Does God (Jahweh) have a personality disorder?

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/                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              DOES GOD HAVE A PERSONALITY DISORDER?

Overview

Not only have some writers argued against the existence (or even the possibility) of God, but they have also suggested that it’s an unfashionable question for us to be considering in this modern age.   Others have taken issue with the God of the Bible, finding that he lacks emotional self-control, and behaves appallingly, with clear signs of personality disorder – and so is not worthy of our respect.

In this section I reflect on some of the criticisms of God’s character, which I believe are based on misunderstanding of the Old Testament.

Along with many critics, I have been puzzled (and troubled) by the accounts of violence, which seem out of place in the Bible.  I have needed to remind myself frequently that what I’m reading was composed in a time, place and culture very different from where we find ourselves in the 21st Century.  I need to note that what I’m reading is not the work of a modern journalist updating of reports of happenings in my local community.

God did not invent capital punishment or inter-tribal warfare – but both seem to have been an established part of the social order in Old Testament times.   Thousands of years of history and culture separate bible times from the place in human history where we live.   

So, unless we attempt some “cultural translation” – we will be troubled by (or ignore) a God, whose time seems to have been occupied micromanaging battles and executions.   

True, by our standards the times were violent, but the Old Testament narratives don’t portray the death penalty and death in battle as surprising, unusual or unforgivable – the accounts read as though these happenings are all part of “business as usual” — not prescribed by God, but unremarkably consistent with the prevailing social practice.  

In the Old Testament, we read of God keeping his promise to the young Israelite nation, enabling them to establish a homeland in Canaan, despite frequent obstructions by neighbouring tribes.  It is an unfamiliar culture to us, but a matter of everyday life to the writers and actors in an ancient human drama.

After taking account of the societal differences between bible times and the present 21st Century,  I don’t consider it necessary or appropriate that we diagnose God (in the Old or New Testament) as having symptoms of a personality disorder.

Wikipedia defines “New Atheism” as a perspective shared by some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries, intolerant of superstition, religion, and irrationalism. Key writers associated with new atheism include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, and journalist Christopher Hitchens.

As I understand the thrust of their writing, they assert that it is foolish to believe in God in this modern world – perhaps even dangerous for our mental health.  Some have made detailed arguments against the existence of God while others have argued that believing in God is not an intelligent, rational option and that the God described in the Old Testament is not worthy of our respect.

Richard Dawkins, Professor of Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford (1995 to 2008), wrote as follows in his best-selling book, “The God Delusion”:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.  Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror.[1]

Giulio Perrotta, a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist, has examined God as a virtual “patient” using the concepts and methods of modern psychology.  He concludes that the Old Testament God, JHWH (Jahweh) displays qualities warranting a diagnosis of personality disorder.  He concludes that some “masterful fraud” by the Emperor Constantine resulted in the God of the Old Testament (JHWH), being mistakenly connected with the God of the New Testament. He observes:[2]

YHWH does not hesitate, on several occasions, to kill the same members of the Israelite people, as a form of punishment, for having disobeyed orders or for not behaving as prescribed.  Very often they perished innocently, and the weaker elements were hit, to show everyone else what they risked; a punitive repressive and non-rehabilitative sanction, which aimed only to instil terror in him, fame that among other things often preceded him in relations with other neighbouring peoples. 

There are different English expressions for the name of God, such as “God of the Old Testament” and “Jahweh”.  The introduction to the English Standard Version, a modern English translation of the bible, notes that God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (as in Exodus 3:14-15).  For reasons of reverence, the name of God is never spoken aloud.  In synagogues, YHWH may be read as adonay or adonai (meaning Master or Lord).  “Jahweh” and “Jehovah” are common English transliterations of YHWH.  In modern English bible translations, the name of God is traditionally printed as LORD (all standard capitals) or LORD (all capitals with smaller font for “ORD”.)    

Challenging God on modern psychological grounds bypasses the complications of thousands of years of philosophy – providing a false hope that psychological arguments can resolve questions about the existence or relevance of God more decisively than have philosophical debates in centuries past.

In an age where many thinking people doubt the existence of God, I suggest remaining open to what I describe as “the possibility of God”.  If, as we read and reflect, our sense of that possibility persists (or even increases), who among us would set our minds to ignore or reject God? 

But which God are we discussing?  I’m not thinking about a god created and preserved within the limits of colourful human imagination.  Rather, I’m thinking about a God, a supernatural being who is in the business of revealing himself to humankind, eager to be encountered by mere mortals! 

This criterion is met by God described in the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible and the Moslem Quran (i.e. the God acknowledged by Jews, Christians and Moslems).

However, Richard Dawkins, Giulio Perrotta and numerous others have asserted this God is not the sort of God whom a thinking person should have anything to do with.   In an age where social media influencers have a significant impact, some sceptics see it as their public duty, to assume the role of media influencer warning people against such a dangerous god. 

“The most unpleasant character in all fiction” writes Richard Dawkins while Giulio Perrotta diagnoses God as having “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”.

