Richard Dawkins - Debating The Morality of the Old Testament - Unbelievable?

good afternoon and welcome along to unbelievable with me Justin Briley this is the show on premier Christian radio that gets Christians and non-christians talking and debating and what a show we have for you today so pleased to say that my special guest on today's program is Richard Dawkins probably the world's leading atheist and of course I'll introduce our other two studio guests as we get into the topic of today's program if you want to find more debates on faith between Christians and non-christians then do visit the show web page premier dot or UK slash unbelievable where you can subscribe to this program as a podcast and find many other features and resources well today our topic is the Bible especially the Old Testament a new series on Channel five began last weekend continues tonight Saturday the 7th of December it's the Bible TV series and before I tell you exactly what we're discussing on today's program let's hear a taster of what that series is all about here's promised descendants as numerous as the Stars let my people go Valley the shadow of death i am for change yes freedom told over five feature-length episodes a story that changed the world the Bible starts 30th of November on channel 5 so the Bible TV series continues tonight it had great ratings when it was aired in America it's been shown all over the world now is hit UK Shores if you're planning on tweeting about it can I encourage you to use the hashtag the Bible UK hashtag the Bible UK and if you want to find out more about the series meet the creators get resources and so on we've got a web page dedicated to that on the premier website that's premier dot org dot uk' slash the Bible but today we're going to be debating the Old Testament let me introduce the topic and our guests well as Channel 5 screens 10 hours of the Bible in a miniseries this December I have three guests joining me to debate the rights and wrongs of the stories in the Old Testament as we asked today what do we do with the Old Testament what about things like the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac can we make sense of them for today or are they Bronze Age myths that we should be happy to consign to history to the bin of history well those three guests joining me today are Professor Richard Dawkins well-known biologist and of course a leading voice in atheism his best-selling book The God Delusion included a chapter on whether we can draw morality from the Bible so we'll be asking him about that his latest a book is his autobiography an appetite for wonder Christon concern is a Christian pastor and lecturer in the Old Testament at Mullen College his new book time traveled to the Old Testament aims to show how the books of the Old Testament are realistic and relevant for today rabbi Josh levy is from the northwestern reformed synagogue in London also known as the Alif synagogue he's part of reformed Judaism as a movement and is an occasional speaker and commentator on radio and TV and worth saying for the record as if you're listening to this on a Saturday afternoon we are pre recording today's program and so were there are no Sabbath rules being broken in order for Josh to join us on the program today a very warm welcome to all of you gentlemen thank you for being with me today thank you thank you thank you Richard let's start with you someone I've long wanted to have on this program so thank you for making the time to join us today what first of all would you want to just give us a little bit of background and if people want the full story of course they can buy your latest book but you you sound of embraced 80s and really in your late teens was it yes I suppose you could say that but that's not got a lot to do with what we're talking about which is the Old Testament indeed which you can appreciate as a work of literature and I do yes I mean you've been familiar in that sense with the Bible from a young age haven't you yes indeed and what sort of an impact would you say the Bible had on you as a youngster and how did your views develop on it over time I learned the stories of the Old Testament I learned the stories of Genesis about Abraham the stories of King David and so on as a child at school I seem to have had a near photographic memory in those days and almost seem to know them by heart I suppose the sort of Christian attitude in which I was brought up was that the Old Testament God wasn't as nice as the New Testament God and we focus slightly ward off the Old Testament in a way but I love the books as literature in me in the King James translation I of course can't read they read the Hebrew and I have no time for modern translations to seem to me to lose the poetry hmm so you can appreciate as it were especially in the King James translation that there is a beauty of sorts two aspects of the Bible there's certainly beauty in the in the English I'm aware that the books that made it into the Canon are pretty arbitrary collection and not to be treated with actually much more reverence than any of the or many of the other books that didn't make it into the Canon hmm well it's something we could certainly open up in the course of the discussion today now I understand you you haven't had a chance to watch it but throughout December channel 5 is airing a miniseries in fact 10 hours altogether of Bible stories what what do you think about that do you welcome people becoming familiar again with those Old Testament stories and so on yes well I haven't seen the program as you say I will make a point of watching it in future I do welcome it in the sense that it's a part of our literary heritage in this country indeed in our English language and you can't appreciate English literature without being familiar with some of the phrases indeed many of the face I think in The God Delusion I had a couple of pages solidly packed with phrases from the Bible which are familiar proverbial and you can't really take your illusions without them many people probably not aware of the fact that they do come from the Bible many of them from the Old Testament so you encourage people to be familiar with the Bible even though you obviously don't necessarily agree with with all of the contents therein yes I do I encourage people to be familiar with the Bible for literary and historic reasons you also of course can't understand history unless you are familiar with the religious tradition of of our country and other European countries hmm okay well thank you for joining us on the program today and we're going to be getting into some of the issues that you're outlined well several years ago now in The God Delusion when you spoke about the some of the some of the moral issues especially in the Old Testament in Scripture to other guests joining me in studio today to discuss this whole area rabbi Josh levy is from the northwestern reformed synagogue Josh thank you for joining me today pleasure it's great to have you on a little bit of background to yourself you grew up within Judaism absolutely I've grown up in progressive Judaism my whole life and have been working at a lift which is one of the largest synagogues in the country for the last five years and progressive Judaism is a liberal religious movement so we are engaged with Scripture and with texts very deeply but also believe in progressive revelation and obviously we're going to talk a little about how you reconcile those two things as we go forward and the branch if you like of Judaism that you come from is as opposed to Orthodox Judaism if you want to just briefly explain the reference sure so that the fundamental difference between orthodoxy and progressive Judaism is in our understanding of the origin of Torah the origin of the Old Testament and particularly the five books of Moses so Judaism classically has had a principle called Torah mean Hashem I am the Torres from heaven and that principle came to form much of what's modern-day Judaism clearly with enlightenment we came to understand that the Torah needs to be read the Old Testament needs to be read in a different way and progressive Judaism has responded to those those discoveries about text and has kind of begun to think differently theologically and in practice about what it is to be Jewish in the modern world Chris Lincoln's are finally thank you for joining us again in studio today you're you're over at Moreland College down in new Bournemouth tell us a little bit about what you do there well in terms of relevance to this show I teach Old Testament and I encourage students to wrestle with the text including the problem passages and to try and preach and teach and use it in ministry so I'm a fan of the Old Testament and actually I found that very helpful what Richard was sharing in terms of the value of the Old Testament as literature I think that is a very useful kind of starting point and clearly as a Christian I would add to that that I come to the Old Testament through Jesus Christ so it's my understanding of Jesus that informs how I read the text and I appreciate what Josh said about progressive revelation because I think that's a helpful term to use that when we read the Old Testament we recognize an unfolding revelation we can't simply take something out of context as if it were a timeless moment we have to see it as part of an a progressive revelation of God's character and as a Christian it's through Christ that I interpret the Old Testament so that's how I understand this progressive revelation heading towards him which is of course important I think for me because it may be during our discussion together we'll focus on what are sometimes called the terror texts in the Old Testament and the Bible TV series I think began with a disclaimer when the first episode aired saying that this program contains violence viewers discretion advised which of course our Bibles could have on the front of the Richard