Freethought & Rationalism Archive

hjalti · 07-11-2011, 03:51 PM

I don't know if any of you know of a hilarious book by Paul Copan, Is god a moral monster? (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I haven't read it but Thom Stark has written a great response which is now online in the second edition!

What I found the funniest was the suggestion that this passage:

Quote:

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. (KJV Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

Should not be "cut off her hand", but "shave her pubic area".

Hector Avalos has a post on this subject, and Copan has a response.

John Kesler · 07-11-2011, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hjalti

Hector Avalos has a post on this subject, and Copan has a response.

I would add that Thom Stark's second edition, just released today, incorporates a rebuttal to Copan's response to Avalos. Start reading on page 142 of the pdf (numbered 137 at the bottom of the page) to read the full context of the discussion, or skip to page 150/145 (Copan's article is referred to in footnote 36) to read just Stark's rebuttal of the article.

hjalti · 07-11-2011, 06:03 PM

The stuff Copan comes up with is just amazing. Avalos points out this similar Assyrian law:

Quote:

“If a woman should crush a man’s testicle during a quarrel, they shall cut off one of her fingers...or if she should crush the second testicle during the quarrel—they shall gouge out both her [...]-s.”

This is what Copan writes:

Quote:

Therefore this law [the one in the KJV!], as formulated, would apply to any woman who took hold of the assailant’s genitals whether or not she did any damage. The parallel with the MAL [the brutal pagan Assyrian law], as attractive as it seems superficially, founders on that difference.

Aha! The law isn't parallel, since the biblical law doesn't explicitly say that the woman caused permanent damage!

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