Did God Really Command Genocide?

Paul Copan, Matt Flannagan

Description

A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. Even Christians have a hard time stomaching such a thought, and many avoid reading those difficult Old Testament passages that make us squeamish. Instead, we quickly jump to the enemy-loving, forgiving Jesus of the New Testament. And yet, the question doesn't go away. Did God really command genocide? Is the command to "utterly destroy" morally unjustifiable? Is it literal? Are the issues more complex and nuanced than we realize?In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages. Pastors, youth pastors, campus ministers, apologetics readers, and laypeople will find that this book both enlightens and equips them for serious discussion of troubling spiritual questions.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 11 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441221094
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

© 2014 by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2014
Ebook corrections 08.21.2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-2109-4
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan .com. Italics have been added by the authors for emphasis.
Scripture quotations labeled ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2011.
Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Italics have been added by the authors for emphasis. Italics to indicate words which are not found in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek but implied by it have not been preserved.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Copan and Flannagan address the arguments of the atheists who use divine violence in the Bible to undermine belief and confidence in God. Not only are they adept at biblical interpretation and philosophy as they effectively counter this challenge, but they also write in a deeply compelling way that will appeal to both students and laypeople.”
— Tremper Longman III , Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, Westmont College
“In their wide-ranging book, Copan and Flannagan go beyond standard treatments of Old Testament warfare; they incorporate biblical, theological, philosophical, ethical, legal, and historical perspectives on a much-debated but often-misunderstood topic. This volume makes important strides forward in laying out a case for the coherence of divine command theory in connection with these Yahweh-war texts.”
— William Lane Craig , research professor of philosophy, Talbot School of Theology
“This is a very lucid and helpful discussion of this troubling topic.”
— Gordon Wenham , professor of Old Testament, Trinity College Bristol
“This brave, hard-nosed, and wide-ranging study constitutes a serious attempt at facing all the varied aspects of a question that troubles so many people. Well done!”
— John Goldingay , David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary
“As a full-scale follow-up to the excellent popular treatment of the topic in Is God a Moral Monster? , this book provides the most thorough and comprehensive treatment of the problem of violence in the Old Testament that I have encountered. The authors tackle the aggressive charges of the new atheists, as well as other equally sceptical but less strident critics of ‘the God of the Old Testament.’ And they do so with a blend of careful biblical exegesis and incisive moral argumentation. The book reaches deep, but remains readable, and the summaries at the end of every chapter are a great help in following the case as it is steadily built up. All of us who, in teaching or preaching the Old Testament, are constantly bombarded with ‘But what about the Canaanites?’ will be very grateful for these rich resources for a well-informed, gracious, and biblically faithful reply.”
— Christopher J. H. Wright , International Ministries Director, Langham Partnership; author of Old Testament Ethics for the People of God and The God I Don’ t Understand
“Does your god order you to slaughter your enemies? Did God’s command to the Israelites to kill the Canaanites set a pattern for human behaviour? Do Joshua’s wars justify the Crusades? Does the Bible promote violence against dissenters and opponents, as the Qur’an does? Reading the Bible as a modern book leads to false conclusions, the authors show clearly. Comparing writings from Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, and the Hittites with biblical texts, they demonstrate the common use of exaggerated language—so that ‘all’ may not mean ‘every single person,’ for example—bringing clearer understanding of God’s apparently genocidal commands about the Canaanites. Carefully argued, with clear examples and helpful summaries, these chapters give Christians sound bases for defending and sharing their faith in the God of love, justice, and forgiveness. This is an instructive and very welcome antidote to much current thought.”
— Alan Millard , Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages, University of Liverpool
From Paul
For my dear daughter Kristen Copan: an old soul with a spunky spirit, philomathean mind, and servant’s heart— a great blessing from the Lord
From Matthew
For Madeleine Jane Flannagan, whose patience and support enabled this project to be completed
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 2
Copyright Page 3
Endorsements 4
Dedication 5
Introduction: The New Atheism and the Old Testament 9
Part 1: Genocide Texts and the Problem of Scriptural Authority 15
1. The Problem Clarified: An Atheistic Philosophical Argument 17
2. What Does It Mean to Say the Bible Is the Word of God? 23
3. The God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New? 37
Part 2: Occasional Commands, Hyperbolic Texts, and Genocidal Massacres 49
4. Does the Bible Command Us to Kill Innocent Human Beings? 53
5. Does the Bible Portray the Canaanites as Innocent? 61
6. Thrusting Out, Driving Out, and Dispossessing the Canaanites—Not Annihilating Them 76
7. The Question of Genocide and the Hyperbolic Interpretation of Joshua 84
8. Genocide and an Argument for “Hagiographic Hyperbole” 94
9. Objections from the Biblical Text to the Hyperbolic Interpretation 109
10. Legal and Theological Objections concerning Genocide 125
Part 3: Is It Always Wrong to Kill Innocent People? 139
11. Divine Command Theory: Preliminary Considerations 141
12. The Divine Command Theory of Obligation: What It Is—and Is Not 148
13. Arbitrary Divine Commands? The Euthyphro Dilemma 159
14. Other Euthyphro-Related Objections 171
15. Can One Coherently Claim That God Commanded the Killing of Innocents? 186
16. Can One Rationally Believe God Commands a Violation of Innocent Human Beings? 194
17. Is It Rational to Believe God Commanded the Killing of Innocents? 210
18. What If Someone Claimed God Commanded Killing the Innocent Today? 233
19. The Role of Miracles and the Command to Kill Canaanites 246
Part 4: Religion and Violence 257
20. Does Religion Cause Violence? 259
21. Are Yahweh Wars in the Old Testament Just like Islamic Jihad? 276
22. Did Old Testament War Texts Inspire the Crusades? 288
23. Turning the Other Cheek, Pacifism, and Just War 299
Afterword 317
Notes 319
Back Ad 352
Back Cover 353
Introduction
T HE N EW A THEISM AND THE O LD T ESTAMENT
T he world’s leading atheist, Oxford University’s Richard Dawkins, has engaged in a good deal of name-calling. The object of his scorn? Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” 1
Now, it has long been known that Dawkins and other “New Atheists” use rhetorical smokescreens and “village atheist” tactics—marked by aggressiveness, intolerance, and sophomoric argumentation—not endorsed by other atheists in the academy, and Dawkins has admitted that his own theory of atheism is contradicted by the realities of everyday life. 2
And despite well-informed, credible attempts to correct Dawkins’s definition of “faith,” he brazenly continues to define it as belief immune to all evidence and inquiry—a characterization no Christian theologian worthy of the name would accept. And even though modern science was established by Bible-believing theists, Dawkins perpetuates the myth that “faith” is opposed to “science.”
Loads of scholars have responded to the caricatures, rhetoric, and sometimes downright silliness of the New Atheists. 3 In fact, the philosopher of science Michael Ruse, an atheist himself, declares that Dawkins’s God Delusion book “makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.” 4
That said, what about Dawkins’s claim that the God of the Old Testament is genocidal and a bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser ? Is he correct when he calls Joshua’s destruction of Jericho an example of Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” in which “bloodthirsty massacres” were carried out with “xenophobic relish”? Are these events “morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland” or “Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs”? 5
Here, a number of people, including Christians, think that Dawkins may have a point. After all, Christians typically accept that the Bible, being the Word of God, is trustworthy in all it affirms.