Post Mortem
Finally it is over. One of the worst aspects of this whole campaign has been how long it lasted. For almost all voters who have clearly developed political philosophies and beliefs, or even just clear party affiliations, their minds were made up long before the rest even began thinking about the election. This is especially true for those like myself who saw serious problems with both candidates. Now, at least it is over.
I was never a huge supported of the current president. While not as moderate as is father, I saw him as a moderate – conservative who would increase the size of government and thereby cause the party to loose in the future. I turned out to be correct in that analysis. While far better than Obama, McCain would have been worse than Bush. So while I would have preferred a McCain victory as it would have been better for the country, I can at least take some solace in the fact that I will not be put on the spot of being asked to defend the expansion of global warming laws, etc.
As to why we lost? There are many reasons. Bush’s failure to defend much less aggressively defend himself and his policies are a huge factor. One question I frequently hear is “Why doesn’t he defend himself” or “Why doesn’t the White House get this information out.” The closest thing to an answer is that the President supposedly does not want to fight old battles.
While it may be ok for Bush to trust in the judgment of history, and I do in fact think that Bush will look far better looking back in a few years, that does little good for the party that must continue to fight on. It is as if quarterback who was retiring, decided to simply go through the motions during the second half of the game.
Still a good candidate could have overcome that. That brings us to McCain. McCain was the wrong candidate at the wrong time. Limited by his own campaign finance reform laws, and estranged from the base of his own party, McCain ran a campaign the elites have been seeking, a positive campaign that for the most part avoided negative attacks.
The elites pushed McCain because they all thought this was going to be a election on the war and foreign policy, and because they wanted to get rid of all those pesky conservatives. As it turned out foreign policy wasn’t even an issue. One thing that often plagues Republicans is their success. Bush has been so successful defending against terrorism and the surge has worked so well, that these have ceased to be issues.
Even with this McCain still could have won, because Obama has his own serious flaws. What ultimately tipped the balance was the press coverage. Going back as far as I can remember, (i.e., the 1960s) the press as always tilted to the left. But this year it flat fell over, and ceased any pretense of objectivity. In fact as a recent Pew Research Report showed, the only major network that showed any sense of balance was actually the nemesis of the left Fox News, which had equal percentage of negative stores on McCain and Obama, and slightly higher percentage of positive stores for Obama. On the other hand on MSNBC over 70 pecent of the McCain stories were negative, compared to only 14 percent for Obama.
There is a simple rule I teach in critical thinking: if most of what you hear about something is negative, you will tend to have a negative view, if most of what you hear about something is positive you will tend to have a positive view. The Pew report showed that in press coverage, except for Fox which was balanced, the press for Obama was mostly neutral or positive, and for McCain was mostly negative.
Even worse than the bias coverage is what didn’t get air time. One of the reasons the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq were not a more important factors was that they are going so well that they don’t get covered lest it support Republicans. Thus the focus was on the economy which does have serious problems, but even here the reason for those problems was not covered, for at its core the current problems go to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Democrats.
Thus with all these negatives, what is amazing is that was as close as it was, and that the predicted Democratic blowout did not occur.
So where do we go from here. One good thing is that the Republican party will need to reform, and there is currently no clear heir apparent for 2012. I think the move to the center, with McCain will been seen as the mistake that it was. While the Left constantly likes to speak of the demise of conservatives, The simple fact is that we have not had a really conservative President since Regan. Bush 41 was nominated as Reagan’s VP and Bush 43 as Bush 41’s son, and neither was really conservative. Nor was McCain.
Perhaps the closest thing to an heir apparent would be Palin, and as a result the relentless attacks on her will continue. In fact I expect that before long the elites will be saying how McCain would have won if only he had not picked Palin. As a fairly conservative woman, she would be a real threat and therefore must be destroyed by the left.
Whoever the next candidate is, if they hope to win, they will need to be able to go around the press to speak effectively to the American people. A leader must be able to communicate their vision of where they want to take America and what they hope to accomplish and not just during the campaign.
One danger I do see is a repeat of the Clinton years. Clinton won in 1992 and like now, the democrats controlled Congress. After two years things were so bad that the Republican won control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Then the Republican Congress turned things around so well that by the time 1996 election Clinton was able to take credit and won reelection.
