Randal Rauser has published a blog post touching on Old Testament ethics called “An update in the wake of Atlanta (plus a bit on rape and child killing)“. His post gives an update on his thoughts following his interaction with Paul Copan, Richard Hess and myself in the Evangelical Philosophical Society’s break-out panel discussion “Is Yahweh […]
Entries Tagged as 'Hermeneutics'
Abraham, Isaac, Virginity, Rape and Child Killing (Another Old Testament Ethics Post)
January 23rd, 2011 89 Comments
Tags: Abraham and Isaac · David Boonin · Don Marquis · Evangelical Philosophical Society · Homicide · John Hare · Michael Tooley · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Peter Singer · Randal Rauser · Richard Hess · Society of Biblical Literature
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part III: Two Implications of the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Account
January 16th, 2011 21 Comments
This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In a recent Conference at Notre Dame Alvin Plantinga suggested that the commands to wipe out the Canaanites, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, might be hyperbolic; they should be understood more like how […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Christopher J H Wright · Genocide · Gordon Wenham · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · J McConville · J P U Lilley · Joshua · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan
NT Wright on Myth in Genesis
January 15th, 2011 65 Comments
If certain passages in Genesis are of the genre ‘myth’ it does not necessarily entail that they are therefore untrue or lacking in authority. This was the argument in Matt’s post Myth, Truth and Genesis 1-11 and it is also NT Wright‘s point in this short video made by the Biologos Forum, Hat Tip: Ropata
Tags: Biologos Forum · Genesis · Myth · NT Wright
Did Hannibal of Carthage Exist?
January 12th, 2011 11 Comments
Historian James Hannam has written an entertaining article called “Satirising the Christ Myth.” The piece uses similar methods employed by those seeking to make the case for the claim that Jesus never existed to show that Hannibal of Carthage did not exist either. It is written in Hannam’s classicly witty yet accurate style; Did Hannibal Really Exist? To ask […]
Tags: Carthage · Christ Myth · Hannibal · James Hannam
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II: Ancient Near Eastern Conquest Accounts
January 10th, 2011 14 Comments
This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In my previous post, God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation, I expounded and adapted Nicholas Wolterstorff’s argument for a hagiographic hyperbolic reading of the book […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · J Van Seters · James K. Hoffmeier · John Goldingay · Joshua · K Lawson Younger · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Richard Hess · Thomas Thompson · Ziony Zevit
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation
January 7th, 2011 42 Comments
Around this time last year I wrote two posts Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites I and Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites II. These posts attracted a fair amount of attention and debate. I got offers to publish my ideas in several upcoming books and present them before both the Evangelical Philosophical […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · Joshua · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Selection

A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.





William Lane Craig, Original Sin and Original Guilt
December 31st, 2010 74 Comments
A lot of people are up in arms at the moment about a paragraph in William Lane Craig’s answer to Question 193 “Overweening Ignorance.” Facebook, blogs, twitter and message boards are abuzz with Christians angrily attacking Craig with the charge that this paragraph shows he either does not hold to the doctrine of original sin or […]
Tags: Original Guilt · Original Sin · Richard Swinburne · Steve Hays · William Lane Craig