Moral objections to the Old Testament 1 Peter J. Williams Tyndale House, Cambridge

Moral objections to the Old Testament 1

Peter J. Williams

Tyndale House, Cambridge

Trust: the vital concept

• What deserves trust?

• What precedes trust?

• Trusting one who knows more

1. Objections to violence

Religion and Violence

And then …

The New Atheism

Especially Christian faith …

“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; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, page 51

Biblical Strangeness

• Natural strangeness of another culture• Natural strangeness of another time• Cultures naturally tend to view themselves

as superior• Chronological snobbery / progress

narrative• We find it hard to question assumptions of

our own culture

Doesn’t God command the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites?

• ‘How can a God of love command the destruction of seven nations?’

• ‘What about the poor, innocent children?’

• ‘That’s genocide’

• ‘If your God could tell them to kill people, then he might tell you to kill someone. That’s just like the suicide bombers.’

A common atheist perspective of the command to destroy the Canaanites

Old Testament

Genocide

ReligiousTerrorism

=

=

Christian morality seems strange to atheists because we believe

different things about the universe

Central to all questions is the character of God and his

trustworthiness

What God commands is right, but this has limits

• God cannot command you to do bad– (e.g. lie)

• But he can command you to do something which would have been bad if he hadn’t commanded you

• Unqualified, that sounds risky

• For Christians this is highly qualified by the character of God

The character of God

• But God reveals himself as merciful

• Old Testament gives record of his gracious actions

• God has proven character

• Humans can trust him

New Atheist attacks on the Old Testament

Joshua and Hitler

• ‘… the Bible story of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho, and the invasion of the Promised Land in general, is morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs’ (Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 280)

Dawkins’ version of the story

• God doesn’t speak to people

• No miracles performed

• No massive exodus

• Characters judged as if God hadn’t actually told them to do something

The beginning

• God gave everyone life

• God does not think violence is good

• In the beginning there was no violence

The end

• ‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.’ (Isaiah 11:6 ESV)

What you need to know about the Canaanites 1

• They were punished for their wickedness, not for their race– Rahab and extended family were spared

(Joshua 6:25)– When Israel committed same sins as

Canaanites they were judged like the Canaanites

• They knew what God could do and chose to resist

What you need to know about the Canaanites 2

• They sacrificed their children …

• ‘for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.’ (Deuteronomy 12:31 ESV)

What you need to know about the Israelite conquest 1

• Israel had a unique position as God’s judicial representative

• Accompanied by miracles as sign that it was not of human initiative

• They could not reasonably doubt God’s command

What you need to know about the Israelite conquest 2

• Limited by proportionality• Unparalleled restraint in

ancient warfare

What if?

• Put an end to Canaanite child sacrifice

• Over centuries might result in killing of fewer children

What you need to know about God

• ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Exodus 34:6 ESV)

• Delayed their punishment by hundreds of years:– ‘the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet

complete’ (Genesis 15:16 ESV)

• Did most of the fighting

‘Yes, but that’s just the way the Bible justifies it’

‘Don’t lots of nations claim to be better than other ones?’

• Bible claims the opposite– Israel became as bad as the other nations– E.g. Genesis 19 and Judges 19– Manasseh ‘burned his son as an offering and

used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with wizards’ (2 Kings 21:6 ESV)

– ‘… Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him’ (2 Kings 21:11 ESV)

‘Doesn’t the Bible encourage people to kill others today?’

• Absolutely not!• No group has same judicial position as Israel

had on earth• God did not order their action privately, but with

greatest show of signs of all history• Completely different from all modern wars• Readers know they’re reading about something

unique

Recap: a common atheist perspective

Old Testament

Genocide

ReligiousTerrorism

=

=

Dawkins’ view

JoshuaHitler

or Saddam

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Things which sound similar can involve huge moral contrasts

Which objection is being made?

• It was immoral for God to command the destruction of the Canaanites

• It was immoral for the Israelites to obey such a command if it really was given in the way the Bible describes

Questions?

Documents

Moral objections to the Old Testament 1 Peter J. Williams Tyndale House, Cambridge