(You may recall that in Greek mythology Narcissus is said to have fallen in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.)

The Pentateuch (the first five books in English language bibles named Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) together with the Book of Joshua have suffered the most criticism due to the personality profile of the God, which critics have diagnosed, based on these six books. 

Since critics use the contents of these books to criticize, challenge and dismiss the biblical God, I feel free to use the same books to discuss the issue..  I’m not suggesting that the critics have read the wrong books, rather that they have misunderstood the biblical books by paying insufficient attention to the cultural context and psychosocial assumptions of the authors and editors as they attribute thoughts, words and deeds to the biblical God. 

Jahweh’s critics tend to focus on the accusation that he is indifferent to human violence and suffering recorded in the Old Testament.  They don’t give God credit for his reported intervention in a later matter: namely whether the renowned Israelite King David should build a more permanent temple.  David planned to replace the portable structure which had served as the meeting place between God and his people since the days when they escaped from slavery and wandered in the desert, on their way to the promised land of Canaan.

According to the First Book of Chronicles, God overruled David’s plans to build a temple.  God’s reservations about the reputation which King David had acquired in battle are expressed unambiguously in I Chronicles 22:8-9:

8 But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. 9 Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. [3]

God did not delight in mass bloodshed – he told David that he wouldn’t allow his “house” to be built by one who had “shed so much blood”.  The temple was ultimately built by David’s son, Solomon, revered for his wisdom rather than success in battle.

I mention this overruling of David’s plans at an early point in the discussion of God’s alleged bloodlust since it provides a significant reference point in any discussion of allegations that the God revealed in the Old Testament is an uncaring, violent God (who hopefully does not even exist), with a diagnosable personality disorder. 

I would like to consider the problematic violence in the Old Testament psychosocially (not just historically and theologically).  I hope that taking account of the cultural context will enable readers to remain open to considering a God whose personality profile is quite different from that compiled by critics.  I make the working assumption (as some critics have done) that the bible provides a description of God in his own words.  Without a plausible revelation of Godself as a starting point, any opinions about God’s personality must necessarily depend solely on human imagination, which is able to produce interesting  but insignificant fiction – such as Grimm’s fairy tales.

I assume that we have moved beyond the age when it was expected that God’s existence (or relevance to human affairs) could or should be established exclusively by logic or science.  Otherwise, we find ourselves giving the natural universe veto powers over any potential supernatural phenomenon.   If human minds remain open to the supernatural (even briefly), it allows the possibility for any such God to make godself known in minds which are not hermetically sealed in order to preserve their own preconceptions.   It is inconceivable that such a God would play “hide and seek” with an honest seeker — a thought which has bounced around in my mind since my teens, when I stumbled across the following few words in the New Testament (Hebrews 11.6b):

… whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.[4]

 It would be a sad outcome if we closed our minds against the possibility of relating meaningfully to this God in our 21st Century, simply because it is an unfashionable option!

I recall feeling troubled when I first encountered some of the violence in the Old Testament.  But having continued to ruminate for the last 60 years, I’m still not ready to agree with the conclusion of writers who have clearly graded the God of the bible as “FAIL” or “NON-EXISTENT”.  The more I have considered the matter, the more it seemed that if we approach the Old Testament as we might read a newspaper (or even with the great respect due to a literary masterpiece) we will very likely come to an understanding of God (Jahweh), very different from what the authors and editors of the Old Testament documents set out to convey to their first readers.

I’m not suggesting that people have carelessly misread the English text (either the King James version or a more recent English translation of the Hebrew Masoretic Text).  The difference seems to reside in what people expect to find when reading the Old Testament.  We may all read the same English words in the Old Testament – but different preconceptions will likely lead us towards different conclusions from what the ancient scribes/secretaries intended to communicate.

If we expect to find fairy stories or fantasy in the bible, our minds might be closed to the possibility that we will dealing with accounts of the supernatural – real phenomena but beyond the range of normal experience. It is useful to avoid confusing “supernatural” with two other “s” words: “sentimental” – affected emotionally and “superstitious” – irrational habits maintained by fear.  Sentimental and superstitious may be classified together with “make believe” and “fairy story” under “fantasy”.  As I understand the meaning of the word, “supernatural” doesn’t mean “not real” – it means to me “phenomena beyond the range of what we generally expect to encounter in the physical, biological and social world that we inhabit.”

Early in life most of us learned to classify under “fantasy” accounts of things we found hard to believe – including the supernatural.  We may have found it convenient to file Moses, King David and Goliath in the same category (fantasy) along with Jack who climbed the beanstalk!

Fantasy can cover a vast terrain in the human mind.  “Fantasy” may have been a useful heading for filing what we heard about the Moses meeting God at the burning bush or leading people across the Red Sea (which on cue drowned the Egyptian Army).  And it would be handy if we could dismiss as “fantasy” the account of the prophet Samuel, ordering the slaughtering of the Amalekites[5] – man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey (described in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 15). 

