Richard Dawkins and “The God Delusion”: Old Testament Atrocities (Part 17)

In our trek through Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, we have now come to chapter 7, where he turns his attention specifically to the Bible. Let me say up front that his comments may be convincing to anyone who does not understand what the Bible is. Of course, to those who understand the literary and historical context in which the Bible is to be read and understood, Dawkins’ comments display a shocking amount of, not only ignorance, but of resistance to even try to learn about the Bible.

To be fair to Dawkins, he does not come right out and say, “The Bible is evil.” Instead, he says this: “To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and ‘improved’ by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors, and copyists, unknown to us…” (268).

Yes, Dawkins is right when he says that the Bible is “just plain weird”…to Americans living in the 21^st century, that is. After all, the Bible is a collection of ancient documents written in a different culture, in a different time, and addressing different issues and worldviews than modern western culture. Of course they will seem “just plain weird” to someone who doesn’t take the time to understand them in their context. Evidently, this is precisely who Dawkins is. He doesn’t take the time to educate himself on (a) the ancient civilizations in which the documents of the Bible were written, and (b) the literary styles and genres employed during those times. Given that, his criticism of the Bible as “just plain weird” is really worthless, for he literally does not know what he is talking about. He is simply parroting the line of 19th Century historical-critical scholars who, quite frankly, did not know how to read ancient literature.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: Sodom and Gomorrah
One of the clear goals Dawkins has is to convince his readers that the Old Testament is not simply weird, but positively diabolical. He does this by cherry-picking various stories in the Old Testament and then providing a completely decontextualized criticism of the stories without even trying to understand the purpose for them. Take for instance his comments on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. He writes, “Whatever else this strange story might mean, it surely tells us something about the respect accorded to women in this intensely religious culture” (272).

Believe it or not, Dawkins is actually right. That’s part of the point of the story—the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were really, really evil people who thought nothing of gang-raping visiting travelers. And Lot wasn’t that great either, for he offered his own daughter to the crowd in an attempt to save the two visitors. For some reason, though, Dawkins gets the impression that this story celebrated that kind of behavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason why the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is in Genesis was to show just how bad the Canaanites were. This is obvious to anyone who reads the story.  Apparently, though, it is not obvious to Dawkins.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: The Levite and His Concubine
But what about Judges 19-21, and the story of the Levite and his concubine, and the subsequent chaos that ensued in the last days of the Judges? Dawkins writes: “Let’s charitably put it down again to the ubiquitous weirdness of the Bible. Judges chapter 20 lovingly records more than 60,000 men were killed. The story of the Levite’s concubine is so similar to that of Lot, one can’t help wondering whether a fragment of manuscript became accidentally misplaced in some long-forgotten scriptorium…” (274).

Again, if Dawkins would have bothered to read virtually an biblical scholarship on Judges 19-21, he wouldn’t have made such absurd comments.

First, the whole point of the story of the Levite and his concubine was to show that the people of Israel during the times of the judges were shockingly worse than the people of Sodom. The story is supposed to hearken back to Genesis 19. It is we call “an allusion” to an earlier story.  Yes, the story might be “weird” to someone who doesn’t know how to read literature, but the literary parallelisms are so intricately woven between the two stories, a literate reader would marvel at the artistry. Yes, the story is gruesome and disturbing—but that’s the point.

Secondly, in regards to the slaughter that happens in Judges 20, I’m pretty sure that there was nothing “loving” about it. It tells about a brutal war between eleven of the tribes of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. There is no hint in the story that this was “loving.” It was tragic. Such is war.

Finally, Dawkins’ speculation that the story of the Levite and his concubine was really just a “misplaced fragment” of the Sodom and Gomorrah story is just shocking. Every biblical scholar knows full well that the similarities are not accidental—they are intentional. The writer of Judges is purposely drawing a connection.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: The Sacrifice of Isaac
Let’s move on to the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Dawkins writes, “A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse. What kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story”? (275)

If Dawkins would have taken the time to learn about ancient Canaanite culture, he would have learned that child sacrifice was an expected and common practice—and yes, it was appalling. Of course, for the Canaanite children, they wouldn’t have to worry about suffering psychological trauma—they would be dead! So yes, Dawkins is right when he says child sacrifice would be an example of child abuse—but surely he’s going a bit soft, don’t you think? I would call it heinous, barbarous murder.

