral monster? (2014-11-09)

The God of the Old
Testament is
arguably the most
unpleasant
character in all
fiction: jealous and
proud of it, a petty,
unjust, unforgiving
control-freak . . .
© Shane Pope

. . . a vindictive,
bloodthirsty ethnic
cleanser; a
misogynistic,
homophobic, racist,
infanticidal,
genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential . . .
© Shane Pope

. . .
megalomaniacal,
sadomasochistic,
capriciously
malevolent bully.
Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion
© Shane Pope

‘morally indistinguishable from
Hitler’s invasion of Poland’

‘‘
’’
What makes my jaw drop is that
people today should base their
lives on such an appalling role
model as Yahweh – and even
worse, that they should bossily try
to force the same evil monster
(whether fact or fiction) on the rest
of us.
Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion

[The Canaanites]
were pitilessly
driven out of their
homes to make
room for the
ungrateful and
mutinous children
of Israel.
Christopher
Hitchens
God is Not Great:
© Hugh Greentree, used under a Creative Commons licence

The Old Testament
contains ‘a warrant
for trafficking in
humans, for ethnic
cleansing, for
slavery, for bride-price,
and for
indiscriminate
massacre . . .

. . . but we are not
bound by any of it
because it was put
together by crude,
uncultured human
animals.
Christopher
Hitchens
God is Not Great

‘‘
’’
Anyone who curses their father or
mother is to be put to death.
Because they have cursed their
father or mother, their blood will
be on their own head.
Leviticus 20:9

‘‘
’’
Now the son of an Israelite mother
and an Egyptian father went out
among the Israelites, and a fight
broke out in the camp between
him and an Israelite. The son of
the Israelite woman used the
Name blasphemously with a curse;
so they brought him to Moses. . . .

‘‘
’’
Then the Lord said to Moses: ‘Take
the blasphemer outside the camp.
All those who heard him are to lay
their hands on his head, and the
entire assembly is to stone him.
Leviticus 24:10–14

‘‘
’’
However, in the cities of the
nations the Lord your God is giving
you as an inheritance, do not leave
alive anything that breathes.
Completely destroy them – the
Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites,
Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites –
as the Lord your God has
commanded you. . . .

‘‘
’’
. . . Otherwise, they will teach you
to follow all the detestable things
they do in worshipping their gods,
and you will sin against the Lord
your God.
Deuteronomy 20:16–18

‘‘
’’
They devoted the city to the LORD
and destroyed with the sword
every living thing in it – men and
women, young and old, cattle,
sheep and donkeys.
Joshua 6:21

It is nothing to do
with ethnicity

God’s desire to bless all
nations through Abraham

‘‘
’’
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will
curse; and all peoples on earth will
be blessed through you.
Genesis 12:3

God’s concern for foreigners

‘‘
’’
The foreigner residing among you
must be treated as your native-born.
Love them as yourself, for
you were foreigners in Egypt. I am
the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:34

the problem is the Canaanite’s
evil behaviour

‘‘
’’
After the LORD your God has
driven them out before you, do not
say to yourself, “The LORD has
brought me here to take
possession of this land because of
my righteousness.”

‘‘
’’
No, it is on account of the
wickedness of these nations that
the LORD is going to drive them
out before you.
Deuteronomy 9:4

‘‘
’’
It is more reasonable to believe
such elemental things [as wife
beating and child abuse] to be evil
than to believe any skeptical
theory that tells us we cannot
know or reasonably believe any of
these things to be evil. . . .

‘‘
’’
. . . I firmly believe that this is
bedrock and right and that anyone
who does not believe it cannot
have probed deeply enough into
the grounds of his moral beliefs.
Kai Nielsen Ethics Without God

‘‘
’’
God’s act of engaging in battle is
not for the sake of violence or
even victory as such but to
establish peace and justice.
Paul Copan
Is God a Moral Monster?

Israel is subject to
the same standards

‘‘
’’
Do not defile yourselves in any of
these ways, because this is how
the nations that I am going to drive
out before you became defiled.
Even the land was defiled; so I
punished it for its sin, and the land
vomited out its inhabitants. . . .

‘‘
’’
But you must keep my decrees
and my laws. The native-born and
the foreigners residing among you
must not do any of these
detestable things, for all these
things were done by the people
who lived in the land before you,
and the land became defiled. . . .

‘‘
’’
. . .And if you defile the land, it will
vomit you out as it vomited out the
nations that were before you.
Deuteronomy 18:24–28

The destruction is
not what we think

‘‘
’’
[We don’t have] a simple conquest
model, but rather a mixed picture
of success and failure, sudden
victory and slow, compromised
progress.
Gordon McConville
‘Joshua’ in The Oxford Bible Commentary

‘‘
’’
When the Lord your God has
delivered them over to you and
you have defeated them, then you
must destroy them totally. Make
no treaty with them, and show
them no mercy. Do not intermarry
with them.

‘‘
’’
Do not give your daughters to their
sons or take their daughters for
your sons, for they will turn your
children away from following me
to serve other gods, and the Lord’s
anger will burn against you and
will quickly destroy you.
Deuteronomy 7:2–5

‘‘
’’
So Joshua subdued the whole
region, including the hill country,
the Negev, the western foothills
and the mountain slopes, together
with all their kings. He left no
survivors. He totally destroyed all
who breathed, just as the Lord, the
God of Israel, had commanded.
Joshua 10:40

‘‘
’’
Joshua was not trying to deceive
people; the ancient audience
would have readily understood
what was going on. In fact, if we
read the text closely, we see this is
exactly right.
Paul Copan
‘How Could God Command
Killing the Canaanites?’

‘‘
’’
“Men and women” or similar
phrases appear to be stereotypical
for describing all the inhabitants of
a town or region, “without
predisposing the reader to assume
anything further about their ages
or even their genders”.
Richard Hess

‘‘
’’
We know that many of these
‘cities’ were used primarily for
government buildings, and the
common people lived in the
surrounding countryside.
Richard S. Hess

‘‘
’’
At the sound of horsemen and
archers
every town takes to flight.
Some go into the thickets;
some climb up among the rocks.
All the towns are deserted;
no one lives in them.
Jeremiah 4:29 niv

‘‘
’’
Do not defile yourselves in any of
these ways, because this is how
the nations that I am going to drive
out before you became defiled.
Leviticus 18:24

‘‘
’’
There is no indication in the text of
any specific noncombatants who
were put to death.
Richard Hess

‘‘
’’
[We] are not talking about
genocide or ethnic cleansing, but a
kind of corporate capital
punishment that was deliberately
limited in scope and restricted to a
specific period of time.
Paul Copan
‘Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites’

God can have good
enough reasons

‘‘
’’
In the fourth generation your
descendants will come back here,
for the sin of the Amorites has not
yet reached its full measure.
Genesis 15:16 NIV

‘‘
’’
I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you; I will make
your name great, and you will be a
blessing. I will bless those who
bless you, and whoever curses
you I will curse; and all peoples on
earth will be blessed through you.
Genesis 12:2–3

Further Reading
David Lamb, God Behaving Badly (IVP USA, 2011)
Chris Wright, The God I Don’t Understand
(Zondervan, 2008)
Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? (Baker
Books, 2011)
Paul Copan and Matt Flannagan, Did God Really
Command Genocide? (Baker Books, 2014)

www.tonywatkins.uk
twitter.com/tonywatkins_
facebook.com/TonyWatkinsPage

Is God a moral monster? (2014-11-09)

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