might encourage that to hear an advisory condom and I had to take a box just to say on these terror attacks that uh these are not my favorite passages in the Bible you know these are not the immediate passages I turned to have my devotional readings that doesn't mean to say I want to cut them out and bin them but it does mean that I place them in a context of a progressive unfolding revelation and the atheists are not the first people to struggle with these passages Christians have struggled with them down through the years - well we're going to be getting into the discussion now and if you'd like to take part if you would like to send in your comments and we're gonna hear some of your comments - the last few weeks of programming towards the end of today's show then do get in touch via email that's unbelievable at premier dot o UK you can also tweet or Facebook me at unbelievable JB on the Twitter account Facebook comm slash unbelievable JB if you want to like the Facebook page of this show and of course all those links plus links to my guests the Bible TV series and more available from the show web page at premier dot org dot uk' slash unbelievable thousands of people are subscribed to the podcast maybe you'd like to join them if you enjoy these kinds of debates between Christians and non-christians if you're tweeting by the way to do with the show or indeed the Bible TV series which continues tonight on Channel five why not use hashtag the Bible UK and if you want more resources specifically around the series meeting the creators and that kind of thing then do go to our web page premier dot org dot uk' slash the Bible [Music] unbelievable with justin Brierley and we're asking today what do we do with the Old Testament is it historical what do we do with the morality of some of those Old Testament stories Professor Richard Dawkins my special guest on the line today a well-known biologist and leading atheist gracing concern is a Christian pastor and lecturer in the Old Testament and rabbi Josh levy is a reformed rabbi from the northwestern reformed synagogue known as a lift coming back to you then Richard how do you take the the Old Testament do you believe that it is essentially mainly fictional sort of literature I'd be surprised if very much of it was factual it I mean the the earth the early parts of it they believe the Pentateuch is clearly the Jewish foundational myth it includes was could the creation myths and the sort of myths of the origin of the of the Jewish people as I understand from archaeological friends there's almost no factual content in it there certainly isn't any factual content in these scientific parts in the bits about creation of the world in the universe and so on and I suspect there's rather little factual content in the stories of Abraham of the of the exile in Egypt of the escape from Egypt Egyptian plagues and so on so it is a it is a collection of myths they haven't they happen to be Jewish myth some of them are inherited from from earlier peoples like the Sumerians has myths they are fascinating I mean myths all around the world are fascinating all three of us happen to be born in two cultures which were immersed in in this particular Jewish myth as opposed to the myths of the North American Indians or of the all of the Chinese or of the Indians or South Sea Islanders or any of the other myths or Africans any of the other myths that we could have been brought up in so there is really no reason at all to be talking about the Jewish myths anymore than any of the other myths around the world all of them are anthropologically interesting but that's it and you're looking a bit pensive there Josh in in response well I mean I can understand why Richard would say that as a Jew obviously I come to those texts in a very particular istic way which is they're my foundational myths that is I am necessarily in relationship with them if I am going to live as part of a Jewish religious and cultural life so they are the foundational texts of my people they're the formative stuff of the religious and cultural life that I lead I mean I as it turns out I doubt the rich and I will disagree very much on his issues of historicity what we're going to differ on I think is probably whether or not that text continues to enrich people's lives hmm and as a Jew it clearly continues to enrich my life it is the foundational myth of the people of which I'm glad is there a formative stuff that I do it's my poetry my story the source of the legal code which then came to shape my religious and cultural practice so as a Jew I have a very particular istic relationship with it go ahead Richard well I just I mean presumably you would agree that if you happen to have been born in China or India or Fiji or somewhere you would say well the Fijian myths of the myths of my people the Indian myths of the Hindu myths of the myths of my people I mean you you recognize the arbitrary accident of the fact that you happen to have been born into a Jewish household and that's why these are the myths of your people right I mean I think our own personal religious and cultural identities are you know inevitably arbitrary to some extent and but it is mine and that's that's the for me to live as a Jewish life engaged with my cultural traditions involves being in relationship with that text I'd be interested Krista to but a couple of things that Richard pointed out as he started there he doesn't believe there's any historical basis really to most of the Old Testament is that something you disagree with yourself I would disagree with that I think there just to clarify there's a couple of words that we've been using so far that I do think need some unpacking one is the word literal what do we mean by a literal interpretation and the other is the word myth which is very easy to use but I think there's a much more complicated debate around what we mean by myth and in fact to be honest with you in terms of popular debate I think the word myth has been so stripped of any clear meaning that it's almost the useless word which would have been much to the annoyance of someone like talking you know it spent so much time discussing mythology and the meaning of myth so just to take those two words folk very very quickly first of all if I could go with the word literal first then what do we mean by interpreting the book literally literal does not mean simply interpreting something for its face value meaning you know that the Sun rises and the Sun sets you know this this is language you would clearly know it's a conventional way of speaking about the relationship of the the Sun to the earth as we view it from our viewing platform likewise for the Old Testament we could talk about how there is a perspective on history in the world and that's reflected in the way the stories are told so to interpret the Old Testament literally doesn't mean always taking its face value it means taking it seriously for the kind of literature it is and myth I don't think is a particularly helpful word here I mean theologians used the word saga sometimes to describe the Old Testament I think that might be more helpful because when we think about the the history of the Old Testament I'm sure Richard would agree that there's a historical curl to the Old Testament story I'm sure you know he wouldn't doubt that there are there's there's a historical story unfolding but it's to what extent is that wrapped up in figures of speech and forms of writing and perhaps later traditions that have been incorporated into the story that's what we need to disentangle that there's a core of history I'm absolutely and you feel that that is confirmed by archaeology and so on when when you look into some of these core aspects of the Old Testaments history I do I've been involved in an archaeological dig in in Israel and for a couple of seasons and what I'm aware of I don't know which friends Richard was talking to at Oxford but there really is a wide open debate here I mean you'll have archaeology doesn't provide a discipline where things are coming up from the ground date stamped I mean till you get two coins anyway they're not date stamped with a record of who said what to who archaeology provides evidence which came big us it needs explaining and so there's a very vigorous debate going on archaeology right now and there are those who hold to a minimalist position and would suggest that there's very little evidence at all for the events of the Old Testament but there's a very significant number of archaeologists a very significant number who would argue for what's sometimes called a more maximalist approach to reading the evidence people like William Dever or kennefa kitchen sorry I mean yeah you disagree with that well I don't disagree with that I mean I do think we need to be very careful about two things one is perhaps the really fundamental question is whether historicity matters whether actually this is not a history book that's not its function it's not a science book it is a people's grappling with their identity their story their experience of the world around them that then came to inform other people's doing of that same thing so for me I'm as I haven't deeply unconcerned with historicity that doesn't bother me at all I do think we need to recognize also that the Old Testament is not a unity that there are different books within it doing different things clearly there are points in the sort of pseudo historical books at which the Old Testament is describing events that we know took place because we have evidence we have quite lots of it in the British Museum which describes the event taking place but the Bible isn't doing history it's doing theology so when the Babylonians rampage and destroyed Jerusalem we know that happened we know that the Bible is describing it but the Bible is doing theology it's seeing that in terms of reward and punishment and behavior it's doing a different thing do you do Richard