Is God a vindictive bully? Is the God of the Old Testament different than the God of the New Testament? 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. But are they right to do so?
There’s no better person on the planet to discuss this issue than our good friend and noted apologist, Dr. Paul Copan! Following his popular book, Is God a Moral Monster?, his new book, Is God a Vindictive Bully?: Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments, contains brand new content and takes on some of the most difficult Old Testament challenges and places them in their larger historical and theological contexts to help us dispute these emerging claims that are creating a destructive gap between the Testaments.
On today’s podcast episode, Frank and Paul discuss the following questions:
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Who are these critics “from without and from within” the Church?
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Did Jesus really repudiate the laws of Moses?
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What’s the deal with imprecatory psalms like Psalm 137 and “dashing babies against the rocks”?!
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What can the Old Testament law still teach us today?
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What is incrementalism, and how does God use it?
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Does “utter destruction” really mean what we think it does?\
To view the entire VIDEO PODCAST, be sure to join our CrossExamined private community. It’s the perfect place to jump into great discussions with like-minded Christians while providing financial support for our ministry.
Paul’s new book: https://a.co/d/7gB1YLZ
Paul’s website: http://www.paulcopan.com/
If you would like to submit a question to be answered on the show, please email your question to Hello@Crossexamined.org.
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