Neil Elliott
Adjunct Instructor
United Theological Seminary

Ted Grimsrud
Professor of Bible and Religion, Eastern Mennonite University
Author of Embodying the Way of Jesus

There is some unclarity in some quarters about the intended audience of my book. The following is neither an admission of anything I was ever trying to deny, nor a confession of anything I am or ought to be embarrassed about. It is an explanation offered in good faith to clear up a misunderstanding on the part of some that was based on an assumption that had no basis in anything I ever claimed about my book. While I hope that academics will find a few of my proposals insightful or useful (though I have no expectations that they will), my book is not written for an academic audience but for an informed lay audience. It was always intended to be written for an informed lay audience. Here is what I stated in my original book proposal:

Intended audience: General readers, including: lay Christians struggling with the question of inerrancy who are looking for a way to continue to be Christian, non-Christians interested in understanding how Christianity is coherent apart from notions of biblical inerrancy.

Here is an excerpt from my preface to the book:

The sad reality is that many Christians who are raised in sheltered fundamentalist homes and churches leave their nests for college or the outside world, unprepared, only to discover how untenable the tenets of fundamentalism in fact are. This frequently leads to disillusionment and despair, and to the subsequent abandonment of faith. It is my hope that a book like this one will help some to discover that there are better ways to be a Christian than to be a fundamentalist, ways to be a Christian that do not preclude critical engagement with the numerous problematic aspects of the Christian scriptures and religion.

This book began as a series of blog posts and developed out of the conversations that ensued. Those conversations with friends, foes, and strangers helped shape this book. In fact, it was precisely those conversations that incited me to write this particular book in the first place; after completing the original blog series, a number of individuals contacted me and in various ways expressed relief at the prospect that there are ways to remain Christian without being intellectually dishonest. It is my hope that with this particular book, others will find some of the help they need in order to manage their transition without despair. . . .

I have tried to write a book that is relevant to Christians and to churches. In fact, very little of what I have said within the pages that follow will be particularly new to those who are trained in biblical studies. It is not my objective in this particular book to advance knowledge within academic circles. My intention rather has been to make biblical scholarship relevant to those who have had the good fortune not to have gotten caught up in academics. Nevertheless, I hope that this book will be relevant to a wide audience. Despite the fact that much of my material is a distillation of previous scholarship for the sake of the reading public, perhaps some trained in biblical scholarship will be able to glean some insights from my own appropriations of the data. Non-Christians or nominal Christians may find this book useful, or at least interesting, as an example of an internal critique of fundamentalist Christianity and of an alternative way of being Christian. As for died-in-the-wool fundamentalists and biblical apologists, I have no expectations that anything I have said within the pages that follow will convert them (although I hope it will); nevertheless, I have tried to pay them the deep respect of extensively engaging their arguments. I hope that they will at least find my book useful as a foil for their own apologetic agendas.

Most precisely, as I have pointed out, I am writing this book for Christians who have honestly struggled with some of the contents of the Bible and have not been able to find satisfactory answers from among the Bible’s many apologists. I myself was once such a Christian—a fundamentalist who struggled with his faith but did not know of any alternative way of being Christian. Unfortunately, many of the books written to debunk biblical inerrancy have been written by non-Christians with no interest in articulating what a non-fundamentalist use of scripture might look like, or have been written by Christians who focus primarily on minutiae, such as historical and archaeological discrepancies, numerical contradictions, or scientific problems. Such books are fine but do not address many of the big problems—the kinds of things about which honest Christians are right to worry.[1] In this book I have tried to tackle the big problems and have tried (as much as possible) to leave the minutiae by the wayside, but I have also attempted to articulate an honest way forward for those who wish to continue to read the Bible as scripture. I have written about the kinds of things that were important to me in my own journey. I have tried to write the book that I wish someone had handed me years ago, a book that confronts problematic biblical texts head on, but one that also offers a way forward. My intention here is not just to tear down, but also to build up—not merely to show what kind of approach to scripture will not work, but also to suggest some approaches that might.

No doubt many Christians who read this book will find information or arguments that feel threatening to them. Some will conclude that I am motivated by unspoken hostility toward the gospel. This is not the case. This book developed out of my personal and honest struggle to come to terms with my own very sincere and active faith. It is the product, so far, of my quest for truth, and as threatening as the truth can often be, those who believe that all truth is God’s truth should not feel threatened by the contents of this book. I do not claim to have a secure grip on truth, but the pages that follow reflect the truth as I understand it, and it is a truth that—while initially threatening to my identity—has now set me free.

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[1] A good recent exception to the rule is Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior.