do coming back to do you think that the Bible has the Old Testament especially any value in terms of a moral dimension that it may cast so now you're changing the subject and an interesting change well I I just wanted to you know we will cover a variety of subjects hopefully I mean agree with Josh that historicity it doesn't really matter but I think I put it in a slightly different way it doesn't matter because you you wouldn't be bothering to ask the question about the sacred myths or the tribal myths of the Incas or the Aztecs I mean they are interesting they're fascinating this but you wouldn't be having a debate to say is there any historicity in the stories of some gods and things the only reason we're bothering to ask the question about the historicity of the Jewish myths is that we happen to be in brought up in them but they are not special there are they are just tribal myths like any other I mean well Kris do you do well could I make a distinction there because I you know you gave a very helpful description right at the beginning of the power and influence of the Old Testament narratives and Western culture and I'd go them further than that and say that even history writing itself can find its roots in in the Old Testament in the way the Old Testament was written not that it's history you know accept Josh's point that it's not history as in a modern history textbook it's not science as a modern science textbook but in terms of a history it formulates a way of describing events which have a certain linearity and a certain meaning which is reflected in the historical traditions which will yeah we also look to the Greeks and Herodotus but in terms of the modern world our development of history and our understanding of history reflects a view which we find in the Old Testament which I don't think we find in the chronicles of Babylon I don't even find them in the Inca myths I mean that's for sure so you would in a sense then say these it's it's not just sort of equal weighting between different myths around the worlds there's something quite unique about the absolute testament okay Richard I just don't see that I mean I noticed you're quite happy about using the word myth for the income its elite than the early Aztec myth yes I mean I'm not saying the word myth well I'm using it because you used that to describe their stories and legends and you know I do accept there is a categorical myth I just want to define it very carefully I mean I think myth myth does not have that rooting in linear historical progression and that's where I think our modern understanding of history has a much more of a reliance from the Jewish tradition then would have come out of the Inca mythological cycles you know stories which aren't rooted in time and place I mean we find that in the great Hindu it as well which again are not rooted in time and place not concerned with the genealogies and the locations and who was king when in the way the Old Testament narrators were yes Richard and then we'll bring in Joe how about that maybe so I mean I I don't think it's a very I think it's a very deeply important point if it's so I suspect the same is probably true of some other mythologies I don't want to make a big thing of it but it's deeply important in terms of our respect for the historical processes and the development of history as a Western discipline and that's why this is important I mean it's foundational for more than just the Jewish people it's foundational much another so much of the Old Testament which is taken to be historical I mean not both of you gentlemen are sophisticated who don't do this but more than 40% of the American Confirmation things that the book of Genesis including the six-day story of creation is literally true and this is a problem which I have as a scientist and I hope and believe that both of you stand up and vigorously oppose such literalistic fundamentally right but but I think that's that is because we recognize only I recognize that that's not the function of this text I mean I want to come step back a little bit because I think Richard is actually asking probably one of the fundamental questions about religion which is why should we privilege this particular text over any other text what is it that gives it its enduring power if it has any and how do we then engage with it and you know classically the answer would be something around authorship that is that there is a divine authorship that gives this text its weight gives this text its authority you know we may also say there's something in the values of that text which something it expresses or it may be that very personal relationship that lots of people have ended up with that text and then my job as someone working in religion is to help that journey to be one which is done with integrity well if I may I will move the the subject along a little bit and and there was a very famous long sort of a description of God the Old Testament God in in the God Delusion Richard and I'm sure you know what I'm about to mention you described the God of the Old Testament you said 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 Felicity Phyllis title pestilential megalomaniacal sadomasochistic capriciously malevolent bully quite a mouthful do you still stand by that description of the god of the Old Testament yes I mean if I was accused of anti-semitism by the recent Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and otherwise or thought of anti-semitic advantage God or but I mean that that of course refers to - what what's have been called here but the terror passages and the terror passages are taken literally by some particularly American theologians and many many people do actually believe as I think it was Joshua's recently saying that the Bible is authored by God and God in those terror passages which are not negligible in the Old Testament they actually quite prominent is a horrific ly unpleasant character you know getting away from that okay as you mentioned the chief rabbi former chief rabbi Lord Sachs said that he thought it was a profoundly anti-semitic passage in The God Delusion what why do you why do you differ from him on that he suggested that you were continuing a strain in certain anti-semitic thinking that there was essentially about saying well we've got a better God in the New Testament in the Old Testament so on i I don't think we've got a better God in the New Testament there's something exceedingly unpleasant in the fundamental Christian doctrine of atonement of the idea of God being unable to forgive our sins unless he tortured his son alias himself in the first basin what that's that's a revolting doctrine actually in some ways it's worse than anything in the Old Testament but that wasn't the point when I said the god of the Old Testament I simply meant the god of the testament what rabbi sacks heard was the god of the Jews which of course is true but that wasn't why I was singling it out I was singling it out because the the terror passages are literally horrible mmm well it's probably not something we'll have time to address on today's program unfortunately though I'm sure Christian Concern are a Christian guest today would take a different view on that are we going to a short break and we're going to keep talking about the Old Testament morality what about the story of sodom and gomorrah or abraham nearly sacrificing Isaac don't forget you can also get in touch we're going to give out the ways to get in touch again at the end of the next section my guests today are Richard Dawkins Chris Sinkin s'en and rabbi Josh levy we're talking about the Bible TV series you can find out more about it and resources a premier daughter UK slash the Bible and you can find this program and links to my guests at premier dot org dot uk' slash unbelievable we'll be back in a moment's time are we the products of chance or intention does the cosmos leave space for God does Darwin dispense with God does the human mind reflect a mind behind the universe exploring the god question is a new six-part DVD study series investigating a major talking point of our time science and God some of the world's best scientists and philosophers arguing from both sides of the debate with open frank and rigorous discussion and fascinating results exploring the god question is designed for individual or small group study as well as for schools and public presentation to order and find out visit the god question TV slash explore explore the search for truth you're listening to unbelievable on premier Christian radio welcome back to the show with me Justin Braley today a rabbi a Christian and an atheist yes it sounds like the beginning of a joke but they're joining me in studio and on the line we're debating the historicity and morality of the Old Testament as Channel five screen the Bible TV series throughout December it was phenomenally successful in the USA how will it fare on UK shores well there's loads more info resources interviews a Premier dot or UK / the Bible if you are planning on watching the second episode tonight on channel 5 or catching up with the first episode do tweet what you think about it hashtag the Bible UK would love to hear your thoughts as well by email unbelievable at premier dot all UK and you can interact with the show via our Twitter and Facebook account at unbelievable JB if you're a Twitter user facebook.com slash unbelievable JB to like the page all those links and more links to my guests links to the series and so on from the the show page of unbelievable that's premier dot org dot uk' slash unbelievable so my guests today are Professor Richard Dawkins a well-known biologist and probably the leading atheist voice in the world his best-selling book The God Delusion included a chapter on whether we can draw morality from the Bible that's what we're talking about today and Chris Sinkin Tsin is a Christian pastor a lecturer in the Old Testament at moorlands