Is God a Moral Monster? How can I make sense of the OT God? with Dr. Paul Copan - Podcast Episode 92

[Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the got questions podcast at gotquestions.org we receive a lot of questions about things in the old testament and frequently those questions have to do with why does god seem to be a very different god in the old testament than he does in the new testament so our guest today is dr paul koppen he is the author of is god a moral monster making sense of the old testament gods so paul and welcome to the show thanks so much shea great to be on with you and look forward to engaging these tough questions yes so paul has a phd from marquette university and he's currently a professor at palm beach atlantic university and they're now offering a philosophy of religion major at that school so if you have any questions about that we'll include links to where you can learn more about paul about the school and about his books in the show notes at the description on youtube and also at podcast.gotquestions.org so so paul just to start out my first question for you is a little more of a general one why would you say that god seems so different in the old testament than he does in the new testament i would say that the question is a matter of degree rather than kind uh so we're not talking about two different gods which the ancient heretic marcian maintained but rather what we see is that in the old testament uh god is aligning himself with a nation that has boundaries uh there are punishments uh civic punishments uh and penalties uh there are uh you know there's a nation to be protected uh given its national boundaries and so forth uh and so god aligns himself with a political power and that means warfare that means punishments that means uh protection uh from enemies and so forth so there are these so that's of a different order than what we see going on in the new testament where god rather than aligning himself with a nation and engaging in power and force and so forth comes in from the margins uh jesus of nazareth born in bethlehem not in the palace uh but even though god comes in from the margins uh faces uh human temptations trials weakness dies at the hands of the romans laying down his life and so forth we actually don't eliminate the use of force or uh or if you want to call it violence although god isn't called violent that's wicked people uh do that sort of a thing in scripture but god is not called violent but god is offering is acting in account encountered violent measures uh to bring justice uh force will be used for for example paul when his life is uh under threat rather than taking vengeance himself uh against the mob he leaves it in the hands of the roman military to protect him so it's not as though that's off limits uh and you know uh given the in contrast to the old testament no political power and uh the use of force is still legitimate uh so we see in both testaments that god is loving and severe now paul says in romans 11 22 behold the kindness and severity of god but we also see that there is a greater emphasis on again a kind of a ramping up of love as exemplified in jesus of nazareth but it doesn't mean that wrath or judgment go away there is also an intensification of that as well uh that uh that to turn away from jesus to like the book of hebrews says is to actually incur greater wrath that there's a greater severity jesus is saying if sodom and sodom and gomorrah and other ancient cities like tyre and sidon you know if the miracles performed in them had been performed in these cities like bethsaid and corazon of jesus day he said they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes and therefore it'll be much more severe for these cities in jesus day than it was for sodom and gomorrah and so forth that were that were judged so we don't see that going away now we see kindness and severity in both testaments and jesus is one who's involved in that severity driving out money changes from the temple uh he threatens to bring uh judgment upon this false prophetess jezebel in revelation two in in red letters that he's going to sit cast around a bit of sickness and strike dead her heretical followers uh so again this is jesus speaking uh and jesus in fact jesus is aligned with the old testament judgments like jude 5 where it says jesus after he had delivered the the israelites from egypt destroyed those who did not believe so it's not as though it's all uh old testament is harsh and wrathful you get to the new testament it's kind and loving no kindness and severity are found in both and that's the sort of thing that we need to unpack and i go into a lot of a lot more detail on that in a forthcoming book called is god a vindictive bully that seeks to reconcile those portraits of the of the god of the old testament and the god of the new testament as being unified rather than having this bifurcation uh so that's a that's something to that's coming out in october 2022. yeah i i had to read i had to i got to read he's got a moral monster for apologetics class at dallas theological seminary recently and i thoroughly enjoyed it so i'm really looking forward to the next book as well and i encourage our listeners to check that out but so paul i if i were to give you like our top three questions we get related to topics you cover in your book um that will be our next points of conversation so number one and this has become more frequent recently is the old testament god misogynistic as in does he hate women why are some of the things said about women in the old testament at least to our modern sensibilities seems seems harsh seems to assign women a very low role of or a very low value so what's the best way to respond to that i tackle some of this in the moral monster book as you mentioned shea but also i elaborate on this in the forthcoming book is god of vindictive bully in which i talk about how the term misogynistic is actually a false portrayal of what is going on we see for one thing male and female made in the image of god there's a fundamental equality that's the biblical vision uh we also see women who are involved in leadership positions in ancient israel you think of deborah you think of even folks like ruth who are elevated and presented as dignified