But in any case, once again, Dawkins misses the point of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. The story is meant to be seen as a condemnation of the Canaanite practice of child sacrifice. So, what kind of morals could be derived from this story? That’s easy—child sacrifice is bad, and God does not want people to do it. If one reads the story in its historical context, one would realize that such a practice would have been expected of Abraham in that culture. The surprise would be that God ends up telling Abraham not to do it—and that’s the point.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: Jephthah’s Daughter
How about Jephthah’s killing of his daughter after his victory over the Ammonites? Dawkins writes, “Understandably Jephthah rent his clothes, but there was nothing he could do about it. God was obviously looking forward to the promised burnt offering…” (276). Once again, Dawkins has not bothered to read the entire story. Nowhere in the story does God ever tell Jephthah to make his vow to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house. Jephthah does that one all on his own. The point is simple: Jephthah, even though he was a judge whom God used to achieve His purposes, was still pretty pagan in his actions. The story was not meant to be a story that said, “Hey you Israelites! Look at how godly Jephthah was! He killed his daughter for God!” It is a story that says, “God can even use a murderous guy like Jephthah for His purposes.” Once again, it was meant to be a disturbing story of human sinfulness.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: The Golden Calf and the Midianites
What about God’s punishment of the Hebrews for their worshipping of the golden calf, or any other time they worshipped other gods? Dawkins writes, “God’s monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted with a rival god resembles nothing so much as sexual jealousy of the worst kind, and again it should strike a modern moralist as far from good role-model material” (276). Once again, Dawkins doesn’t bother to learn about the culture.

In the ancient world, the worship of pagan gods included things like child sacrifice, cultic orgies, rape of all kinds—child, heterosexual and homosexual—not to mention the worldview that deemed the “peasants” as worthless slaves to the gods and, by extension, to the rulers, who were often seen as sons of the gods. By contrast, the worldview and law code of the Hebrews condemned the oppression of the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner. It was based on the unique concept that human beings were made in the image of God.

Therefore, when we read that the Hebrews “went after other gods,” we can’t read it as if some Methodists started attending Baptist services. God’s judgment came upon them because “worshipping other gods” entailed a host of atrocities that would turn any sane person’s stomach.

Let’s just ask, “What kind of God would let rape, murder, slavery, incest, pedophilia, and child sacrifice go unpunished?” We’d call him not a good God. What we see in the Old Testament is a God who is concerned with moral behavior, and who punishes horrifically immoral behavior.

And since we’re on the topic of the idolatrous Canaanite culture, let me include another a quote by Dawkins: “The unfortunate Midianites, so far as one can tell from the biblical account, were the victims of genocide in their own country. Alas, poor slandered, slaughtered Midianites, to be remembered only as poetic symbols of universal evil in a Victorian hymn” (278). I’m sorry, that’s just utterly false. To truly understand just how misleading Dawkins’ statement is, just substitute the word “Nazis” for “Midianites” and see how that strikes you. My point? The Midianites were not innocent, wonderful people. For Dawkins to lament them reveals astounding ignorance of ancient history.

Dawkins on the Old Testament: Joshua’s Conquest
Not surprisingly, Dawkins doesn’t think much of Joshua either. He writes, “The Bible story of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho and the invasion of the Promised Land in general, is morally indistinguishable from Hitler’s invasion of Poland, or Saddam Hussein’s massacres of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs. The Bible may be an arresting and poetic work of fiction, but it is not the sort of book you should give your children to form their morals” (280).

Again, Dawkins’ statement is simply wrong on so many levels. Since he used a modern parallel, let’s give a better one. If we want to understand the conquest of Canaan, we would be much closer to the truth to equate it with the Allies invasion of Nazi-occupied territory on D-Day, or the United States invasion of Afghanistan and its routing of the Taliban. War is brutal, but it is also a fact of history. Brutal and godless cultures eventually suffer judgment and destruction. That is what we see in the conquest of Canaan, the Allies’ fight against Hitler, the United States fight against the Taliban…the list can go on.

Conclusion Thus Far
All Dawkins is showing in his take on the Old Testament is that he won’t allow historical facts to get in the way of his pre-determined focus to mischaracterize everything found in the Bible.

Now, to be clear, I do not want to give the impression that there’s nothing to be concerned about in the Old Testament. There is much more to each on of those stories mentioned in this post. The Old Testament is full of shocking and disconcerting stuff. It is challenging and upsetting in many places. There’s nothing “easy” about the Old Testament. But if you read the Old Testament, you should be ready for that sort of thing, because after all, reality is shocking, disconcerting, challenging and upsetting. The Old Testament is testimony to God working within the mess of human history.

But if you come to the Old Testament and don’t even try to understand it, but rather simply condemn anything you don’t understand, your reading won’t just be ill-informed, it will be worthless.