As for the two big fears I had with Obama, the war in Iraq seems to be going so well that hopefully his withdrawal will not actually have much effect. The other concern was the Judges. There is little hope in the short term there. The only hope of retaining the constitution will be for some future President and Congress, to force a constitutional crisis that moves the court back into is constitutional role of judging rather than making the law. But then frankly I have been moving more and more in the direction of that belief even before this election. Barring that, we will increasingly cease to be a democratic republic , and instead be ruled by a council of Kings, who fundamentally set the policy for the country, while the President and Congress will be relegated to merely working out the details and administering their decrees.
One final positive, will be clarity. For months now there has been the Obama of his supporters, or should I say the many Obamas as Obama was so many things to so many people. Then there was the Obama that his detractors saw. About the only thing his supporters could agree on was that the detractors were wrong. But they could never really tell us who Obama was. Now we will find out. Frankly, I think that over the next few months it will many of his supporter that are surprised at what is about to happen and the change that is coming. But either way, over the next six months, we will finally get to see the real Obama.
Six Days to Go….
Six days to the election. By this time next week we should know who the next president will be, at least I hope we will, and will not be facing another election like 2000. Note that I did not say we will know who won the election. Given the widespread voter fraud that has already been going on, if it is close, we may never really know who actually won.
The stakes are high. Our country is at war against radical Islam that threaten civilization itself, and if victorious would throw the world back into the middle ages. Russia is reemerging not only as a global power but as a very dangerous one that is more than willing to invade its neighbors and kill those who get in its way, even when they live in other countries. Iran is ruled by religious fanatics that believe it is their mission to bring about the return of the 12 Imam by means of an Armageddon like conflict. That would be bad enough but they are also getting closer to having nuclear weapons, and if the statement of its president are to be believed, will use them as soon as they get them.
Then there are what in more normal times would be considered very serious problem, but in the current international climate are relegated to the second tier status. North Korea remain dangerous and unstable, China continues a rise to dominance, while not as dangerous as Russia at the moment, it is still a major concern. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is threatening to extend it despotic rule through the region. We live in very dangerous times.
On the home front, we likewise face serious threats. The obvious one at the moment is the current financial crisis. But there are the more lingering problems. While gas prices are down, unless the economy tanks, that is only temporary and our dependence on foreign old remains a problem. Rising health care cost remain a huge problem. But even more important than the problems is how we will address them. Republican and Democrats have vastly different visions of what our country should be that go to the very core of what it means to be American. Will our country continue to be focused around the individual and liberty as it has historically been and as Republicans want, or will we change to be more like Europe centered around the government and equality as the democrats seek?
In these momentous times, one would expect that momentous candidates would emerge. Having watched the two candidates since the early days of the primaries, I find my initial view has only been confirmed as we come into the closing days. In any normal year, both of these candidates would be fundamentally unelectable. Their only hope at the moment is that their opponent is likewise unelectable.
McCain, is a candidate at war with his own base. He won the primary, because nobody really excited the base and McCain attracted independents and moderates and with the help of a willing press, was able to exploit a base divided among other candidates until it was too late. As a general rule, a candidate who does not have his base going into an election loses. Now McCain has been able to counter this in three ways. First he down played all the issues that anger the base. That helped but it only gave him lukewarm support. More important has been the selection of Palin as VP a pick that fired up the base in ways that even those like me who hoped for her selection could not have imagined. Finally there is the outright fear among the conservative base of what would happen in a Obama presidency, which brings me to Obama.
Obama is rookie with little executive experience. His great speaking skills, at least when reading a teleprompter, would earn him some future consideration, after a few terms in the senate, or even better after serving as Governor. So in a normal year an Obama presidency would not be given serious consideration. Obama was able to win the primary because of this speaking skills. He is one of those rare gifted speakers who allows people to think he is supporting their hopes and dreams, when he is actually saying nothing at all. This got him to the point of a two person contest with Clinton, where because of the strange delegate rules the democrats have, she was never able to overcome his lead, despite winning most of the remaining primaries.
Such a weak primary finish would normally have spelled doom in the fall election, especially since while you can get by on hope and change in a primary, in the fall voters generally want more specifics. And here was Obama second major weakness. He relies on flowery rhetoric because he is far to the left of even many democrats. If he is elected I think people looking back will see a couple of passages from his book to have been very revealing, but largely overlooked. He wrote that when he went to work for an Investment banking firm he felt “Like a spy behind enemy lines” and that he learn the trick of getting what he wanted if he was “courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves.” True to form Obama will not make his sudden moves until after the election.
