Prologue
The Old Testament is very controversial, probably one of the favorite spot for atheists to attack Christianity in order to disprove it.
Should we take the Holy Bible as our main source of moral compass?
To think that God is a cosmic tyrant is to misread the Old Testament. That was what Marcion believed. The word ‘testament’ refers to ‘covenant’: that is the key to understand the bigger picture. What people dislike is an idea of what they think God is.
We have to make the distinction on what the Bible record and what the Bible teaches. Because it’s described, it doesn’t mean it’s endorsed (think of journalists). You don’t read poems literally, or read a police report metaphorically.
There are mostly 4 keys to interpret the Old Testament1:
- literal (it is what it says it is, but not necessarily historical or scientific)
- allegorical / typology (how the Old Testament is preparing for the New Testament)
- moral (instructions for how to live justly)
- anagogical (how it leads us to our eternal destination)
For example, the Abraham story sacrificing his son is allegorical: they represent the future ultimate sacrifice of God the Father and the Son on the cross.
Because God permits evil temporarily, it doesn’t mean He approves it. It’s like a parent who allows their child to act a certain behavior at their current stage of life (ex: not clean up the room), and as they grow more mature, they will demand that they cease to behave like before.
It’s also necessary to understand the historical context of Ancient Near-East literature.
Their conditions weren’t the same as ours: things like war & slavery were matter of survival for their tribes.
Slavery
Genocide
Sacrifice
God’s character
Laws
Atheism & morality
If materialistic evolution is true, morality could be subjective and socially construct to fit the need for a specific time period. One may criticize a moral act from the past, but that is only an opinion since there is no transcendent objective morality to measure our actions that are applicable to every human being since the beginning. Slavery was legal. Today it’s taboo. And yet, there is still slavery all around the world.
In Christianity, certain laws are permanent, others are temporary (matter of discipline).
- In atheism, morality is just subjective (a matter of opinion)
- complaining that God is objectively immoral is a contradiction
- If materialism is true, we can’t objectively prove that human dignity exist, or that slavery is objectively wrong
As a materialist, where do you get your notion of objective right & wrong if there’s no God? If there’s no destination, there’s no way to tell if someone is on the wrong path. If we assume that there’s something objectively wrong, then we assume that there’s an objective good out there to measure it.
Richard Dawkins, as an atheist & materialist, assumes that evil doesn’t exist.
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” 2
And yet, he blames God as being immoral.
“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.” 3
It’s contradictory. One cannot assume that evil don’t exists and then call someone evil.
God
We have to remember important aspects concerning God in the Old Testament.
- God’s existence don’t depend on his character (genetic fallacy)
- God is the author of life; He can take back life as He sees fit anytime
- we must keep humble & accept that life is fragile & not ours
- God doesn’t kill, He just move a person from a realm to another realm
- death naturally happen all the time
- Death isn’t the worst thing, eternal separation with God is
- God is all-wise & work for the best interest of the absolute greater good
- God is both loving & judgemental just like any parent
- If God is only all loving who allows everything, He would have spoiled kids
- God deals with what’s already mess up to make it much better
Israel
We have to remember this as well:
- Israel weren’t perfect, neither other cultures
Marcion
Marcion (85-160 AD) believed that the God of the Old Testament is a totally different one from the New Testament (ditheism).
NOTE FROM TRENT HORN’S DEBATE
God gives rules for his children for his unique glory, and strive to imitate him as a perfect standard of goodness itself.
When God does this with the goal of keeping his children away from cruel pagan deities that promote sexual perversion and beastiology and incest. As well as horror like child sacrifice, Dan call him a control freak.
When God protects its people from violent enemy, Dan call him bloodthirsty & vindictive.
When God punish his nation who committed atrocities for centuries, and takes away the gift of life that is within his right to reclame, he calls Him a genocidal ethnic cleanser. But when God does nothing, and allows violent enemies or disaster to fall into his people, as punishment for grave sins like murder and adulterer, he calls Him infanticide, cannibalistic, so the atheists are ironically saying that God you’re damn if you do, or you’re damn if you don’t.
