Tag Archives: Paul Copan

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Did Saul Kill All of the Amalekites?

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In 1 Samuel 15:3, Samuel commands Saul, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” As we read the rest of the chapter, Saul tells Samuel, after the battle, “I have carried out the LORD’s instructions” and “I completely destroyed the Amalekites.”

Samuel’s only disagreement with Saul is that Saul kept some of the livestock for himself, a clear violation of God’s command. Saul was not to have financial gain from this battle, which was intended to be an execution of divine justice against an exceedingly vicious group of people.  Samuel seems to agree that Saul totally destroyed everyone, “men and women, children and infants,” just as God commanded. But how should we understand this command to “put to death men and women, children and infants,” coupled with Saul’s claim that he did indeed kill every Amalekite?

Did Saul literally wipe out every living Amalekite or is this command hyperbolic in nature, referring to a decisive military victory? We know that other ancient near eastern cultures used the same kinds of descriptions of military victories, such as “totally destroying” the enemy, or killing “every man, woman, and child.” But these are figures of speech which literally mean “we won a decisive military victory against our enemy.” What about in this case?

The easiest way to decide whether Saul literally killed every living Amalekite is to see whether the Amalekites are ever mentioned in the biblical record again. When we do that, we see that the Amalekites lived on!

In 1 Sam 27:8, we see that David fights Amalekites, so at least some of them are alive and well. Paul Copan and Matt Flannagan write in Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God:

This text affirms not only that the Amalekites still existed, but the reference to Egypt and Shur states that they existed in the very same area where Saul ‘utterly destroyed’ every single one of them (15: 8, 20). What’s more, David took sheep and cattle as plunder. Clearly, in terms of what the narrative says, the Amalekites were not all destroyed— nor were all the animals finally destroyed in Gilgal in chapter 15. Instead, many people and livestock from the region had survived Saul’s attack.

In 1 Sam 30, the Amalekites show up again! This time they attack the Israelite settlement of Ziklag, burn it to the ground, and carry off everyone as prisoners. Copan and Flannagan write:

So even though Saul ‘utterly destroyed’ the Amalekites (15: 8, 20), the text makes clear that many Amalekites remained so that David would not only— once again!— fight against them so that ‘not a man of them escaped,’ but after this battle, four hundred Amalekites fled on camels (30: 17 NASB).

Amalekites continue to be mentioned in the Bible:

Even beyond this, the Amalekites continue to remain, and we come across another Amalekite in 2 Samuel 1: 8, a passage where one of them takes credit for killing Saul— presumably a tall task if Saul had ‘utterly destroyed all the people’ of Amalek. And in 1 Chronicles 4: 43, the nation of Amalek is still around during the reign of Hezekiah. And then in the book of Esther, we encounter a descendant of the Amalekite king, Agag— Haman ‘the Agagite’ (8: 3), also called ‘the son of Hammedatha the Agagite’ (3: 1)— who was determined to wipe out the Jewish people. Amalekites were around well after both Saul and David.

It seems clear that Saul did not totally destroy all of the Amalekites, men, women, and children. Yet Samuel, and presumably God, were satisfied that Saul obeyed God’s commands, except for keeping alive livestock and the king of Amalek. Therefore, it seems that we should take Saul’s claim that he “completely destroyed the Amalekites” as a hyperbolic statement that would literally mean, “I won the decisive military victory that God commanded me to win.”

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Don’t Judges 1:8 and 1:21 Contradict Each Other?

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Judges 1:8 says, “The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.” The surface implication is that the city of Jerusalem was completely destroyed and everyone inside of it killed.

Just a few verses later, Judges 1:21 says, “The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.” This verse clearly states that the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, were not removed and still live there! How can both of these verses be true?