College in Bournemouth his new book time traveled to the Old Testament aims to show how the books of the Old Testament are realistic and relevant for us today our other contributor is rabbi Josh levy from the aileth Northwestern reformed synagogue in London so just in that last section we had Richard defending this passage in the Constitution where he describes the the God of the Old Testament I know both you gents Josh and Chris want to come back on this and perhaps start with you Josh's as a Jew did you sort of get where the former Chief Rabbi Lord sax was coming from him in for what I mean for what it's worth I didn't read that as being remotely anti-semitic you know I read The God Delusion like lots of people involved in liberal religion did because actually we're grappling with the same issues that Richard is grappling with you know I was irritated by bits of it I enjoyed bits of it's I was offended by none of it what I was concerned about was how simplistic that line is because what it fails to recognize is that the Bible and particularly the Old Testament is not univocal it has a number of different text within it and it has a number of different versions of how we can understand God within it inevitably because it's it's a product of different people and different times grappling with those very issues so the vindictive God whom Richard describes is one version I think we maybe want to argue about the use of the word vindictive but you know there is also a deeply deeply ethical God who 3,000 years ago is saying to the Israelites you have to care about the vulnerable in your society you have to do your business honestly you have to look after your workers you have to care about the immigrants who comes into your society so to only describe the God of the Old Testament in that way I think is actually just simplistic and doesn't help us to really engage with the Old Testament as a whole Richard any response yeah I accept that of course it was it was a passage that I was it was semi tongue-in-cheek actually because well when I do public readings of my books I do that do it with my wife and we usually try to get a laugh from the audience early on in our performance because it sort of lightens up the atmosphere and that passage we always used when doing The God Delusion readings right at the beginning because it does get the audience roaring with laughter and it sort of makes it puts the audience in a in a in a friendly mood simply because they laugh so there was a sort of I mean I think I went on to describe a story of Randolph Churchill who had a similar reaction he never actually read the Bible before and he was challenged by even war and the brother officer during the war to read the Bible and he kept talking exclaiming how horrified he was by by by by God and so it was a sort of humorous humorous passage and I do accept that if you if you look through either the Old Testament or the New Testament you can certainly find passages of wisdom passages that one would epically approve of tucked in amongst the other that one wouldn't ethically approve of I suppose I am I spend a lot of time in America and I'm very conscious that the bulk of my audience they ought it's not the bulk of them but the orders that I'm really trying to reach is largely an American audience and I I presume that both Chris and Josh know how many people in America actually do take the Bible literally and you have to read The God Delusion through through that filter that I'm actually aiming it at least partly those people in America who are my enemies as a scientist who are actually subverting scientific education in a bit in a very serious way so in a sense I wasn't trying to irritate nice decent liberal theologians like this one richer by I mean I would say straight away that I'm not offended at all and it's certainly with my friends with other Christians I would want to defend to the hill you're right to crack jokes and you know I'm not I'm not one for blasphemy myself but I certainly think that we need to have the tolerance and freedom in society to allow this kind of sometimes look about stuff you know I mean I think that is perfectly legitimate and so I think to start being offended by it I think there's a kind of political correctness in our society that's very dangerous actually because it can prevent us from having Frank and open discussion the the problem though I think and Josh touched on it by talking about the the simplification that's going on here is that Richard you are very good with rhetoric you have a very powerful mastery of the English language and that rhetoric can be very bullying sometimes and I think the way in which that passage is put again I'm not you know don't worry I'm not saying that I'm a Fender or you take the passage out I'm not suggesting that but in terms of the it's clearly a very slanted view of how to read the text of the Old Testament I mean most of us would take the clearer passages to interpret the harder passages we would be talking about Leviticus 19 love your neighbor as yourself before we're looking at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah so you know we would have an approach to scripture that would wait things in such a way that that description of God just does not sound like the God who I believe in or the God who I worship so um the rhetoric I think can generate a lot more heat than it does light yes I need more fireworks everyone if you don't mind let's talk about some of these so-called terror passages though and they would right there on our screens on Saturday night on the first episode of the the Bible and I think we often forget the fact that there are some pretty interesting episodes now you certainly bring up a couple of these in The God Delusion and Richard let's talk about Sodom and Gomorrah for instance now that is that the story in Genesis I think it's chapter 19 in which lot has angelic visitors and the townspeople come and they demand that they essentially rape these these visitors that he has with them and he tells them not to do that he and it essentially offers his daughters instead but then there is sort of an intervention by God and lot and so on escape fire and brimstone rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah now Richard for you is this an example of a sort of morally repugnant story in the Old Testament I would only want to say something like that if there were anybody who took their morals from the Old Testament and if you take your morals from the Old Testament then that is a repugnant story as are some of the other other ones but I hope you don't take your morals from the Old Testament there are people in America who do and those are the people that I need to call the their attention to stories like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and a lot offering well now you say they they take I mean I don't personally I know quite a few evangelical Christians in America but I don't know any of it based their morality on this story for instance I know but how do they decide which stories to base the America on it's all very well saying love your neighbor as yourself is good or the Sermon on the Mount is good Sodom and Gomorrah is horrid but when you decide which of those stories to base your morals on you're not using biblical methods in order to do your deciding you're using the methods of a more of a modern moralist which all three of all four of us are the good I think I would be using normal methods of interpretation when we look at the genre and we ask what what is the passage doing what is a book doing what is the context doing and in particular is it prescriptive or is it descriptive now Leviticus 19 I think is giving prescriptions we still need to interpret them in terms of their time and place in ancient Near Eastern world view but there are prescriptions there I need to deal with and find the principles from which I can learn with a Sodom and Gomorrah story it is a descriptive passage that is appalling and and to try and base any morals on the Sodom and Gomorrah story I wouldn't even know where to begin because I don't think it's that kind of literature I don't think it's giving us a prescription for life in fact actually Richard if I may I think you you make a great comment on the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the behavior of lot because you reflect on a lot in The God Delusion and then your summary sentence I think is very perceptive you say if this dysfunctional family was the best that Sodom had to offer by way of morals some might begin to feel a certain sympathy with God and his judicial brimstone or rabbi Dawkins I mean I think I still worry about people who I know you're not one of them but but that there are people who think the Bible is literally true there are people in America many many of them who want to have the Ten Commandments hung up in courthouses contrary to the Constitution and although you can find a decent commandment among the 10 thou shalt not kill thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's cetera most of them you wouldn't actually want to base your my phone and that yet there are people I know you're not among them but there are people who do think that we should derive our morals from the 10 commandments from the from the Old Testament what do you think about basing our morality on the Ten Commandments then Josh well I think it's important to recognize that within Judaism the Ten Commandments are just seen as 10 of classically it's understood as being 613 commandments clearly some of the issues that Richard raises also apply to those prescriptive sections those legal sections which are interwoven into particularly the five books of Moses because clearly there are legal sections which are also apparent to us in terms of our modern morality but I do believe that the the Torah particular has within it some values that it expresses some ideals within it which are hugely modern