In “Can N.T. Wright save Paul the Apostle?” I identified an assumption that guides the way many Christians read the Bible. I called it MIS: Moral inerrancy standard (MIS): While the human authors of scripture were fallen, morally errant beings, the process of inspiration protected the authors from writing down any morally errant sentences which […]
genocide
“Is God a Moral Monster? A Review (Part 4)
Paul Copan. Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8010-7275-8. 252 pp. The time has come to draw this review to a close. In this final installment of the review I’ll focus on Copan’s treatment of human sacrifice, genocide and ethnic cleansing in scripture. […]
Did God raise up Bin Laden?
The question is repugnant not only on the surface but all the way down to its very core. It presumes a moral framework that is utterly alien to my way of understanding the universe. And yet it is a question that kept bubbling to the surface as I read Clay Jones’ essay “We Don’t Hate Sin […]
Three theses on devotional child killing
The article I presented at the Atlanta SBL meeting, titled “‘I want to give the baby to God’: Three theses on devotional child killing” is now available! This is the biggest release since Gran Turismo 5! So to read and/or download the paper you can click here or go find it in the “Academic Papers” […]
An update in the wake of Atlanta (plus a bit on rape and child killing)
Well I’m back (as if anybody cares). Wait a minute. I care, so I’ll keep talking to myself if nobody else. It was a good time at the annual ETS conference (with a day at SBL thrown in). Let me say the weather was fine. It has been seven or eight years since I was in […]
Rape as objectively evil
In my last post I stated that rape is objectively evil and any worldview that cannot count for this fact suffers accordingly. Alexander responded with a refreshing dose of dramatic bravado: “Not so, Randal Rauser! According to Randy Thornhill, rape is actually an evolution of a ‘genetically advantageous behavioral adaptation’ and, in that context, not inherently evil.” This […]