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Divine Evil?The Moral Character of the God of Abraham$
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Divine Evil?: The Moral Character of the God of Abraham

Michael Bergmann, Michael J. Murray, and Michael C. Rea

Print publication date: 2010

Print ISBN-13: 9780199576739

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2011

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576739.001.0001

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The Problem of Evil and the History of Peoples: Think Amalek

The Problem of Evil and the History of Peoples: Think Amalek

Chapter:
(p.179) 6 The Problem of Evil and the History of Peoples: Think Amalek
Source:
Divine Evil?
Author(s):

Eleonore Stump

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199576739.003.0018

This chapter discusses the problem of evil as it is raised by the story in the Hebrew Bible in which God commands Israelites to slaughter the Amalekites and possible defenses or theodicies as regards that story. One way to deal with this story is to reject it as non-veridical, either by claiming that it should not be taken as part of divine revelation or by interpreting it to say something other than its literal meaning. This chapter adopts a different approach. It partially describes a putatively possible world which is very similar to the actual world, including the existence of evil, but in which the central claims of Christianity are also true. The chapter then investigates, as a thought experiment, whether the story of the slaughter of the Amalekites could be literally true in a world of that sort. The chapter argues that it could.

Keywords:   problem of evil, defense, theodicy, Hebrew Bible, Amalekites

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