Person

Paul Copan

American evangelical apologist and philosopher of religion (b. 1962), Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Best known for defending the Old Testament against the New Atheist polemics about divine violence, slavery, sexual ethics, and the conquest narratives, most prominently in Is God a Moral Monster? (Baker, 2011), the canonical evangelical engagement with Richard Dawkins's "the most unpleasant character in all fiction" caricature of the OT God.

Copan's codex relevance is concentrated in the Old Testament Difficult Texts cluster, his work provides the scholarly-popular apologetic deployment for the Mosaic-Law-in-ANE-context defense (see ANE Legal Codes, Comparative Context), the taphas / chazaq sexual-violence defense (see Hebrew Verbs for Sexual Contact), the descriptive-vs-prescriptive Judges hermeneutic (see Negative-Example Narratives in Judges), and the conquest-narrative defense (the herem engagement in God and the Killing of Children).

Secondary focus: the philosophy of religion / moral argument literature (Copan has substantial work in metaethics defending divine command theory and engaging atheist moral realism, see Moral Arguments, Atheist Moral Realism Objection).

Biographical sketch

Education: B.A. Columbia International University (1984); M.Div. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1987); M.A. Trinity (1987); Ph.D. Marquette University (2000, philosophy of religion under Stephen Long).
Academic appointment: Palm Beach Atlantic University since 2001; Pledger Family Chair.
Personal: Married to Jacqueline; six children.
Ministry engagement: Long association with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) as a frequent speaker / writer; numerous popular conferences + church engagements.

Major works

OT ethics defense (the principal-Copan corpus)

Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Baker, 2011), the canonical engagement with the New Atheist critique of OT ethics. Topics: slavery, conquest, sexual ethics, dietary laws, herem (the ban), polygamy, women's status, capital punishment, religious intolerance. Each chapter steel-mans the atheist objection and provides the comparative-ANE-context + ethical-trajectory + redemptive-arc response.
Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (with Matthew Flannagan, Baker, 2014), the conquest-narrative-specific defense. Engages divine command theory, hagiographic-hyperbole as an ANE military-rhetoric reading (the conquest narratives use the standard ANE "we killed everything that breathed" rhetorical convention that did not mean literal extermination), and the eschatological-moral framework. Most rigorous popular-evangelical defense of the herem texts.
Loving Wisdom: A Guide to Philosophy and Christian Faith (Eerdmans, 2007; 2nd ed. 2020), broader philosophy of religion engagement.
An Introduction to Biblical Ethics (with Kenneth Magnuson, B&H Academic, 2014).

Philosophy of religion / metaethics

True for You, but Not for Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith (Bethany House, 1998; rev. 2009), early-career popular apologetics; refutation of relativism, religious pluralism.
That's Just Your Interpretation: Responding to Skeptics Who Challenge Your Faith (Baker, 2001).
How Do You Know You're Not Wrong? Responding to Objections That Leave Christians Speechless (Baker, 2005).
The Rationality of Theism (co-edited with Paul K. Moser, Routledge, 2003), academic-scholarly collection on theistic arguments.
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion (co-edited with Chad Meister, Routledge, 2007).
Numerous articles on divine command theory, the moral argument, religious epistemology.

Apologetics ecosystem

Apologetics for a New Generation (ed., Harvest House, 2009).
Contending with Christianity's Critics (with William Lane Craig, B&H, 2009), Craig-Copan responses to skeptical philosophers (Sam Harris, Bart Ehrman, Richard Dawkins).

The ANE-comparative-context method

Copan's signature methodological move (developed across Is God a Moral Monster? and Did God Really Command Genocide?) is the comparative-ANE reading of Mosaic Law: rather than reading OT difficult texts against 21st-century liberal-democratic moral standards, read them against the actual historical alternatives (Code of Hammurabi, Middle Assyrian Laws, Hittite Laws, Egyptian legal tradition). When the comparison is honestly made, the Mosaic Law is substantially more humane than its contemporaries on multiple axes (slave protections, single-class justice, narrower capital-offense scope, almost no physical-mutilation penalties).

This method is foundational to the codex's ANE Legal Codes, Comparative Context hub. Combined with the Ethical Trajectory Hermeneutic (the principle that Mosaic Law is a stage in a redemptive arc, not the destination), the comparative-context move handles the bulk of the OT-difficult-text apologetic.

The codex's Hebrew Verbs for Sexual Contact hub (the taphas / chazaq defense for Deut 22:28-29 against the "rape only condemned when unmarried" objection) draws directly from Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? ch. 13 deployment.

Critiques and disputes

Copan's positions, especially in Did God Really Command Genocide?, have evangelical-internal critics:

The hagiographic-hyperbole reading of herem is rejected by some evangelical OT scholars (Eugene Merrill, Daniel Block in some moods) who hold a more literal reading of the conquest commands. The dispute is over interpretive method, not over the moral character of God.
Divine command theory, Copan's preferred metaethical position, has internal critics (Mark Murphy's modified-DCT; Robert M. Adams's variation) and atheist critics (Wes Morriston, the Euthyphro-dilemma revivers). Copan engages these in his philosophy-of-religion work.

Apologetic style

Copan's style is scholarly-accessible, heavier on academic citation and engagement with the scholarly literature than the popular-apologetic mainstream (Lee Strobel, Frank Turek), but more accessible than the purely-academic register (Plantinga, Swinburne). He is also notable for engaging the actual atheist arguments rather than caricatured versions, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens are treated as serious interlocutors whose arguments must be steel-manned before being answered.

Personally cordial in debate / dialogue; has engaged Bart Ehrman, Sam Harris (indirectly), and other prominent skeptics.