the spoil which we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his
wife and children, and depart." But David said, "You shall not do so, my
brothers, with what the LORD has given us; he has preserved us and given
into our hand the band that came against us. Who would listen to you in this
matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share
be who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike." And from that day
forward he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel to this day (1
Samuel 30:22-25).
5. Copan claimed that cuneiform laws were to glorify kings whereas biblical
laws were to glorify God and to instruct people, which shaped a national
character.
The CH destroys this notion because the glory of the gods is paramount:
"When the august god Anu, king of the Anunnaku deities, and the god Enlil, lord
of heaven and earth, who determines the destinies of the land, allotted supreme
power over all the peoples to the god Marduk, the firstborn son of the god Ea,
exalted him among the Igigu deities ..."27
Conversely, one can find the glory of the king comingled with praises for
Yahweh, as in Psalm 89:1-4, 27): "I will sing of thy steadfast love, 0 LORD, for
ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. For thy
steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens.
Thou hast said, `I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to
David my servant: I will establish your descendants for ever, and build your
throne for all generations ... And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the
kings of the earth."'
As I have previously mentioned, the prologue of the CH states that laws are
also meant to teach and build character of the people of the kingdom.
6. Copan claimed that cuneiform laws reflected a king's unlimited authority
whereas biblical laws limited the king's authority (as seen in Deuteronomy
17:14-20).
There are many instances where ancient Near Eastern law also limited royal
authority. In certain periods of Hittite history, the pankush, a sort of broader
council of nobles, acted to judge kings when they overstepped their boundaries.
7. Copan claimed that that in cuneiform laws the offenses against slaves were
on the same level as property crimes whereas in biblical law offenses were
considered against slaves as persons of value.
I have already cited instances where slaves were given even better treatment
in the ancient Near East (e.g., in case of providing for sons of slaves), and I can
find instances of slaves being asked to submit to dehumanizing treatment in the
NT (e.g., 1 Peter 2:18).
8. Copan claimed that in cuneiform laws religious sins were not typically
capital offenses whereas in biblical law a number of religious sins were
considered "capital offenses-idolatry (Deut. 13:6-9), false prophecy (Deut.
18:20), sorcery (Lev. 20:27), blasphemy (Lev. 24:10-23), Sabbath violations
(Num. 15:32-36)."
Copan presumes that maintaining proper religious practices are worth more
than human life. Why not count as abhorrent the thought that people could be
killed for practicing a different religion?
Copan has failed to show these disparities between cuneiform laws versus
biblical laws. But there are two more factual errors and half-truths left to point
out.
9. Copan claimed: "Not only do we find morally inferior cuneiform
legislation, but its attendant harsh, ruthless punishments. Commenting on the
brutal and harsh Code of Hammurabi, historian Paul Johnson observes: `These
dreadful laws are notable for the ferocity of their physical punishments, in
contrast to the restraint of the Mosaic Code and the enactments of Deuteronomy
and Leviticus."'
Copan ignores the replacement of many executions with fines or offerings in
Hittite law. Moreover, he does not characterize as "ruthless" or as "brutal" the
endorsement of drowning (Genesis 6), stoning (Leviticus 20:27), burning
(Genesis 19), and slaughtering by the sword (1 Kings 18:40) those punished for
various offenses in the Bible. Children are killed for the "crime" of being born a
Canaanite.
It gets worse in the NT, as now we are to be burned eternally for not following
the Christian religion (Matthew 25:41-46). I never see eternal torture by fire
mentioned in the CH.
10. Finally, Copan claimed: "Babylon and Assyria (as well as Sumer)
practiced the River Ordeal: when criminal evidence was inconclusive, the
accused would be thrown into the river; if he drowned, he was guilty (the river
god's judgment), but if he survived, he was innocent and the accuser was guilty
of false accusation."
Copan forgets that, in contrast to Mesopotamia, not all Israelites lived near
large and dependable rivers where such ordeals might work best. Geography can
influence the types of resources and material available for punishment. Indeed,
Israel did have another type of ordeal that was no less horrifying, and this one
directed at women accused of adultery. The description of the ordeal is as
follows in Numbers 5:16-22:
And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD; and the
priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust
that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. And the priest
shall set the woman before the LORD, and unbind the hair of the woman's
head, and place in her hands the cereal offering of remembrance, which is
the cereal offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the
water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall snake her take
an oath, saying, "If no inan has lain with you, and if you have not turned
aside to uncleanness, while you were under your husband's authority, be
free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone
astray, though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have
defiled yourself, and some man other than your husband has lain with you,
then let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the
woman `the LORD make you an execration and an oath among your
people, when the LORD makes your thigh fall away and your body swell;
may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your
body swell and your thigh fall away.' And the woman shall say, `Amen,
Amen."'