and strong virtuous persons uh you see esther who is acting courageously even some like someone like miriam who is part of the leadership team that brings the israelites out of egypt you see you see various female strong female characters throughout the old testament and in fact we could also talk about how the proverbs 31 woman is one who acts very independently of her husband who trusts in her but she's engaged in commerce she's engaged in purchasing real estate she's very industrious and she is someone who has her own life as it were uh so there is and in fact one scholar uh carol myers who had been the president of the society of biblical literature from duke university she contests the idea that the that that the term patriarchy applies to old testament israel she uses the term heterarchy that is women had their own distinct professions and guilds in the old testament and that they operated fairly independently of men in this regard and that men had their areas of engagement warfare and so forth but women had their own professional guilds as singers as midwives as uh as those who engaged in even the production of grain and things in the home that they were they had their own spheres of autonomy and and that there was a basic understanding of partnership in marriage uh usually you know in in the in ancient israel uh men were seen as like the buffer between the family and the rest of society uh but carol meyer says that uh that this is a relatively if you want to call it egalitarian society uh and and more and more scholars are coming to recognize that it's not misogynistic at all i mean you look at the uh you know honor your father and mother uh the book of proverbs talking about paying attention to your father and mother if you curse them uh then your own your light will go out uh that this is something that is not just pay attention to your honor your father but your mother is just a piece of property or something no there is that fundamental equality uh and so so that is part of the broader vision of israel uh even if there are laws that take into account some uh some social structures and deficiencies in the ancient near east we need to keep a bigger understanding of the vision of ancient israel where there's this fundamental equality and also we need to keep in mind that just because things are described in the old testament where someone is being mistreated uh like the nameless concubine at the end of the book of judges uh there are subtleties within the text that actually reinforce this woman as a person of a dignity that that that was what was done against her was terrible and and created an uproar in israel and so just because something is described in these narratives doesn't mean that it's being prescribed as though this is the way that things ought to be and so that is the the fundamental picture here and god is seeing god is the one who sees israel as his wife it's a covenant picture it's a picture of love and god is routinely giving himself to the people of israel sacrificing himself uh pleading with them uh sending prophets so that they will repent and so forth so that there is this uh that there is this fundamental dignity uh regarding the the female in in ancient israel yeah i agree and granted we're not denying that there are some passages in the old testament they're pretty hard to reconcile even some laws that women being treated differently but when i look at the old testament law you have to remember that the laws were given in the ancient near east in a particular time and culture cultural setting the god's desire was not to in the sense he needed to redeem people's souls and that would transform how they behave rather than giving an absolute law that would represent these absolute perfect standards on absolutely everything and to me that's been a helpful way of thinking through things that there's a specific purpose for the laws he gave and they don't all represent exactly what god would desire for how society to respond it's more that culture that particular time these were the commands and if you look at ancient israel the old testament law in comparison to surrounding cultures it was revolutionary and um the freedoms the responsibilities the protections that it gave to women right yeah and jesus himself said that uh the certain laws within the law of moses were were given because of the hardness of people's hearts not because that this was the ideal legislation uh so and and we also need to understand that the law of moses was kind of like a booster rocket as someone has suggested that it is something that gets israel going it moves them in a redemptive direction but when christ comes for the new covenant that you know what preceded it falls away it's done its job it's not that it's been unimportant but it's done its job prepare the way to prepare a mindset a culture a world view uh to establish certain things so that when christ comes he actually uh moves them forward uh toward that redemptive goal uh in a way that the the law of moses was uh kind of paving the way for what jesus would come to complete yeah absolutely so thank you excellent explanation and we so we question number two we've just covered it basically but i think it's worth mentioning just the other day we received a question who's this person was borderline ready to depart from the christian faith because they read in the old testament this passage where a person was gathering sticks on the sabbath to create a fire and moses decided or god even talked to mo moses inquired of god and god commanded this person who was working on the sabbath be put to death and there are other commands in the old testament law that us seem wow or even like we agree with the command but necessarily agree with the punishment so what is the best response to this to some of the laws that to us seem harsh right uh i cover some of these things in the moral monster book but i go into a lot more detail in this book is god of indictive bully and i spent a lot of time on these laws and punishments uh in the ancient near east uh laws like you know stoning this person or burning that person etc they were never literal literally carried out we do have two exemplary cases you know again breaking the sabbath again something that was known uh not to do