Daniel Block, in Judges, Ruth: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (The New American Commentary) offers one explanation:

The most likely explanation recognizes that Jerusalem was a border city, located on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin. The city that was burned in v. 8 probably identifies the Jebusite fortress on the southern hill of the city, between the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys, and which David eventually captured and made his capital. Accordingly, the unsuccessful Benjamite effort in v. 21 must have been directed against the citadel farther north. The fact that David had to reconquer Jerusalem suggests the Judahite hold on the city was weak and short-lived. It seems that shortly after they had sacked it the Jebusites moved in from the north and took control, which they then held for several centuries.

Block’s explanation assumes that Jerusalem actually consisted of at least two separate citadels. But if there really was only one citadel named Jerusalem at that time, then how would we explain the apparent difficulty?

Paul Copan and Matt Flannagan argue in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God that we have to be careful when interpreting phrases like “put the city to the sword.” This phrase may have been hyperbolic in its original context. In other words, the author and the original readers would have understood that the entire city was not destroyed and that all the people inside were not literally killed. Instead there was a military victory that left at least some of the city intact and some of the residents alive.

We use hyperbolic language all the time today. Think about sports. Sports fans frequently say things like, “My team destroyed yours” or “We annihilated them last night.” Are we really talking about destruction and annihilation? No, obviously not. We simply mean that one team defeated the other. We use the exact same kinds of phrases when we talk about military battles.

Other hyperbolic phrases found in the Old Testament are “utterly destroy,” “put to the edge of the sword,” “leave alive nothing that breathes,” “leaving no survivors,” and “man and woman, young and old.” These kinds of phrases were commonly used among the people living at this time in history. Many times in the historical books of the Bible we see reports of “complete annihilation” of a city or group of people, only to see this same city or people group alive and well later on, often in the same book (compare Joshua 10:39 to 11:31 and Joshua 11:21 to 15:13-14).

So, a second plausible explanation for the seeming contradiction of verses 8 and 21 is that verse 8 should be understood hyperbolically. Whether you are convinced by this explanation or by Daniel Block’s explanation, there is not actually a contradiction.

Difficult Bible Passages

Did Joshua Kill Innocent Canaanite Adults During the Conquest? Part 2

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God spares those who are truly repentant, those who truly love Him. Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God, offer several examples of Canaanites who were spared and who became members of Israel.

First, there is Rahab, the tavern-keeper in Jericho. Copan and Flannagan write:

The book of Hebrews states: ‘By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient’ (11: 31). Rahab was a Canaanite, yet she was spared because she was not like those who are disobedient, but rather responded in faith. The author of Joshua emphasizes that Rahab ‘lives among the Israelites to this day’ (Josh. 6: 25), 23 and Matthew lists her as an ancestor of both David and Jesus the Messiah (Matt. 1: 5).

Second, there is the example of Caleb, one of the two spies who gave a good report to Israel in Numbers 14. God says in Numbers 14: “Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (Num. 14: 24).

Most readers, however, fail to notice Caleb’s background. Copan and Flannagan explain:

Caleb, though from the tribe of Judah, has a Canaanite background! The text refers to him as ‘Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite’ (Num. 32: 12; Josh. 14: 6, 14). Who were the Kenizzites? They were one of the seven nations in Canaan and were listed along with the Hittites and the Perizzites who lived on the land God would be giving to Abram (Gen. 15: 18– 20). These were the peoples God commanded Israel to ‘utterly destroy.’ Yet Caleb the Kennizite was one of the few in the nation of Israel to see the Promised Land because ‘he followed the LORD wholeheartedly.’

Third, we have the example of the Shechemites. In chapter 8 of Joshua, the Shechemites are included in Israel’s covenant renewal ceremony: “All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark . . . the stranger as well as the native” (v. 33 NASB).

At Shechem, those who heard the Law being read included not only ‘the assembly of Israel’ but also ‘the strangers who were living among them’ (vv. 33, 35). Sprinkle notes, ‘Joshua 8: 30– 35 narrates a covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem despite the fact that Shechem was a major power during the Late Bronze Age as the fourteenth century B.C. El Amarna tablets from Egypt indicate. This suggested to [John] Bright that Shechem was absorbed into Israel rather than being conquered, and so the covenant renewal ceremony was on the occasion of additional people being added to the covenant.’