I hope this helps to clarify my intentions with the book and my aim in terms of the kind of readership I hope it will find.

UPDATE: I do NOT admit that my book is not academic. I clarify that my book was not written primarily for an academic audience and clarify that I never made any claim to the contrary. This does not mean that my book is not well-informed by academic standards. The purpose of this post was solely to correct a faulty assumption about the book, not to make any admission I have supposedly been trying to conceal. Claims to the contrary are sheer misinformation propagated by those who hide behind the security of anonymity.

Michael J. Iafrate
PhD. Candidate, University of St. Michael’s College (Toronto)
Contributor, RockAndTheology.com

Dale C. Allison, Jr.
Author of Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet
and Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History
Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Reppert’s post is restrained and inquisitive and I appreciate his willingness to raise awareness to the issue. On his post I commented with further evidence that Copan is either being intentionally deceptive with his use of Susan Niditch’s argument in her book, War in the Hebrew Bible, or that he is just a really sloppy reader. Here is my comment:

Copan obfuscates Niditch’s argument quite clearly. He says:

“Not quite. Susan Niditch’s study, War in the Hebrew Bible, affirms that the ‘ban’ in the early texts (for example, Deut. 20) refers to the total destruction of warriors and the consecration to God of everything that was captured.”

Then he immediately quotes her as follows:

“The dominant voice in the Hebrew Bible condemns child sacrifice as the epitome of anti-Yahwist and anti-social behavior . . . . the dominant voice in the Hebrew Bible treats the ban not as sacrifice in exchange for victory but as just and deserved punishment for idolaters, sinners, and those who lead Israel astray or commit direct injustice against Israel.”

In fact, he does more than obfuscate. He misrepresents entirely, and I can’t see how he did not do this intentionally, unless he is just a very sloppy reader.

Copan says, “the ‘ban’ in the early texts (for example, Deut. 20).” But Deut 20, in Niditch’s argument, is not one of the early texts. Deut 20 is that dominant voice that condemns human sacrifice.

I think it’s pretty clear that Copan is either intentionally glossing over her argument, or that he failed to understand one of the most basic contentions of her argument.

Reppert has said that he is going to email Copan questioning him about my critique of his use of sources. It will be very interesting to see how Copan responds.

Your book is a familiar rehash of the old liberal view of Scripture. So you may be a fresh face, but you’re pedaling [sic] the same tired old theories. . . . You’re a fresh face with stale ideas. . . . I don’t need to read another book that repackages the same rotten meat. . . . You’re not my enemy. You are, however, an enemy of God.

How generous of Steve to point out that I do in fact have a fresh face. I simply can’t wait to see what Steve will have to say if he ever does decide to read my book!

Paul Copan, Divine Defender

So that Christians are better prepared to defend the Bible, I would like to offer a lesson on biblical apologetics. Over the summer, I have been reading biblical apologists incessantly, feeding off their every word. Along the way, I’ve learned a trick or two on how to defend the Bible. Today’s lesson is brought to you courtesy of Paul Copan, professor of philosophy and ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University and author of When God Goes To Starbucks: A Guide To Everyday Apologetics.

Copan shows us how to defeat accusations that Yahweh is a moral monster with a few simple moves. The Copan motto is: selectivity spells success.

All you have to do to defend the Bible and defeat your opponents is to use the evidence selectively. Selective readings of the evidence are the quickest and simplest way to defend the truth of God’s Word and beat down any of God’s hostile accusers.

For instance, when one of God’s enemies accuses the Yahweh of the Old Testament of approving of human sacrifice, selective presentations of authoritative scholars is a good way to combat anyone capable of reading. So, Paul Copan quotes Susan Niditch, from her seminal book on Israelite holy war, War in the Hebrew Bible. He quotes her as saying that

the dominant voice in the Hebrew Bible treats [holy war] not as sacrifice in exchange for victory but as just and deserved punishment for idolaters, sinners, and those who lead Israel astray or commit direct injustice against Israel.¹

In this way, Copan uses Niditch to argue that the Bible does not condone but rather condemns human sacrifice. The genius of Copan’s apologetics is that Susan Niditch has made one of the strongest arguments to date that the Bible does in fact approve of human sacrifice, and that holy war in the Bible was in fact an exercise in human sacrifice, at least early on. What Copan has done is make selective use of an authoritative source in order to serve his own agenda of defending God’s truth. Critics of biblical apologists call this “lying for Jesus,” but I think that’s too harsh. The proper term for it is simply “biblical apologetics.”

