Description
Book SynopsisChristianity Today 2023 Award of Merit (Apologetics & Evangelism) Critics outside the church often accuse the Old Testament God of genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence. But a rising tide of critics within the church claim that Moses and other "primitive," violence-prone prophets were mistaken about God's commands and character. Both sets of critics dismiss this allegedly harsh, flawed, "textual" Old Testament God in favor of the kind, compassionate, "actual" God revealed by Jesus. Are they right to do so? Following his popular book Is God a Moral Monster?, noted apologist Paul Copan confronts false, imbalanced teaching that is confusing and misleading many Christians. Copan takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts. He explores the kindness, patience, and compassion of God in the Old Testament and shows how Jesus in the New Testament reveals not only divine kindness but also divine severity. The book includes a detailed Scripture index of difficult and controversial passages and is helpful for anyone interested in understanding the flaws in these emerging claims that are creating a destructive gap between the Testaments.
Table of ContentsContents
Part 1: The Great Divorce: How Wide the Divide between the Old and New Testaments?
1. The Old Testament God:
Critics from Without and from Within2. Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the New? (1):
Marcion versus Moses3. Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the New?
(2):
Moses versus Jesus?4. Is the God of the Old Testament the Same as the God of the
New? (3):
Moses versus Jesus? (Continued)Part 2: Lex Rex (the Law, the King): What Makes the Law of Moses So Special?
5. "From Heaven or from Human Origin?"
Is the Mosaic Law Just
Another Ancient Law Code?6. Multiple Sources and Late Dates?
Does the Mosaic Law Have Multiple Authors? Was Fighting the Canaanites a Fiction from the Sixth Century BC?7. Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern
Laws (1):
The Biblical Vision and Worldview8. Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern
Laws (2):
Human Dignity, Relationship, and Equality9. Differences between the Law of Moses and Ancient Near Eastern
Laws (3):
Poverty and WealthPart 3: Crime and Punishment:
Violations and Penalties in Old Testament Law
10. A Bit of Ancient Near Eastern Context
11. Israel's Punishments as Nonliteral in the Pentateuch
12. Israel's Punishments as Nonliteral in Old Testament History
Part 4: For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Harsh Texts and Difficult Old Testament Questions
13. How Was David "a Man after God's Own Heart"?
14. Why Does God Harden People's Hearts?
15. Divine Smitings (1):
Noah's Flood, Egypt's Firstborn, Uzzah's
Death16. Divine Smitings (2):
Elisha and the Bears, and Punishing Children
to the Third and Fourth Generations17. "Bashing Babies against the Rock"?
Imprecatory Psalms in the Old Testament18. "Let His Homestead Be Made Desolate":
Imprecatory Psalms in
the New Testament19. Loving Jacob, Hating Esau?
Putting Divine and Human Hatred in
PerspectivePart 5: Of Human Bondage:
Women and Servants in Israelite Society
20. Is the Old Testament Really Misogynistic and Patriarchal?
21. Espousing Multiple Wives?
Revisiting the Matter of Polygamy22. Other Troubling Texts about Women:
The Nameless Concubine,
the Question of War Rape23. "Servants" in Israel:
Persons or Property?24. The "Acquisition" of "Foreign Slaves" (1):
A Deeper Dive into
Leviticus 25 000
25. The "Acquisition" of "Foreign Slaves" (2):
Two Objections and the
Runaway OptionPart 6: War and Peace:
Warfare and Violence in the Old Testament (and the New)
26. Jesus Loves Canaanites--and
Israelites Too:
"Jesus 101" and the
Old Testament's "Dark Texts"
27. "We Left No Survivors":
Exaggeration Rhetoric in Israel's War Texts28. Revisiting the Translation of
Herem: "Utter Destruction," "Consecration," "Identity Removal," "Removal from Ordinary Use"?29. Deuteronomy's Intensified Rhetoric and the Use of
Haram30. Did the Israelites "Cruelly Invade" the Land of Canaan?
31. The "Actual" God in Old Testament Warfare
Part 7: The Heart of the Matter:
The Summing Up of All Things in Christ
32. "God Is Christlike, and in Him There Is No Un-Christlikeness at All":
Our Critics from Within33. Our Critics from Without (1):
Two Important Questions34. Our Critics from Without (2):
Five Big StepsQuestions for Small Groups
Indexes