and then also another uh you know was cursing god blaspheming god so there were two exemplary punishments uh resulting in in death but that was not how things were generally done when it comes to adultery even though it's technically capitally punishable you have 16 potentially capitally punishable crimes but only one is always to be the you know result in taking of life in in in retribution and that is committing murder if you commit murder then uh there ought to be there is no mercy for the murderer but all of these other punishments could be commuted to some sort of a monetary payment including adultery which is what we see routinely not only in the law of moses but also in the scriptures beyond so so as we as we look at the the the history of israel we don't we actually don't see these sorts of punishments carried out and it was understood in the ancient near east both outside of israel and in israel that these were simply sending a warning signal like uh adultery bad things can happen don't do it is the implication but it's not as though these were actually literally carried out we just don't have that sort of a record of those sorts of things and again it was just something to is like hyper hyperbole to wake people up to startle them to uh to awaken them to know that this is something you ought to avoid so so i go into more detail on the question of laws and punishments uh there can be some exemplary cases like i mentioned the two of picking up sticks on the sabbath and also the blaspheming of god slandering the lord uh but but you see uh in the in the early church when ananias and sapphira lie they try to make themselves look more generous than they really were by giving to the church and so they're struck down by god doesn't mean that god does that all the time uh but but it's it serves as a warning with this fledgling church uh to not to engage in these sorts of things so so god will do those sorts of things but that's not the that's not the norm and so we see that in the old testament we see a couple of you know kind of exemplary cases but that's not how things were ordinarily carried out and everyone in the ancient near east with regard to these sorts of penalties understood that yeah i remember several months ago i led our church's youth group and we did kind of a q a time and um one person asked the question why in the old testament was there the death penalty for disobeying your parents there's a verse in the old testament where it's not just like a one-time thing but someone who is basically in serial rebellion against their parents that the death penalty could be the result for that and i pointed out it's like well okay two things i want us to focus on here is one there's no record of that ever happening there's no record in the old testament of anyone being put to death for being disobedient to their parents but two if this law were in effect now do you think there'd be a lot less disobedient children and so is really able to help her process okay the strength of the warning one right tells you what god thinks about children who disobey their parents but also like you said earlier it's it is a very bad thing to forsake the wisdom that they are trying to give you but then it also is a such a strong um deterrent from actually committing the act that it forbids that i it has a preventative aspect to it and i think that really helped her to understand it from that aspect and especially the fact that like you said we're saying earlier there's no example an old testament of that law or that penalty actually be enforced right right and we could also add to that that we're not talking about some little kid who's saying you know i hate you to your parents to his parents after he's been disciplined but rather this is a middle-aged person who isn't taking responsibility for uh you know kind of pulling his weight in the family but is uh is someone who is you know a glutton and a drunkard and uh is is is actually squandering his life rather than being a part of the uh the tightly knit family uh unit uh where everyone pulls his weight that uh you're not creating a kind of a drag on the rest of the family by shrinking your responsibility so so there's this is something very significant it's not as though this is some sort of a minor issue this is very weighty yes excellent clarification so so now for the most common question we get that this topic is covered in is god a moral monster and that is um why did god command the extermination or the genocide of the canaanites and so that's in the book of joshua then also a little bit later god commands saul to completely destroy the amalekites and we look at it if we could just narrow it down just to a warfare um one nation attacking another but the fact that god commands that both women and children also be destroyed in these attacks that's what seems to really stir up more wow why would god command such a thing and really makes this a more emotional issue than just the fact that two nations were going to war with each other so um obviously we could do entire episode on this particular one but maybe for the last 10 minutes let's really dive into this you explain it excellently and has got a moral monster but for our listeners what are wha help us to understand why god commanded that the entire canaanite nations and and the amalekites to be completely destroyed all right well uh i again to mention the this forthcoming book is god of indicted bully i take a lot of the arguments and challenges uh a step further from my moral monster book and really elaborate on a number of these points that i think will be very helpful for the readers but a few things to keep in mind here one there is no racial or tribal issue here in the earlier chapters of genesis uh where the patriarchs interacting with the canaanites there are good relationships and so forth and even when there is when there is judgment that is coming on sodom and gomorrah god is willing to relent from bringing judgment he says if there are even 10 righteous people the city i will relent from bringing judgment but turns out there weren't 10 righteous people uh in the in those cities so so there is that uh opportunity uh that it's not again something when we talk about genocide we think about something as directed at a