You see, in War in the Hebrew Bible, Susan Niditch makes the case that the earliest conception of holy war in the Hebrew Bible was one where the noncombatants slaughtered by God’s people were human sacrifices offered to Yahweh out of gratitude for giving them victory against the enemy’s armies. This practice of killing every living being in the city is often called “the ban.” As Niditch writes,

The ban as sacrifice is an ideology of war in which the enemy is to be utterly destroyed as an offering to the deity who has made victory possible. Implicit in this ideology is a view of God who appreciates human sacrifice.²

Niditch made the case that this ideology of slaughtering women and children as human sacrifices represents the earliest voices in the Hebrew Bible, but that the later, “dominant voice” would overshadow the earlier voices in its condemnation of human sacrifice. Copan is very smart, because he fails to mention that this is Niditch’s argument.³ He only quotes what she concludes about the “dominant voice,” but leaves his readers uninformed regarding what she says about the “earliest voice” in the Hebrew Bible. The genius in this is that his readers will be led to believe that Niditch’s book disproves those who claim that human sacrifice was accepted in some periods of biblical history. In reality, and to the contrary, Niditch’s book disproves Copan’s thesis. But by means of a selective reading of Niditch’s authoritative scholarship, Paul Copan has made quick work of those liars and scoffers who attack God’s Word.

Another example. In order to defend Yahweh against accusations that he was a child-killer and slayer of innocent noncombatants, Copan argues that when Yahweh tells Joshua to kill “everything that breathes,” including women and children (and cattle), that is only a rhetorical exaggeration. Likewise, when the Conquest narratives say that Joshua fulfilled Yahweh’s command by killing everything that breathes in every city he attacked, that too is merely rhetorical flourish. What it really means is that Joshua killed all the soldiers, but let everything else that breathes just keep on breathing. In this way, Copan rightly defends Yahweh against charges of infanticide and lady-killing. The genius in this apologetic defense is again Copan’s selective use of his source, this time of the Bible itself. For instance, in Numbers 31:17, after the Israelites had slaughtered every adult male of Midian, taking the noncombatants as spoil, Yahweh gives explicit instructions for the soldiers to kill every male child of the Midianites, and for good measure to kill all of the females who were not virgins. (The virgin girls were distributed among the soldiers and priests as trophy wives.) Again, in 1 Samuel 15, Yahweh orders Saul to kill every living Amalekite in revenge for an act of aggression committed by their ancestors more than twenty generations ago. Saul kills every living Amalekite, including the women and children, except for one—the king. (For this failure to kill everyone, Saul is punished.)

So here are two clear examples of cases where Yahweh undeniably ordered Israelites to kill women, children, and all other noncombatants. But by completely ignoring these examples⁴ (and via a metaphorical interpretation of Yahweh’s command for Joshua to “kill everything that breathes” in Canaan) Copan is able to defend God against charges of child-killing and lady-killing. Once again, an unabashed selective use of the sources is all that is necessary in order to show how ignorant and deceitful Yahweh’s detractors are.

So there you have it. The next time you are unexpectedly and annoyingly confronted by an enemy of the truth who tries to convince you that Yahweh is a moral monster via unsophisticated readings of straightforward biblical texts, you know what to do. You no longer have to be unprepared. You no longer have to feel anxious about what to say in response. Just follow the example of biblical apologist Paul Copan: quote passages that prove your beliefs, and hope God’s evil detractors don’t notice the bits you’ve left out. Remember Copan’s motto: selectivity spells success!

Until next time, this has been a free lesson in the art of biblical apologetics—empowering God’s people to deny, deny, deny.

1. Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 46.
2. Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible, 151.
3. Copan, “Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites,” page 2.
4. Copan, “Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites,” page 3.

Edward T. Babinski
Editor of Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists

As polarizing as Loftus is, I respect him. I don’t always agree with him, but I believe he speaks his mind and tries to be honest. I can’t fault anyone for that, even if what’s on his mind isn’t what many of us would like to hear. I’m not going to approve or condemn his methods of engaging his opposition. It is what it is, and if some of us don’t like it, we’re not obliged to pay any attention. But I will say that I think every Christian should be paying attention to Loftus, even, if not especially, when we don’t like the way he talks and what he has to say.

That said, in Loftus’s blog post, entitled, “There’s a New Kid On the Block, Thom Stark, So Watch Out Now,” Loftus makes a statement about Evangelicals with which I don’t necessarily agree. He says:

The only reason evangelicals still exist is because most of them simply do not read. Those who do read don’t read works like [Thom Stark's]. The few who do read works like his don’t do so to learn anything. They already have their blinders on from a few years of indoctrination in an evangelical college of their choice. In my opinion when it comes to understanding biblical scholarship the phrase “educated evangelical” is an oxymoron.