In part 3 of this series, we will look at even more evidence, provided  by Clay Jones, that God spares those who repent.

 

Difficult Bible Passages

Did Joshua Kill Innocent Canaanite Adults During the Conquest? Part 1

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Some critics of the Bible complain that Joshua must have killed numerous innocent Canaanite adults during the conquest recorded in Joshua 1-12. Because of this, what Joshua did was nothing more than genocide. But the biblical picture is painted quite differently, and if we are going to accuse Joshua of killing innocent Canaanites, shouldn’t we at least read what the Bible actually says?

Paul Copan and Matt Flannagan, in their book Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God, fill in the background for us so we can see what the true biblical picture is.

First, the Bible clearly states that the land where the Canaanites were living had been given to Abraham and his descendants, by God, hundreds of years before the conquest.

Israel had legal title to the land of Canaan based on the promise God had made to the patriarchs (Deut. 20: 16). The Canaanites were essentially trespassers or squatters (Josh. 2: 9– 11). The ultimate goal of Abraham’s calling was to bring blessing to the nations, and this promise includes permanent possession of the land (which, as Scripture progresses, expands into possession of the new heaven and new earth by God’s people).

Second, “Israel had to wait many generations— including having to endure slavery in Egypt— before it could take possession of the land because the Canaanites were not yet sufficiently wicked to judge (Gen. 15: 16).”

By the time of Joshua’s conquest, their wickedness had reached the point where judgment would finally occur. God waited hundreds of years for the Canaanites to repent, but they never did.

Copan and Flannagan add, “During the days of the patriarchs, Abraham’s people were forbidden to engage in violence against the Canaanite nations occupying the land.”

Third, the kinds of

wicked acts (Deut. 9: 4– 5) the Canaanites engaged in were not trivial: incest, adultery, bestiality, ritual prostitution, homosexual acts, and most significantly, child sacrifice (Lev. 18; Deut. 12: 29– 31). Most of these acts are illegal, even in modern Western nations. Any group practicing these actions would not be tolerated even in contemporary liberal societies, and in some jurisdictions, violators would be sentenced to death.

Fourth,

Israel’s own occupation of the land was conditional; Israel too would be ‘utterly destroyed’ if it engaged in the defiling practices of the Canaanites (Lev. 18: 25– 28). Indeed, later the Israelites would be judged— removed from the land through exile— because they violated the terms of the covenant.

Fifth, and maybe most importantly, we have many indications from the Bible that God spares those who are truly repentant, those who truly love Him. Copan and Flannagan offer several examples of Canaanites who were spared and who became members of Israel.

In part 2 of this series, we will look at these examples.

 

Creation, Creation Ex Nihilo

Is God a Creator or Just an Organizer?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In Christian theology, God created everything that exists out of nothing (ex nihilo), simply by speaking the universe into existence. When we turn to Mormon theology, we find a very different concept of creation. Mormons deny that God created the universe ex nihilo. What do they believe? According to the editors of The New Mormon Challenge,

In distinction from Christian teaching, a fundamental component of the traditional LDS worldview is the rejection of creation ex nihilo. Instead, as was so common in the pagan religions and philosophies of antiquity, according to the Mormon doctrine of “creation,” God formed the world out of eternally preexisting chaotic matter.

William Lane Craig and Paul Copan quote from traditional Mormon theologians on God and creation:

In 1910, B. H. Roberts wrote that God is constrained in exercising his power by certain “external existences”: “Not even God may place himself beyond the boundary of space…Nor is it conceivable to human thought [that] he can create space or annihilate matter. These are things that limit even God’s omnipotence.” He added that “even [God] may not act out of harmony with the other external existences [such as duration, space, matter, truth, justice] which condition or limit him.”

Mormon theologian John Widtsoe maintains that belief in creation out of nothing does nothing but cause confusion: “Much inconsistency of thought has come from the notion that things may be derived from an immaterial state, that is, from nothingness.”