particular ethnicity uh that there's an animus or hatred and and that certainly isn't the case uh in fact what we see with regard to the canaanites is that they're engaging in practices that would have been considered criminal in any civilized society uh incest bestiality ritual prostitution infant sacrifice uh those are the sorts of things that had a corrupting influence and god did not want the his plan with his redemptive plan for israel to be thwarted or sidetracked because the israelites were getting caught up in these sorts of practices so god puts in motion a redemptive plan he waits over 500 years before he actually carries it out he in genesis 15 16 talks about god waiting until the sin of the amorite is filled up or completed so the time was not right it would have been wrong for the israelites to go into the land of canaan earlier than god had prescribed so as a matter of waiting until the time was right and again even as the israelites went into the land there was the possibility of the canaanites joining up with the israelites of course they could flee to another place and the the primary command is to drive out the canaanites but you see rahab from jericho who aligns herself with the israelites you see in chapter 8 there is a group of canaanites in the city of shechem where they are part of a covenant renewal ceremony where joshua is reading the law you see the gibeonites even though they're kind of deceptive in in connecting with the israelites and joining up with them they are also aligning themselves with israel and as we read in chapter 11 it says that none of the canaanite cities even though they had seen the signs and wonders they all knew there were reports now we saw how the lord brought you out of the land of egypt with signs and wonders and now you cross the red sea and across the jordan river and so forth and there's this pillar of cloud by day and fire by night over the camp of the israelites so something is going on here and the and the canaanites had 40 years to recognize these sorts of things going on so but it says none of the canaanite cities attempted to make peace with the israelites again the implication being that was available to them they could have done that and so so this but but again that doesn't happen furthermore a lot of the wars that are actually being fought even in uh even in the book of joshua are defensive wars so when the the you know when the various kings see that the gibeonites have made an alliance with with the israelites they all converge and seek to uh to fight against the uh the the israelites uh these canaanite kings and so forth so you know but but let me go more to some specifics now when we see that there is this warfare taking place we also have in ancient near eastern literature and we see it exemplified in joshua and elsewhere that there is this strongly hyperbolic language where it says we utterly destroyed them man and woman young and old uh etc this is what is you know this is hyperbole this is what's called sometimes a marism where you you you talk about all of the extremes yeah every possible scenario all all people in the population they're they're they're thrown in to the mix even though they're one lots of survivors and we read in judges chapter one they could not drive them out they could not drive them out they could not drive them out repeatedly and even in the book of joshua we see where you know one one city is quote utterly destroyed uh you know that the again there's a question how do we even interpret that term utterly destroyed and we'll talk about that in a minute but but but uh but you see a chapter later or even verses later that where even where there's a city that's been quote unquote utterly destroyed there are lots of survivors so you have on the one hand mention of utter destruction but on the other hand you have lots of survivors and this is common rhetoric in the ancient near east oh we like in our sports sports talk or trash talk oh we totally annihilated those guys we totally destroyed that team that's how it worked in the ancient near east also as part of the rhetoric not just are there lots of survivors but you also have language that brings in man and woman young and old and so forth even if those non-combatants are not present so i'll give an example and i talk about this more in the forthcoming book in numbers 21 uh there are these two kings sion and og who are who are you know the israelites want to pass through peacefully and these kings rise up and they attack the israelites and it says that these you know that they're you know that there's a battle against them and and then we see that it's basically the the king or the kings their sons and their armies that's again those are the ones against whom israel is fighting and it says they they defeated them and it uses that kind of sweeping language then you go to deuteronomy two and three even though the on the ground account says that they're fighting against an all-male army it throws in man woman young and old on those same battle you know those battle accounts clearly this is being imported into the rhetoric of deuteronomy which does that it intensifies the earlier rhetoric of say exodus and numbers and intensifies things to make it look like wow this is a really drastic scenario man woman young and old but they were not present some people say well okay what about what about say saul and the amalekites in in first samuel 15 where it mentions man woman young and old and so forth well a couple of things here for one thing of course the amalekites had already attacked the israelites in chapter 14 48 that they were raiding the the israelites so so god tells samuel uh that you're to attack the amalekites so what happens well in ch in verse 5 they fight at this localized battle uh the the the um they're fighting against the amalekites in what's called a city of amalek probably this citadel or uh fortress and notice too that the kenites are there and the israelites have had good relationships with the kenai so saul sends word to the canaanites hey we're gonna have a wouldn't have an issue with you we're gonna be fighting against the amalekites well do you think that in this battle that women and children and the elderly are gonna be at this pitch battle site of course not there