Now, having been an Evangelical myself, I am obliged to admit that his statement is generally true. Many (if not most) Evangelicals don’t read dissenting literature, and when they do, they usually read it to pick it apart, not to learn from it. I know this because I went to a good Evangelical Bible College and that is how we were trained to read dissenting literature, and I have read enough Evangelical apologetics to know that that is how Evangelicals are often taught to read dissenting literature: as a foil, with the presupposition that the dissenting views cannot be correct.

With that said, THAT IS NOT TRUE OF ALL EVANGELICALS. The term “evangelical” encompasses a wide variety of Christians, and many evangelicals are not guilty of the accusations Loftus has brought against them. I think he knows this too, but he likes the polemics, and that’s fine with me. I’m not writing to condemn what he’s said, but just to clarify what I say.

I have no interest in converting people away from their brand of evangelicalism. I oppose fundamentalism, and I make criticisms of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, but I do not oppose faith. I wrote my book to try to help Christians who are struggling with the Bible and with fundamentalism to figure out a way to be Christian without compromising their struggle or abandoning the faith altogether.

I know plenty of evangelicals who read very widely, and plenty who are very sympathetic to many of the arguments made by critics of evangelicalism. My book is not an attack on Christianity, but on a specific brand of fundamentalist evangelicalism that I do not believe can be sustained after an honest look at the data. That said, I am not calling those who disagree with me “dishonest.” I am merely saying that the only honest conclusion I could come to was to reject that brand of fundamentalist evangelicalism.

I hope I’ve clarified where John Loftus (whom I consider to be a friend) and I differ. I also hope I’ve made it clear that I do not condemn John for what he has said or how he has said it. I don’t put it the way he puts it, but that’s the way he sees it, and he has the right to call it like he sees it.

Amen?

Stark’s book is a direct frontal assault against evangelical Christianity, the exact likes of which I have not seen before in one volume. In it Stark exposes, in the words of Mark Noll, the “scandal of the evangelical mind.” While Noll was chiding evangelicals for not producing the best and brightest thinkers capable of truly engaging and changing their society for Christ, the reality is that the real scandal is evangelicalism itself. The best and brightest thinkers, like Stark, cannot remain evangelicals once they truly become biblically informed. I can only hope his book will have a very wide readership within those same circles.

John W. Loftus
Founder of the website Debunking Christianity
Author of Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity

Conservative Christians often affirm that the Bible is historically accurate, internally consistent and morally edifying. Anyone who has had a good introductory course on the Bible at college level knows that it is not necessarily any of the above. Even people who profess to hold that the Bible is inerrant acknowledge in practice that this is not always the case. Nonetheless, biblical scholars, especially  those of a more theological bent, have engaged incessantly in an enterprise of apologetics, to try to explain away apparent mistakes or to justify ethical attitudes that we now find unacceptable in the modern world.

Thom Stark’s book, The Human Faces of God, is a refreshing exception. It presents many of the obviously problematic aspects of the Bible – polytheism, human sacrifice, genocide, mistaken eschatological expectations. It breaks no new ground in the historical critical understanding of these problems; Stark’s objective is not to advance new hypotheses, but to focus on the significance of that which has already been established. He does this by brushing aside all apologetic evasion. Human sacrifice and genocide are atrocities, whether we find them in the Bible or not. Attempts to save Jesus from apocalyptic delusion are unpersuasive. Those who strive to evade that conclusion only become “enablers,” who are complicit in the negative effects of these texts on modern communities. As Stark realizes, the most severe problems raised by modern criticism are not those that question the historicity of events but rather those that question biblical morality. If Christians struggle with these texts, it is not because they are inherently difficult, but because we find their viewpoints hard to stomach. But as Stark also realizes, it is only by confronting these problems honestly that we can find a firm basis for a constructive biblical theology.

Many critics will want to portray Stark’s book as negative, as an attack on biblical values. Nothing could be further from the truth. As he states at the beginning of this book, the Bible does not have a single viewpoint, and one of its great strengths is its inbuilt tradition of self-criticism. No modern critic comes close to being as critical of the biblical tradition as were Amos and Ezekiel, or, for that matter, Jesus. If we are to appropriate the Bible as Scripture, however, we cannot affirm the canon whole and in equal measure. Rather it behoves us to listen to the critical voices within the tradition and proceed in a similar spirit. This is not to say that we should excise anything from the canon, as Marcion did. Some texts teach by negative example, and function as scripture by exhibiting attitudes that we must now condemn. But our condemnations, too, are inspired by biblical values. There is much in the Bible to inspire us, so long as we do not lay on the ancient texts burdens of inerrancy and infallibility that no text can bear.