In addition to this assertion, Widtsoe asserts that God cannot create matter [out of nothing] nor can he destroy it: “God, possessing the supreme intelligence of the universe, can cause energy in accomplishing his ends, but create it, or destroy it, he cannot.” The sum of matter and energy, whatever their form, always remains the same.

Craig and Copan conclude, “Similar statements about creation from the authors quoted above and other influential traditional Mormon theologians could be multiplied many times over.”

What about contemporary Mormon scholarship? Craig and Copan show that they still affirm the views of their forerunners.

For example, the recent Encyclopedia of Mormonism asserts that creation is “organization of preexisting materials.” In an article entitled “A Mormon View on Life,” Lowell Bennion states: “Latter-Day Saints reject the ex nihilo theory of creation. Intelligence and the elements have always existed, co-eternal with God. He is tremendously creative and powerful, but he works with materials not of his own making.”

Craig and Copan note, parenthetically, that “as with Roberts above, Bennion recognizes that the denial of creatio ex nihilo necessarily limits God’s power.” They continue:

Mormon philosopher Blake Ostler writes that “Mormons have rejected the Creator/creature dichotomy of Patristic theology and its logical correlaries [sic], creatio ex nihilo and the idea of God as a single infinite Absolute.”

Craig and Copan quote Ostler at length about God as an organizer, not a creator:

The Mormon God did not bring into being the ultimate constituents of the cosmos—neither its fundamental matter nor the space/time matrix which defines it. Hence, unlike the Necessary Being of classical theology who alone could not not exist and on which all else is contingent for existence, the personal God of Mormonism confronts uncreated realities which exist of metaphysical necessity. Such realities include inherently self-directing selves (intelligences), primordial elements (mass/energy), the natural laws which structure reality, and moral principles grounded in the intrinsic value of selves and the requirements for growth and happiness.

It should be abundantly clear from these quotes that the God of Mormonism is not the God of Christianity. The God of Mormonism is an organizer of pre-existing intelligences, mass, energy, laws of nature, and moral principles.

Thus, as Craig and Copan point out, the Mormon God is not omnipotent in any meaningful sense of the word. The Mormon God is severely limited in what he can do. He must work with the pre-existing entities that existed before him.

It follows that the Mormon God cannot be the ultimate source of Being, the ground of all reality, the creator of the universe and everything in it, or the ground of goodness. The Mormon God, it turns out, is more akin to Superman than the God of classical theism.

Difficult Bible Passages, Theology, Top Ten Posts of 2013

#3 Post of 2013 – If God Can Kill, Why Can’t We?

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Critics of Christianity sometimes point to passages in the Bible where God takes human life, and they ask, “Isn’t God breaking his own commandment to not kill?” If God can ignore the sixth commandment, then isn’t it hypocritical for him to expect us to obey it?

Does this argument really work, though? No. It fails in multiple ways.

First, the sixth commandment is not a blanket command to never take human life. It is a command to not take human life without proper justification. This can be clearly seen by reading the commandment in context with the rest of the Bible. God allows human life to be taken in self-defense and he upholds the right of the state to administer capital punishment. Clearly, then, the sixth commandment does not simply mean, “Never kill for any reason whatsoever.”

Second, the ten commandments were God’s commands to mankind, so they are not to be applied to God in the same way they are applied to us. God is infinite in being; we are not. God is the first cause of everything that exists; we are not. God is the creator (efficient cause) of human life; we are not. God is all-knowing; we are not. God is all-wise; we are not.

Third, since God possesses divine attributes that we do not possess, it is a gross error to compare God’s taking human life with our taking human life. As the guarantor of life after death, philosopher Paul Copan reminds us that “any harm caused [by God] due to specific purposes in a specific context would be overshadowed by divine benefits in the afterlife.”

This is a crucial point: God promises an afterlife for everyone. Only he can do that, as no human has that power. As the all-wise, all-knowing guarantor of the afterlife, he is uniquely justified in taking human life.

