Does Scripture condone child sacrifice?

Thom Stark wrote a longwinded attack (“Is God a Moral Compromiser?” available online) on Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?

Stark is a “Christian” of the John Spong variety. He’s a theological soul mate of Randal Rauser, who’s often written sympathetically about Stark’s material. I’m going to concentrate on one of Stark’s prooftexts:

After quoting Ezk 20:23-26, Stark says:

Some Israelites were appealing to the law of Moses to justify the institution of child sacrifice. Exod 22:29b says: “The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.” With good reason, Israelites interpreted this as a command to sacrifice their firstborn children to Yahweh.

Ezekiel admits that Yahweh did in fact command the Israelites in the wilderness to sacrifice “all their firstborn” to him. But Ezekiel reinterprets this as a “bad command”… (89).

Stark’s analysis suffers from multiple confusions:

i) He assumes that Ezekiel is alluding to Exod 22:29. However, that’s not the only passage which uses this type of language. As one commentator points out:

Part of the vocabulary of v26 (“every opening of the womb,” “make over”) echoes the law of the redemption of the firstborn particularly represented in Exod 13:12-13. It ruled that, whereas firstborn male sacrificial animals were to be sacrificed, firstborn sons were to be redeemed with money paid to the sanctuary. L. Allen, Ezekiel 20-48 (Word 1990), 12.

If that’s what Ezekiel is actually alluding to, then that’s hardly a command to perform child sacrifice. Just the opposite: it’s a command to redeem firstborn sons.

ii) But even if Ezekiel is alluding to Exod 22:29, Stark misconstrues that passage. As one commentator explains:

The giving of the firstborn of animal and child to the Lord has already surfaced in Exodus (13:1-2,11-13), and will appear later in 34:19-20. There is one major difference between the data in chap. 22 and that in chaps. 13 and 34. Both chaps. 13 and 34 urge the parent to “redeem” (with a sheep maybe?) every firstborn son (Exod 13:13b; 34:20b). Exod 22:29 omits any reference to the “redemption” of the firstborn son.

In response, I say that the primary emphasis on these two verses is on giving to the Lord the first and best of one’s agricultural and animal products. The statement about the giving of the firstborn son is terse and almost parenthetical. Hence, the data is truncated and is to be “filled in” with the fuller data from chaps. 13 and 34.

Second, there are other passages in the Bible of individuals “given” to the Lord with no mention of their being “redeemed.” For example, when Hannah prayerfully vows, “If you will…give [me] a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Sam 1:11), does she mean “sacrifice” the child, or dedicate/hand over the child? Similarly, Num 8:16 refers to the Levites as those “who are to be given wholly to me.” “Wholly given” surely does not mean “sacrificed,” but “dedicated.” V. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Baker 2011), 418-19.

In other words, Exod 22:29 is just a shorthand statement, qualified by other statements of the same kind in the same book.

iii) Stark has Ezekiel deliberately opposing the Mosaic law. Yet Ezekiel revered the authority of the Mosaic law (Ezk 22:26). His indictment of Israel in Ezk 5-6 invokes the curse sanctions in Lev 26. His indictment of Israel in 8:5-18 has its background in the Mosaic prohibitions contained in Exod 20:3-6, Num 33:52, Deut 4:1-20, 5:1-12, and 17:2-5.

iv) Ezekiel is addressing the exilic community. But why were the Jews exiled in the first place? Because they were covenant-breakers. Because they disobeyed the Mosaic law.

And they were exiled, not merely because they disobeyed God’s law. Rather, their disobedience took a specific form. They disobeyed God’s law by defiantly doing the very things which God solemnly forbad. By emulating the abominable practices of their pagan neighbors. That’s the very thing which the Mosaic law forewarned them to studiously avoid (e.g. Lev 18:21, 20:1-6; Deut 12:31, 18:9-13).