This is a courageous book, that challenges us to take the modern criticism of the Bible to its logical conclusion. It deserves a wide readership.

John J. Collins
Yale

‎This book is for those who wish to understand the Bible and learn from it. It is not for those who seek handy Bible quotes, nor for those who have no urge to plumb the Bible’s depths. Thom Stark shows how the scriptures confront us with the big questions such as suffering and identity. He provides a thorough and devastating critique of the “inerrancy of scripture.” He offers persuasive rejoinders to those who try to get round some of the nasty bits of the Bible or dodge difficulties like the possibility that Jesus was wrong. If nothing in this challenging book causes you to think again, you have a very closed mind! —John Henson, M.A., Oxford University, author of Other Prayers of Jesus and Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures

The Human Faces of God will shatter any honest reader’s preconceptions about the Bible and what it “says” and leave that reader with a stronger and better faith. This book is the most powerful antidote to fundamentalism that I’ve ever read. Literalism and fundamentalism have defamed God by defining God as someone or something as small-minded as God’s interpreters. This book liberates God at last. —Frank Schaeffer (author of Crazy For God)

My book will be out on shelves next year. Stay tuned for more details.

[Proofread and re-uploaded @ 22:02 EST]

Ideal man passes through the very midst of nature and comes to understand God; he seeks out mankind and thus attains God. He does not bypass nature and turn his back on mankind. He holds the sword of Caesar in his hand and he has the heart of Jesus in his breast. He thinks with the mind of Socrates and loves God with the heart of Hallaj. As Alexis Carrel desired, he is a man who understands the beauty of science and the beauty of God; he listens to the words of Pascal and the words of Descartes.

Like the Buddha, he is delivered from the dungeon of pleasure-seeking and egoism; like Lao Tse, he reflects on the profundity of his primordial nature; and like Confucius, he meditates on the fate of society.

Like Spartacus, he is a rebel against slaveowners, and like Abu Dharr, he scatters the seed for the revolution of the hungry.

Like Jesus, he bears a message of love and reconciliation, and like Moses, he is the messenger of jihad and deliverance.

He is a man whom philosophical thought does not make inattentive to the fate of mankind, and whose involvement in politics does not lead to demagoguery and fame-seeking. Science has not deprived him of the taste of faith, and faith has not paralyzed his power of thought and logical deduction. Piety has not made of him a harmless ascetic, and activism and commitment have not stained his hands with immorality. He is a man of jihad and ijtihad, of poetry and the sword, of solitude and commitment, of emotion and genius, of strength and love, of faith and knowledge. He is a man uniting all the dimensions of true humanity. He is a man whom life has not made a one-dimensional, fractured and defeated creature, alienated from his own self. Through servitude to God, he has delivered himself from servitude to things and to people, and his submission to the absolute will of God has summoned him to rebellion against all forms of compulsion. He is a man who has dissolved his transient individuality in the eternal identity of the human race, who through the negation of self becomes everlasting.

— Ali Shari’ati

I firmly believe in the divinity of Jesus (or the Jesus-ity of God), but I am often uncomfortable with the ways people use the texts to get there. Let me say something to any who may be reading Thom’s series and thinking, “This doctrine is at the very center of our faith so this series is blasphemous and we shouldn’t even entertain the thought.” (Or those of you who want to engage but are afraid that it will make it seem like you don’t believe or take seriously the doctrine Thom is questioning.)

ON THE CONTRARY, if indeed this is a central doctrine for us, we should be all the more willing to engage arguments that might undercut it (and in the process, either revise our beliefs or be more ready to defend them). This is all the more true because Thom is basing his arguments on Scripture. (And double *all the more* true for those of us in the Restoration Movement (Stone-Campbell), where Scripture does not bend to tradition. And to stop one more potential excuse – of course Scripture must be read through tradition, but that doesn’t mean tradition shouldn’t be questioned. Duh, right?)

You can disagree with Thom’s exegesis. He wants you to do just that! (And not for arguing’s sake, but for the sake of the argument.) I will at times, and I hope I have the patience and commitment to follow through on the arguments.

Anyhow, this is my plea for Thom to be taken seriously by those of us who consider ourselves teachers, even if we end up strongly disagreeing (as I am confident I will, though it would be wrong/cheating to be certain at this point) – heck, even if we end up thinking Thom is a heretic.

So says Michael DeFazio. I’ll just add that DeFazio hasn’t finished reading the series yet. I wouldn’t say he lacks “the patience and commitment to follow through on the arguments.” I’d just say he lacks adequate counter-arguments. So come on! In the word of Captain DeFazio and Pastor Picard, “Engage.”