Is God a Vindictive Bully?

Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments

De: Paul Copan

Narrado por: Jim Denison

Critics outside the church often accuse the Old Testament God of genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence. But a rising tide of critics within the church claim that Moses and other "primitive," violence-prone prophets were mistaken about God's commands and character. Both sets of critics dismiss this allegedly harsh, flawed, "textual" Old Testament God in favor of the kind, compassionate, "actual" God revealed by Jesus. Are they right to do so?

Following his popular book Is God a Moral Monster?, noted apologist Paul Copan confronts false, imbalanced teaching that is confusing and misleading many Christians. Copan takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts. He explores the kindness, patience, and compassion of God in the Old Testament and shows how Jesus in the New Testament reveals not only divine kindness but also divine severity. The book is helpful for anyone interested in understanding the flaws in these emerging claims that are creating a destructive gap between the Testaments.

©2022 Paul Copan (P)2022 eChristian

very insightful

Thiis book and its predecessor have proven most valuable. I will be sure to listen again and buy physical copy

A beneficial and helpful resource.

Excellent information. Copan does a stellar job addressing difficult issues. I highly recommend this book.

The Audible version is not what I expected but still excellent.

I got a little irritated that the book was going so slow because of the audible references to all the different scriptures but be patient, that irritation will go away. You will appreciate it more as the book gets deeper into the chapters. I thought the book really helped with bringing the old testament up into the new testament which explains a lot more when taking verses out of context in respect to the whole Bible rather than bits and pieces. Very good, I really enjoyed the book. It is a lot to remember but I think you will get a basic knowledge that will stick with you. It is definitely a book to recommend to people who think God is a vindictive bully.

not what I was hoping for.

If you are a conservative christian (like myself), this book may not be for you. If you are a progressive, then you will probably love it.

This book was somewhat interesting, but not what I was expecting. After listening to the entire book, there are quite a few things that just didn't click with me. For much of the book, especially in the earlier chapters, it seems like the author is making a whole lot of speculations based on his opinion, in order to rescue God from harsh criticism. Alot of the "explanations" given simply feel like he is trying too hard to make God look as good as humanly possible, even at the expense of potentially forsaking divine inspiration.

For example, in the Old Testament, there is a lot of talk about God commanding the Israelites to completely wipe-out various people groups, including the killing of women and children. In regards to these sections of scripture, critics will often make claims that God is angry, harsh and vindictive because he is instructing Israelites to kill a bunch of women and children. The author tries to answer those types of criticism, but his explanations were not convincing for me. The author explains it away as if it were some sort of hyperbole, as if nobody that ever said that kind of thing actually meant it. His argument is basically that yes, that's what the Bible said, but that's not actually what they meant. Yes, that's what God commanded the Israelites to do, but he didn't actually mean it. That kind of logic doesn't hold weight, and if it were applied to the rest of scripture, then all of scripture would be meaningless because all of it could be potential hyperbole. He likens it to an ancient form of trash-talk, kind of like when your football team beats the rival and you tell everyone that your team destroyed the opponents..... you simply meant that your team won, not that they literally destroyed and killed the opposing team. I get the author's point, but I do not feel like the example is analogous because this section of the Bible does not seem to be highly poetic or apocalyptic, it appears to be historical and I would expect it to be relatively literal.

Yes, I understand that not everything in the Bible is to be taken in an explicitly literal manner. However, I do believe that we should take the Bible literally, in the places where it simply makes sense to do so. When God commands his followers to specifically and literally kill all of the men, women, children, animals, Etc, then I would assume that's what He actually means. If that is not what God meant, then why on Earth would He say it in such an explicit manner, especially when he gives the Israelites a lot of very good reasons why they are to obey everything he says, down to the letter?

After all, the majority of the Old Testament clearly shows that God expects and demands perfect obedience from his people. How could they be obedient, if He is giving them instructions and commands that involve much exaggeration and hyperbole? They couldn't obey, because they wouldn't know what parts to take seriously, and what parts not to take seriously. Using the author's line of reasoning, I feel like I could use the "it's hyperbole" excuse for not obeying any of God's various Commandments..... I could simply say that God didn't actually mean what He said, He was just joking or exaggerating.

It simply doesn't seem logical to me, to take that route. It's almost as if the author is playing the card that people play when they read something in the Bible that they morally disagree with. They either claim that it has been mistranslated, or they claim that the author didn't mean it in the way that it is written. In my opinion, this author makes a lot of assumptions that lead me to believe he doesn't think the Bible is the inspired and infallible Word of God. He eludes to the fact that a lot of the writings that are in question in this book, are simply being taken literally when they're supposed to be taken figuratively. As I said earlier, I know there is a time and place for when the Bible utilizes Hyperbole, similes and metaphors, but I just don't see how the author thinks they're being used in this case.

With all of that being said, the book was very well-written and the author clearly did a ton of research. He quotes and references a lot of scripture, and many of his arguments do seem plausible. However, I just don't come to the same conclusion that he does in many cases.