Defending Troublesome OT Statutes to a Hostile Audience
The Old Testament contains laws that strike modern readers as harsh, arbitrary, or morally troubling—commands regarding slavery, warfare, capital punishment for seemingly minor offenses, and ritual purity codes that appear alien to contemporary sensibilities. When confronted by a hostile audience, the Christian apologist faces a dual challenge: to acknowledge the genuine difficulty these texts present while articulating a coherent theological framework that neither dismisses the texts nor capitulates to anachronistic moral standards.
The Patristic Strategy: Distinguishing Objection from Explanation
Augustine recognized that certain Old Testament passages "are some slight offense to minds ignorant and careless of themselves," and noted that while such texts "admit of being accused in a popular way," they "cannot be defended in a popular way, by any great number of persons, by reason of the mysteries that are contained in them" [3]. This acknowledgment is crucial: the difficulty is real, and superficial defenses often fail. Augustine's approach was not to deny the offense but to insist that the explanation requires more than sound-bite apologetics. He argued that "the explanation of the Scriptures should be sought for" through careful exegesis rather than reactive defensiveness [4].
The Manichaeans of Augustine's era attacked the Old Testament's morality precisely to discredit its divine origin, forcing early Christians to develop sophisticated hermeneutical strategies. Augustine's response was to distinguish between the moral content of a law and its pedagogical or typological function within redemptive history [5]. A statute that appears troublesome in isolation may serve a specific covenantal purpose—restraining greater evil, establishing Israel's distinctiveness, or prefiguring spiritual realities fulfilled in Christ.
The Christological and Covenantal Framework
Calvin emphasized that God's law must be understood within its covenantal context, not abstracted into timeless moral propositions divorced from Israel's historical situation [7]. The Mosaic legislation was not intended as a universal ethical code for all nations but as the constitutional charter for a theocratic nation under direct divine governance. Many statutes that seem harsh were accommodations to Israel's "hardness of heart" (Matthew 19:8)—divine concessions that regulated practices (like divorce or warfare) without endorsing them as ideal.
Chrysostom noted that the Jews possessed "a great advantage as to light and privilege" through the Old Testament scriptures, even when those scriptures did not immediately produce faith [1]. The law's function was not merely to prescribe behavior but to reveal sin, establish boundaries, and prepare for the coming of Christ. Troublesome statutes often served this preparatory role, exposing human sinfulness and the need for a greater righteousness than the law could provide.
Addressing the Audience's Presuppositions
When disputing with unbelievers, Aquinas cautioned that the apologist must consider not only his own certainty but also the disposition of his hearers [6]. A hostile audience often approaches Old Testament law with unexamined assumptions: that ancient Near Eastern cultures should conform to 21st-century Western ethics, that divine revelation must align with contemporary moral intuitions, or that any accommodation to cultural context constitutes moral compromise. The apologist must expose these presuppositions before defending specific statutes.
Augustine warned against the danger of appearing to doubt the faith while defending it [6]. The goal is not to justify every Old Testament statute by modern standards but to demonstrate that these texts, rightly understood within their canonical and covenantal context, do not undermine the character of God revealed in Christ. This requires showing how the law's severity reflects both divine holiness and pedagogical purpose—preparing Israel (and through Israel, the world) for the gospel.
The Danger of Selective Outrage
Chrysostom observed that critics often exhibit moral inconsistency, expressing horror at Old Testament severity while tolerating or ignoring contemporary injustices [2]. A hostile audience may condemn ancient Israelite warfare while remaining indifferent to modern atrocities, or denounce Old Testament slavery while benefiting from exploitative labor systems. The apologist can legitimately ask whether the objection stems from genuine moral concern or from a desire to discredit biblical authority.
The defense of troublesome statutes does not require claiming they represent God's ideal will for all times and places. Rather, it involves demonstrating that these laws, within their historical and redemptive context, reflect a divine pedagogy that ultimately points beyond itself to Christ, in whom the law finds both fulfillment and transcendence.
Sources
- CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts & Romans: The passage iii. 1–8 considers four possible objections. (1) “This placing of Jews and Gentiles in the same condition, takes away all the theocratic prerogatives.” ( v. 1 .) No, answers Paul, they have a great advantage as to light and privilege, though none as to righteousness. ( v. 2 .) (2) “They have the O.T. scriptures, you say; but what if those scriptures have not attained their end in bringing the Jews to believe in Jesus as the Messiah? If some have not believed, does not that render void God’s promises to his people in the O.T., so that he i”
- CCEL/NPNF (Eastern Orthodox) “John Chrysostom, Homilies on Acts & Romans: O man! and God is good.—Aye, did you shudder at hearing these horrors? But these, which take place here, are nothing in comparison with what shall be in that world. Once more I am compelled to seem harsh, disagreeable, stern. But what can I do? I am set to this: just as a severe schoolmaster is set to be hated by his scholars: so are we. For would it not be strange indeed, that, while those who have a certain post assigned them by kings do that which is appointed them, however disagreeable the task may be, we, for fear of your censure, should leave o”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 3: Augustine — On the Holy Trinity — THE PROFIT OF BELIEVING. (part 5): certain things which are some slight offense to minds ignorant and careless of themselves, (and there are very many such,) they admit of being accused in a popular way: but defended in a popular way they cannot be, by any great number of persons, by reason of the mysteries that are contained in them. But the few, who know how to do this, do not love public and much talked of controversies and dispute:(3) a and on this account are very little known, save to such as are most earnest in seeking them out. Concerning ”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 4: Augustine — Anti-Manichaean, Anti-Donatist — CHAP. I.--HOW THE PRETENSIONS OF THE MANICHAEANS ARE TO BE REFUTED. TWO MANICHAEAN FALSEHOODS. (part 1): I. ENOUGH, probably, has been done in our other books [2] in the way of answering the ignorant and profane attacks which the Manichaeans make on the law, which is called the Old Testament, in a spirit of vainglorious boasting, and with the approval of the uninstructed. Here, too, I may shortly touch upon the subject. For every one with average intelligence can easily see that the explanation of the Scriptures should be sought for fro”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 4: Augustine — Anti-Manichaean, Anti-Donatist — BOOK XXII. (part 1): FAUSTUS STATES HIS OBJECTIONS TO THE MORALITY OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS, AND AUGUSTIN SEEKS BY THE APPLICATION OF THE TYPE AND THE ALLEGORY TO EXPLAIN AWAY THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 1. FAUSTUS said: You ask why we blaspheme the law and the prophets. We are so far from professing or feeling any hostility to the law and the prophets, that we are ready, if you will allow us, to declare the falsehood of all the writings which make the law and the prophets appear objectionable. But this you refuse to”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part (Secunda Secundae), Of Unbelief in General, Art. 7: Article: Whether one ought to dispute with unbelievers in public? I answer that, In disputing about the faith, two things must be observed: one on the part of the disputant; the other on the part of his hearers. On the part of the disputant, we must consider his intention. For if he were to dispute as though he had doubts about the faith, and did not hold the truth of faith for certain, and as though he intended to probe it with arguments, without doubt he would sin, as being doubtful ”
- CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 28: is vitiated and perverted whenever false opinions are introduced into it, and hence it is inferred, that whatever is allowed to be done from inconsiderate zeal, cannot be defended by any pretext with which 105 the superstitious may choose to cloak it. But although this confession is in every man’s mouth, a shameful stupidity is forthwith manifested, inasmuch as men neither cleave to the one God, nor use any selection in their worship, as we have already observed. But God, in vindicating his own right, first proclaims that he is a j”