These are just a few of the incidents that we may have encountered — and which most of us feel sure shouldn’t have been allowed to happen – and certainly would not have happened if we were God!!! 

At first, we may have dismissed the angst in our adolescent minds by reassuring ourselves that God being God should have space to do anything, even if we don’t agree with it.  As we become wiser in the ways of the world, learning about “human rights” and “the Geneva Convention” we’re no longer satisfied with letting God do whatever He might please – unless we happen to agree that it’s a “good” thing!

After reading parts of the Old Testament that left me feeling uncomfortable, I started wondering:  If God is in the business of revealing himself to humankind, what could he possibly wish to reveal about himself in the pages of those Old Testament books, which have been given seriously negative reviews?

I recently heard renowned conductor, Zoe Zeniodi, explaining on TV how she strives to find a fresh approach to classic works by Mozart.  To me, a non-musician, her ideas were somewhat surprising, so I tracked down a transcript of the interview[6]

ZOE ZENIODI:  I sit there for hours in solitude, in full concentration in like almost a meditation, meditative state and I learn my score.  And I do try to figure out what the composer wanted to say, to express how he did it and why he did it.

She seems to ask herself 3 questions about the music that Mozart had written centuries earlier:

  1. What did Mozart want to say?
  2. How did Mozart express it?
  3. Why did Mozart do it that way?

I was intrigued by her questions.  As I listened, I realized how analysing an ancient text by asking similar questions might be useful in understanding the Old Testament – instead of merely reading it straight off the page as a puzzling narrative in ancient literature.

As I reflected on the bible (not just the books which seem full of problematic violence), I found myself having a question-and-answer session in my thoughts:

  1. Question:  What might God have wished to say (reveal)?   
    1. My reflection: 
      1. God is taking them as his this = separate, unique, special people.
      1. Their holy identity will be shown in what they do and how they do it.
    1. How different?  
      1. So as to achieve a unique purpose, as described under terms like “God’s law” and the “Ten Commandments” or the “Ten Words”.
    1. Result?
      1. Not so that God gets a buzz from feeling important when people obey him,
      1. But so they might involve themselves in good things that God is doing with and for the human race (let’s call that his honour [7])
    1. The function of the bible text?
      1. In several places we may read such words: “You shall be holy as I the Lord your God am holy.”  Different writers have understood this phrase differently.
        1. It has commonly been understood as a command to imitate God in how we live.  A reasonable, practical expectation!
        1. Father and son bible scholars, John H Walton and J Harvey Walton seem to understand “holiness” less as a command, but an act of God’s grace or kindness in declaring his people to be part of his project: holy – as he is.
        1. I have come to see it this way:   God is setting his people apart, declaring them to be his “holy = different= separate” nation and expecting their status to “permeate” all that they do.  He is instructing them how to participate in his business plan, which includes all the good things he plans for the human race (the initial project being establishing a nation, known as Israel).
  • They are not commanded to be holy, but are invited and challenged to live as God’s holy people; “holy” implying “different — for a purpose”.
    • They are instructed how to participate — not primarily for God’s benefit (certainly God was not not depending on their prompt obedience to overcome any problem God may be experiencing with his self-importance or self-esteem).  It pleases him because it serves to achieve his goal – the welfare of the human race.  (What are generally known as the Ten Commandments serve as boundary markers defining human thought and action contributing to building a community which is beneficial for every member.  Loyalty to God and treating others as we ourselves would wish to be treated describe the social and emotional space within these boundary markers.)
    • These sentiments are also found in the (much later) Letter to the Ephesians in the New Testament:
      • Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.  And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. [8]

“Context is everything”

When reading something written in another time and place, I find it this helpful to remember that context is everything – not only in the Bible but in the writing of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton, Aesop’s fables, the exploits of Alexander the Great or C.E.W. Bean’s history of World War I –

Come to think of it, is there ever a time when context is not essential if we are to minimize misunderstandings in the grand adventure of life — and specially before leaping to a conclusion? 

There is no shortage of examples in newspapers, magazines and the electronic media where public figures claim that they were “taken out of context”.

Dr Pat Croskerry’s helpful article “Context Is Everything or How Could I Have Been That Stupid?” appeared in in Healthcare Quarterly 2009, Volume 12 Special Issue in the section headed “Understanding Decision-Making in Healthcare and the Law”.  He uses Dual Process Theory as a working model to help understand decision-making — as have other researchers in the field of psychology.  (Wikipedia has a sizeable entry on Dual Process Theory and its applications).  It divides decision-making into two processes:

  • System 1 – intuitive,
  • System 2 — analytical.

Pat Croskerry points out that most mistakes or misunderstandings (called “decision errors”) occur when relying on System 1 – which leads to two major implications. 

  1. Firstly, we may have taken insufficient account of context in arriving at a conclusion in the first place. 
  2. Secondly, if we wish to learn from our mistakes, we need the best possible reconstruction of the context.   Correcting a misunderstanding (wrong decision) is difficult if we can’t reconstruct the context in which decisions were made resulting in faulty conclusions.