and continued to have the capacity to enrich our lives today and also that the stories even those terror texts have the ability to raise the questions that are exactly our questions for today and that's always been the Jewish approach so you know 2,000 years ago the rabbi's were asking exactly the rabbi Dawkins questions of the texts that they had inherited from from the thousand years previously and we're exactly grappling with what you do with lot and condemning him you know Judaism has never read the Old Testament uncritically so they were condemning lot they were looking at sections for example around capital punishment and saying hold on a minute this seems arbitrary this seems unreasonable we have to to think about how we actually process this this can't be exactly what what is meant we shouldn't really take this on face value so you know I think the authentic religious approach to the Old Testament is the one that reads it critically and which engages with it in that very critical way but but when you do when a modern person or when the rabbi's down the centuries that you're talking about look at the scriptures and interpret them in the light of their modern in their own time and we own our time our modern morality we do that in the light of our modern morality why bother with the Scriptures at all why not just go straight to the modern morality and cut out the middleman my enthusiasm for the Old Testament what's the bubble over because I you know when we come to your right we look at modern morality we talk about the modern morality that we use but let's also give credit to the old testament world and reflect on the morality in terms of the ancient Near Eastern world view now in that context here is enlightenment here is an approach to the widow the orphan the refugee that I actually find very beautiful I mean I recognize the terror texts I recognize the issues of interpretation with problematic passages but but written through it all is an approach to society which is fundamentally egalitarian and ought to see that we have to compare the Old Testament documents with texts from that time such as the law codes of Hammurabi now those Babylonian law codes have many parallels to the Old Testament - eye on a - through a tooth but the way in which the Old Testament is very different from those legal codes from Babylonia they they highlight this egalitarian approach to life the privilege of the poor the importance of responsibility that those who are in power look after those who are vulnerable the Sabbath rest command I find that a very beautiful command I don't follow it I'm not Jewish myself I don't followed in that sense myself I could be broadcasting on a Saturday but the Sabbath law I find very powerful because it describes that the privilege given to the animals to take a day of rest the land ultimately gets rest slaves get rest you know we want to talk about how it regulates an issue like slavery in the ancient world you know slavery common throughout the ancient world but at least the Old Testament is regulating so are you saying that the the Old Testament law then and morality is actually in some sense a foundational stone upon which our modern morality the richard says let's go straight for that well it rests in some way well I think that's true I mean that's a historians judgment and you know I'm not suggesting on best place to make that judgment I think so I'm more saying look less enjoy the power of the Old Testament and read it in its own light you know read it in the context of the ancient Near East and what was going on in the ancient world let's not be anachronistic about it and read it in terms of a modern context where for example we have a well-developed prison system where we wouldn't need to depend on the death penalty and the way they did in the ancient world but let's go back to the ancient world where they didn't have those privileges and benefits that we have today and see well actually in the context of the ancient world this is an enlightened text and there is the challenge though which is a very real challenge for us as moderns engaging with religion and with those ancient texts which is on what grounds can we and should we privilege one particular part of the text over another you know and that's and that's a very real question of course it is the nature of our struggle right and and you know I think what Richard speaks to and I'm very pleased that he does is that religion is not simple and it shouldn't be simplistic and those really difficult parts of the text we have to work out how we deal with them and it is very you know it's very easy to say you know there are bits of the text which are progressive for their time and they were incredibly or to say that there are values underpinning some of the Old Testament texts which are modern and have real resonance for us today and of course there are but we're also told that we need to stone our rebellious son and we have to engage with that text as well now just be interested in your point on this Richard is this just theologians picking and choosing that's essentially what you seem to say oh yeah yes I mean when we say that we that we we look at our modern morality and we are all 21st century moralists and we disapprove of slavery and we believe that women are equal and things like that we can look back in history and look at various historical traditions and discover nuggets of that in in the Jewish tradition in Christian tradition in Confucianism in Buddhism in Hinduism in moral in look all the great moral suppose of course our modern morality has its historical developments which we ought to acknowledge and ought to study but we shouldn't be bending over backwards to look at a particular text which happens to be ours namely the the the Bible or the ER or the Old Testament and struggle manfully to understand it in terms of of modern you know find the good bits and and reject the bad bits and interpret the bad bits in them mean why bother why not just look at our modern morality and say yes this has historical precedence from all over the world and it's good to look at them but we don't have to spend all our time trying to find the bits of the of the particular holy texts whatever it is well it's the Koran or the Old Testament all or whatever it might be trying to find the bits that fit in with our modern morality let's keep let's keep our morality separate and think about it as moral philosophers albeit acknowledging that it has historical roots and I suppose that's what that's where we're going to brilli diverge because my answer to that would be because that's the human exercise and that's being a very powerful human exercise for thousands of years and that particular text because of the stuff that's within it which is horrible as well as the stuff that's within it which is so precious is a mechanism for us to ask those really deep questions that's really what's crucial for me is that this is a text which enriches our lives now as a Jew I'm necessarily almost in relationship with that text but you know I believe it also has the power to enrich the lives of other people because of that breath and because of our ability to struggle with it just be interested Richard to get your views and again this is an example you bring up in The God Delusion and it was again part of the first episode of the Bible TV series very dramatic scene where Abraham takes his son Isaac up having been commanded by God to sacrifice him this is of course found in Genesis chapter 22 the story of Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac but God provides a I'm caught in the thicket at the last moment now you described it this way in The God Delusion by the standards of modern morality this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse bullying into asymmetrical power relationships and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defense I was only obeying orders yet the story is one of the greatest foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions so you really object to this story in terms of its moral viewpoint well I trust that that nobody thinks it's a morally good story I mean it's sometimes interpreted as being God's Way of telling Abraham that you don't sacrifice humans anymore you sacrifice a sheep in instead my feeling that since God was according to the story able to talk to every but him why didn't he just tell him um rather than put Isaac through this horrific ordeal clearly it isn't true nobody says he thinks it's true except at least 40% of the American population who think that everything in the Bible is literally true and almost all of the Islamic world who think that the parallel story of Abraham nearly sacrificing Ishmael is literally true but nobody in this studio well let's find out singing I'm guessing you're not as liberal as obviously I'm going to also have to comment again on this word literal I mean I believe this is a historical event in terms what we mean by literature though this is very important because I've been helped very much actually by a Jewish theologian Robert Altair who has described the art of biblical narrative that of course these historical events have been presented to us in terms of Hebrew narrative following certain conventions and actually at that point when we read the story we discover what a beautifully crafted story it is the way it builds up tension the way in which there's not really a narrators voice telling you what to do with it there's a real sense of it should provokes a lot of questions rather than necessarily answering them easily but that it's a historical event event behind it I'm not quite sure why you would want to dismiss that I mean obviously if we didn't have the book of Genesis we're not going to have an archeological dig that will discover the remains of the the altar I mean it's quite fair that there's no way of confirming this through outside of the the texture Genesis but I