Is God a Moral Monster? (Paperback) by Paul Copan

A recent string of popular–level books written by the New Atheists have levelled 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.

Title

Is God a Moral Monster?
Author(s)

Paul Copan
ISBN

9780801072758
Format

Paperback
Publisher

Baker
Pages

256
Published

01/01/2011

Overall rating

2.0 based on 1 review

Is God a Moral Monster?

I've been reading, "Is God a Moral Monster", as part of my reading on a theology essay, as to how God could allow the Conquest of Canaan. The book starts off and seems to hit all the right notes. Copan sets out to tackle a lot of the objections that the 'New Atheists' (i.e. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and other similar) make against the moral character of God, and particularly how it appears in the Old Testament. Copan wants to deal with a lot of these issues head on. Unfortunately his treatment of the Canaanite issue is unsatisfactory. He goes to great lengths to qualify the Biblical text as we have it in Joshua to make it less offensive, by appealing to Ancient Near Eastern Context. In doing so he argues that when all the inhabitants of Jericho were killed in Joshua 6-7 - no women and children were involved, it was just a fortress, and there were probably no more than 600 fighting age men there. Of course we need to make sure that we're reading the Biblical text properly, both within the context that God has given us, and it's context with its original hearers. But this answer doesn't get "God off the hook" so to speak. The problem the modern reader will have is that God still commanded the destruction of Jericho and the deaths of 600. All Copan manages to achieve is a moving of the goalposts. A much better book on the Canaanite question is Christopher J. H. Wright's The God I Don't Understand. That deals with the problem in a much more sober minded fashion.

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