In a post-9/11 world, New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris rail not only against Islam but all religions. They view them as dangerous, immoral, and irrational. Some of their more strident comments are directed against the God of the Old Testament as harsh, racist, genocidal, and oppressive. Is God a Moral Monster? responds to these and other charges. It examines many challenging biblical texts, places them in their historical context, and seeks to correct a number of popular caricatures propounded by critics.

There is a difference between the broader biblical vision or ideal and many of the specific laws given to Moses. The biblical vision spelled out in Genesis 1-2 assumes a fundamental human equality and dignity—including both male and female—as well as monogamous marriage. However, Mosaic prescriptions and prohibitions take for granted the fact of human hard-heartedness and sinfulness. They thus aim to regulate and curb rather than completely reform a people whose culture and mindset are unprepared for a radical overhaul. In Matthew 19:8, Jesus declared that Moses permitted certain laws because of the hardness of human hearts, not necessarily because they were the human ideal.

Furthermore, many of Israel’s laws seem so strange to us—forbidding non-kosher foods, commanding circumcision and animal sacrifices, instructing regarding blood- and semen-related taboos, and avoiding impurity and ceremonial pollution. These laws—readily understandable in the ancient Near East—were appropriated by God to set the Israelites apart from the surrounding nations with their immoral practices and idolatries. In every facet of life, Israel had reminders of its unique, set-apart status.

Israel’s law code begins where the nation of Israel happens to be and works with many of its assumptions and practices. Despite Israel’s flawed moral understanding and fallen social structures of patriarchy, polygamy, and warring, God’s intention was to meet the Israelites where they were and to move them in a redemptive direction. Even so, the Law of Moses presents an elevated moral perspective in contrast to surrounding cultures, whether regarding warfare or the treatment of servants and women.

Where God is described as jealous, this is connected to Israel’s potential and actual idolatry and covenant-breaking. Ideally, Israel’s identity was in God’s redemptive activity in the exodus from Egypt and the nation-making covenant God graciously established with them. The goal was for this nation to become the channel of his redemptive blessings to all the nations. Thus, anything that violated this identity was tantamount to treason. So God’s jealousy was not petty and immature; rather, it is aptly comparable to jealousy at an outsider seeking to violate or undermine the marriage bond between a husband and wife.

As for God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, this was a unique, unrepeatable act in the unfolding of salvation history. Decades earlier, God had spoken to Abraham, calling him to a live in a foreign land and promising him that his offspring would bring blessing to all the families of the earth. After much waiting, the miracle child Isaac came in fulfillment of this promise, and so Abraham knew that God would somehow preserve his son despite this difficult command. That is why Abraham told his servants that he and Isaac would go to Mount Moriah where “we will worship,” adding “and we will return.” God would somehow come through even though Abraham did not know how.

The biblical vision includes God’s creating both male and female in his image (Gen. 1:26-27). God creates woman from the man’s rib—a picture of equality and partnership. She is the man’s “helper” or “help;” this is no term of inferiority, as the same word frequently describes God, who is the “helper” and “keeper” of Israel (Psalm 121:2). Furthermore, marriage is to be a partnership of equals: a man leaves “father” and “mother;” the married couple was to enjoy their sexual relationship—the “one flesh” union—within the safety of lifelong, heterosexual marriage (Genesis 2:24).

However, the effects of the Fall in Genesis 3 would lead to inferior patriarchal structures. Yet God works within a flawed Israelite society, directing his people to show proper concern for women, who were more vulnerable in a patriarchal society. This legislation actually provided many protections and controls against abuses often directed at females. Furthermore, women are not property. They frequently emerge as leaders within Israel, and they are treated as morally responsible agents under the law. Thus, adultery was not a “property offense”—like stealing or harming another’s ox—and both adulterous partners were liable to punishment. Israelite children were commanded to honor both father and mother.

The Moral Monster book discusses texts that appear to render women inferior or to exhibit mistreatment of them—polygamy, concubinage, rape, and warfare captives. It offers clarifications on these and other passages.  The book also observes that narratives depicting the mistreatment of women are descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Critics commonly equate Old Testament “slavery” with the antebellum South’s slave-trading and the well-documented harsh treatment of blacks by their masters. Old Testament servitude in Israel was much different. The neutral term “servant” or “worker” (from the Hebrew word ebed) refers to a dynamic dependency relationship. It could be positive: Moses and Joshua are called “the servant of the Lord.”  It could also be negative: Israelites were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. But even though they “served” Pharaoh, God commanded him to let them go “so that they may serve Me in the wilderness.” Israel moved from one form of servitude to another; one was oppressive slavery while the other was a state of liberation in which they could express their loyalty to God.