The importance of the context of a communication is not limited to history books but persists (often hidden) in the recesses of our minds!  Context is provided by our assumptions: what we might think about what is happening:

  • Why do we think they said what they are reported to have said? 
  • Why do we think they did what they are reported to have done? 

And to add extra complexity: 

  • Why do we think that the events recorded were considered worth recording?  

Such thoughts affect our understanding and interpretation of what we see, hear or read.  If we recognize such implied thoughts and inspect them,

  • it is less likely that our appreciation of the events will be limited to error-prone System 1 (intuitive) processes without the benefit of System 2 (analytical) processes.

It seems to me that Richard Dawkins’ articulate assessment of the God of the Old Testament proceeds from the same initial, intuitive, emotional sense of revulsion that most of us have in our first reading of the bible narratives involving death and destruction. 

Did I read that or am I just imagining that God (Jahweh) is part of that nightmare?  

We may react that way intuitively, without taking time to consider the historical and cultural context of the events which are recorded – relying on intuitive System 1 processes without the benefit of more analytical System 2 processes.

Which leaves a problem:

Because the unfamiliar cultural setting of Old Testament narratives can prove problematic for 21st Century readers, we need to take care that we don’t routinely dismiss unfamiliar scenarios as fairy stories.   From childhood up, when dealing with fairy stories we learn to suspend our critical faculties while giving full rein to our imagination. It helps if we can accept that what is described in the story didn’t really happen, no one was hurt, and everyone lived happily ever after. 

Even though our culture perpetuates morbidly fantastic tales about such imaginary creatures in the tales of “Jack and the Bean Stalk” or “Little Red Riding Hood” we don’t expect to discover a “back story” to add to our understanding.  (Most likely any serious intellectual effort ended as soon as we had satisfied ourselves that the imaginative storyline was age-appropriate and not detrimental to any children in our care.) 

If we are prepared to allow that the supernatural is real — neither sentimental nor superstitious but beyond the reach of our physical senses – then we give ourselves the mental space to seek out and consider what may well be a significant “back story”.   Without investigating that “back story”, our mental habits (like psychological filters) could result in you and me (along with countless others) gaining what I now consider to be a distorted image of the God of the Bible – an image of a God that deserves to be rejected and disbelieved.  

The Hebrew word chesed or hesed (in English lettering) holds together the storyline of the Old Testament; it occurs more than 250 times in the Hebrew Bible.  (According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary.  Wikipedia also has a helpful entry on chesed.)

I understand chesed to mean “loyal love[9] or faithfulness”.  (Love in the sense of valuing and caring, not a sentimental or purely emotional response.)  Without this perspective, we are shipwrecked on the rocky shore of history, amidst thousands of years of literary reminders of the arbitrary, bossy, cruel and selfish things that human beings have done, and which we consider that no God should have tolerated or copied.

I don’t think that ancient biblical history was recorded so that we might find fault with what happened in past millennia, and so feel superior to the ancient Israelites — and certainly not to provide a stockpile of mental ammunition for use against “the God of the Old Testament”.  Rather it seems to me that the biblical record challenges us …

 … to appreciate chesed=loyal love as a divine preoccupation in God’s interaction with freedom-seeking and autonomy-relishing human beings in an unpredictable world.

Here are some examples in English translations of how the bible writers used “Chesed”.

  • God’s loyal, steadfast love (חֶסֶד, chesed) = faithfulness to us protecting and sustaining life
  • Psalm 94:17-18.  If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.   When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
  • Psalm 119:88. In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.
  • Psalm 119:149. Hear my voice according to your steadfast love; O Lord, according to your justice give me life.
  • Psalm 119:159. Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love.
  • human loyal love = faithfulness to God
  • 2 Chronicles 32.32. Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah and his good (= kind) deeds, behold, they are written in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.
  • human loyal love = faithfulness one to another
  • Micah 6.8.  He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

There seems to be a significant disconnect between the God whom 21st Century readers often interpret as a violent God with a personality disorder versus the God of the whole Old Testament, which is permeated (more than 250 instances) by the sentiments of chesed – faithful love or lovingkindness.

The Old Testament writings, from thousands of years before we were born, convey the writers’ understanding of the world as they experienced it.  In the foreground they describe what a self-revealing God is doing as we gain some understanding how he does business with human beings; in the background we are given glimpses of the culture of the times – how human beings did things in those days – “business as usual” for people at that place on the globe, at that time in history.  We may in passing gain some appreciation of what they considered to be appropriate/inappropriate behaviour in their circumstances.

I don’t think that in the “problem” passages in the Old Testament, ancient writers were intent upon playing with the emotions of their future readers.  Nor were they setting out how future readers might deal with the challenges of life ahead.  I think that they focussed on their contemporary understanding of life, including their understanding of Jahweh’s role in the Israelites’ taking possession of Canaan.   I see them on a mission with a message, to challenge people to be involved in Jahweh’s project, pivoting on “loyal love” (faithfulness of God to us, us to God, each of us to one another).  That faithfulness is revealed in the human drama of the history of the Israelite nation, which Jahweh (the LORD) was establishing. 