In fact the more you examine Obama the less electable he seems. Obama is basically an inexperienced rookie who is at the far left of even the democratic party. He matured politically in the Chicago machine, long noted for its thug tactics and in fact won his initial elections by getting his opponents off the ballot. He has allied himself with some of the most extreme elements unacceptable even to most democrats.
It is inconceivable that a republican candidate who either attend a white supremacist church or who allied himself with an abortion clinic bomber would even get serious consideration for dog catcher. But Obama sat for twenty year in a black nationalist church and was allied with a terrorist who bombed the Pentagon, and that is just the beginning. One of his early financers, one who was part of a questionable deal that allowed Obama to purchase his current home, was just convicted and is apparently talking to prosecutors. This raises at least the possibility that if elected Obama could need a special prosecutor before he is even sworn in.
Enough questionable associations have come to light to reveal a pattern. Obama’s first reaction is to lie and deny. Thus clips of Pastor Wright were out of context and not representative of his pastors views. If and when the first lie no longer works, Obama moves to a new lie. Thus now we are expected to believe that he sat for twenty years in his church and even quoted passages from sermons about “white greed” and yet did not realize what he was actually hearing.
With Bill Ayers, Obama first lie was to claim he was just some guy in his neighborhood. When this turned out be false, then Obama claimed he did know who Ayes was and that he thought he had been rehabilitated, without the conflict in these statements really being challenged. Similar patterns of lies and denials occur with ACORN and other questionable figures surrounding Obama.
All this should doom Obama chances, but whereas McCain was able to counter act some of his weaknesses, Obama likewise has been able to counter act his. It is simply a fact that negative information has no effect if it is not know, and the major media has been doing all it can to shield the public from this information.
But even here thing have changed. For many decades the press has tilted to the left. But with Obama, the press as for the most part drop any pretense to objectivity and are little more than an arm of the Obama campaign. Thus Sarah Palin has had more critical scrutiny by the major media in the short time since she was nominated than Obama has had in the entire campaign. Oh sure, a few things have slip out. Problems surrounding Obama’s connection with Rev Wright and Bill Ayers were known about for months before they finally got some coverage in the major media. When they did slip out, Obama make one of his denials, and the major media would quickly shift the focus of coverage to how nasty the campaign had been. In fact it is quite possible that Joe the plumber has received more critical investigated from the major media for asking a inconvenient question than Obama in running for President.
But the press coverage has gotten even worse than that. We are current in the worst financial crisis since the depression. And yet the major media seems singularly uninterested in finding out what actually happened. Just think back to the coverage following the Dot-com bubble, and the daily reports on Enron and CEOs such as Ken Lay. This is certainly far worst, so why no coverage?
While the details are extremely complex, the root of the problem is actually very simple. In a program started by Carter, and expanded under Clinton, government pushed banks to make risky loans. This was done through semi government corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, on the one side and democratic groups such as ACORN threats to protest banks as racist on the other. Since the normal financial and oversight rules do not apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac these loans and there result financial instruments that came from them went largely unregulated until they spiraled out of control resulting in the huge financial crisis. Republicans saw the growing problem and tried many times to enact legislation that would prevent it over the last 8 years, but were blocked each time by Democrats, who because of Senate rules could kill any bill if they remained united which they did. Thus the current financial crisis.
While the root of the problem is simple, if reported it would doom Obama as some of his Financial advisors were executives earning tens of millions of dollars at the institutions at the root of the problem. So there is no serious reporting on the causes other than the vague reference to “corporate greed” which because of bias coverage lead many to falsely conclude republicans are responsible. Thus very democrats that caused the mess are allow to run around claiming this is the result of the Bush’s economic policies despite the fact that they block every attempt to avoid it.
One other example. The major media recently went into a frenzy on how angry and mean McCain supporters were, all based on a questionable report of one reporter, a report that Secret Service agents investigated and could find no one at the rally that hear the shout of “kill him.” Yet this was quickly portrayed in the major media as a common and systematic problem at republican rallies. Meanwhile, and unreported by the major media, is the growing problem of actual threats and violence by the left, cars being keyed because they have McCain bumper stickers, attacks on McCain campaign head quarters, death threats spray painted on Senator Coleman garage. But rather report what is actually happening on the left, the media prefers to report on made up stories about the right.