Dan also misunderstand the Bible’s non-literal language. Psalm 91: God will cover us with his feather; but He’s not a chicken. When we teach people reality beyond existence, you have to start with non-literal explanations. God can use non-literal language down for us so people of the ancient time could understand. That means God’s anger refers to our sins separating us from God. And God’s jealousy is the picture of a husband who is zealous to protect his wife. The Hebrew word renders “jealous” by the word “zeal”. It also means descriptions of God lifting up skirts or making people eating their children aren’t meant to be taken literally. They reflect developing theology that didn’t distinguish between God causing directly evil and permitting it to happen.
The non-literal language can be seen in the story of Canaanites. King … of Egypt use similar language to describe the complete destruction of Israel even tho Israel continues to exist for centuries after that point. The language refers to separation, not extermination.
Dan also ignores Bible context. He said God is unforgiving, but the passages he cites would refer to people who refuse to seek God’s forgiveness. He said God is unjust for punishing people’s descendant, but these passages refer to the descendant suffering the effect of their ancestor’ sins. Or being punished for imitating those sins directly.
Dan might say that appearing with context is just an excuse.
Slavery
Slaves in the Old Testament aren’t like the oppressed black slaves in America. In fact, they were “servants”.
In Romans 1:1, Paul used the Greek word “δοῦλος” (doúlos), which mean “slave“. But Paul wasn’t mistreated by Jesus, properly understood in its context, he means that he was a “servant” of Christ.
There are three types of slavery:
- chattel slavery
- indentured servitude
- penal servitude
The first one is morally wrong (kidnapping, abuse, cruelty, etc.). The 2 of them aren’t intrinsically morally wrong (exists to eliminate poverty and to have a just punishment for criminals).
If God is good and loving, how come He permits Israel to be enslaved by the Egyptians so long? It’s because all of that event is a foreshadowing: God use the material world to illustrate the spiritual world. Physical slavery will become the spiritual slavery (sin). People today are slave to sin (addiction, evil deeds, etc.). God is capable to deliver people from their sins. Just like Moses brought them to the Red Sea to immerse the army of Pharaoh, so is Jesus will introduce baptism to defeat sin with water.
In fact, the Moses story with the 10 plagues is very theological: it was a battle between God of Israel and the gods & goddess of Egypt.
Human sacrifice
Abraham & Isaac
“The Sacrifice of Isaac” – Pedro Orrente (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Human sacrifice is common among ancient religious practices (Canaanite, Maya, Aztec, etc). People offer living sacrifices to their gods in exchange for goods. Was that the case for Abraham?
The key: keep in mind the covenant & typology.
God use many of his chosen people to illustrate his great love for the world.
For example, Hosea & Gomer were to illustrate that God is like a ‘husband’ whose ‘wife’ (Israel) is been ‘cheating’ on (with pagan deities), but he still seek to love her anyways.
The meaning of the story is deeply typological. Abraham & Isaac represents God the Father and Jesus the Son. As Abraham was a rich man4, God is self-sufficient. But both drop everything to seek the love of one another. Abraham was ready to give away his son for the love of God. And God was ready to give his only Son on the cross for the love of the world (John 3:16).
As human being, it is difficult for us to grasp spiritual realities. That is why God can use material reality to illustrate spiritual ones.
“Then God said: Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There offer him up as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”
Genesis 22:2
A man of faith
Abraham was a very rich man (Gen 13:2). And God told him to drop everything and go somewhere else.
The same way, God can also use Abraham & Isaac to illustrate & anticipate a sacrifice in the future: the crucifixion of Jesus.
“We will worship and then come back to you.”
Genesis 22:5
The word “we” assume that both of them (Abraham & Isaac) will come back, in a way or another. Abraham never specified ‘… and I will return’.
God made a promise & will always keep it.
| Abraham | God |
| Abraham so love God that he gave his son | God so love the world that He gave his only Son |
| Isaac consent to the act | Jesus consent to the act |
| Isaac carry woods | Jesus carry a wooden cross |
| Isaac will be sacrificed on Mount Moriah | Jesus will be sacrificed on Mount Golgotha |
| A ram had his horns stuck in the thicket | Jesus had a crown of thors stuck in his head |
| The ram died instead of Isaac | Jesus died for us |
Isaac consent to the act. He was strong enough (carry his own wood5) to defeat his old dad. Yet, he still accepted the action freely. We will see the parallel with God the Father who’s giving up his only Son for the love & redemption of the world.
