The terrible God of the Old Testament

[_huckelberry]

I am going to retry a subject I have a particular interest in and have discussed with some here before.

I believe that the Old Testament contains the best, most humane and hopefilled concept of God that exists in human culture.

I realize many people do not see this and infact see a completely different image in the Old Testament. If a person does not see the positive and hopefilled picture of God in the Old Testament then I think atheism is the only sensible conclusion. There would not be a developled picture of God worth belief.

Now the Old Testament is a large mass of material and it is varigated in views. If one selects some material it is easy to see a negative view. There are laws which are unfair to women and a few others. There is strictness beyond reason on somethings and legal ambiguities on important things. The laws of holy warfare are grotesque. The story of the conquest of Canaan is problematic and has lead to morally wrong descisions by faithful people.

I will be upfront my view sees these as not making a clear description of God. The God I read of in the Old Testament is the God who frees slaves because all humans should be free. This God provides basic laws of right behavior to encourage people to be what their best potential is. This God brought prophetic voices out of the people to correct rulers and clarify what the law wants from people. It wants both personal responsibility and social justice. The God of the Old Testament is faithful to these intentions even though people are not. In the face of peoples preference for covert criminality God promises the developement of a new heart being formed in humans.

From some angles it could appear that Jesus was teaching a new picture of God. I think my statement shows I think Jesus was preaching the God of the Old Testament. He did make some clarification. One I think is important to notice. Jesus views pieces of Old Testament law as constructions of human beings. The clearest example is his comments on divorce. In some ways Moses rulings would be human. Some marriages are disasters. However Moses ruling places the power in the hands of the man. My point is not that I have a perfect legal prescription for marriage. I do not. Instead I believe a significant dimension of obnoxious legal rulings are made by humans and are a result of cultural norms of the time. This observation is not wishy washy. It is a direct statement that we are responsible to rethink legal particulars to try to assist living for best principals.

I cannot claim to know exactly how inspiration works with each example. The rules of holy war are questionable. I suspect they reflect very old sacrificial concepts. However it is possible they are late developement reflecting what loosers in a war with Babylon wished to be the case.There was some efforts to put the rules into effect in the Maccabean period. It doesn't get much attention in preaching because there is no historcal reason to see God approved that attempt. The historical result was the overthrow of Maccabean autonomy by Rome. In the time of Jesus the question of what to do about Rome was a key internal argument in Judea. Jesus did not approve the war hopes of those who wanted to chase Rome out of the country. Those hopes would have been importantly based upon the holy war concept. We all know that history went according to Jesus view and the alternative view was destroyed by Rome.

I find the Canaan conquest the most difficult subject to deal with. Part of the difficulty I find in thinking about it is that I strongly suspect the story is a difficult mix of real history and allagorical recreation of history. Torah is a story of moral journey from moral corruption to a hope of moral integrity and a promised life. The Canaanites function in the story as embodymnets of everything to be left behind. (I have already pointed out how taking that literally like the partisans of the Roman Jewish war did was a failure and rejected by Jesus) I think there is solid reason for reading the story allagorically in its stark extreme form. The reality that the Bible also records that the origal inhabitants were not destroyed. In fact they become part of Isreal over a long process of mutual jostling.

I was thinking that the story of the flood is a simplified version of this problem. First the stories are probably related. Each has the theme of Gods purpose leading into the future with a choice and the elimintation of the old bad qualities of the human race. I notice that both stories employ the device of portraying the people destroyed as the very zenith of human evil. They are pictured has reaching past a point of no return. People now have doubts that Canaan literally ever was that just as people doubt there was a time of Noah when everybody was awful. I have seen discussion on the canaanites go around and around about whether they actually were that bad. I see absolutely no actual knowledge one way or the other on the question. If you read the story in the Bible as literal it would make sense to read the premise,depravity, as literal as well. I do not see sense in believing a literal flood and not believing the literal premise of the flood that is all the destroyed people really needed destroying. It is a garbled mess to believe God is described by destroying everybody and not accepting the part of the story that says they really genuinely needed destroying. Now I read neither story as completely literal.(one the flood, I read as completely parabalic,the other war as having been reshaped history made to fit a parable) Read as stories with a meaning the premise of maximum evil should be accepted as a fictional part of the story. Its meaning lies in the message evil passes away while good endures.

That last comment about evil passing away is one of the most fundamental Old Testament hopes. It is expressed literally numerous times. I think it appriate to hear it expressed through parable or allagory.

[_JAK]

Some sources other than yourself might enlighten you on your topic.

I’ll list a few.

Old Testament

Problem with Christianity

Bible Atrocities

Forgery of the Old Testament

JAK

[_huckelberry]

jak, I have read a couple of things before. Do you have somethng you can say yourself?

[Guest]

I believe that the Old Testament contains the best, most humane and hopefilled concept of God that exists in human culture.

