Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God [Paperback]

I had never come across Paul Copan before until this book. I then bought the Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion and was surprised to learn that he is actually a Philosopher of Ethics Professor. With this in mind it seemed appropriate that he write a book on biblical ethics.

A brief summary of the book's chapters is given as follows:

1 & 2. These two chapters are a brief survey of the comments by the "New Atheists", about the Old Testament God. Copan suggests that his book is a response to these comments. He suggests that the book is to educate non-believers and believers alike, to teach them things that they have not bothered to learn.
3. Is an assessment of whether God craves attention, or whether being religious and worshipping God is a way of improving the self.
4. Is an assessment of the covenant, and whether picking one people is horrid and discriminatory or a good way to benefit the whole of humanity, i.e. an example to lead the rest of us.
5. Is an assessment of the Isaac story and the crucifixion. Is God a child abuser or man's promised saviour?
6. Is an assessment of the bible laws. It considers whether they are repressive or help to develop holiness. It also then considers the is/ought fallacy.
7 & 8. These chapters carry on from chapter 6 by considering the biblical commandments on kosher foods. Are these crazy or do they have a purpose, i.e. by regulating the self we help to improve the self. These are then cross referenced with the New Testament's argument on kosher foods and justification by faith alone.
9. Is an assessment of whether the biblical laws are barbaric and cruel. For example: sabbath breakers, drunkards, eye for an eye etc. This chapter assesses the deeper meaning of the laws, i.e. that they are meant to make the self holy and promote righteousness. These are then crossed referenced to the New Testament's teachings on righteousness. Finally, it shows how these ideas have influenced modern ideas.
10. Is an assessment of whether Israel discriminates against women. Again, this chapter looks into the deeper meanings of the laws, i.e. the image of God idea and the equality of all humans. It then shows how modern ideas of female liberation actually owe their origin to feminist theology, which comes from the bible.
11. Is a carry on from chapter 10 and considers the biblical positions on polygamy, concubines and bride prices. Are they God promoted, or man's insisted? Is this what God intended, or simply allowed due to the hardness of man's heart?
12 - 14. These chapters offer an assessment of slavery in Israel. Were the slaves better treated in Israel than the rest of the world? Is there a deeper meaning to the laws? It also draws reference to the 7 year jubilee, an event few actually understand the meaning of. It firstly examines how radical Israel's ideas on slaves were, and then shows how all modern ideas on equality owe their origin to the bible.
15 - 17. These chapters are possibly the weakest chapters. They are an assessment of the holy wars of Israel, most noticeably the Canaanite massacres. This chapter argues that the wars were limited, i.e. a one off justification given by God (the weakest argument -, it basically says, God said it's ok so it's ok). These chapters then argue that these wars were not directed against the people themselves but against their cruelty and ritualistic acts. It argues that the Canaanites were certainly not exterminated in a genocide fashion as they are still drawn reference to over 2000 years after the alleged event. Finally, it argues that it's easy to criticise these readings given the modern world but to truly understand them the cruelty of the world at that time needs to be understood and therefore some historical background information is needed - which the author then gives. All this is meant to somehow show that the wars themselves were ok. I must admit that whilst these chapters included a lot of valuable and interesting information, they did not convince me.
18. This chapter considers whether religion causes violence or promotes unity and self improvement. This chapter is really a response to Hitchen's argument that "religion poisons everything". It also considers whether the Crusades were really as bad/or the same as the modern Islamic Jihad.
19. Is a brief consideration whether morality functions fine without God. Are we simply able to say that we're just atoms and that our actions don't matter? Does this then impact our ideas on morality? To be honest the author doesn't devote enough attention to these issues to make this chapter worthwhile. His central argument is that no, having God helps, but of course as we're all made in God's image we don't need him and that we can be moral without him - but having him helps make us better.
20. Is a brief assessment on how much the modern world has been influenced by Jesus, and argues that he is far more important than many of us imagine him to be; to our history, culture and ideals. Again, this topic itself could full a whole book and so whilst mentioned in summary, fails to give a good meaty argument.

My impressions are as follows:

If you have never studied any form of political / legal readings of the Old Testament ideologies then this book is sure to amaze you. What it will do though is to serve to bridge the gap between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. Once you have read this book, that age old idea that the Gods of each somehow look different will disappear. In this sense the book is truly a must for the enquiring casual religious reader.

However, if you are an atheist then this book is likely to answer some of your questions, and show you how some of what you've read is not as simple as its made out to be by some of the "New Atheists". However, I'm pretty sure that the chapters on the Canaanites are unlikely to convince you, if they could not convince me - a believer.

One thing it will stress to you is that none of the texts can be taken simply at face value, and do require a lot of assessment and deliberation before any meanings can becomes apparent. Failing to do this will produce bizarre results, but this should be expected. As these bizarro readings, usually a product of pure fundamentalist literalist readings, are expected they are hardly surprising or really worth considering, and as such are not the "knock down" type arguments they are often thought to be.