So who is going to win? Unknown. Some polls show the race tied, some show a wide victory for Obama. But one thing we have learned this year is that the polls can’t be trusted even when they agree. Obama had a big lead over Clinton in New Hampshire but lost. The simple fact is that the polls don’t even agree and Obama has consistently shows better in the polls than the election.
Then there is the issue of voter fraud. Some Democratic seemed to have convinced themselves, despite the facts, that Bush stole the election in 2000, and that this gives them the right to cheat this year. Problem with registrations are already showing up across the country in key states often tied to ACORN which receive $800,000 from Obama for their efforts. In Ohio, which was key last time, the Democratic Secretary of State seems to be going out of her way to make it difficult to catch any fraud. But then considering that Obama comes from the Chicago machine, this is to be expected.
On the other hand, given the internet and talk radio, some things are slipping out about Obama, despite all the attempt to hide them. The more recent examples would be his views on income redistribution, which slipped out with Joe the Plumber and then were confirmed from tapes of a interview before he ran for President, and his ties to a former PLO spokesman. But then the undecided middle is for the most part the least interested and least informed and thus the least likely to care.
Ultimately it comes down to this, the more people learn about Obama, the less likely they are to vote for him. If the major media can keep people focused on hope and change and not on who Obama actually is, and what he will actually do, then he will win. If McCain can break through the press barrier and can get people to focus either on who Obama is, what he will do, or on Obama and other democrats role in the current financial crisis, then McCain will win.
Hopefully, we will know next week at this time.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great XX
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I am continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” examining Hitchens’ claim that the New Testament is more evil than Old.
Hitchens first line of attack is to claim the Gospels are unhistorical and that they “cannot agree on anything of importance.” Now it is true that some scholars consider these accounts as mere fabrications, but it is also true that other scholars have examine these accounts, and as D.A. Carson points out in his commentary on Matthew, ” the stories have long been shown to be compatible, even mutually complementary.”
But there is a further and deeper problem behind Hitchens claim, one that rest more with the liberal scholars he relies on then with him. Scholars, in whatever field are assumed to be people who have studied all the relevant material in reaching their scholarly conclusions. Yet when it come to biblical scholars critical of the Bible this is not always the case.
This was noted by another biblical scholar, Craig Blomberg, when he wrote, ” it is strange how often the reliability of the gospels is impugned by scholars who believe them to be hopelessly contradictory yet who have never seriously interacted with the types of solutions proposed here.” (cited in The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, pg 150)
Most of the alleged problems raised by Hitchens have been dealt with and answered long ago, and in fact I answer many of them in my two books, Christianity and Secularism and Evidence for the Bible.
As such Hitchens is simple wrong when he argues that “The contradictions and illiteracies of the New Testament… have never been explained by any Christian authority except in the feeblest terms of “metaphor” and “a Christ of faith.” (pg 115) This error is followed immediately by another error, when Hitchens claims “This feebleness derives from the fact that until recently, Christians could simply burn or silence anybody who asked any inconvenient questions.” (pg 115) While vague enough to find some support in history, this statement is really little more than a bigoted slander. But then this, for Hitchens is what passes as rational argument. He makes a claim, and then follow it by a slanderous accusation hoping to silence any reply. It may be an effective debating tactic, but it does not substitute for a rational argument.
From there Hitchens goes to what he calls the other “‘Gospels and narratives of marginal but significant figures” such as Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Judas. (pg 112). His intent seems to be to cast doubt on the New Testament by pointing to the existence of these other writings. He does argue that if these had been consider inspired rather than the four gospels in the Bible Christianity would have been far different. True enough, but as the saying goes, if my grandmother had wheels, she would be a wagon.
This does, however, reveal the different presupposition made by many critics such as Hitchens. They start with the belief that all religions are equally false human creations. Christianity can’t possibly be the result of God intervening into history, but rather, it was one of many religious movements of the period, and it was just luck and chance that it happened to rise to dominance.
Thus Hitchens probably does see the Gospel of Judas, or Thomas, as supporting his assumption and in a small way they do. His view requires many religions, and these other gospels do show that Gnosticism was a competitor to Christianity in the second century. But while a minor support for his view, it is hardly a significant one, since in some of the later books of the New Testament one can see the apostles warning against other religious movements, including what appears to be a very early form of Gnosticism.