It was as citizens immersed in Ancient Near Eastern culture, that the writers of the Old Testament recorded their understanding of the foundation of the Israelite nation using the literary tools at their disposal.  The time and place in history where they lived and wrote provided a “cognitive environment”[10] very different from ours.  I appreciate the insights of the Drs Walton (father and son!) drawing attention to the Old Testament “cognitive environment”.   I think it is a meaningful phrase reminding us that mental (cognitive) processes are the basis of cultural differences across thousands of years — between how people think and live in the Western world in the 21st Century, and how people made a life for themselves thousands of years earlier in Old Testament times. 

If we neglect the fact that we think and interpret life in our 21st Century cognitive environment, so different from those who wrote biblical documents (such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy), we may seriously misunderstand the intention of the authors.  We may read the English words but understand a rather different meaning from what the author had in mind.  In Pat Croskerry’s terms, we might feel satisfied with our emotional, intuitive (System 1) interpretation instead of seeking a more analytical (System 2) understanding.  Self-evidently, it requires time and effort to appreciate what we are reading as we come to understand better the “cognitive environment” of the author(s).

The Israelite conquest of Canaan is described in Deuteronomy Chapters 1-11 and Joshua Chapters 6-12.  The Israelites were developing as a significant nation following their release from slavery in Egypt).  The Drs Walton highlight Moses’ instruction in Deuteronomy Chapter 7 reporting the conquest of Canaan.  They comment:

“When we read phrases like “destroy them totally … and show them no mercy” (Deut 7:2), the meanings of those (English) words combine with the logic of our cognitive environment to produce a meaning of “do a thing that should never be done.” Consequently, when we translate the conquest event today, we are inclined to draw parallels to other things that our culture defines as things that should never be done: the Holocaust, jihad, colonial imperialism, the Crusades, and so on. But in the logic of the cognitive environment of ancient Israel, God was not commanding Joshua to do a thing that should never be done. Those parallels are therefore an example of bad cultural translation. Joshua is conducting a war in a generally similar manner to the way wars were conducted in the ancient world … Whether or not we prefer to conduct wars that way is irrelevant; what matters is not what modern Westerners think about the methods, but what ancient Near Easterners would have thought.

The ancient world did not perceive of war as an irreconcilable evil in the way that some modern people do …”

Rather, the participants appear to embrace the cause, without any indication of what 21st Century psychology might refer to as “moral injury”, described as follows by the US National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): 

Moral injury

In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs and expectations… A moral injury can occur in response to acting or witnessing behaviors that go against an individual’s values and moral beliefs.  In order for moral injury to occur, the individual must feel like a transgression occurred and that they or someone else crossed a line with respect to their moral beliefs. Guilt, shame, disgust and anger are some of the hallmark reactions of moral injury … [11]

I find the analysis of John Walton and son illuminating because they recognize the problem that Deuteronomy presents for modern readers, but they don’t seek to hide behind any overly-sophisticated philosophical or theological explanation of what we may find to be a rather unpalatable narrative, unworthy of the God we expect to find in the bible.  

Rather, they lead us to reflect on our different cognitive environment:  We read of community life involving law-making (and punishment for law-breaking – including the death penalty), and war and conflict between communities – including disagreements between Jahweh and the Israelite leaders and citizens.   There seems to be a “matter of fact” acceptance of the way things are done.  Just as we might expect that fishes are unaware of water, the Israelite citizens and their enemies seem completely unaware of the encompassing cognitive environment. They deal with, but do not react with surprise or outrage to any aspect of that cognitive environment.  Thousands of years later, we read and attempt to decode their “business as usual” narratives — which in our cultural environment offend us as atrocities. 

God did not delay his self-revelation until the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had been adopted in AD 1948.   The God we read about in the Old Testament has chosen to make himself known amidst the turbulent stream of history in which human beings were living – in whatever circumstances they happened to be living – and without further delaying the revelation so that it might make a “more marketable” story. 

In the meantime, we have a problem:  How do we attempt to read the Pentateuch or Joshua as the writers expected it to be understood — for better or for worse?  If the participants in the ancient real-life drama were reported as taking exception, or being traumatized, offended, surprised, shocked, or if they otherwise commented on the activity of Jahweh or the human actors (such as Moses or Joshua), then we should accept that such exception (shock, surprise etc) was considered noteworthy, and was part of what the writers wished their readers to notice.  But, since the writer(s) don’t signpost any such exceptions or interpose other value-judgments, I believe that to do so would be to read something into the narrative that was far from the intention of the writer(s).

If we seek to take account of the historical and cultural context of the events which are recorded for us, we will be less likely to inject our value judgments from the 21st Century into their story in their century.

