Christian authors seem to always end up writing a book about how they came to believe what they believe, and in fact from when I was a youth (that is in my twenties) one of the things that the Bible teachers would always do would be to teach us to explain to people why we believe what we believe. They would refer to this as our testimony and it would generally, though not always, fall into a similar pattern – I was a really bad person, but I then had this divine revelation, and suddenly I am now a Christian. The problem with that is that many of us got stuck on the 'I was bad' part of the story and simply finished it off with a 'now I'm a Christian'. The truth is, though, explaining why one is a Christian as opposed to how one became a Christian is a very difficult task, especially since it involves a lot of thinking. To be honest there are actually quite a lot of Christians out there that if you were to ask them why they are a Christian then they wouldn't be able to give you an answer. While I could give you a tonne of examples of the testimony, a friend of mine wrote a very good example of what I will call an Apologia.

Orthodoxy is another really good example this form of literature (and yes, you will also find similar examples in the writings of Paul the Apostle, but for now I will stick to Chesterton). At the beginning of this book Chesterton explains that the reason that he wrote this book was because he spent all of his time in [book:Heretics] explaining why a number of the secular beliefs that were circulating at the time were not so much wrong, but unsatisfactory, and didn't provide any ideas of a way that was satisfactory. As such he writes this book, not so much as an objective argument as to why Christianity is superior to these other beliefs (because it is very difficult, if not impossible, for one to write an argument objectively as to why one's belief system is superior), but rather why he considers Christianity superior.

One of the interesting things that we are seeing in this book is the beginnings of the war between science and religion. It isn't as if Chesterton is saying that science is wrong, but rather he is suggesting that a world that exists within a closed system that is run purely by the laws of science does not actually provide a rational and satisfying answer to the basic question of life – why are we here? I have to admit that I agree with him, because to me a universe that functions purely on the rules of science is little more than a cold and unloving machine that offers no hope and no purpose. I guess this is one of the main reasons why people in the later part of the 20^th Century have began to seek out religious answers again because the harsh reality of the closed system in the end leaves us empty and alone.

One of the things that Chesterton focuses on is the idea of miracles, or I would prefer to suggest as the idea of magic – namely that there are aspects of this universe that completely baffle us and the more than we look into it them more confused that we become – how is it that light can behave as a particle and a wave, and in turn matter exist not only as a particle but have wave like properties about it. What is emotion, and what causes us to feel these emotions: joy, sadness, excitement, love? The problem is that we live in this scientific world that seeks answers to this questions in science – we have determined that emotions are caused by chemical reactions in the brain, and thus we create drugs to pump into people to try to cure them of depression, or to make them sit still in class (when in reality children don't want to be stuck in a class room that is a form of prison being taught using a system of education that belongs back in the industrial age).

Then there is the notion of sin – not big 'S' Adam ate the apple and got kicked out of the garden sin, but rather the fact that people can be really annoying at times. In fact there is a whole field of study called criminology that tries to explain why people do bad things. Well, I guess it happens to be because we really only care about one person - ourselves. Half the reason that charities survive is because you get tax deductions for giving money to them – I wonder how long a charity would last if it didn't have tax deductible status? Then again it is always the other person who is bad because we can never accept us as doing any bad things – yet our prisons are full of people who claim that they never did anything wrong (though I do have serious concerns with the way the criminal justice system operates).

One thing that Chesterton does is that he goes back to his childhood to look and remember the joys, and the magic, of growing up. How we would be marvelled by the animals that we would see at the zoo, or the trains that would go roaring past. In many ways that magical part of childhood is not so much lost, but forced out of us, as we grow up. We aren't supposed to have this magical fascination of trains any more because one is now an adult and one is supposed to do adult things – such as sitting in an office all day trying to be as productive, and as profitable, as possible, even if you aren't enriching yourself.

I want to finish off here by saying a few things about conservatism because while Chesterton may sound like your standard Christian conservative, in reality he isn't. In fact he considers conservatism to be a incredibly dangerous thing, namely because nothing stays the same forever. He uses the example of the white post – if one leaves the white post and doesn't do anything to it (thus attempting to maintain the status-quo) the the white post will sooner or later become a black post. For that white post to remain a white post one must paint it. The same is the case with conservatism – it is corrupting. If we maintain the status-quo then eventually the system will become corrupted, and eventually we will all lose out. We are seeing this happening today with the ever widening income gap, and the ravages of climate change. This is probably why democracy is a good thing because at least every few years we get to ditch the tired old party and bring in a new one – though the problem arises not so much with the parties, but with the system they represent – we may change the parties, and we may change the policies, but the system, in the end, remains the same. This is why Chesterton not so much supports progress, but rather progress in the form of a revolution, a revolution that seeks to move us out of the corrupted status quo and back to the edenic world of the past. There are many ideas as to how one can do this, but in Chesterton's mind this can only be done if we return to the original teachings of Jesus Christ.

You can read this book online here (and probably numerous other places as well).

