Dawkins’ second chapter in his book The God Delusion is entitled “The God Hypothesis.” Needless to say, that is quite a broad category. After all, depending on your time in history and your particular culture, “God” or “the gods” can refer to a wide-ranging amount of beliefs and practices. For Dawkins, the “God” he hypothesizes about is the distinctly monotheistic deity found primarily in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. That being said, his depiction of that “God” can only be best described as a caricature. Here is how he describes YHWH, the God of the Old Testament:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidial, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” (50).
What I have found is that many of the more evangelical/militant atheists rush to quotes like these and leave it at that. Instead of taking the time to critically analyze precisely what is actually going in the Old Testament text and in history, they limit their attacks to rather baseless caricatures. Let me address just a few of Dawkins’ charges.
Is God Jealous?
Why would Dawkins call YHWH “jealous”? No doubt he is referring to Exodus 20:5, where YHWH commands that the Hebrews are not to worship or bow down to any other gods, because “YHWH is a jealous God.” What Dawkins fails to understand is precisely what this word means in Hebrew. It does not mean some sort of petty “jealousy,” in the sense of Jenny being “jealous” of Lisa because Lisa likes Bobby, and Jenny wants Bobby to like her. Rather, it is a word that means to demand exclusive service and devotion. God is a “jealous” God in the same way a husband is a “jealous” husband—one who expects for his wife to be committed and devoted to him within the bonds of marriage and is in turn committed and devoted to his wife as well.
In the ancient world, pagans worshipped a variety of gods all at once. There was no exclusive devotion to any one particular god. You simply worshipped whichever ones could “pay off” for you. The biblical teaching, of course, was not only were these other gods not really real, but there was only one true God—YHWH. Therefore the only truly beneficial worship was to exclusively be devoted to the true God, YHWH—it was essentially a marriage-type commitment between the worshipping community and YHWH, and this is what lies at the heart of the Old Testament covenant.
Therefore, to worship other gods as well was not only harmful, but stupid. This difference was much like the difference between a healthy sex life within the bonds of a loving and devoted marriage and will promiscuous orgies with anonymous partners on a regular basis (which incidentally was part of the “worship” in pagan religions). The point is this: if I tell my wife, “Hey, go out and just have sex with as many people you want to all the time, and I’ll do the same!” not only am I not “jealous” for my wife, I’m not loving.
Therefore, when one understands what precisely YHWH being a jealous God means, one can hardly consider that something that should be criticized. Yet Dawkins certainly does, precisely because he doesn’t take the time to understand what it means in the first place.
Is God a Petty, Unjust, Unforgiving Control Freak?
Another charge Dawkins levels against YHWH is that he is a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak. I submit that one can only make these charges if one has refused to even read the Torah, for the entire Torah is filled with the Hebrew law-code that details punishments for crimes. Granted, some of the punishments and crimes seem odd to us in the 21st century, but before one condemns the entire code, one should at least try to understand the culture in which it was given.
Now, it would take a book to go into detail about the cultural contexts of these laws, but my point here is simple: Dawkins might disagree with some, indeed many, of the laws and punishments in the Old Testament, but he is completely disingenuous to claim that YHWH is not concerned with justice. The very presence of the law code demonstrates that YHWH was considered to be a God concerned with justice.
As for accusing YHWH of being unforgiving, apparently Dawkins missed the significant portions of the Torah that deal with the sacrificial system. The entire point of the ceremonial sacrificial system was so that people could atone for sins. Simply put, if one repented and asked for forgiveness, YHWH provided a way for forgiveness to be given. Not only that, but the very act of sacrifice ended with a celebration of that forgiveness. After the priests offered up the sacrifice on the altar and took a portion on behalf of YHWH, they would then give the rest of the sacrifice back to the person and his family, and they would then enjoy a meal at the tabernacle or temple, and thus celebrate the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with YHWH.
Now, one might question why YHWH required the Israelites to engage in the sacrificial system, and why they were required to sacrifice animals, but that is another question. The point here is simple: YHWH clearly is depicted as a forgiving God. It’s impossible to miss that, if one takes the time to actually read the Old Testament.
Of course, Dawkins is upset because YHWH didn’t forgive all people for all sins, no matter what, despite whether or not they repented. Well, if that’s the basis for his criticism, then he’s going to have to condemn every justice that has ever existed in every society. After all, in systems of justice, people are held guilty for crimes they commit. Is Dawkins saying that the government should just “forgive” offenders no matter what? Is it “unjust” to hold a person responsible for their actions? Does he think the government should just “forgive” a serial rapist who has raped 20 children and killed 12 of them, despite the fact he shows no remorse or intention of changing? Is it “unjust” to punish the man? Of course not.
It should be obvious: although Dawkins throws these types of charges of God being “unjust,” or “unforgiving,” in reality, it is quite clear that Dawkins has not taken the time to even think about what he (seemingly) has read in the Torah. What he really is saying is, “I don’t understand what I’m reading.” If he at least admitted to that, he wouldn’t be so quick to condemn it.
Is God a Bloodthirsty Ethnic Cleanser
As for Dawkins’ other charges of God being a bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, etc., it is quite obvious that all these charges go back to the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. Indeed, many people have expressed concern and horror at the injunctions to “wipe out all the Canaanites” and the descriptions of slaughter in various parts of not only Exodus, but also Joshua, Judges, I/II Samuel, and I/II Kings.
The problem with Dawkins’ charges, though, is that he clearly has not taken the time to understand the historical circumstances and context of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan. He has just assumed that the peoples of Canaan, the Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines, etc. were all just peace-loving, moral people who were innocently butchered by the bloodthirsty fanatical Israelites. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any biblical scholar will easily acknowledge the sheer brutality and immorality of the peoples of the ancient Near East, especially the Canaanites. To address that would take a number of posts in and of themselves, but let me make my point in the most succinct way possible.
If we read in a newspaper, “The United States went in and wiped out the Nazis!” or “The United States has succeeded in wiping out ISIS!” would anybody in their right mind accuse the United States of being bloodthirsty ethnic cleansers? The reason we fought the Nazis wasn’t because they were German, it was because they were Nazis who were attempting to exterminate an entire race of people. The reason we fight against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and now ISIS isn’t because they are Afghanis or Saudis, or even because they are Muslim. It is because they brutalize, torture, and kill any group that doesn’t submit to their fanatical ideology.
This is the world in which we live: there are really bad people and nations who are intent on such atrocities. In order to stop groups like the Nazis, or Al-Qaeda, or ISIS, war is going to be inevitable. We don’t call the Allies “bloodthirsty ethnic cleansers” because they destroyed the Nazis, even though thousands (if not millions) of Germans died in the fight. The same applies to ancient Israel and the Canaanites. The reason why the Israelites fought against the Canaanites wasn’t simply because they were of a different race (in actuality, they were all Semitic tribes), but rather because they were horrible, murderous, immoral people, who in many of the cases were the initial aggressor.
We need to get out of our minds this notion that Canaan was some sort of nation-state that Israel “invaded.” There were no nation-states. There were people groups who all lived in the land. What we read about is the conflict that arose when the Hebrews came to that land.
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In any case, even though what I’ve said in this post requires much more detailed explanations, I hope my point is clear: the charges Richard Dawkins makes against YHWH of the Old Testament are largely borne out of Dawkins’ apparent refusal to even understand the contexts in which such accounts were written. Simply put, he doesn’t want to understand. He’s more interested in throwing out inflammatory charges. After all, over the top, sensationalistic accusations grab headlines and sells books. And O my, has Dawkins sold a lot of books.
