The Canadian psychologist’s zealous exegesis of the Bible as a moral rulebook for life is long-winded and out of touch

There is an oddly entertaining, if largely unenlightening, debate available online between Richard Dawkins and Jordan Peterson, two big beasts of the performing sage circuit. They discuss the Bible, or more specifically, Peterson’s latest study of its contents in his new book, We Who Wrestle With God.

Dawkins, looking increasingly bemused, quietly but repeatedly asks Peterson if he really believes in the virgin birth or whether Cain and Abel actually existed, and Canada’s best-known controversial psychologist responds with a series of ever more excitable exegeses of the biblical text.