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. […]
Old Testament ethics
“Is God a Moral Monster?” A Review (Part 3)
In this section of the review (a review which will now likely be at least four parts) I want to focus on a dilemma Copan faces: either admit that certain actions undertaken by the Israelites which they attributed to divine direction were morally barbaric and should be rejected, or affirm that these actions really were morally good, […]
“Is God a Moral Monster?” A Review (Part 1)
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. Much has been written in recent years on the moral problems with the depiction of God in the Old Testament. Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster? is a welcome entry to […]
Abraham, Isaac and a big knife. Like, wassup with that?
James asks, “I’m pretty sure I just missed this and you’ve talked about it somewhere (if so, just point me to it), but how do you interpret the story in Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son if you believe that God would never ask someone to sacrifice their son? Or do you […]
The mutilation of Isaac
Matthew Flannagan, respected analytic theologian, Christian apologist and faithful blogger, has taken issue with my argument that God would not ask a parent to sacrifice their child. Matt asks us to consider why it is that killing a human being is wrong. It is wrong, he avers, because it deprives one of their future life. […]
Teach your children well (and don’t mutiliate their corpses)
Last November I was on a panel discussion with Matt Flannagan at the Evangelical Philosophical Society in Atlanta talking about Old Testament ethics. We agreed on a number of points but disagreed sharply on the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. After returning I blogged about the experience and Matt has now published a belated critical […]