Now, on Stark’s interpretation, he has Ezekiel telling the Jews that God banished them, not for disobeying his commands, but for obeying his commands. According to Stark, God originally commanded the Jews to practice child sacrificed, the Jews complied, then God punished them for obeying his command. Of course, that interpretation is utterly nonsensical.

v) As one commentator notes, 

Some interpreters even take 20:26 as implying that Yahweh commanded the Israelites to sacrifice their children to Molech, but it is clear in 16:20-21 that Jerusalem acted against Yahweh's will and express command when, as the folding baby girl turned whore, she slaughtered the children she had borne to Yahweh by making them pass through the fire (the same act of which the people are accused here. H. Hummel, Ezekiel 1-20 (Concordia 2005), 596-97. 

vi) Finally, Stark has a tin ear for Ezekiel’s morbid sarcasm, which he employs for shock value. As one commentator observes:

Ezekiel is being horrendously controversial in this whole chapter, creating a rhetorical parody of Israel’s history in order to highlight its worst side. In a context of such sustained sarcasm and irony, we cannot suddenly take a verse like this as a face-value doctrinal or historical affirmation. C. Wright, The Message of Ezekiel (IVP 2001), 160.

Another Attempt to Discredit Inerrancy Falls Flat

Scroll down to the bottom of p83, where the review of Stark's book begins.

http://www.sbts.edu/resources/files/2012/02/pages-from-sbjt-v15-n3_book-reviews.pdf#page=6

Chemosh

Some additional correspondence which Dr. Hess shared with me:

[In lines 11-12 of the Mesha stele] h-y-t implies a feminine subject, such as “city”.  A masculine subject would be “people” and, if singular, should have h-y-h as its verb.  Furthermore, the verb followed by a lamed preposition means “to belong to” and does not say anything about some sort of religious or cultic act of sacrifice.  The reason why Albright and others interpreted the phrase in the way they did was because they were misled to read r-y-t there in place of h-y-t.  R-y-t is a “hapax,” that is, it occurs only here and therefore its meaning is conjectural.  However, André Lemaire was the first epigraphist to go back to the squeeze that was taken before the inscription was smashed (soon after its discovery).  Lemaire read h-y-t there in place of the otherwise unknown r-y-t.  See André Lemaire, “’House of David’ Restored in Moabite Inscription,” Biblical Archaeology Review 20/3 (May-June 1994), pp. 31-37; and especially Lemaire, “New Photograph and ryt or hyt in Mesha,” Israel Exploration Journal 57 (2007) pp. 204-207.  Since that publication this has become the standard interpretation of the text.  Mr. Stark’s appeal to the earlier ANET and the translation of Albright from the 1960’s cites an authority who at the time did not have available the most accurate reading of the inscription.

The ‘olah or burnt offering is one of the most frequent types of offerings mentioned in the Bible.  It also occurs at Ugarit by the same name.  There the offerers could eat of this offering while in Israel it was unique in that the whole of the offering was burnt to God.  So the evidence we do have suggests it was a frequent offering and one that took on different meaning and practice in different cultures of the time.  However, Moab was culturally closer to Israel and Judah than to Ugarit, so my guess is that this is some sort of burning of the prince on the walls as a sacrifice of some sort.  Again, the point is that the text does not emphasize the god to whom it was dedicated or any deity or divine element.  Rather, the whole thing appears as a horrible act of propaganda to demoralize Edom and to turn them in anger against Israel so as to break up the alliance.

Thom Stark’s Sweeping Claims

http://christmyredeemer.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/thom-starks-sweeping-claims/

Youthful student syndrome

Richard Hess responded again to an email Steve Hays sent to him asking him to respond to my arguments on Mesha’s sacrifice. Before I quote Hess’s responses and my rebuttals, I’d like to address something Steve Hays said about my argument on Mesha’s sacrifice. He claimed that because Mesha’s sacrifice was not to Yahweh (on my reading), I am wrong to include this in a section arguing that Yahweh accepts human sacrifices. This is totally confused. First, in my review of Copan, I deal with this text for no other reason than that I’m responding to Copan’s attempt to deal with this text. I most certainly do not cite this text as evidence that Yahweh is a moral monster. Second, in my book I deal with this text not to argue that it provides proof that Yahweh accepted human sacrifices, but expressly to offer it as evidence that whoever the narrator of the story was seems to accept that human sacrifices to deities were efficacious. I am not claiming that the author of Kings believes that Yahweh accepts human sacrifices. I make that claim about other texts; not Kings.

Unfortunately for him, Stark lacks elementary reading skills. His own reply is a study in hopeless confusion.