Analogously, we grant judges the power to send people to prison because they are in a unique position to know the facts of the case, and they are uniquely trained to know and administer the law. We don’t allow random citizens to sentence criminals, as they lack the knowledge and experience to imprison people in a just way. Power over human life is granted depending on the knowledge and wisdom of the one who would be in power.

Why can’t we kill? Because we lack God’s knowledge, his wisdom, and his creative power. We are finite beings who see through a glass darkly. That is why we leave life and death decisions to God.

Difficult Bible Passages, Top Ten Posts of 2011

What Does “An Eye for an Eye” Mean? – #6 Post of 2011

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

The biblical injunction to take a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth – called lex talionis –  is repeated several times (e.g., Ex. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:17-22; Deut. 19:16-21).  Some people have read this punishment to literally mean that bodily mutilation is prescribed.  Is that what the biblical writers meant?

Not according to philosopher Paul Copan, who has written about this issue in his book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Copan points out that the phrase “eye for an eye” is not to be taken literally.  As an example, he asks us to continue reading in Ex. 21 through verses 26 and 27.

If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye.  And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth.

Clearly there is no call for bodily mutilation in these verses which immediately follow the call for lex talionis.  Rather, there is a call for just compensation – freeing the servant.

So what is the point of lex talionis?  It is quite simple.  According to Copan, “The point of lex talionis is this: the punishment should fit the crime.  Furthermore, these were the maximum penalties; punishments were to be proportional and couldn’t exceed that standard.  And a punishment could be less severe if the judge deemed that the crime required a lesser penalty.”

Is there ever a case where the call for lex talionis is meant literally?  Yes, when a person is guilty of murder.  In this case, the call for “a life for a life” is to be taken literally and capital punishment is mandated.

Lex talionis was a principle which helped protect the poor from the rich, who were prevented from dictating harsher punishments of their own.  Copan adds that the principle “served as a useful guide to prevent blood feuds and disproportionate retaliation (think Mafia methods here).”

In conclusion, “When we compare Israel’s punishments with other Near Eastern legislation, the law of Moses presents a noteworthy moral development.  As biblical scholar Brevard Childs points out, the lex talionis principle ‘marked an important advance and was far from being a vestige from a primitive age.'”

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

What About Genocide in the Old Testament?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

I’ve mentioned Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God before, but I ran across this video clip where historical Jesus scholar Mike Licona interviews Copan about alleged genocide in the Old Testament.  Copan summarizes some very key arguments from his book during this informative clip.

httpv://youtu.be/4lap_BdOJQo

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages

Who Did Joshua Kill in Jericho?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Many Christians, as they read the book of Joshua, are uncomfortable with the accounts of conquest that are recorded there.  The conquest of Jericho is the first in Canaan for the Israelites.  The biblical writer describes the battle of Jericho this way in Josh. 6:20-21:

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.  They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

What causes many of us discomfort is the phrase “men and women, young and old.”  It seems that we must understand Joshua’s conquest of Jericho as a complete annihilation of a major population center, including non-combatants who are women, children and the elderly.

Christian scholar Paul Copan strongly disagrees with this understanding of the attack on Jericho in his book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God.  Copan marshals a case to dispute the traditional view of Jericho being a major population center with loads of non-combatants living in it.

His argument rests on two primary points.  First, the language found in Josh. 6:21 should be understood as Near Eastern warfare rhetoric.  In other words, Joshua’s original audience would not have understood the sentence, “They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys” as literally meaning that.  Instead, they would have heard Joshua describing a decisive military victory.

Joshua’s conventional warfare rhetoric was common in many other ancient Near Eastern military accounts in the second and first millennia BC.  The language is typically exaggerated and full of bravado, depicting total devastation.  The knowing ancient Near Eastern reader recognized this as hyperbole; the accounts weren’t understood to be literally true.