There is another key difference between the Gnostic Gospels and the New Testament Gospels. The Gnostic Gospels generally date from the 2nd century long after the apostles died. The New Testament gospels were written in the first century and while there is some disagreement, there are scholars who argue they were written by the those they are named after.
Some of Hitchens arguments are just plain silly, such as his claim that virgin birth was a man made account because “parthenogenesis is not possible for human mammals” Of course it was not possible, that’s what made it a miracle of God. But for Hitchens, by definition everything must be natural or it did not happen. That the virgin birth could have been a miracle of God is not really even an option for him.
Hitchens ends by pointing to Bart Ehrman’s views on the New Testament. Ehrman has gained some notoriety by taking what was already known to anyone who looks at the footnotes in their bible and playing it up as if it were significant. For a more in depth discussion of Ehrman’ views see my review of his book.
Ultimately Hitchens critique of the New Testament is little more than a rehash of long refuted arguments, with a generous sprinkling of invective. Certainly nothing to support his claim that it is evil.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great XIX
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Continuing in my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” After having dealt with the Old Testament, in chapter seven, chapter eight takes on New, claim it “Exceeds the Evil of the ‘Old’ One.” Hitchens starts by claiming the New Testament is “a work of crude carpentry, hammered together long after its purported events” and that this has been borne out by Biblical scholarship. (p 110)
But not content to make this point, Hitchens follows it with a gratuitous insult claiming, ‘this arguments takes place over the heads of those to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required.” and as an example, refers to a unnamed governor of Texas whom he quotes as saying “if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.” (p 110)
The quote sounded to me like one of many smears spread by atheists and agnostics to attack believers. Such bigoted smears have a long history and are so entrenched into the culture that some are even taught in schools. For example, I was taught as a kid that Columbus had to battle the ignorance of Christians who believed that the earth was flat. This is a complete myth as was shown by the Historian Jeffery Burton Russell, in his book Inventing the Flat Earth. Still it is not at all uncommon to hear atheist and agnostics continue to perpetuate this and other anti-Christian myths.
As for Hitchens’ quote, I checked the back of the book for a reference and found none. I then read a discussion that I found on snopes.com a great place to check out urban legends, which pointed out that this quote was questionable as it had been attributed to a number of different people. A person in another discussion I read claimed that they had found the exact quote at NewsPaperArchive.com in a article published in 1927, but the article attributed the quote to a person from Arkansas, not Texas, and it was said as a joke. I would have check out this article but NewsPaperArchive.com is a paid site that charges $99 to join. So lacking any specific citation, it would appear that this quote is just another in a long line of myths used to attack Christianity.
As for his other insult that his argument concerning biblical scholarship was “over the heads of those to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required.” (pg 110) there is a problem. If Hitchens qualification of “to whom the ‘Good Book’ is all that is required” refers to those who reject or ignore everything not in the Bible, then this refers to such a small faction of Christians as to be irrelevant. On the other hand if this is meant to refer to Christians in general, then it is simply false.
This brings me to the main problem with Hitchens argument concerning biblical scholarship, it is one sided and outdated. As for being one-sided, it would appear that to Hitchens biblical scholarship consists only of those who are critical of the Bible. Though, in his defense, one of the problems with liberal scholarship, is that it is very insular, ignoring for the most part criticism, problems and issues raised by conservative scholars. As I point out in Chapter Two of my book, Evidence for the Bible, there are some serious problems with the claims of liberal scholars.
More damaging to his claim is that, while earlier liberal scholarship was very critical of the NT, believing the books to have been dated long after the events as Hitchens claims, later scholarship has reversed this to some extent and more recent scholarship has been pushing the date of the writing back to, and in some cases even earlier than, the traditional dates. For example, liberal scholars of the 19th century dated the Gospel of John as late as 170 A.D., long after John had died. Then a fragment of the Gospel was found dating 125-130 destroying the later dates. More recent scholarship points to a date somewhat earlier than the traditional date in the 90s, with a few scholars even arguing for a date in the 50s or 60s.
The simple fact is that, rather than being over their heads, scholarship plays and important role in many Christians’ understanding of the Bible, and contrary to the impression Hitchens gives, many scholars are believing Christians who see their scholarship as deepening their faith. Now I know that Hitchens is aware of these Conservative scholars as he has debated some of them. But rather than a reasoned discussion of the evidence for and against his position, we get one sided pronouncements that ignore any scholarly disagreements, followed by a few insults to try and stifle any debate.