Did I impute to Stark the position that Yahweh accepts human sacrifice in 2 Kgs 3? No. Rather, I made two different points:

i) I said 2 Kgs 3 would only be relevant to Stark’s general thesis that Yahweh is morally repugnant if, in 2 Kgs 3, Yahweh accepts human sacrifice.

ii) I then pointed out that Stark’s actual argument didn’t even attempt to show that Yahweh accepts human sacrifice in that text. Hence, Stark’s five pages of flamboyant rhetoric were beside the point.

Far from claiming that Stark says human sacrifice is acceptable to Yahweh in 2 Kgs 3, I explicitly said Stark does not, in fact, argue for that interpretation.

In addition, Dr. Hess was not responding again to an email I sent him. Rather, as I said in the introduction to my post, he was sharing some email correspondence with me. I’m not the only person in the world who emails Dr. Hess.

If Stark is so incompetent that he can’t exegete what one of his own contemporaries wrote, in Stark’s mother tongue, who belongs to the very same culture as Stark does, what does that tell you about Stark’s ability to exegete a text in an ancient foreign language, written in the 1^st millennium BC, by someone belonging to a completely different culture?

Steve needs to talk to Matt Flannagan, who will tell him how important it is to get an interlocutor’s position correct before one attempts to critique it. Matt has relayed this to me quite effectively.

Of course, Stark is propping up one tendentious claim by reference to another tendentious claim. I had criticized one of Matt Flannagan’s buddies (Glenn Peoples). Because Flannagan values cronyism more than truth, he attempted to salvage his buddy’s reputation.

There’s a little clique consisting of Randal Rauser, Glenn Peoples, and the Flannagan power couple. Members of the clique cover for each other. From what I’ve read of him, Matt Flannagan is the best of the lot, but the bar was set low. 

One more thing. Steve critiques me for making convenient claims about redactions and different sources that just so happen to put the evidence where I need it to be to make my case. I am sorry if Steve does not understand how source and redaction criticism work, but I don’t happen to be the one who is identifying the various sources. I am following consensus views that were arrived at for reasons that have nothing to do with most of the arguments I’m making in these debates. Once again, let’s become familiar with what’s informing an interlocutor’s position before we critique it. If we’re not willing to put in the effort to understand source criticism and other historical-critical tools, then let’s refrain from making outlandish claims to the effect that I am conveniently moving textual evidence out of the way for my own purposes.

i) Stark suffers from a common student syndrome. A young student learns something for the first time in class, then is quick to share his “discovery” with the rest of the world, as if no one else ever heard of it before. What’s new to him must be new to everyone else.

ii) Stark suffers from another common student syndrome. The starstruck novice who instantly assimilates with the prevailing groupthink of his academic environment. 

Stark in retreat

Instructive to compare the utterly self-confident tone of Stark's first edition with his subsequent backpedaling. 

Due to the substantive and substantial criticisms that have been made recently of my review of Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?, criticisms both of its content and its tone, I have been hard at work revising the review, removing all of my errors...I hope that this edition will prove more worthwhile than the first.

http://religionatthemargins.com/2011/06/is-god-a-moral-compromiser-second-edition/

Rash vows

Dr. Richard Hess shared some email correspondence with me which, with his permission, I'm posting:

On what Mark S. Smith argues I have no problem.  I read him as indicating both that Deut 32 originally identified two different deities and as indicating that there was a myth tradition behind what Deut 32 purports to read.  Of course, I am not convinced of this but there are a good number of scholars who do follow it (as there are some who don’t). 

 

I am glad to see that Mr. Stark is citing the correct Dead Sea Scroll fragment, 4QDeutj (not 4QDeutq which does not preserve this reading; he should not cite it at all as it does not demonstrate his point of plural gods), although all of these fragments can be confusing sometimes.  Yes, it is possible to translate elohim as “gods,” but it is not the way it is usually translated nor is it to be preferred here.   The reason is because neither the Masoretic Hebrew text nor any of the Septuagint variants, nor any other ancient witness so translates it.  Of course the MT and most LXX manuscripts do read “sons of Israel.”  A few LXX witnesses read huion theou.  Since you have studied Greek, you will recognize that theou is the singular genitive.  So only one DSS fragment reads elohim and that does not require a plural interpretation.  It can be singular or plural.  Because of the common understanding of elohim as most frequently singular, and because the other ancient versions uniformly read a singular (“god” or “Israel”), Tov translates this phrase as “sons of God.”  Smith renders it “divine beings” in his Early History of God (2nd edition) p. 32.   And that is how I would translate it.