Not every scholar who has spent years of their waking lives fathoming the intention of the writer(s) of the Pentateuch and Joshua is as troubled by gruesome narratives about the invasion of Canaan. Some Old Testament researchers don’t consider that a literal or historical interpretation of the conquest texts was what the writer(s) intended.[12]   They may interpret the “conquest” passages in the Old Testament as unreal, perhaps intended as propaganda or a rationalization of how things should have happened — possibly written much later than any conquest or the life of Joshua.[13]  In which case there would be no basis on which we might assess God’s mental health, morality or ethics using what might be interpreted as a docudrama with an interesting storyline. 

However, I don’t wish to use this line of thought as an “escape hatch” so that we might sidestep the central issue of this chapter – namely, whether the supernatural God we meet in the Old Testament is a “vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser”, or is suffering what a psychiatrist might diagnose as a personality disorder. 

If we assume that the intention of the Old Testament writers was purely factual, historical, “for the record” then we have no reason to go beyond an intuitive (System 1) appreciation of the text and we will feel justified in judging and rejecting the God of the Old Testament because he lacks ethical standards that satisfy readers in the 21st Century AD.

But if we stand back and speculate as to what the authors and editors of the first half dozen books of the Old Testament might be driving at – and moved to report – then we activate analytical (System 2) mental processes, while we consider a possible “back story”.

If I seek to understand the Bible as a revelation of God’s intentions and plans for human welfare (rather than a list of rules and consequences), then I’m not so troubled that God seems to have a history of being pathologically, self-indulgently bossy.   I suggest that the events reported in the Bible were not recorded so that we might know what God did and said but …

… So that human beings might appreciate how God’s business plan[14]was unveiled in the middle of the prevailing, chaotic human society and …

… so that human beings (like us!!) might participate in fulfilling that plan.

I admit to having been troubled by biblical accounts of a nation seemingly shaped by fear of death at the hand of God – impacting not only the Israelite nation but neighbouring peoples with whom they shared (and fought over) the Middle Eastern terrain.

It’s hard to avoid asking questions: why, how come, what is God on about?  What do we make of the words and actions that might contribute to a diagnosis of personality disorder in human beings?

How we answer these questions will depend on what we consider the purpose of the Old Testament writings might be.   If we assume that they convey a historical storyline, informing future generations about what happened, what a self-revealing God communicated to human beings, how they reacted to that communication, and how they treated one another, then it’s easy to find ourselves wondering about God’s ego.

  • He seems to like praise (as children do – and even adults do, more than occasionally)
  • He seems to like being the boss of the game (again as children often do)
  • He seems to have high expectations which history has shown repeatedly are beyond what people are consistently capable of achieving.
  • He seems to threaten serious consequences (including death) for failure to comply.

It is not surprising that people have used terms such as: unjust, unforgiving, control freak, fraud, personality disorder …

  • Some readers hold God morally responsible for the social turbulence associated with capital punishment, deadly warfare, conquest and plunder that is described in the pages of books like Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Joshua.
  • Other readers realize that God didn’t invent warfare and capital punishment.  They observe God patiently persisting with his plan despite the chaotic, freedom-pursuing dysfunction of human society.  They consider that it is unrealistic to expect that God might put his plan in the deep freeze for thousands of years until human beings had promulgated, digested and implemented the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in which Article 5 reads: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.)

Differences in how we understand biblical accounts of “how they did things in those days” will affect our understanding of what a self-revealing God might seek to reveal in these chapters of the Old Testament that we find so distressing.

Richard Dawkins discusses examples of religious freedom using Christian and non-Christian examples.   But neither he nor I would want to use any notion of “religious freedom” to justify abuse of children or adults in the 21st Century just because “they did it in the Bible”.  For example, I find the slaughtering of Amalekites in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 15.3) to be emotionally repulsive.  I recognize that reflects my intuitive (System 1) reaction to the biblical account of an event in the Ancient Near East some 3000 years ago.   And the emotional revulsion persists even though I’ve tried to apply the perspective (analytical, System 2) that I should be slow to judge people for what may have been socially accepted practice i.e. how things were done in far-off days.  But no matter how I seek to rationalize it, I wouldn’t wish to use such analysis to justify such a practice in warfare today. 

But the question remains as to how the situation might have been understood by the existing participants, as events unfolded. 

When reading the Old Testament, a collection of documents from thousands of years past, we may become concerned with how history and culture impact on

  • what Old Testament writers recorded
  • what they wished their readers to understand and
  • how we read their works today.

In earlier sections, I have suggested that we might allow “the possibility of God” and take time for further reflection – rather than press a case for or against the existence of (and relevance) of God. 

What might modern readers intuit that a self-revealing God might have been intent on revealing through the writers of the Old Testament?  

If we use the writings as historical narrative – a record of what God and people said and did — then we will be readily annoyed and offended.  And it is an easy day at the office for us to disparage God using his own words and deeds while we ignore the uncertainties of doing so across a span of several thousands of years of history and culture. 

Although we might all read the same bible, we may be using it to seek to answer quite different questions.  When we find ourselves in situations where “we can’t see the woods (or forest) for the trees”, it is useful to take care about what we classify as foreground and what we treat as background.

