This evening, I participated in a debate with atheist Floyd FP on the “Cognitive Distortion” YouTube channel on the topic […]

apologetics, biblical violence, debate, hermeneutics, problem of evil

Quick Thought on Canaanite Genocide and the Brutalizing Effects of Violence

May 14, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

You can’t hire a guy to work 9-5 in a slaughterhouse and not expect that to affect how he interacts […]

biblical ethics, biblical violence, canaanite genocide, Canaanites, ethics

Can God Command Anything At All?

May 9, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

Yesterday, I tweeted some criticisms of Christians who crucify their moral intuitions on the altar of their particular readings of […]

biblical violence, ethics, hermeneutics

If God commanded you to sacrifice your child, would you? Here’s my response

April 22, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

If God commanded you to sacrifice your child, would you? The answer is simple: God wouldn’t command that. And if […]

biblical ethics, biblical violence, divine command ethics, ethics

Inspired Imperfection: A Review

April 9, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

Gregory A. Boyd. Inspired Imperfection: How the Bible’s Problems Enhance Its Authority (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2020). The postscript to Gregory Boyd’s new […]

biblical violence, Greg Boyd, hermeneutics, review

Don’t Sacrifice Your Conscience to Defend Your Reading of the Bible

March 26, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

I’ve been talking about biblical violence on Twitter over the last day. So now I’m back to my blog and […]

biblical ethics, biblical violence, ethics, moral intuition, moral perception

Christians, you are allowed to wrestle with the problem of biblical violence

March 19, 2020 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

Imagine for a moment that you are in conversation with a person from another religion and you discover that their […]

biblical violence, hermeneutics

The Imprecatory Pretzel: Why it doesn’t work to use the Psalms to curse your enemies

October 23, 2019 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

Many Christians think that the imprecatory psalms provide models for how to curse one’s enemies. The hermeneutical assumption seems to […]

biblical inspiration, biblical violence, ethics, hermeneutics, imprecatory psalms

Four Pitfalls for Apologists Defending Biblical Violence

August 12, 2019 / Randal / The Tentative Apologist / No Comments

Over the last decade or so, Christian apologists have directed significant effort in defending morally problematic biblical violence including texts […]

apologetics, biblical violence, moral epistemology, moral skepticism