Yahweh and the Old Testament have fallen on hard times.
“The New Atheists” — men like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens who write books with not-so-subtle titles like The God Delusion and God is Not Great — are convinced that religion is bad for morality. Exhibit A: Yahweh’s bad behavior in the Old Testament.
Listen to this description by Richard Dawkins:
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.
Even though Christians would never describe God this way, many believers feel embarrassed or confused by some of the things that take place in the Old Testament. Who can deny that the command to sacrifice Isaac, the destruction of the Canaanites, slavery laws, and bride prices present moral quandaries in seeking to understand God and the Old Testament?
There are two ways of responding to these moral difficulties. One way is to pluck passages out of context and then condemn the Old Testament as primitive and barbaric. The other way is to patiently, humbly and charitably hear Old Testament passages in their historical and canonical context and seek to understand their proper interpretation and application.
Anyone want to guess which way the new Atheists choose?
As for the latter approach, I just started looking at Paul Copan’s, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. The first few chapters address God’s character. Is Yahweh, as the New Atheists claim, arrogant, narcissistic, and hungry for praise? If God really is the creator and redeemer who is worthy of worship, and if man really was created “to glorify God and enjoy him forever,” then in commanding praise God is not only seeking his own glory but also our good. Copan notes:
Why does God insist that we worship him? For the same reason that parents tell their young children to stay away from fire or speeding cars. God doesn’t want humans to detach themselves from ultimate reality, which only ends up harming us.
Similarly, God’s jealousy is never a petty and capricious rage or a sign of wounded pride. Rather, it is a sign of his love and commitment to his covenant people. A husband who doesn’t get jealous when he sees his wife flirting with another man is a husband who doesn’t love and care about his wife very much! The book of Hosea reveals a God who feels personal anguish over the spiritual adultery of his bride (see Hosea 11:7-9). God’s jealousy is also for our good because he wants to protect us from turning away from the giver of life to false gods that cannot save.
By the way, these are not just Old Testament issues. There is a guy in the New Testament known for flipping over tables and constantly asking, “Who do men say that I am?” When he goes to the cross to bear the sins of those he loves, he shows us that divine jealousy and the recognition of being worthy of worship are not incompatible with humility and sacrificial love.
As I read through the book I will try to post some other things Copan has to say about the moral difficulties encountered in reading the Old Testament.