God Behaving Badly (Expanded Edition)

Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist?

By: David T. Lamb

Narrated by: Al Kessel

Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

God has a bad reputation.

Many think of God as wrathful and angry, smiting people right and left for no apparent reason. The Old Testament in particular seems at times to portray God as capricious and malevolent, wiping out armies and nations, punishing enemies with extreme prejudice. But wait. The story is more complicated than that. Alongside troubling passages of God's punishment and judgment are pictures of God's love, forgiveness, goodness, and slowness to anger. How do we make sense of the seeming contradiction? Can God be trusted or not?

David Lamb unpacks the complexity of the Old Testament to explore the character of God. He provides historical and cultural background to shed light on problematic passages and bring underlying themes to the fore. Without minimizing the sometimes harsh realities of the biblical record, Lamb assembles an overall portrait that gives coherence to our understanding of God in both the Old and New Testaments. This expanded edition includes an updated preface, afterword, and appendix addressing the story of Noah and the flood.

©2022 eChristian (P)2022 eChristian

Mostly Great with some troubling exceptions

The narrator was pretty awful, unfortunately; I wouldn’t say it’s unlistenable, but his articulation and enunciation are really grating.

The book itself is mostly excellent. I read the original edition and loved it. I wish he had dug deeper on many texts, but as it was more of an overview, I understand why it was so rushed in places. He includes a great bibliography and recommends some specific books he used for understanding Old Testament context that I’ll definitely be checking out.

::New Material in the Expanded Edition::
In the audiobook, I listened to just the parts that had been added in this expanded edition, and they are a mixed bag.
Some of the things he adds are really really good. Some are too superficial. He included counsel on how to talk to people about problem passages along with gracious disagreement that was good and practical; he touched on some problems within the church in regard to how we respond to sexual harassment and racism in our current culture which was good but pretty shallow—I wish he’d done a little more there. He also added a very brief but good discussion of Hagar.
His major addition was a discussion of the biblical Flood. There was a lot that was good in it, it’s surprising that he didn’t cover it in the first edition, but he also reveals himself in the process to be some brand of theistic evolutionist which creates inconsistencies within some of his own big points in the book. If Genesis is poetic and not literal, as he says, and we evolved after an initial God creation billions of years ago, then his foundation of pro feminism via God’s creation of Eve in his own divine image is destroyed, as are his delvings into God’s first commands to us to be fruitful and love and eat and rest on the Sabbath, modeling our 7-day week after God’s. Lamb also says in his book that we need to believe what God says in the Bible over what other people say, but then on his blog he says he doesn’t believe the literal account of Genesis because so many scientists say the earth is billions of years old. Maybe he doesn’t consider scientists “other people.”
Whether or not you agree with Lamb in his non-literal Genesis beliefs, these inconsistencies in his logic, in my opinion, call all his work into question. And that’s such a pity.

There are still so many excellent points he makes, mostly in collating other scholars’ works and setting it all down in easily digestible chunks of historical context for us so that we can better understand some of the “problem” passages, and with a few head scratching exceptions, he does this brilliantly. I do absolutely think the book is worth reading, but I’m less inclined to recommend him now based on his own inconsistencies with himself.
3.5 stars. What he does well, he does brilliantly, and that is why I think the book is worth reading. But the problems can’t be ignored.

A Mixed Bag

I have to give the book credit first by saying that God Behaving Badly does a much better job taking concerns over apparent brutality by God in the Bible seriously than many books in Christian apologetics. Lamb uses his wealth of knowledge on the Old Testament to provide exegetical insight which often presents a workable explanation. I would have preferred a wider exploration of potential interpretations, but there really isn't any wrong with Lamb speaking for himself and giving preference to how he answers these questions.

That said, Lamb makes some hermeneutical choices I don't personally agree with. He seems to prefer a literal reading where I think it is more important to highlight the writing norms of the different periods in which the Bible was written. Where the Bible seems to contradict, he prefers to synthesize the two passages, interpreting them in a way where they can both technically be correct. I don't think defending his textual philosophy was really the point of the book, but I think it is important to know this going in, because often this preference leaves some holes in Lamb's conclusions.

Overall, I think it's a decent book. I don't agree with Lamb on many of his conclusions, but I think it is important to read and attempt to understand ideas that you don't necessarily agree with.

Very disappointing

I was intrigued by this book’s title and reviews on it and was hoping for a more rigorous and frankly honest examination of the difficult passages in the Old Testament that are had to reconcile with the God we have come to know through Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the author, like many others on this topic, takes a very defensive approach with some pretty contorted defenses that border on obfuscation. To be fair, I don’t know how you can do otherwise if you believe the Old Testament is the word of God - as opposed to a book written by imperfect men - inspired by God but not always getting it right.

Not the best book on the subject

There are much stronger answers to the objects about God’s character out there. This book is full of weak arguments and is painfully long because of all the boring anecdotes and corny humor as filler. I would recommend gotquestions ministry over this.