 

As to the antecedent in 2 Kings 3:26, I refer to the first explicitly identified 3rd person masc. sing. antecedent who is the Edomite king in 3:27.  That would be the first identified figure.  It is true that the “he” in “he took his first born son” refers to the king of Moab.  However, that is not the “first explicitly identified 3rd masc. sing. antecedent.  This occurs at the end of v. 36 and is the king of Edom.   It is an important point because it certainly does allow for the “his” in “his firstborn son” to refer to the King of Edom.  Let’s see, we have at the end of v. 26 and beginning of v. 27 sequentially in the Hebrew references of 3 masc. sing. figures: (1) king of Edom – (2) king of Moab - (3) his son (which I contend refers to the king of Edom’s son).  Compare this with Gen 4:26 where an identical syntactical construction can be found: “To Seth was born a son and he called his name”:  (Seth –) (1) son – (2) Seth – (3) his name.  Syntactically you have the same construction where the last referent (the “his X”) refers back to the first referent (king of Edom or Seth’s son), not to the second referent (king of Moab or Seth).   This is not customary English syntax but it does occur in Hebrew.

 

But as I say it is the context that remains the crux of the argument.  As to the question of reconstruction.  Indeed, everyone must reconstruct.  Human sacrifice to a god is a reconstruction.  Wrath coming from G/god is a reconstruction.  The question is not whether we need to reconstruct something, but what is most likely.

 

Mr. Stark writes:  “The answer to his question, “Where is there an example of this in the West Semitic world?” is, right here, 2 Kings 3” 

 

I can think of no finer example of a circular argument.  He assumes what he sets out to prove and does so in a single sentence. 

 

Mr. Start writes:  “Let’s put that question back to Hess: Where is there an example of a king offering an enemy prince as a burnt sacrifice in the West Semitic world? The answer is nowhere.” 

 

The question is a good one but the answer that Mr. Stark provides is not accurate.  Scholars such as Fales and Liverani have written much on the use of terror as a propaganda mechanism in ancient warfare and especially in the Neo-Assyrian annals, which just around the time of the events described in 2 Kings 3.  There was no greater proponent of calculated terror than Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.)  In the Habur and Middle Euphrates Valleys the leaders (kings and princes) of Beth-eden revolted while Ashurnasirpal was on campaign elsewhere.  He reversed his troops and marched on the rebels without warning.  He horribly mutilated the leaders before murdering them.  Hearing and seeing such atrocities, the Habur and Middle Euphrates never rebelled again during his reign.  You cannot read the Assyrian annals and especially those of Ashurnasirpal without noting the atrocities her perform, impaling enemies on stakes in front of their cities (e.g., ANET p. 276).  Nor was the ritual-like slaughter of leaders and military personnel (and others) limited to the events themselves.  They were recorded in written and pictorial form for others to read and fear.  From the time of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 B.C.) plate 368 on pl28 of ANEP displays bodies of locals impaled on poles around the town of that the Assyrians were besieging.  While I can find no examples of such human sacrifice by a leader to turn divine wrath on the enemy, there are plenty of contemporary examples that fit the picture of a king brutally killing one of his opponents in order to discourage, dishearten, and strike fear into his enemy’s hearts.  The suggested scenario for 2 Kings 3 fits well into this overall picture.  Like the Assyrian propaganda, such killing was intended to demoralize the Edomites.

 

The example from Jephthah is indeed one of promising a sacrifice – a human sacrifice as it turns out – in order to fulfill a vow after a military victory.  God gives the victory and Jephthah follows through on his rash vow.  I am not sure what this is supposed to prove in regard to 2 Kings 3.  The point here is not a promise made in advance or even on the wall in the midst of the battle.  No such promise is mentioned.  Nor in the Jephthah story does the death of a human being occasion the “wrath” and the subsequent departure of the enemy.  That there were vows, even rash vows that could involve the sacrifice of one’s own family members, I will readily concede.  But that is not the scene on the wall of the Moabite king.  There is no mention of a vow.  There is no mention of a deity. There is no fulfillment of the promise after the victory.

