Is God a Moral Monster? ch. 5

Copan gets serious in this chapter. Taking up one of the longstanding arguments against God is the perspective that God was cruel to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Copan, with excellent exegesis and careful survey of OT and Genesis literature, unpacks the historical situation in which God would do such an unthinkable thing. What was most important for me was the way he showed, through the literature, that God was bring kind: "Take, I beg of you" as well as the connection to Hagar were essential things that I had never caught previous. I also like the section on "Philosophical Reflections", although I was a little confused by his ethical reflections at the end.