The last 2 chapters really deserve to be books in themselves, but of course one has to understand that the book itself was designed to focus on Old Testament Ethics and God, rather than moral philosophy and modern political history. In this sense these chapters need forgiveness.

The presentation of the book was nice with a decent sized front. The book itself was just over 200 pages long. The book is fully referenced, and indexed. It also includes a list of discussion points on each chapter at the back of the book, which are meant to help any church/biblical study group consider these topics in more details in informal group discussions.

Overall, an enjoyable book, but not an infallible one. This doesn't stop me recommending it to everyone, especially believers who will no doubt benefit the most from it. I would argue that all believers have a duty to know there stuff on this kind of stuff more than any atheist. As such this book is important and a worthwhile buy.

However, it does lose 1 star from me for failing to convince me on the Canaanite issue.

I am an atheist and I also teach RE. I thought this book would be a light read examining some of the more contentious parts of the OT. This book couldn't be further away from that ideal; perhaps a more suitable title would be 'a defence of the cultural practices of the ancient Israelite nation'.
This book isn't balanced; it sets out to make a point, often on shaky foundations. I actually found myself putting down the book in anger fairly often, amazed at the sweeping generalisations or the absolute refusal to recognise what the issue is. My favourite examples of thess include: the assertion that God isn't proud because there's nothing he can't do, the defence of Abraham's decision to comply with God's command to sacrifice Isaac (with virtually no mention of the morality of God commanding this in the first place!) and the fact that the issue of homosexuality is pretty much ignored. Read it for yourself and you'll find many examples of Copan making unjustified leaps in logic and assumption that his worldview are shared by the reader and therefore don't need to be justified (for example, Copan refers to sexual practices in other comparable near east religions as aberrations because he believes the ideal standard should be monogamy).
Yet despite this, there's something about this book that's incredibly readable. It is certainly well researched and does an excellent job of putting Israelite society into context. I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody that isn't used to picking out personal views but I have genuinely found it useful, just not in the way I expected.
Still, I can't help but think that Copan's arguments are often rather weak because he doesn't stick to the issue of God's morality.

(Warning - contains one section that some readers may find slightly offensive)

First of all (In the interests of full disclosure!) I'm writing this review as a Christian - someone who would presumably be expected to lap up every word of this book with zealous delight.

However...

I thought the first few chapters were excellent, but as the book got down to the more nitty-gritty specifics, I continually found my credulity being stretched to breaking point. It started when the author started giving 'reasons' why certain foods were kosher and some weren't. As someone who's been studying the Bible and the culture of Bible times for well over 30 years (yeah, I'm really old!) I found myself totally unconvinced.

Sometimes it feels as if the author is trying just TOO hard to make the OT more acceptable to modern sensibilities, and the results feel very laboured - they just don't ring true.

In fact, the book feels like it's based on arguments by the type of academics who desperately strive to make a name for themselves by coming up with some 'new' thesis about a bible text.

While the author claims to be taking us back to the culture of the OT world, all too often he gets caught up in issues which - while they are big deals to 21st century westerners - may not even have crossed the minds of people living in that culture.

For example, in dealing with slavery in the New Testament world, it's going MUCH too far to say that the Christians somehow 'chose' to subtly undermine the institution. I've no doubt that it WAS undermined by the Christian message, but I'm equally certain that it wasn't a deliberate agenda. The truth is, people living in that culture could no more have contemplated life without slavery than WE can imagine life without electricity.

Then, in dealing with Paul's letter to Philemon, Copan brushes aside nearly 2000 years of how Christians have understood that text, suggesting that it refers NOT to an escaped slave, but to an estranged biological brother!!!

NB - The following paragraph contains some sexual material which may be offensive to some readers - but perhaps it's better you encounter it here first, rather than after you've paid money for this book!

Possibly the most glaring instance of 'not ringing true' comes in the chapter where the author cites Jerome Walsh's theory that the punishment for a particular crime mentioned in the OT is NOT what the text plainly says (i.e., that a woman committing the crime should have her hand chopped off), but that it ACTUALLY means that she should be publicly humiliated by having her pubic hair shaved off!!!

The words 'Give Me A Break' are the only way I can respond to that!!! If you're familiar at all with the world of the OT, can you even imagine such a thing in Israel??? The author's argument that the Hebrew word 'kaph' can refer to the genital region as well as the hand is, to put it mildly, not exactly compelling.

I've no doubt this book is well-meaning, and at times it's fascinating reading (in a "YOU MUST BE KIDDING!!" kinda way) but honestly, I can't recommend it at all to anyone who's looking for a deeper understanding of the Bible. In fact, I think some of these crazy theories may actually be roadblocks on the way to that deeper understanding. Even when the book is on the right track about something, it overstates it to the point of caricature.

The bottom line - by the time you get to the end of this book, you'll be left wondering if you can believe or take ANYTHING in the Old Testament at face value.