Even the conservative commentator Philip Budd describes it as a "trial by
ordeal.1128 Despite Budd's best efforts to say that the water was not very
harmful, the text itself says that this water was meant to produce horrific results.
Budd adds that "Modern practice of the ordeal would obviously be indefensible
..."29
Having shown Copan's errors and Yahweh's supposed laws cruel and unjust, I
want to end by comparing Copan's sense of morality with that of the atheist. He
does not have a better morality. Atheism offers a much better way to construct
moral rules.
AT
HEISM'S MORALITY
Copan fundamentally misunderstands the New Atheism insofar as he believes
that it cannot provide a sound moral ground for its judgments. For a Christian
apologist to think he or she has triumphed by pointing out the moral relativism
of the New Atheism is to miss the entire point.
As an atheist, I don't deny that I am a moral relativist. Rather, my aim is to
expose the fact that Christians are also moral relativists. Indeed, when it comes
to ethics, there are only two types of people in this world:
1. Those who admit they are moral relativists; and
2. Those who do not admit they are moral relativists.
Copan fails because he cannot admit that he is a moral relativist, and he thinks
that God will solve the problem of moral relativism. But having a God in a moral
system only creates a tautology. All we end up saying is: "X is bad because X is
bad." Thus, if we say that we believe in God, and he says idolatry is evil, then
that is a tautology: "God says idolatry is bad and so idolatry is bad because God
says it is bad." Or we end up using this tautology: "Whatever God says is good
because whatever God says is good."
As Kai Nielsen deftly argues, human beings are always the ultimate judges of
morality even if we believe in God. After all, the very judgment that God is good
is a human judgment.30 The judgment that what God commands is good is also
a human judgment. So Christians are not doing anything different except
mystifying and complicating morality. Christians are simply projecting what
they call "good" onto a supernatural being. They offer us no evidence that their
notion of good comes from outside of themselves. And that is where the danger
lies. Basing a moral system on unverifiable supernatural beings only creates
more violence and endangers our species. I have already discussed this at length
in my book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence.
Copan cites Dinesh D'Souza who repeats the oft-cited anecdote that atheists
have killed more people than religionists. Again, this is based on the false idea
that Nazis were atheistic Darwinists, and that Stalinist genocide was due to
atheism rather than to forced collectivism (something I discuss in detail in
chapter 14 of this book). Speaking only for myself here, I can say that atheism
offers a much better way to construct moral rules. We can construct them on the
basis of verifiable common interests, known causes, and known consequences.
There is an ironclad difference between secular and faith-based morality, and we
can illustrate it very simply with these propositions:
A. I have to kill person X because Allah said so.
B. I have to kill person X because he is pointing a gun at me.
In case A, we commit violence on the basis of unverifiable premises. In case
B, we might commit violence on the basis of verifiable premises (I can verify a
gun exists, and that it is pointed at me). If I am going to kill or be killed, I want it
to be for a reason that I can verify to be true. If the word "moral" describes the
set of practices that accord with our values, and if our highest value is life, then
it is always immoral to trade real human lives for something that does not exist
or cannot be verified to exist.
What does not exist has no value relative to what does exist. What cannot be
proven to exist should never be placed above what does exist. If we value life,
then you should never trade something that exists, especially life, for something
that does not exist or cannot be proven to exist. That is why it would always be
immoral to ever take a human life on the basis of faith claims. It is that simple.
CONCLUSION
Copan's critique of the New Atheism fails philosophically and also in matters of
simple factuality. First, his comparisons between ancient Near Eastern law and
biblical law are devoid of a thorough reading of ancient Near Eastern legal
materials. Talk of superiority or advancement in the Bible is illusory once
Copan's ethnocentrism and religiocentrism are exposed. We can find dramatic
regressions in biblical law (slavery is worse in the NT relative to Amos). If
motive clauses are the standard, we can find self-interested ones in the Bible
(Honor parents so that you live longer). If the welfare of children is the standard,
then we can find the welfare of the children of slavewomen was much more
advanced in the CH than what we find in the case of Ishmael. Instead we find a
God in the Bible who endorses slavery, genocide, and infanticide-as only a moral
monster could-and who apparently didn't have any new morals or laws to offer
his chosen people that were all that innovative compared to other ancient Near
Eastern cultures.
Finally, Copan misses the real threat of the New Atheism, if there is such a
thing. The greatest threat will not be a Hitchens, a Dawkins, or a Harris. Rather,
it will be highly trained biblical scholars who are former Christian apologists. It
is they who know best where the rotting corpses of biblical ethics are buried.