 

Now I see you have just sent me another email with a question about lines 11-12 of the Mesha stele.  I understand human sacrifice as a specific ritual to a specific deity for a specific purpose.  While exterminating a town might be later described as done to or for a deity, it would not normally be considered human sacrifice.  However, the point is moot because lines 11-12 should be translated (here following Ahituv, Echoes from the Past, Carta, 2008, p. 394):  “…I took it and slew all the people [and] the city became the property of Chemosh and Moab.” 

 

This translation assumes that the form of the verb became (h-y-t) is a feminine and refers to the town/city, not to the people (in which case it would be masculine).  

An "extraordinary" achievement

First, I think Thom Stark deserves recognition for his achievement. A three hundred page review of a two hundred page book is an extraordinary thing. I always thought there was an unwritten rule that book reviews should not exceed the length of the books they are reviewing, but Stark has boldly challenged that rule.

http://randalrauser.com/2011/06/reflections-on-the-thom-stark-paul-copan-debate/

How’s that an extraordinary achievement? Nowadays, books are written on computer. It wouldn’t be very hard for Stark to copy/paste a lot of stuff from his book on The Human Faces of God to his review of Copan, with minor editing. Does Rauser imagine Stark did this all from scratch? 

Stark alternatives

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/richard-hess’s-response-to-thom-stark/

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/is-god-a-moral-monster-revisited-preliminary-replies-to-thom-stark/

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/06/matthew-flannagan’s-interactions-with-thom-stark/

Blomberg on "doctrinal conformity"

Craig Blomberg

June 23, 2011 at 12:48 pm

I wish you all could meet and get to know Rick [Hess]. He spent years teaching in universities that did not have doctrinal statements of faith. He came to his convictions not because anyone coerced him into them for the sake of a job. He came to us because he believed what he did; he did not believe what he does because he came to us. He is internationally respected by Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. He has been invited by the Chinese government on more than one occasion to teach about religion at major Chinese universities. His books are used as textbooks in schools with no confessional leanings. He is as likely to correct fellow evangelicals whose views are too narrow or just factually mistaken than he is to correct others. Of everyone on our faculty, there is no one I can think of who more often does agree with people of very different backgrounds than his.

Doctrinal statements work in different ways in different institutions. In some contexts, notably Southern Baptist ones, they can be used as clubs to keep people in line. In other places, they are used more in the sense of truth in advertising–like saying, “if you come here, here is what our faculty stand for. We just wanted you to know what you’d be getting.” We’re definitely in the latter category. Does “without mental reservation” mean that we can have no doubts? Not at all. One can believe in the trustworthiness of Scripture and still be very puzzled by many interpretive questions but not be flummoxed by them, because in our finite and fallen humanity we shouldn’t expect to be able to figure everything out. We’ve watched answers emerge after patient study time and time again so that we can proceed with confidence that they will do so in the future as well. We could probably even remove that phrase “without mental reservation” from the document and almost no one would even notice or care. But there would be a dozen (I pick the number almost randomly) loyal elderly constituents who would be befuddled by the omission when they noticed it, so why ruffle their feathers?

I can understand why, as outsiders to our milieu, others could read our literature and imagine a very different environment than what it actually is. I can understand why some who have had quite different experiences with different confessional schools might be very sure they knew what our environment was like. But I’ve just finished serving twenty-five years at Denver Seminary and never once felt stifled by our doctrinal statement, asked tons of questions, have my own set of doubts, am free to air them all, and find it an amazingly healthy work environment. I invite anyone who doubts me to come for a campus visit and I’ll personally introduce you to as many of my friends as time permits, so you can judge for yourself. I can’t make anybody believe me, I realize, but I offer my own firsthand experience nevertheless. All the worst-case scenario suspicions so confidently affirmed in this blog and its responses are just flat-out wrong.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2011/06/22/doctrinal-conformity/#comment-142294

Fanaticism

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

– George Santayana

Thom Stark does his level-best to emulate Santayana’s definition of a fanatic:

Copan next moves to salvage 2 Kgs 3:4-27, the story of King Mesha’s defeat of the allied forces of Israel, Judah, and Edom.