don't see any reason to dispute its historical reality I don't know why it would be included if it weren't but really that's that's neither Hillel there in terms of the story itself this is a story which i think is taken as the the end of child sacrifice for the Israelite people and yet that's surprising because in the ancient Near East child sacrifice human sacrifice was common it was practiced in the the among the surrounding peoples and of course Abraham had to learn who is this God he was following what kind of God is another God that wants the sacrifice of children you say God may have just told him that but I don't think life is as simple as that sometimes we need to learn lessons and of course we can't simply lift that story out of a context that at least claims to be nearly 4,000 years ago and suggests it could happen today not for one moment would I want to condone anybody who suggests that God would tell them to do an evil wicked thing today but in its context when these things were not known God was progressively revealing his character in this next stage in the Genesis account is to understand that this God that Abraham worshipped is not the kind of God who would request the require okay sacrifice of a child interested in your response to that Richard obviously Chris painting of that this is actually rather than being a horrific story a rather a good good picture of words fail me I mean there you have theological minds in all this glory thank you I take it that's not a compliment I I'm actually rather shocked that you even consider the possibility that it that it happened I thought that what progressive theologians did was to say that these things are symbolic they're moral stories a bit like Aesop's fables okay why would you say that that one is symbolic and not say a later story regarding King Hezekiah you know that it's neither here nor there whether it happened you said what really well sir our conversation awful story which which grove home the moral that unlike the surrounding people's opinion the the Jews should stop sacrificing children and so it's a it's a moral tale-like an Aesop's fable nobody actually cannot be both well that would be my point can it not be both end I mean i-i've no question there's a moral to the story but that the story can be true as well in other senses with a historical kernel to it that I can't see why we have to do you think you think God actually told Abraham to sacrifice his son and then repeat him a nice described very briefly in the Genesis account so I can't tell you all the details about how that may have happened but that's it's based on a historical event I mean can't you agree that there's no reason why it couldn't be based on a historical event of course if you don't believe in God you're not gonna believe that God spoke I didn't pay for him it may be based on on a historical event in which case it's shocking okay but at least we're just agreeing that to say that we can treat it as a a tale with a moral doesn't mean it can't be based in real history no I mean I was giving you our charitably giving you the benefit of the doubt once again I think we're sort of bnotes gates driven off the really important question here so as I'm largely indifference questions of historicity what we do have here is a narrative which is incredibly incredibly rich so Chris has referred to the literary nature of the work and we know that many of the biblical narratives are extraordinarily crafted narratives using wordplay and playing with time and leaving questions open and this is a really fabulous piece of literature particularly in the original but it's also rich morally as well so I think you know where I would disagree with either view is to say there is a moral to this story there are multiple morals to this story their Old Testament certainly the Torah is not there to tell us what we're supposed to think in these sorts of places it's there to raise a whole bunch of questions for us that we then have to grapple with if we're going to live well in the world now there are other ways of asking those questions but the Old Testament is a really good one well we're going to have to go to a quick break we'll get final thoughts from our guest Richard Dawkins rabbi Josh levy and Chris cincin as we conclude today's program if you want to get in touch yourself if you want to subscribe to the podcast of unbelievable where we have a weekly debate between Christians and non-christians sometimes between Christians of different views then premier dot-org UK / unbelievable is the place to go and if you want to find out more about the Bible TV series go to our resource page on that premier dotto UK / the Bible so our way back in a moment continuing to tell you what else is coming up on today's show as well as wrapping up this conversation with my guests on the historicity and morality of the Old Testament the church is facing a crisis of confidence should Christians still believe in the Bible can we have confidence in God and does he have confidence in us that spring harvest next Easter discover why you can answer these questions yes yes and yes spring harvest will challenge your thinking it'll feed your mind and your spirit top Bible scholars will give substance to your confidence in God and His Word find out more about spring harvest online sponsors of the Bible series on Channel five good afternoon welcome back to the third and final part of unbelievable with me Justin Braley the place where Christians and non-christians get together to talk every week here on premier Christian radio it's part of a wider range of programming every Saturday afternoon called faith explored and later on today between 4 & 5 I'm going to be chatting to Roma Downey the actress who is one half of the husband-and-wife team behind the Bible TV series so that's worth hanging on for in the profile' interview between 4:00 and 5:00 this afternoon straight after this program next week here on unbelievable we're also continuing the biblical theme shifting to the New Testament we've got a debate we're razor aslan author of zealots a best-selling book claiming that Jesus was in fact a political agitator not the peace-loving Messiah of the Gospels while he's joining me and he's going to be in debate with New Testament scholar Antony Ladon who believes Aslan has really gone off piste as far as he's concerned concerning the historical Jesus that's gonna be a really feisty debate next week come back for that same time same place here on premier Christian radio or indeed online at premier dot org UK / unbelievable and of course we're going to be hearing some of your responses a little later on in today's program - last week's show fabulous intelligent design debate between the leading intelligent design proponents in the world Stephen Meyer about his new book Darwin's doubt and that was with evolutionary biologist Charles marshal of the University of California in Berkeley so we'll hear some of your feedback to that later on as well going to be telling you how you can get a hand on one of these copies of Chris Incans book time travel to the old testament got five copies to give away so listen out for the question a little later on plus we've already talked about the issue of Abraham and Isaac why would God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac well I asked the same question to New Testament historian NT right and we'll hear how he responds to that question a little bit later on in today's show as well as your responses after I asked you about it on Twitter this last week that's all to come here on the program time now though to conclude our discussion on the Old Testament if you're more info and resources all about it go to premier dot org UK / the Bible you're listening to unbelievable on premiere Christian radio just as we wrap up today's conversation thanks again to Professor Richard Dawkins Chris sing concern and rabbi Josh levy who have been with me on the program today and Richard the Old Testament then you can recognize obviously that there is some value to some some of the you know the language and the storytelling in particular as you've appreciated it in the King James Version but as far as it applying to today do you believe that there is simply a disconnect we need to leave this behind why can't we just be moral without reference to these these ancient stories yes I certainly think that I I agree with my colleagues that that it's very rich it's it's sable it's miss its it shares that with the Greek myths with myths from all over the world many of them do have moral meaning for the cultures in which they grew up I repeat the point that it's entirely arbitrary that we happen to be talking about the Hebrew myths because that's what all four of us are brought up in we could do exactly the same thing with it with the Greek myths with you with the Indian myths and you would not wish to live your life according to the to the behavior of Zeus and Apollo and and all the Norse gods or anything like that these are all powerful rich stories and we can take them in all sorts of different ways there is nothing special about the Bible just because we happen to have been brought up in its traditional mmm Josh as we start to conclude today's program how would you apply the Old Testament for today what I think in the question Richard asks which is why should we privilege this text I would want to say there are things about it which are exceptional I think it is exceptionally rich and there is something exceptional about the fact that it has continued to have resonance and be a way for people to think about the world for thousands of years you know we're talking about a text which is in places 3,000 years old which continues to have us arguing about it for an hour on the radio and you know tenacity in and of itself is not an argument for keeping something but it it suggests there is something exceptional about the text but what's important