Okay. I'm going to be the one to say it. If that's the most humane concept of God, then are we in a lot of trouble. I can't wait to see how you defend the indefensable.

I will be upfront my view sees these as not making a clear description of God. The God I read of in the Old Testament is the God who frees slaves because all humans should be free.

Is that why God gave Moses very detailed instructions on how to enslave his fellow human beings? Because all humans should be free? Leviticus says differently:

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

God repeatedly commanded Moses and Joshua to go out and kill men, women, children and infants -- and to spare only young, virgin girls. These girls were to become the sex slaves ("wives") of Joshua and his men. They had no choice in the matter. Battle-hardened soldiers burned their villages to the ground, killed their parents and siblings and relatives right in front of them, and then dragged them back to their camp, where they were raped. Repeatedly. This was God's plan. Huckleberry, I am not sure why you would make the comment that God does not like slavery. That is like staring straight at the blue sky and saying the sky is not blue. I can only believe you would make this claim because you yourself do not like slavery, and so do not want to believe that God would condone it, when in fact, he gave very explicit directions time and again on how the Israelites should enslave their fellow human beings, and how they could best sell their own daughters into slavery:

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment." (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

The following passage describes how the Hebrew slaves are to be treated:

"If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever." (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT)

God also says you can beat both male and female slaves with a rod so hard that as long as they don't die right away you are cleared of any wrong doing:

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

These are typical of God's instructions about the villages he wanted annihilated. There are many examples but I will provide just this one to save space.(Deuteronomy 20:10-14) I can find more examples upon request:

"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you."

Really, Huckleberry, God was completely and utterly accepting of slavery. To say otherwise it to deny the truth and veracity of vast tracts of the Old and New Testament. Cherry pick all you want; you haven't a leg to stand on.

This God provides basic laws of right behavior to encourage people to be what their best potential is.

He thought the best potential of quite a lot of them was their brutal and violent death at the hands of his "chosen people". Just saying.

From some angles it could appear that Jesus was teaching a new picture of God. I think my statement shows I think Jesus was preaching the God of the Old Testament.

I agree with you; it was Paul who changed things.

I find the Canaan conquest the most difficult subject to deal with.

It is particularly grim, but it's only a showcase of God's behavior before and after, and what is also yet to come, if Revelation is anything more than John's really bad opium freak out.

Basically, Huckleberry, I see this post of yours as saying, in a nutshell, "There are parts of God's word that are deeply disturbing; therefore, I choose to look at them as allegory. I'll take as literal only the things that I'm not terribly bothered by, and that don't disturb my personal view of God as a kindly and compassionate celestialified being, rather than the genocidal lunatic portrayed by most of his prophets at his direct behest." The modern believer is put into a very difficult position in trying to reconcile inhuman Bronze Age morality with current views of equality and compassion, and so is forced to do what you have done here, or else to become an entirely literal fundamentalist.

[_harmony]

jak, I have read a couple of things before. Do you have somethng you can say yourself?

JAK rarely bothers to say something himself.

[_huckelberry]

Loquatious lurker has repeated the problems I spoke about in my opening post More detail was added but I was making the assumtion that the reader was familiar with these aspects of the Old Testament. (Lurker you might consider the material between Deutoronomic holy war quotes and Revelations. It is a large chunk of material which might influence your measurement of proportions)

I thought the full meaning of my view that real portions of the details of law are made by men and are products of cultural was almost seen but then ignored. Instead of addressing my view lurker has insisted that God spelled out the slavery rules. I think the idea that God did spell out these details is such an repeated assumption that it is hard to think otherwise. It might be worth the effort.

I could easily imagine somebody saying my construction shows I am not a true blue Christian because I see too large a human contribution in specifics of the law. If someone thinks so to bad. I think my view understands the Bible better than a rigid literalism. I think Loquatios lurker has noticed something that I think I will say explicitly. Though what I have said might seem unorthodox I think it is what in fact 98 percent of believers in fact do with the Old Testament even though they do not admit it publically. I suspect quite a few are unable to admit it to themselves.

But yes I do take the concept of Gods moral character as having authority over certain portions of the Old Testament which do not measure up. There is something a bit hypocritical about regulating slavery after being so thankful God freed you from slavery. The question might be complicated by the fact that economics all over the Mediteranian at that time had slavery as a basic organizing principal. The social alternatives were a bit underdeveloped.

Loquatious lurker, you made repeated point about the proportion of material of a negative kind. You think I must cherry pick to find something nice. I see the proportion in complete reverse. I agreed with you about the material you have found I just think you have to know were to find these nasty jewels. I think they are the minority attitude.

[_huckelberry]

dead end discussion?

I find a several questions pilling up and not all easy. To my mind the most interesting ones are about war. Why does it happen? Is there any escape?. Does religion help or hinder a quest to leave war behind? Does God love war? After all the Greek Roman Gods did. The scandinavian Gods did, we get to particpate in eternity in some views. But war and peace might not get resolved even with a tome.