Mesha is up against a formidable foe and needs a divine boost if he’s going to come out with a victory. So he does what any heroic Israelite would do: he offers a human sacrifice to his deity in exchange for support in battle. But not just any sacrifice. Mesha already knew what Jephthah learned the hard way: deities wanted a real sacrifice. So Mesha sacrificed his firstborn son, heir to the throne, to his god Kemosh.  But we know how the story’s going to end, right? After all, Yahweh had already promised Israel victory over Moab, boasting that it was a mere “trifle,” easy pickings. And Yahweh is the only real God anyway, right? Kemosh isn’t even real. Mesha’s wasting his time, sacrificed his son for nothing. That’s what happens next, right?

And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from Mesha and returned to their own land.

Oops! Wait a minute. Israel gets a beatdown and retreats? Turns out it wasn’t “easy pickings” like Yahweh said it was going to be? Turns out Elisha the prophet prophesied falsely? Turns out Kemosh is a real god after all? Turns out the narrator of the Bible believes that human sacrifice really works? 

http://thomstark.net/copan/stark_copan-review.pdf

What makes Stark fanatical? Well, what's his aim?

His ostensible aim is to show that Yahweh is morally repugnant. And one way of showing that is to show that Yahweh condones human sacrifice. Indeed, that’s what the chapter (from which I quoted the above) is about.

Consistent with his ostensible aim, you’d expect Stark to cite 2 Kgs 3 to show that Yahweh condones human sacrifice. Yet Stark’s actual argument doesn’t show that.

After all, it doesn’t show the Israelites performing a human sacrifice to successfully elicit Yahweh’s support in their military campaign. Rather, on Stark’s own reading, it shows pagans performing a human sacrifice to successfully elicit the support of Kemosh.

Moreover, it doesn’t show the narrator condoning the action of Mesha. Indeed, the narrator elsewhere condemns human sacrifice (2 Kgs 16:3; 17:7; 21:6).

Mind you, Stark has a habit of explaining away counterevidence by relegating the counterevidence to hypothetical redactors. Classic special pleading.

Instead, Stark raises two tangential objections:

i) Elisha’s prophecy failed.

ii) Human sacrifice really works.

But even if (arguendo), we concede (i-ii), how is that relevant to Stark’s contention that Yahweh is morally repugnant? Suppose human sacrifice works? How does that prove Stark’s contention?

Let’s play along with his reading. It would mean that a pact with the devil sometimes works. That occult practices sometimes work because they do, indeed, get in touch with powerful, malevolent forces.

Even if that’s the case, how does that validate Stark’s indictment of Yahweh? What’s the connection?

Likewise, even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that Elisha was mistaken, how does that make Yahweh morally repugnant? After all, Stark doesn’t think Yahweh ever spoke to Elisha.

And assuming (arguendo) that Elisha was wrong, how does that condone human sacrifice, which is point of the chapter (in Stark’s rambling review)?

Mind you, Stark’s interpretation is dubious. On the face of it, the narrator regards v25 as a fulfillment of v19. So the narrator believes the terms of the oracle were fulfilled. 

Stark is like a rattlesnake that keeps snapping after it’s been decapitated. It doesn’t bite for a reason. That’s a purely reflexive action.

Is Stark a moral compromiser?

I’m going to make two brief observations about Thom Stark’s bitter review of Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster:

i) For 300+ pages, Stark waxes indignant over Copan and the OT. Yet Stark never bothers to lay the necessary framework for his knee-jerk moralizing. What is the metaphysical basis for Stark’s value-judgments?

ii) Stark automatically appeals to source criticism and redaction criticism to discount evidence that’s inconvenient for his thesis. So he indulges in special pleading. Contrary evidence is outsourced or redacted out of existence. The remaining evidence just so happens to agree with him.  

The fine art of shoe-eating

With his permission, I'm posting some correspondence I had with Dr. Richard Hess today.

Dear Dr. Hess,

How do you interpret 2 Kings 3:27? I ask because some reviewers of Paul Copan's Is God/Yahweh a Moral Monster have been critical of how he handled this passage. Here are some concrete examples: