Bad theology in the Old Testament
Not too long ago I saw a video: a conservative woman being interviewed by a man who wanted to know her opinion about what should be taught in public schools. She was adamant that the Bible should be included in the curriculum, but that books that advocated immoral or radical ideas must be banned. The man mentioned that he knew of a book that described a sordid family story: a man had two daughters who got him drunk on two successive nights, took turns having sex with him—and got pregnant. The woman didn’t hesitate: of course that book should be banned. The fellow then pointed out that this story is in the Bible, Genesis 19:30-38, about Lot and his daughters. The woman was shocked…that the interviewer could tell such a lie.
We are entitled to be curious: of the people who are such champions of the Bible, how many have actually read it? And even gone beyond that, i.e., how many have analyzed its stories with critical thinking skills fully engaged? Isn’t it amazing that there is no hint that the god who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—and allowed Lot and his family to escape—condemned the daughters of Lot for their behavior? Indeed we can see that this story is a fragment of folklore meant to ridicule the enemies of Israel: the offspring of the daughters of Lot are identified as Moabites and Ammonites. This episode does not rank as a major example of moral behavior to be emulated.
There was one Old Testament theologian/poet who portrayed his god as loving and kind, i.e., the author of the 23rd Psalm, “The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Every line of this poem is intended to be comforting, soothing. But make no mistake, the vengeful tribal god who dominates the Old Testament was anything but comforting and soothing. This becomes obvious to any devout reader who studies the Old Testament documents carefully, critically—and who manages to ignore the urgings of their clergy to overlook all the cruelties and brutalities.
There are quite a few study guides to help folks grasp what the Bible god is like. Dan Barker’s book, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction (2016, 310 pages); Steve Wells’ Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible (2010, 371 pages); Ruth Hurmence Green’s The Born Again Skeptic’s Guild to the Bible (1979, 310 pages). Here you will find long lists of the violence and murders that can be credited to the tribal god promoted by the Old Testament.
Also, see Hector Avalos’ essay, Yahweh Is a Moral Monster, in John Loftus’ 2010 anthology, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails and Valerie Tarico’s essay, God’s Emotions: Why the Biblical God Is Hopelessly Human, in John Loftus’ 2011 anthology, The End of Christianity.
The church has managed to tame and sanitize the very first human genocide ordered by god depicted in Genesis 6-9, the great flood. In Genesis 6:11-12 we read:
“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”
Especially to the Christian apologists who claim that Intelligent Design is a real thing, how can this possibly make sense? Their god’s original design of human beings was flawed—he created them imperfectly? How can it be that “the earth filled with violence” could be mended, set right, by a super violent genocide? By killing all the people on earth, except for one family? The church has tamed and sanitized this horrid story by focusing on the rainbow at the end, and by depicting the animals entering the ark. Even more shocking was the creation of a Christian entertainment venue—The Ark Encounter—apparently under the inspiration of Ken Ham, an enthusiastic creationist. My guess is that the genocidal nature of the flood is not emphasized.
Dan Barker and Steven Wells make clear in their lists of god’s brutal directives, he/she/it was intent on mass murder when he commanded the conquest of the Promised Land. But the story of Israel’s escape from Egypt is meant to make the point that Israel’s god is far more powerful, nastier, than any of the gods that the Egyptians worshipped. This folklore was intended as a show. In Exodus 4:21 we read that Yahweh promised to “harden Pharaoh’s heart, so he will not let the people go.” Indeed this is repeated several times, in order for the contest to unfold. Egypt is visited by several plagues, including the death of all the firstborn among the Egyptians—even Pharaoh’s son was not exempt—including their cattle. So this was yet another genocide that can be credited to Israel’s god. The folklore author could have said that god softened the pharaoh’s heart, but that would have reduced the great drama of his story. By the way, there are no Egyptian records of these momentous events depicted in the Bible folklore, just as there is no archaeological evidence of forty years of wandering in the desert.
Bible readers don’t have to be super intelligent to see that this is bad theology.
There is yet more bad theology in that highly esteemed set of rules known to the world as The Ten Commandments. It has often been noted that the first three are about the god’s colossal ego. This god prohibits worshipping any other gods—that is, the author of this list of laws knew very well that there were a lot of other gods available to worship. The second commandment forbids idol worship, insisting that their god who is insulted in this way will punish the children of those who commit this sin to the third and fourth generations. Finally, this god will not forgive anyone who misuses his name.
But there important prohibitions that are missing from this famous list. There is no law against owning slaves—how in the world could that have been left out by an all-loving god? Likewise, there is no law against racial discrimination, misogyny—no one at the time seemed to view women as equal to men; there is no law against hatreds based on sexual orientation. The most regrettable omission, however, must a prohibition against humans waging war against each other.
There is the famous scene in a 1981 movie with Mel Brooks, who plays Moses, in which, coming down from the mountain, he holds three tablets. One slips from his hand and shatters on the ground. So fifteen commandments are reduced to ten. Maybe the five missing commandments I just mentioned were on the shattered tablet!
Devout Christians commonly take comfort in the idea that “all that stuff” in the Old Testament was overwritten by the superior teachings in the New Testament. But the author of Matthew’s gospel would have none of that. In his Jesus-script we know as the Sermon on the Mount, we find the blunt statement that not one letter of ancient scripture can be ignored (Matthew 5:17-20). And any careful reading of the New Testament reveals so much bad theology there as well—which is a topic for another essay.
The Bible does not provide a portrait of an overwhelmingly loving god—as the author of Psalm 23 would have us believe. Valerie Tarico stated the case well in her essay I mentioned above:
“We expect God not to be the kind of guy who needs anger management classes. He shouldn’t need to breathe deep and leave the room lest he, heaven forbid, do something he will regret” (The End of Christianity, edited by John Loftus, page 156).
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023),
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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