I really wanted to like this book. I was interested to hear his arguments, hoping they would be sound doctrine presented convincingly, leading me to a greater understanding of the compassionate nature of Father God, as represented in Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, Bradley Jersak's style of writing isn't either clear or concise. I think some of his arguments made sense, but it was honestly difficult to decipher, so hidden were they amongst pointless detail and dull repetition. Sometimes he seemed to think if he just repeated his interpretation over and a over again, he would convince us of it. Sometimes there was evidence, but it was buried under so much gumpf I'd usually forgotten the point he was making any time I came back to this book after a break, and there were many breaks. I had to continually drag myself back to it, as I was determined to finish it because, as I said, I wanted his arguments to be convincing. And I think they probably are, but I don't think this book is the one that's going to convince me of it.

John Dickson has sure come a long way since he started a band to spread the news of Jesus to the people of Sydney. In the time that I spent away from the church he has gone from being a pastor of an inner city Sydney church to becoming an associate professor in ancient history and he has moved from writing books directed at young adults and teenagers such as 'A Sneaking Suspicion' to more academic, but still accessible, works. Anyway, in this book he looks at the mainstream scholarship on the historicity of Jesus in a way that is accessible to most of us. I found the book interesting and helpful, noting that he does try to take a middle road between hardened sceptics such as Spong and Dawkins, and rabid promoters such as McDowell. I don't necessarily agree with everything that Dickson writes, however much of my theorising is simply just that - theorising, without any real supportable evidence, whereas being a scholar as such he moves further to the evidence that is supported by, well, evidence.

One of the problems that I find with books such as these is that the writers seem to sometimes get dragged too far into the secular sphere that they end up restraining God scientifically. For instance, when writing about the seven days of creation, John Dickson says“But mainstream Christians for decades have dismissed 6-Day Creationism as a misguided (if well-intentioned) project” which actually makes me balk a bit because by making that statement it sounds as if he is going down the path that the fundamentalists have taken when they say things along the lines of “unless you believe in a literal seven days of creation then you are not a Christian”, which, according to Dickson, somebody who says that is not a part of mainstream Christianity, but rather a part of a fringe group (or cult).

As for me, with regards to the seven days of creation, my position is “I don't know”. God has the power to create everything in seven days, or he could have created it instantly, or he could have taken billions of years – the truth is that none of us were around at that time, and the only references that we have are myths and legends that have come out of the human collective – even the Biblical account is rather vague considering that it has been written in poetic form.

With regards to the contents of this book, well, I am going to have to say that it is useful, and interesting, and as Dickson is able to do quite well, written in a brief and very readable way. The subject of the book can be very dry and academic at times, but Dickson is able to write in a way that the average person can have access to the information. Further, what he is intending to do here is to prove, based on historical evidence, that Jesus was a real person, and then goes further to prove that the claims that he made came about as he made them (that is that he is the Son of God, and that he died and came to life again). Personally, I am not necessarily convinced that any amount of proof is going to change people's mind; rather an intervention by God is required – and my supporting argument for a statement along those lines is that there are still holocaust deniers out there despite the fact of the overwhelming evidence supporting the fact the the Nazi death camps not only existed, but were used to kill anybody that the Nazi's did not like.

This book differs from Evidence that Demands a Verdict in that where the first book was simply a collection of notes that brought about evidence that supported the existence and the incarnation of Christ, this book is written more in a traditional form and seeks to undermine two prominent theories, one of them being what is called the source theory (I can't remember the other theory that he attacks in this book, but I think I will spend my time on the Source Theory).

The Source Theory is the idea that the Old Testament was composed during the Babylonian Exile from a number of different sources which includes the Eloist source, the Yawhist source, the Priestly Source, and the redactor. Three of these sources were basically a collection of writings that had come down from pre-exilic period and during the Babylonian exile a person known as the redactor brought these collections together and created the Old Testament as we know it.

I tend to have a more traditional mindset to the construction of the Old Testament than the academics that support the Source Theory, one reason being because a part of me likes the idea that there is a powerful God that can intervene in the world on a miraculous level. Obviously parts of the Old Testament are incredibly offensive to our post-modern society, and I suspect that people want to try to explain these ideas away (such as the wholesale genocide of the Caananite people, which in the end the people of Israel were not able to follow through with). I guess our more scientific minded society that has to weigh all evidence also balks at the idea of unexplainable miracles.

To be honest, the Bible is not the only ancient text in which miracles are recorded, however it is a text that claims authenticity, and also claims to be the truth. It is by making these claims that it opens itself up to criticism, and this I can understand. Many of the other ancient documents are very vague on their miracles, if those miracles happened at all, and can also easily be explained away. However, the Bible calls us to either believe it or not, but because of the difficulties with regards to some of the miracles, we try to water it down so that we can believe it without having to accept the unexplainable events.