there's a it's going to be against amalekite warriors so and then get this it said the narrator says after the battle has been done that you know the the amalekites were quote utterly destroyed uh and well what does that mean well it doesn't mean you know that they were annihilated because we read later on in for samuel that david fights against an army of the malachites and 400 of them end up escaping and what's an interesting rhetorical device is this you will have in ancient near eastern war texts mention of a single localized battle and then you will have mention of this like universal conquest and and that and that's exactly which is the hyperbole the exaggeration where there's yeah the localized battle is you know takes place with the amalekites in verse 5 of chapter 15 and then saul fights the amalekites from saudi arabia all the way to from arabia all the way to uh to egypt which is a vast terrain and again and also david has a local battle and then fights the amalekites on that same vast terrain so again it's that is a clear exaggeration or hyperbole and so what we see going on here is that these you know what is going on you know so what is going on is that there is this singular battle that saul doesn't destroy the animals at this battle and so forth and he's chastised for it but women and children and the elderly aren't on the you know aren't at the battle site and again i go into a lot more detail on this in my forthcoming book uh you know as god of indicted bully and i and i tease out a number of these scenarios and try to bring clarity to a number of these these issues so so stay tuned for the book i think that's probably all we have time for at the moment but unless you've got a follow-up question but perhaps that gives us a little bit of an idea of what's going on in these ancient year eastern vortex and uh specifically in israel while i completely agree with everything you said and it's a good reminder of the stuff i read in your book so many follow-up questions but as you said we're out of time but what what you just described i think it lays a really good foundation for a clear understanding of what the bible's talking about when someone um totally destroy this people does not mean to completely annihilate all the people and you can see that again and again and again where someone was totally destroyed and yet there are still people left afterwards and another good point that um i've heard is that god commanded particularly to completely destroy like jericho and ai the two first cities in the conquest is sort of a warning sign to the rest of the canaanites that you know fleeing is an option you do not have to engage in warfare so even god being a little more completely destroying the first two cities served as a warning to prevent further conflict for their bloodshed hopefully encouraging some canaanites to to fully encourage the gibby knights to make peace and so forth so even in the midst of god commanding warfare and don't don't don't mishear us that i mean war is brutal war is ugly war is terrible war is always a result of sin but ultimately god's motives for commanding this were not for a group of people to be annihilated no is to establish his covenant people through whom eventually the messiah would come so even in the midst of warfare and brutality you see hope you see grace you see mercy and how god is dealing with people yeah exactly and you see how god in his redemptive purposes yes there is judgment in the short term but the goal is that all of these nations including the canaanite nations that they would be the recipients of salvation so we see throughout the old testament that you know you know assyria egypt edom uh the you know the philistines the the jebusites and so forth that the goal is that they would be included in the redemptive purposes of god uh even though in the earlier stages uh they are engaging in wickedness and need to be stopped and that their pernicious uh actions uh in their in in influences uh need to be held in obeyance because you know otherwise the purposes that god had for israel to be a light to the nations would be thwarted it would be undermined so there's a lot at stake it's it's like a cosmic battle going on here it's not just like one nation uh you know invading another in fact uh i talk about this in the forthcoming book two that it's not as though the israelites were going into this group of nations and and these hapless canaanites were just being you know were being attacked it was a fearful thing to fight against the canaanites because they had large cities they felt like the israelites felt like grasshoppers when they looked at them they were intimidated by them and so there's a you know if someone was fearful and didn't want to go to battle god said then then don't uh but again it required trust in the lord it was not something that the israelites could pull off on their own and i that that's a helpful reminder too that it was a scary prospect to fight against the canaanites not something where they had superior military forces and everything no they're actually militarily disadvantaged and so we see the power of god at work uh even in the taking of the land yeah absolutely so again this has been the got questions podcast with dr paul kopan and he's the author of is god a moral monster and author of the forthcoming book later this year um is god a vindictive bully so paul i would love to have you back on so we can talk about some of the issues that you raise in that book so do we have a deal we do sounds great fantastic so we'll include links where you can learn more about paul and his his books his ministry the school where he teaches and the new course they're offering in the show notes at podcast.gotquestions.org also on the description youtube when this video goes live so so paul again thank you for being on the show today i truly appreciate your insights and the help you've given me and knowing how to answer some of these questions um better appreciate it thank you very much good to be with you all right this has been the got questions podcast got questions the bible has answers and we'll define [Music] you

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Length: 35min 10sec (2110 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022