What makes this even more problematic is that Hitchens is claiming to be arguing for the rational over the irrational. But a one sided presentation filled with invective is not what one would call the epitome of rationality and in the end Hitchens comes off somewhat as parent vainly arguing do as I say, not what I do.
After taking time to attack and ridicule Mel Gibson for making The Passion of The Christ, what follows is then a one sided rehash of many of the common objections raised by skeptics. And that is where I will pick up next time.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
Hitchens – God Is Not Great XVIII
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In my extended review of Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” I considered a further discussion concerning the evidence that points strongly to design, but since I cover this in chapter four of my book Evidence for the Bible, I have decided to move on. Those interested, should see my discussion there.
Hitchens leaves no doubt about where he is going in the title of chapter seven “Revelation: The Nightmare of the ‘Old’ Testament.” Hitchens once again starts by creating a strawman, which he then proceeds to knockdown, defining revelation as God giving “unalterable laws” to “randomly selected human beings.” Even with such a strawman, Hitchens still misses the mark with his first objection, i.e., that “several such disclosures have been claimed to occur, at different times and places, to hugely discrepant prophets or mediums” (pg 97) They cannot all be true, and while one may be authentic, “this seems dubious… and appears to necessitate religious wars.” As with so many of Hitchens’ claims, this is more commentary than argument.
Hitchens argues that, “the syncretic tendency of monotheism, and the common ancestry of the tales, mean in effect that a rebuttal to one is a rebuttal to all.” (pg 98) This could only be true if all alleged revelation were equally true, or equally false. Yet they cannot all be equally true, if for nothing else, one of the revelations is that there would be false prophets, and thus false revelation. On the other hand, if you start by assuming they are all equally false, then there would be no need to make a rebuttal in the first place. So once again Hitchens argument simply does not make sense.
From here Hitchens quickly moves to a discussion of the Ten Commandments, which he believes are “proof that religion is man-made.” (pg 99) However his justifications for this claim are at best nonsensical, such as his claim, yet another he considers “unanswerable,” that for God to included a prohibition against murder would imply that before this murder was acceptable, as if God could only give moral laws that were otherwise unknown.
Much of Hitchens analysis ignores that while grounded in universal principles, many of the laws given to Moses were for a particular purpose, to a particular people, at a particular time and in a particular cultural setting. In fact that they show this characteristic is for Hitchens evidence that they are man-made. However, this is a much easier conclusion to reach for one living in a culture that has been shaped and molded by the Bible for 3000 years and thus where it is easy to overlook the revolutionary character of these laws and the huge moral advancement that they represented.
Hitchens ignores, or is unaware of, the advancement and complains that these laws don’t match his conception of perfect. As an example, he points to the Bible regulations of slavery. Granted in a perfect world God would have just banned slavery, but we don’t have a perfect world. While Hitchens complains about the regulations, at the time they were a marked step forward over having no regulation at all.
Like it or not slavery was so completely entrenched in the societies of the time, that a total prohibition was likely to be ignored. However, more humane treatment was easier to follows and thus much more likely to actually improve things. Historically this is what happened. In fact the rules governing slaves were so restrictive that over time it resulted in later rabbis concluding “He who buys a Hebrew slave buys a master” and slavery virtually disappeared over time. Thus while in theory, one might argue that an outright ban would have better reflected a perfect moral code, the result of the Laws on slavery did effectively end the practice.
Hitchens also cites one of the other common examples of alleged cruelty, the stoning of children for disobedience. Again he ignores the revolutionary improvement the law brought about. What was new about the law was not the killing of children. That a parent had the right of life and death over a child was common place. sWhat was new was this power was being taken away from the parents, and transferred to the community, where it seems never to have been exercised. Contrast this with the honor killing that continues to be a problem in some parts of the world.
This is not to say that there are not difficult passages in the Old Testament. There are, such as God’s command to kill all the Amalekites, and some of which only God has the answer. But, these are for isolated and special events under unique circumstances. They are not general moral precepts to be followed.
Much of the rest of the chapter is taken up with the claims that the Old Testament is unhistorical and a restatement of theory that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. Both subjects I deal with in my book Evidence for the Bible.
In the end, Hitchens exegesis of the Old Testament leaves a lot to be desired and his argument that it is a nightmare stands in stark contrast to what the Old Testament has actually produce.
This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.