Neither Abraham or God wanted Isaac dead. The angel stopped him.
After succeeding the test, this event will serve the purpose of forecasting another greater sacrifice: God giving away His only Son for the forgiveness of the world (John 3:16). The real sacrifice will be on Mount Calvary.
Genocide
“The Victory of Joshua over the Amalekites” – Nicholas Poussin (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Is it immoral for a government to send the army to rescue innocent lives, captured by terrorists? I guess not. Is it immoral to proselytize one owns faith to another person? Anti-theists do that all the time.
The promise to Abraham
God maintain his integrity by keeping his promise to Abraham that his descendance will be on a land of 10 nations6.
Pagan deities were corrupted and cause people to commit atrocities. To make it clear: idols are bad influences on others.
The divine order
God’s command was to “drive them out” of their land & destroy their idols, not to exterminate them. Why? Because it’s their initial homeland. Why destroying idols? First, they are bad models for the Canaanites (demand baby sacrifice, demand for lust, etc.). Second, to avoid having Israel to get wrongly influenced by them.
“Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have grown numerous enough to take possession of the land.”
Exodus 23:30
“Since I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your territory, no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD, your God.”
Exodus 34:24
This passage also has allegory: the conquering of sin in the world.
The Israelite couldn’t enter the land God has promised them until the time is right. The inhabiting of the land would set the context for the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
Hyperbole
The language that was used is overly exaggerated. In fact, that sort of language is called “hyperbole” and it is highly used in ancient time. The prove is, few books later, the Canaanite people are still alive & live peacefully with the people of Israel.
- no evidence of woman or children been killed
- common language used in Ancient Near-East
- the Canaanites are still alive
When a football team wants to win a game, they often exaggerate their words: “We will crush them all!”. It doesn’t mean literally.
Origen of Alexandria suggest that the 7 nations there represents the 7 capital sins.
Since the Canaanites (Ham) share the same descendant of Noah like the Israelite (Shem), God isn’t concerned here about ethnic cleansing, but about eradicating sins. In fact, some of the greatest allies of Israel were people from the Promise Land.
- Moses’ father-in-law was called “the Kenite” (Judge 1:16, 1 Chronicles 2:55)
- Caleb (Joshua’s associate) was the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite (Numbers 32:11-12)
- David’s closed friends
- Uriah was Hittite (2 Samuel 11:3, 23:39)
- Ahimelech was Hittite (1 Samuel 26:6)
- Ishmaiah was Gibeonite (1 Chronicles 12:4)
- David bought the threshing floor of Araunah the Jesubite (2 Samuel 24:16-18)
- Rahab was a Canaanite from Jericho who worship the God of Israel (Joshua 2,6)
- Canaanites from Shechem joined themselves to Israel (Joshua 8:33-35)
- Israel made peace with the Amorites (1 Samuel 7:14)
- the prophet Ezekiel remind Israel’s father was an Amorite & mother a Hittite (Ezekiel 16:3)
Pagan Near-East culture
God, in His mercy, desires everyone to repent, but after 400 years of warning, the Canaanite never changed their mind.
They saw what Yahweh & Israel are capable of.
The Canaanites gods don’t have high moral demands like Yahweh, and it would be utterly tempting for Israel to turn away from God and start worship them instead.
Sexual immorality was tolerated: incest, adultery, homosexuality, temple prostitution and bestiality. And the worst of all was child sacrifice to their god Moloch. The living babies where screaming while being grilled on a fire. Plutarch even write that they play drums louder so no one can’t ever hear their voice. Archeology has found skulls of toddlers in that area.
“Many atheists complain on why God doesn’t stop evil, and when He does intervene (in this situation for example), they still complain.”
Frank Turek
The battle
The area which the Israelite where attacking was only a government-military based, not a civilian spot.
Recommended books
- Paul Copan – “Is God a moral monster? Making sense of the Old Testament God”
- Trent Horn – “Hard Sayings : a Catholic approach to answering Bible difficulties”