for me is that Judaism has never read that text uncritically whatever its perspective on authorship and origin that has never stopped Jews from looking at the text and saying oh gosh that looks a bit weird or I really have to think about how to deal with that or you know is that character behaving morally or not or in the places which are legal texts how do I want to apply that because there's something that feels strange difficult there or something which feels wonderful and fabulous and enriching there so this is a text which has the ability to enrich our lives but only if we don't approach it simplistically either too simplistically reject it or to read it simplistically and take it simplistically in the way that I know that Richard particularly objects to Chris finally I think I've got to be honest and say there are two types of answer I want to give one type obviously from my faith perspective I believe that in Jesus Christ and therefore through him I have a particular faith response to the Old Testament as the Word of God and I that is my understanding of the Old Testament and why I have a personal vested interest in it but that's separate I think from a more general cultural issue here which is that I think in an age of growing illiteracy and a sense of not being conscious of our history in our culture in our background I think it's imperative that we can encourage people to read the Old Testament to understand these foundation documents you know if the Inka myths and legends were going to use those words so lightly if the Inka myths and legends were the foundation documents for our society we would be living in a very different society today the Old Testament is the earliest documents that provide humane descriptions of how warfare should be fought so for all of the that the terror texts that we might debate and discuss within the legal code there are some very humane teachings on war and on how society should be organized and on the treatment of the poor and the vulnerable leading to modern-day issues like but the stop human trafficking campaign that friends of mine are involved in all the Jubilee campaign regarding debt and other nations so I think in being conscious of our history our background and what Richard has described as great literature I think we actually only enrich our understanding of these issues were facing today and boy do we need to understand these issues if we're going to be a literate and historically conscious people able to grapple with the complex moral questions facing us Richard thank you very much for joining us by phone today and are you going to be trying to catch a few episodes of the Bible yes thank you good good well thank you very much for being with us today and of course you can find out more about Richard Dawkins at Richard Dawkins dotnet and his latest book an appetite for wonder links to that of course from today's show as well thank you all so Chris and Josh for being with me on the program today it's been really interesting this thank you very much and I'm very glad to be out to share the time with you well I wonder what you thought about today's show I'm sure you'll want to get in touch as well why not do that by emailing me unbelievable at premier dot or dot uk' and of course I'm gonna begin out there other ways to get in touch with the show by Facebook and Twitter in just a moment's time [Music] unbelievable with justin Brierly so I would be interested to hear your responses as I say by a Twitter and Facebook as well at unbelievable JB if you want to follow me on Twitter Facebook comm be to like the Facebook page get updates on the program and what's going on behind the scenes and we're going to hear some of your responses via Twitter specifically to this whole question of the the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham I asked you about that this last week on Twitter to get some of your responses to that in a moment time don't forget all those links as I mentioned to my guests to this program to the vast archive of past programs you can find on the podcast and so on all available from the show web page premiere dot o qk / unbelievable and if specifically you want resources to do with the bible TV series currently airing on channel 5 what better place to go than premiere dot o UK / the bible and as i said earlier if you're tweeting about it tonight why not to use the hashtag the bible UK that's the way you can sort of check what everyone's saying about it as it airs second episode tonight on channel 5 9:00 p.m. wanted to mention that we're giving away five copies of time travel to the old testament by chris sinking Tsin published by IVP simple question all you have to do is email me name the husband-and-wife team behind the bible TV series okay name the husband-and-wife team behind the bible TV series I've already mentioned who the wife side of the team is can you add the husband's name here's a hint go to that resource page I just mentioned at premièred org dot uk' / the bible and it's not hard to find out but if you can tell me that via email i will happily send you a copy of the book if you're one of the five that i pick out of a hat after we've had entries in next week unbelievable at premier dot org dot uk' if you want to send me in your answers to that question and I will accept answers from abroad not just in the UK lots of listeners in the states I know - unbelievable via the podcast hope you don't feel too aggrieved at Richards various statements about Americans do you need to test program you might want to email in about that as well as some of the other issues that came up in the program today just a couple of quick things to mention I'm very pleased to announce that I'm going to be involved with spring harvest in 2014 spring harvest is a major Bible conference that happens every sort of spring obviously around the Easter break and it's been going for what 25-30 years now well that's this year it's called unbelievable funnily enough and there is something of an apologetic theme about having confidence in our faith and so I'm going to be actually leading some of these seminars it's at least at the Minehead site over the three weeks in April that it takes place so if you're able to come along this year I do particularly encourage it it's really for anyone who wants to think through the big questions about their faith so so think about coming along to spring harvest 2014 oh I'd be delighted to see you there if you're a show listener after either Minehead 1 2 or 3 through April from the 5th to the 18th of April and another fabulous speaker doing the apologetics seminars at the Skegness site at the same time is going to be Tom price of the Oxford Center for Christian apologetics who's appeared on this program a number of times so between Tom and myself we're going to be sharing the the apologetics seminars looking at some of the big questions around the Christian faith particularly to do with God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit so if you'd like to book in a spring harvest org is the website if you want to be involved really looking forward to meeting a lot of new people as well who who may come into contact with the show for the first time that way at Spring harvest this year here in the UK that spring harvest dot org let's go to some of your feedback as I mentioned I wanted to ask you what you thought of the Abraham and Isaac story that we were discussing here on the show today I tweeted out earlier this week a still from the Bible TV footage of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac before the intervention of God and the angel to provide a lamb well this was what Anton had to say when I asked what do you think he says that child lived how many died in abortion abattoirs how many are sacrificed to progressivism hashtag neo eugenics well in response Lord Billy Austin said what about er II two wrongs don't make a right Abraham and Isaac is a bad advert for blind faith - which Anthony came back to say but it wasn't blind Genesis 22 verse 5 says I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you Sam Donahue says it's a story I would happily rip out I've never really managed to reconcile myself to any of the explanations of it being okay while dave says to judge it barbaric is to rely on universal objective morality how else can you say it is wrong suggesting there that if Dawkins says it's barbaric well by what standard is he judging things to be right or wrong Ian Clary says God offers the RAM which is a type of Christ the Isaac story is one of grace not the few of a jolly nerd who says the problem comes from God telling Abe to kill his son in the first place hashtag worst prank ever real Steve pond in a similarly skeptical mood says a story about an omniscient God who to find something out puts a man to the test to see how he will act John Richardson is the ugly vicar is that he's not actually ugly that's just his his Twitter name he says depends which bits of the story one believes if all then that's the way God is if none no one was harmed and finally this one from John G Anderson says Isaac was spared to give us life in the death of Christ and the gospel turns imagined barbarism into actual beauty thanks a lot of responses to that question when I posted up that picture on Twitter the other day well as I mentioned earlier I've also been asking NT writes who's a well-known biblical historian some of these tough questions about the Bible I've actually got some videos on the unbelievable webpage if you want to go there and see him in person answering some to have questions about the Bible both the old and new Testament that's a premier dot org dot uk' slash unbelievable well here's how he answered that question that I asked on Twitter this week [Music] Tom wasn't it barbaric forgot to ask Abraham to kill his son Genesis 22 is one of those extraordinary powerful and difficult chapters that whoever put the book of