Can we best appreciate and understand the Book of Joshua for its storyline, as a simple narrative, as history, as a chronicle of events?  Perhaps, yes, provided we are prepared to pretend that some 3000+ years ago, with the mindset of a modern 21st Century historian, the writer set out to record for future generations the details of what was said and done.   If we are confident with such journalistic assumptions, then it may be appropriate to make inferences about the personalities involved – including the God Jahweh.

However, that seems quite a stretch across time and cultures.  If we are to take what we read as serious non-fiction, we need to be prepared to undertake rather more cultural translation than we would with a child’s bedtime story.

While writing this section, I find myself wondering about the writer’s thoughts behind the written words.   I find myself not just asking “what does it say”, but “why does it say that”, and “are there themes that keep recurring, albeit in different words?”

And I have many times asked myself: “If the Old Testament books such as Leviticus and Joshua are the work of a self-revealing God, what is God on about in these pages, and what might these pages reveal about God?”   And I’m challenged to avoid being selective as to which of the pages I might include and which I might ignore.  (And I’m not comfortable with the suggestion that we can assume that it must all have been OK or God wouldn’t have approved it!)

My answer to such questions — I think fits with the whole of the Bible without having to exclude anything – is that God in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges – and all the rest of the 39 books of the Old Testament is that

  • the self-revealing God is communicating that “chesed=loyal love” is central to understanding his character, and
  • that this message is “broadcast” using human language available in the culture of the writers — images, metaphors and object lessons that might seem unrefined to us, but still serve to convey a message appropriate to their times — as generations of cave and pyramid artists have documented using ochre in years before the invention of palettes of water colours or oils.

It was such thoughts that led me to view “loyal love” as the piece of a cultural jigsaw puzzle, which holds together in the one awkward scenario these ideas: 

  1. a presumption that Jahweh would (and should) be seen to exercise the rights, privileges and responsibilities which people in the Ancient Near East accorded members of the pantheon of ancient gods.
  2. the exercise of authority of tribal leaders (who may be treated as royalty).
  3. other social conventions and practices of Old Testament times, which we find puzzling and may misunderstand.
  4. our modern 21st Century ethical principles and rule of law.

Giulio Perrotta contrasts the Jewish texts (the Old Testament) with the Christian Gospels.  He describes the “God of the New Testament” as “totally different in structure and behavior”.   While at first glance it might seem that the bible is describing two very different personalities, I suggest that the difference between God in the Old Testament and God in the New Testament is best attributed to the development in the cognitive environment from the Old Testament to the New Testament. 

It was “business as usual” in the prevailing cognitive environment when the writer(s) of the Old Testament wrote of the “loyal love/faithfulness” of the Lord God who, for the sake of the embryonic Israelite nation’ announced the Community Law summarized in the Ten Commandments.

But this expression of “loyal love/faithfulness” occurred at a time in history when “business as usual” meant that capital punishment for law breakers was expected for the breach of any laws meant to be taken seriously. (I don’t consider it possible that Israelites would have been ignorant of the older laws of Hammurabi of Babylon, regulating the use of capital punishment.)

Nevertheless, Jahweh’s “loyal love” was also expressed in mercy and forgiveness.   By New Testament times, Rome was the dominant power.   Roman law became the benchmark for protecting citizens’ rights with written laws and formalized trial procedures – judges overseeing court proceedings, prosecutors and defence lawyers etc. [15] 

Society had changed – that’s clear when we compare the life and times of Old and New Testaments.   A dialect of Greek had become the lingua franca, with agape (undeserved “no strings attached love”, mercy and forgiveness) in place of Hebrew chesed (loyal love/faithfulness).   

There is no suggestion that God had changed, but things have moved on

— into a new cultural environment.  It’s as if the page was turned:

  • The Old Testament recorded of laws and consequences in a time when God was enlisting the involvement of human beings to develop and preserve the nascent nation Israel for the benefit of the whole world but then …
  • God turned the page urgently to the next page in his plan rescuing, reforming and preserving the not so new, and declining nation of Israel – still intended to benefit the whole world.  We know it as the New Testament.

When I read “God of the New Testament” I assume that this refers to God who has taken on flesh in the person known as “Jesus of Nazareth”.  Jesus (Yeshua, an English transliteration of his name in his native language) seemed to readily accept the God of the Old Testament described in its pages which he described as the “Law and the Prophets.”

In the well-known New Testament passage traditionally referred to as the “Sermon on the Mount”, it is recorded that Jesus said:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.[16]  (See Matthew 5.17)

Jesus, the central figure in the New Testament endorses the Old Testament (the Law and the Prophets), and by implication, the God (Jahweh) described there.  However, Dr Perrotta has used three of the Old Testament books: Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy to reject Jahweh, the God of the Old Testament after diagnosing him with “Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”  

To be fair, I need to mention that Dr Perrotta acknowledges the limitations of this intellectual exercise based on the biblical text rather than his usual practice interviewing an actual patient.