Copan cites several examples of Near Eastern warfare accounts which used hyperbole to describe their victories, including accounts originating from Egyptians, Hittites, and Assyrians.  This historical data casts new light on how we should understand biblical warfare accounts, especially those recorded in Joshua.

Copan’s second point is that the city of Jericho is not a large population center containing numerous non-combatants which were killed in the assault.  According to Copan, the language used in Joshua 6 is “stereotypical Near Eastern language [which] actually describes attacks on military forts or garrisons, not general populations that included women and children.  There is no archaeological evidence of civilian populations at Jericho or Ai” (emphasis added).

Copan goes on to explain:

Given what we know about Canaanite life in the Bronze Age, Jericho and Ai were military strongholds.  In fact, Jericho guarded the trade routes from the Jordan Valley up to population centers in the hill country. . . . That means that Israel’s wars here were directed toward government and military installments; this is where the king, the army, and the priesthood resided.  The use of ‘women’ and ‘young and old’ was merely stock ancient Near Eastern language that could be used even if women and young and old weren’t living there. . . .  The text doesn’t require that women and young and old must have been in these cities.

If this is true, then what of Rahab?  According to Copan, “Rahab was in charge of what was likely the fortress’s tavern or hostel.”  Evidently it was common for a fortress to have a tavern where “traveling caravans and royal messengers would . . . stay overnight.”  Most of Jericho would have consisted of soldiers, priests, and political leaders.

Copan’s argument is compelling, as it cites ancient Near Eastern historical data to place in context what the original readers of Joshua’s book would have understood.  This is exactly what the historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation calls us to do.  As we gather more data about the ancient Near East, we must constantly refine our understanding of the biblical texts.

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Theology

Was the Mosaic Law Meant to Be Permanent?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

No, it wasn’t.  Not only does the New Testament book of Hebrews make clear that it was temporary, but the Old Testament itself promises a new covenant in Jer. 31 and Ezek. 36.  Should we completely ignore the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament where the Law is found, as hopelessly irrelevant for Christians today?

Not exactly.  The Torah does contain timeless commands that reflect God’s nature, but it also contains temporary laws that are directed at a deeply sinful people living in a flawed culture during a specific period of time in history.

Philosopher Paul Copan describes the situation in his book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God:

When we journey back over the millennia into the ancient Near East, we enter a world that is foreign to us in many ways.  Life in the ancient Near East wouldn’t just be alien to us – with all of its strange ways and assumptions.  We would see a culture whose social structures were badly damaged by the fall.  Within this context, God raised up a covenant nation and gave the people laws to live by; he helped to create a culture for them.  In doing so, he adapted his ideals to a people whose attitudes and actions were influenced by deeply flawed structures.

At the beginning of the Torah, God lays down the ideals for mankind in Gen. 1 and 2.  According to Copan, those first two chapters “make clear that all humans are God’s image-bearers; they have dignity, worth, and moral responsibility.  And God’s ideal for marriage is a one-flesh monogamous union between husband and wife.”  But the subsequent historical narrative, as recorded in the remainder of Genesis, and then Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, is characterized by humanity’s precipitous fall into moral degeneracy.

How did God choose to move Abraham and his flawed descendants in the right direction?  After all, they had moved far away from the ideals laid down by God in the Garden.  We find in the Torah that God decided to meet them where they were, to accommodate imperfect, human-created social structures in order to move his people in the right moral direction.  Thus, the Mosaic Law (starting in Ex. 20) ends up being focused on a specific people living at a specific time.

Copan elaborates on God’s plans:

We know that many products on the market have a built-in, planned obsolescence.  They’re designed for the short-term; they’re not intended to be long-lasting and permanent.  The same goes for the the law of Moses: it was never intended to be enduring.  It looked forward to a new covenant (Jer. 31; Ezek. 36).

Copan quotes biblical scholar N. T. Wright: “The Torah is given for a specific period of time, and is then set aside – not because it was a bad thing now happily abolished, but because it was a good thing whose purpose had now been accomplished.”