What about the institution of servitude in Israel? It was primarily indentured servitude—much like colonial America: poor persons wanting to come to the New World would come to the colonies at the expense of a wealthy patron; after arrival, the indentured servant would take seven years or so to pay his debt for passage on a ship; thereafter he could freely move about as a an ordinary British citizen. Likewise, if impoverished, Israelite “servants” or “workers” would contract themselves out as indentured hands. They served the terms of their agreement for six years while receiving food, shelter, and clothing. Their contract would expire, and they were free to depart, unless they wanted to stay permanently with the one who hired them in the security of that home. As for foreign servants, here, too, Israel topped the charts in the category of humane treatment in the ancient Near East. The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi mandated that runaway slaves be forcibly returned to their harsh masters—on pain of death. By contrast, Deuteronomy 23 allows foreign runaway slaves to settle freely in any of Israel’s cities.

One challenging passage is Leviticus 25. This chapter concerns Israel’s “year of jubilee,” during which all debts were canceled and all leased lands reverted back to their owners. Aliens could be “acquired” as servants in Israelite homes, and these servants could be “bequeathed” to future generations of Israelites “permanently.” This passage troubles many, as it appears that foreigners are mere property after all. Some context is helpful. God had repeatedly commanded Israel to look out for aliens because the children of Israel had once been aliens in Egypt. Also, foreigners—many of whom could be taken after defeat in war—were not allowed to own land in Israel. So they would most naturally attach themselves to Israelite households, and this could understandably continue into future generations. And being in an Israelite household was not a bad arrangement, as servants typically became part of the family. Also, the text goes on to add that these aliens who were servants could themselves become “persons of means”—even to the point of hiring Israelite servants. Clearly this alien’s status as a servant did not have to be permanent. If possible, an Israelite kinsman could “redeem” an impoverished relative; this poor Israelite could likewise be “acquired,” though clearly the Israelite is hardly “property.” The language of acquisition has to do with a legal transaction—much like sports teams that have “owners” who “trade” and “acquire” players. In fact, Exodus 15 uses this language of God “acquiring” Israel by redeeming them from Egypt.

The most frequently-cited difficulty with the “Old Testament God” is that he commanded Israel to “utterly destroy” the Canaanites. A number call it “genocide.” In response, this command was not at all normative for Israel in its everyday operations. The command was not ethnically-motivated either. Rather, it was directed against a people who were engaged in activities that would have been considered criminal in any civilized society—bestiality, incest, temple prostitution, and infant sacrifice. Such actions should not be surprising since the Canaanite deities whom the Canaanites worshiped engaged in and celebrated these kinds of activities. No wonder God was concerned about “driving them out” of the land to minimize this pernicious influence on Israel, which would compromise Israel’s national integrity. Also, the fulfillment of God’s command would come over 500 years after God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15; God waited to give his offspring the land of the Canaanites until they had become deeply, irreversibly wicked.  God’s highly specific command was temporally- and geographically-limited.

Furthermore, the dominant command to “drive out” the Canaanites presupposes that these people would flee rather than stay around and fight. Even so, when the Old Testament uses language of “utter destruction” and “leaving no survivor,” this is standard hyperbole or exaggeration frequently found throughout ancient Near Eastern warfare texts in Assyria, Egypt, and Moab. Even as we read the biblical texts where a city has been “utterly destroyed,” we routinely see an abundance of survivors. For example, Judges 1:8 states that “the sons of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.” However, thirteen verses later we read that “the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.”

Drastic, short-term measures were necessary for the long-term redemption of the world, which required driving out the Canaanites to diminish their pernicious influence on Israel. God’s promise to Abraham was to bring blessing to all the nations through his offspring, Israel—and, eventually, Jesus the Messiah. The salvation of the world required certain short-term measures to preserve intact the nation and theological story of Israel and secure global redemption.  So what seems to be singling out the Canaanites has a broader view in mind—namely, the salvation of the nations.

Christians read the Old Testament in accordance with the authority of Jesus—including his life, death, and resurrection. Jesus appropriated the Old Testament Scriptures and identified with “the God of the Old Testament,” claiming to be his agent on earth. Beyond this, it was the Christian faith that largely shaped the moral fiber of Western civilization, including its emphasis on human rights and democracy. This makes sense if humans are made in God’s image, but not if we are the products of blind, valueless, material processes in an impersonal universe. The biblical faith also gave impetus to moral reforms such as the abolition of slavery, foot-binding in China, and widow-burning in India. It gave rise to women’s and civil rights legislation in the United States and elsewhere. The secularists who appeal to an “enlightened” and “non-religious ethic” have themselves been influenced by the Christian ethic far more than they know. This moral vision took shape because of Christians across the ages who were transformed and inspired by their self-giving, crucified Savior and Lord.