… the diagnosis will only play the purely theoretical function of

educating the reader in the critical analysis of the biblical text. It is,

therefore, an intellectual exercise; … with no clinical purpose or diagnostic

claim.[17]

In my opinion, there is also a technical problem with applying the diagnosis of Personality Disorder: 

The definition of Personality Disorder

DSM-V[18] (the current official diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association) defines a general personality disorder as an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture.

What might be considered deviant (= clinically significant) in one cultural context might not rate as exceptional in another.  Some psychological writers avoid using the category “personality disorder” because of the subjectivity involved in assessing behaviour against appropriate cultural norms.

Richard Dawkins and Giulio Perrotta are among the various writers who draw attention to behaviour that we intuitively react against — especially when we find it attributed to God.  In the 21st century that behaviour goes far beyond what we might consider to be acceptable behaviour no matter what the status of the person and no matter how severely they have been provoked.  Although we react negatively to what God is reported to have said and done, I’m not inclined to use the term “personality disorder” according to the DSM-V definition of personality disorder. 

Even if unacceptable for ordinary citizens in our age, the behaviour attributed to God is not inconsistent with the behaviour expected and tolerated of gods and kings in fiction or in the time and place in history of the Old Testament narratives.  I suggest (as noted earlier) that those who wrote Old Testament books and those who were its first readers don’t give any hint that they had difficulty accepting Jahweh’s interaction with humankind as “business as usual”.   It didn’t seem to raise ethical or moral dilemmas for them, as it often does for us in the 21st Century.  We need to take care that we don’t read an ethical dilemma that didn’t exist in the minds of the authors and editors who have recorded what they understood and accepted of the interaction of Jahweh with humankind.

Dr Perrotta finds that the God in the New Testament has a very different (and more acceptable) personality than Jahweh in the Old Testament.       

If we are open to encountering God, then if he should make himself known to us, we will meet only one God, whose self-revelation is relayed to us in both the Old Testament and the New Testament – the one God with a complex personality (a clear expectation of faithful love to himself and our fellow travellers,  as well as  longsuffering faithful love, mercy and justice towards us).  The bible records his interaction with humankind – correction, justice, unconditional love, desiring what is best for the whole human race.

Many 21st Century readers of the Old Testament have found that their first encounter with some troublesome passages of the Old Testament stress-tested their trust in God, or at least left them confused – or led them to process the text will as fantasy.    How is it that the violent passages in the Old Testament are accepted in the Law and the Prophets, embraced by Jesus who urged his friends to “love one another as I have loved you?” [John 13:34].

The Old Testament God that Dr Perrotta has diagnosed and rejected is the God whom Jesus calls “Father”.  We humans mould our mental images (concepts, ideas etc) by the words we use to describe them.  As a result, it so easily happens that we construct a very different image of Jahweh from that which was central to Jesus’ understanding and teaching. 

So far, I have tried to explain why I don’t agree with the claim that God in the Bible (whether we refer to him as Jahweh or the Lord) has a personality disorder, displaying narcissistic traits and lack of emotional self-control.

In the next section:  Reflection on what a self-revealing God might intend to reveal about himself in the rather violent Old Testament passages that we would prefer to ignore or reject. 

[1] Richard Dawkins The God Delusion. 2006. Transworld Kindle Edition p. 51.

[2] Giulio Perrotta.  The Psychopathological Profile of the Biblical God Called Yhwh: A Psychological Investigation Into the Behaviour of The Judaic-Christian God Described in the Biblical Old Testament.  Journal of Neuroscience and Neurological Surgery. September 2019.

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (1 Ch 22:8–9). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Heb 11:6b). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

[5] It is recorded that the Amalekites who inhabited territory in the southern region of Canaan often came into conflict with the Israelites from the beginning of their attempts to occupy the land until the land was conquered by the Babylonians after 600 BCE.

[6] The transcript: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-21/zoe-zeniodi 

 

[8] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Eph 5:1–2). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

[9] Lexham Bible Dictionary (2016) LexhamPress.com

[10] Walton, J. H., & Walton, J. H. (2017). The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest: Covenant, Retribution, and the Fate of the Canaanites (pp. 8–9). IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press.

[11] S.B. Norman and S. Maguen. Moral Injury – PTSD: National Center for PTSD (va.gov)

[12] Lexham Bible Dictionary; Conquest Narrative in the Bible.

[13] Kennedy, T. M. (2016). Canaan, Conquest of. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.

[14] Investopedia   A business plan is a document that outlines a company’s goals and the strategies to achieve them.  https://www.investopedia.com › terms › business-plan.asp

[15] (Crime and Punishment – Life in the Roman Empire (carolashby.com). 

[16] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Mt 5:17). (1984). Zondervan.

[17]Perrotta G. (2019) The Psychopathological Profile of the Biblical God Called Yhwh (Yahweh): A Psychological Investigation Into the Behaviour of The Judaic-Christian God Described in The Biblical Old Testament. J. Neuroscience and Neurological Surgery. 4(5);

[18] The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, American Psychiatric Association.

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