What is tragic is that in the twenty-first century a Copan can still defend
genocide and infanticide in any form. What is still unbelievable is that a Copan
can say that killing women and children is sometimes good. It is that sort of
frightening biblical moral ethos that makes the New Atheism more attractive all
the time.
NOTES
1. See Philosophia Christi 10 (2008): 7-37, which can also be found online at
http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=45, from which I'll be quoting.
This chapter is an edited version of my response to Copan. To read my complete
response see "Paul Copan's Moral Relativism: A Response from a Biblical
Scholar of the New Atheism," found on Debunking Christianity, August 1, 2008,
http:// debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com200807/pawl-copans-moral-relativism
-response.html; as well as "Creationists for Genocide: Child Sacrifice Is
Biblically Approved," Talk Reason, August 24, 2007,
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/ Genocide.cfm#child. Paul Copan drew fire
from critics such as Wesley Morriston and Randal Rauser in a symposium for
Philosophia Christi 11 (2009): 7-92. Morriston's response can be found online at
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/ wes/DidGodCommandGenocide.pdf and
Copan's response to his critics can be found here:
http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=63. While Copan knew of my
criticisms before writing a response to his other critics, he never addressed them.
[Editor's note: See also the additional chapter on this topic posted online by
Richard Carrier, "The Will of God," to be found on our official Web site:
http://sites.google.coin/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/the-will-of-god].
2. For the text of the Code of Hammurabi, I depend on Martha T. Roth, Law
Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1997), pp. 76-77.
3. For the epilogue, see Roth, Law Collections, p. 133.
4. Berend Gemser, "The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament
Law," Vetus Testamentum Supplements 1 (1953): 50-66.
>
5. Rifat Sonsino, Motive Clauses (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), p. 174.
6. Ibid., p. 175.
7. Roth, Law Collections, p. 107 [My adapted translation; for better English
understanding, I have added "priestess" in brackets to two terms (shugitu and
naditu) that Roth leaves untranslated, and I have modified the spelling of those
terms to suit English fonts].
8. On how translations sometimes do not reflect the more explicative form of
some clauses that involve the particle -ma in the Code of Hammurabi, see
Theophile Meek, "The Asyndeton Clause in the Code of Hammurabi," journal of
Near Eastern Studies 5, no. 1 (1946): 64-72.
9. Sonsino, Motive Clauses, p. 99.
10. Unless noted otherwise, all quotations of the Bible are from the RSV.
11. Sonsino, Motive Clauses, p. 99.
12. Ibid., pp. 241-48.
13. Harry A. Hoffner, The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition (Leiden:
Brill, 1997), p. 33.
14. Ibid., pp. 133-34.
15. Raymond Westbrook, Property and the Family in Biblical Law (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), p. 45.
16. The idea that the book of Philemon has been misinterpreted to be too
proslavery is advocated by Allen Dwight Callahan, Embassy of Onesimus.• The
Letter of Paul to Philemon (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997).
I plan to respond to Callahan's flawed argument in the near future.
17. One of my forthcoming works will critique scholars [e.g., Rodney Stark,
For the Glory of God-How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-
Hunts and the End of Slavery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), who
claims that Christianity, not secularization, was the main reason for the abolition
of slavery. What I can say here is that Stark's misreadings of ancient Near
Eastern materials are very similar to those of Copan].
18. William L. Moran, "The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of
God in Deuteronomy," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963): 77-87.
19. Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Books, 2007), pp. 56-58.
20. I have addressed the supposed archaeological evidence for Canaanite
wickedness in my essay, "Creationists for Genocide," Talk Reason, August 24,
2007, http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Genocide.cfin.
21. Reuben A. Torrey, Difficulties in the Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, n.d.),
p. 60.
22. Philosophia Christi 10 (2008): pp. 7, 37 [emphasis added].
23. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 5.
24. Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p.
369.
25. Editor's Note: In War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of
Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) Susan Niditch tells us:
"While there is considerable controversy about the matter, the consensus over
the last decade concludes that child sacrifice was a part of ancient Israelite
religion to large segments of Israelite communities of various periods" (p. 47). S.
Ackerman argues in Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century
,Judah (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) that among the ancient Israelites, "the cult
of child sacrifice was felt in some circles to be a legitimate expression of
Yawistic faith" (p. 137). Francesca Stavrakopoulou concludes her book King
Manasseh and Child Sacrifice-Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004) by saying: "Despite the biblical exhortation
that child sacrifice is alien to YHWH worship, practiced by the foreign and
idolatrous, and consistently outlawed by YHWH, closer inspection of this
biblical portrayal instead locates child sacrifice within the mainstream of its
Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion Page 30