Genesis together knew it was powerful and difficult already and I think there's a sense in which that sort of story is not something that we are supposed to pick up and run through a moral filter to say do we approve of this or not but we're just supposed to stand in awe and in horror as it were at it Genesis 22 doesn't stand alone it comes after the story where Abraham has actually taken Sarah's maid Hagar and through her he has had a first son Ishmael this was not clearly what God wanted him to do and yet then how is Abraham now gonna behave in relation to Hagar and Ishmael and there seems to be almost a brutality about the way he sends them away and yet it's clear that Isaac is the one who is to be the bearer of the promise and so I think the Isaac story about Abraham being commanded to sacrifice Isaac is a way of getting Abraham back on track after that very sordid episode ok Abraham you've done that but now actually this is the sort of thing you've precipitated are you prepared now to give up this one and so it's a kind of a moral challenge arising out of the very murky moral situation that Abraham is in our difficulty again and again with the Bible is that we assume that each incident comes in a clean little box and we hold it up and say should God have done this or shouldn't he and the answer is no take the whole narrative and there's something much deeper and more complicated going on at the end of which scary though it is there is a sense of Abraham as the obedient one and of Isaac in Jewish tradition as the willing one which is which is just as scary as the Abraham bit and then of course we have to say as Christians that that forms part of the backdrop for when we see in Romans 8 God who did not spare his own son but him up for us all so we need to see the story in a much larger context [Music] into right there giving his answer to the thorny issue of Abraham and Isaac and the music air from the Bible TV series hands immer is responsible for the score on the series again if you want to get in touch via Twitter that's at unbelievable JB if you want to tweet me your thoughts on this whole thing let's go to some of your responses to the last several weeks of programming I just wanted to pick up actually on the god question DVD series which we featured back I think in September October time and again if you want to get hold of that a really great resource on the whole area of science and faith with contributors from both sides of the perspectives and both sides of the pond as well that's that the god question TV emailing in on the issue of the the science and faith debate that it's raised Steve pond again who we heard from on Twitter there says unfortunately due to being a poorly boy I've had a prolonged absence from work and having time on my hands I used it to listen to previous editions of various programs I enjoy such as yours being of a scientific bent those are the shows I honed in on and I enjoyed the various topics discussed really enjoy particularly the Keith Ward Michael ruse debate which was one of the ones that was looking at this question of consciousness in the god question DVD series you also I want to say on the subject of the universe the cosmos which was the debate between John Lennox and Lawrence Krauss that was featured several weeks ago you say if a cosmologists was a Christian and why shouldn't they be what is to stop them wishing to investigate what caused our universe to come out of a state trillions of times smaller than a proton the approach I'm taking is that I don't think many of your Christian guests would expect a Christian climatologist to posit God as the reason for a storm system or a particular environmental change and it would be easy to provide this example for many other areas of science but when it comes to the start of the universe well that all ceases here be dragons etc I'm not asking you or any of your Christian guests to change their view but I would be interested to know if they're more you would think it entirely scientific for a Christian cosmologists to look for other causes for the universe apart from God as the climatologist would look for their storm I ask this in the light of Genesis 1:1 but also that the Bible gives the impression of God being over the web - but our understanding of those weather systems today appears to cause no major crisis of faith to anyone says Steve Nick is a Christian emailing in says Kraus said earlier in one of those shows that Christians uphold science until a miracle comes along and then they throw out science well when he went after philosophy it was interesting to him speak about the nature of nothing and then of being while saying he's a scientist who doesn't care about philosophy so then is Krauss a scientist until philosophy that helps him comes along and then he's not a scientist you also want to make the point that his statement that there are no authorities in science is nonsense if that's the case then first off thank you for saying I shouldn't buy your book since I wouldn't want to take the opinion of someone who's not an authority but even where since I'm a New Testament historian does that mean there are no authorities in science that my opinion of science is just as valid as his is okay so so still responses coming in to those very popular programs on the court question DVD last week was the debate between Steven Mayer intelligent design theorist and charles marshall an evolutionary biologist on the book by Meyer Darwin's doubt Simon and Merseyside says particularly interesting episode about intelligent design polite and informative as an academic with a computer science background ID advocates often make assertions about information that I would query but let me focus on one particularly entertaining example from Steven Mayer caveat I have yet to read his new book Steven offered a safecracking analogy at the start of the episode he posited to say featuring ten dials with ten digits each giving headline odds of 1 in 10 billion calculated by multiplying the digits on each dial together well this seems improbably large but is this headline figure a true representation of how hard it is to crack a safe we've all seen how it's done in old gangster films the thief puts a stethoscope to the door and the first dial is turned until a click is heard again for the second dial then the third fourth and so on instead of one giant leap the safecracking becomes a series of smaller steps ten problems each with one in 10 odds the total odds of cracking the safe therefore drop to 10 plus 10 plus 10 plus 10 and so on giving us just one in 100 the odds are only improbable if one convenient forgets the problem can be solved progressively think of this way while only Superman can get to the top of the Empire State Building in a single bound mere mortals can still get to the top by using the staircase thank you very much a different point of view though from David Kirkland who says thanks for the continued hard work putting on the show each week your recent show with Stephen Meyer and Charles Marshall was very good I think Maya makes a very valid point that our experience in this universe is that intelligence directing information or programming leads to far more ordered results and building complexity Marshall sounded like no intelligence information or Direction could easily be the default position and we'd just expect that to lead to information and complexity are you going to say later on many times when the subject of intelligent design is discussed it seems like something of a false dichotomy is a book fourth when people say the universe is all explained by intelligent design and a higher power or explained completely by science and evolution and no higher power these categories are useful but obviously they're only meant to answer certain appropriate questions as John Lennox has repeatedly mentioned ok thank you very much for your thoughts on that thanks also to those who have been emailing in on the strange fire episode of the the week before that when Doug Wilson had an interaction with charismatic Adrian Warnock and Ian Mackey emailed him to say he thought the last two shows both between Doug Wilson and Adrian Warnock and Charles Marshall and Steve Meyer have been excellent both discussions where the participants engaged in proper argument with each other addressing the issues keep up the good work Thank You Ian appreciate that and thanks to everyone who's been getting in touch in the last few weeks I'm expecting a full mailbag from today's program as well so again if you'd like to get in touch do email unbelievable at premier dot org dot uk' and don't forget you can subscribe to this podcast and vast back catalog of shows to listen to - some people are working their way through them at a rate of knots having started listening recently perhaps you can join them to premiere dot uk' slash unbelievable to discover all of that finally let me tell you what's coming up on next week's program continuing to look at the bible we're shifting to the new testament how Razor Aslan joins me he's the controversial author of a new book zealot best-selling book - claiming that Jesus was in fact a religious political agitator not the peace-loving Messiah of the Gospels he was a zealot well against him is Antony laDawn who's a New Testament scholar from the States they'll be having a feisty discussion next week at the same time as we continue this focus on the Bible as the channel 5 airing of the Bible TV series continues through December in the meantime have a great week hope you can join me again at the same time next time [Music] [Music]

Channel: Premier On Demand

Views: 47,866

Rating: 4.4811716 out of 5

Keywords: Premier.tv, exclusive, premier christian radio, premier gospel, Atheism, richard dawkins, The Bible, Old Testament, religion, debate, morality, God

Id: p5_0Fx_RICI

Length: 82min 8sec (4928 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 07 2013