With regards to the sources I do partly accept the source theory as it is clear that the book of Genesis has been constructed from numerous sources, and in part, the book of Exodus appears to have a similar construction. I would also not be surprised if parts of the Old Testament were brought together during the Babylonian exile. However, we should note that there are also references to books (such as the book of Jasher) which no longer exist, or if they do exist, they are little more than pious frauds. Mind you, there were a number of books that were written after the exile, so the Old Testament in its final form did not come about until the intertestimonial period.

This brings me to the book of Isaiah. There are a number of academic scholars in Christian institutions who believe that Isaiah is not one but two books. However, they also have a special understanding of what prophecy is about. Their position tends to be that prophecy is God speaking to the people about things that are occurring to them, and either encouraging them or rebuking them. However, as they suggest, prophecy is not about foretelling the future. In a way I agree and I disagree. If God is God then God can tell the future because he can affect the future. For instance (and I am not God so I am bound by the restraints of this world) if I say that on Saturday I am going into the city and I am going to buy a book, am I telling the future, and if I do go into the city of Saturday and buy a book, did my prediction come about? I'm sure if based on that evidence I ran around claiming to be a fortune teller then people would think I was insane. However, from my position and reading of the Old Testament, the future predictions are not fortune telling but rather God saying 'I will do this at a time of my choosing.' If he does do that, well, he is God. The thing with God though is that when he says that he is going to do something well, he does it, it is just that sometimes he takes a lot of time to get around to doing it.

This is the third and final review of Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster? You can find the first two parts here and here. To sum it up, I can easily recommend Copan’s book to you. It’s chock full of helpful insights and context for some of the most stringent objections to the teachings, culture and imagined contradictions that most skeptics level against the Old Testament.

Copan deals in depth responding to criticisms of the Old Testament in areas like:

• Does the OT belittle or denigrate women?
• Does the OT advocate slavery?
• Was the killing of the people groups in Promise Land by the Israelites mass genocide, and how is that ethical?
• Is all religion violent?

These are just a few of the topics Copan addresses. He does so by examining scripture in depth and in context. I was deeply appreciate of how he covered so much biblical material in a way that is both easily readable and understandable. His responses to critics were gracious, well-reasoned and constantly centered on the teachings of scripture. His sense of humor also shows through consistently in little comments here and there.

However, I was bothered by his consistent use of apologetic terms for the law of the Old Testament, known as the Mosaic law. Though the Old and New Testaments view of the scriptures is that they are inspired by God and “perfect,” Copan finds fault with the Old Testament law calling it “inferior,” “not ideal,” and “not perfect.”

Take these references:

• By the Old Testament’s own admission, the Mosaic law was inferior and future looking. (59)
• The law of Moses, though not ideal, presents a remarkable improvement when it comes to punishments. (121)
• Israel’s laws weren’t perfect, to be sure. But when we compare them to other ancient Near Eastern law codes…, the general impression noted by scholars is a range of… improvements in Israel.

 

To his credit, he did qualify these statements by saying the the Mosaic law was put in place to prepare humanity for the coming of Christ. It was only a babysitter, so to speak. However, Copan’s consistent use of terminology like the above erodes many of his arguments and appeals to the context of the scriptures.

It’s interesting that I read Copan’s book while I was in the process of reading through the Bible in a year. When read in context and chronologically, one can see the beauty, grace and perfection of God’s Word in the Old Testament. I agree with Copan that it is not the final word, but I am not willing to say it’s inferior or not ideal. It was the perfect Word for an imperfect people and culture that served perfectly to lead them to faith in a perfect God.

There were some sections that just radiated with power and brilliance. I found the section titled An Untamable God in chapter 17 particularly good.

"We sensitized Westerners wonder why God gets so angry with Israel… We live in a time when we’re very alert to racial discrimination and intolerance, but we aren’t as sensitized to sexual sin as past generations were. We live in a time that sees death as the ultimate evil. Perhaps, we need to be more open to the fact that some of our moral intuitions aren’t as finely tuned as they ought to be." (192)

 

I totally agree. I also think Copan should apply this idea of being overly sensitized to his own material when at times he seems too quick to apologize for the laws of Israel. It’s interesting that he quotes C.S. Lewis on the idea of chronological snobbery earlier in the book and then seems to set himself up to judge the Mosaic law (though not nearly as harshly as the critics he responds to) as inferior by modern culture’s own standard of morality.

Lewis said “the uncriticial acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.”

There should be no need for us to apologize how God works in the past. There are many issues about God’s work that we simply can’t explain in a tidy, logical package. We don’t understand how His mysterious ways in our lives today, much less the past.

On the whole, Copan’s book is an excellent resources to respond to critics and provide believers with more understanding about difficult issues related to the Old Testament.

"Maybe the ideal “God” in the Westerner’s mind is just too nice. We’ve lost sight of good and just while focusing on nice, tame, and manageable. We’ve ignored sternness and severity (which makes us squirm; consider Romans 11.22), latching on to our own ideals of comfort and convenience. We’ve gotten rid of the God who presents a cosmic authority problem and substituted controllable gods of our own devising. We’ve focused on divine love at the expense of God’s anger at what ultimately destroys us or undermines our fundamental well-being." (193)