I gather that people loose some interest in Biblical law if it not considered direct command from God showing in detail his miraculous legislative clarity. If I propose that God in inspiration calls people to try and fullfill the good that we understand and then demands we use our own understanding to give the law form I wonder if people just think God is abrogating responsibility as if he wasn't there. I am not persuaded by that possiblity for a couple of reasons. One I much prefer that God does things in this manner instead of laying knowledge before us . It not only fits the world we actually have to live in it fits the needs I feel in myself to become a responsible free agent. It fits my desire to find life an adventure with real exploration discovery and accomplishment. I do not want to go through life on a convayor belt with all parts supplied.

But Of course I find my self with a dilimma considering Beasties repeated quiry, is not the world with God exactly like the world without God? I can observe that is a significant positive argument for atheism. Even so there are shortcomings in the proposal. The first should be rather obvious. We have only one world, no second control example withwhich to make a true comparison. Every form of comparison is happening throught imaginary constructions of what a world with or without God might be like. Strictly speaking my theist view would be there would be no universe without God. There would be no life without God there would be not humans developed to the point of being able to love and invent. Each of these is a step closer to the quality that is Gods presence in the world. It think it is important that these steps, the order of material structure, living processes and mental or spiritual process are naturally related. I see in the progression a bringing closer to view the real order of the universe,mind and friendship. However my observation does not disprove the possiblity that the real order is protons and electrons or the physical properties making those possible. In that view invention is accidental eddy in an unusual corner.

That is not a proof but is a significant suggestion to my mind. Second consideration, the world we have has people who experience in various ways what they understand to be Gods presence. I think it is clear that this could be mistaken, yet it is persistent enough that experiencing it myself I do not find it easy to dismiss. I am going to risk an aside critical of Mormon cultere on this question. I am not comfortable with being told by somebody that if I feel A then my experience means B. Such as if I read the Book of Mormon and have certain feelings it is a demonstration that it is a real historical book. I view this as a disturbingly manipulative proposal. Reading a book leads the reader into the emotional world of the book. Emotions connected to reading are not signs of absolute value. I can add I have not way of knowing what others experience leading them to trust the book. I think however people may recognize moral or spiritual values in it and sense a harmony there with the more basic sense we have which gets called God.

If God comes to us trough a basic sense calling us to moral awareness, I believe that is why people believe, then it is natural for there to be misunderstandings and variety in the way people understand.

But with all this talk it is likely Beaastie is still looking for a miracle to demonstrate Gods action. Well there is the freeing of the Isrealites from Egypt, their protection in a hostile enviroment. There is the life of Jesus and his resurrection. Oh you do not believe those miracles or may not have happened at all. Naturally, you cannot prove a miracle. See Hume.

Perhaps you want weird unexplained good events so often that doubt of the miraculous is bludgened to an end. Sounds like a mess and you would be saying its all natural but confused anyway. Perhaps you want God to be sitting there on a high chair and everytime he says a ,then a happens. I suppose but God wants friends and to be that we must grow to a point where we share the qualities of mind that can know God instead of just being repulsed by God. Apparent project being to live independently where we must share responsiblity with and for each other.

But still I can imagine a reply, perhaps all God is is that hearing of mutual responsiblity that humans naturally have. Perhaps we project it back through the natural order that nurtures us. After all mutual responsibility involves recognizing the nurture we receive. Perhaps all miracles are happy moments which remind us. I am afraid I know no resolution to this alternative. I am not particularly persuaded by the dilemma world with or without God. It can be persuasive. However we share a concern for something which is God whether that is a theistic belief or not.

Either side of that alternative can learn from the experience of the people of the Old Testament. It records the experience of people better or worse with this basic concern.

[_barrelomonkeys]

I find it perfectly reasonable to believe that God is the God of the Old Testament. I see nothing that would suggest otherwise in the world today.


:)

[_Sam Harris]

Huckelberry,

I want to reply to your thread more in depth, I see a different picture than the wrathful god of the Old Testament as well. But I'm in the middle of something. I'll read, keep it coming. Thought for you. I'm reading Jeremiah right now, and where all the anti-theists see blood and hatred, I see a kind of "wounded lover" coming from the "voice" of God.

People fail to realize that God did not pen the Bible. The Bible was written by men for men, and men's mark is definitely on it. It takes a lot of discernment to find out where those marks are. But again, I have my theories on the whole Old Testament story, and I'll read more in depth over the weekend. Thanks for being one of the few on here who would actually talk about this, the talk du jour around here lately is how all believers in what you can't see are idiots, while God...if there is a God is a hateful SOB. *turns sarcasm off*

*sigh*

Anyways...until later. Nice thread.

[_Sam Harris]

I am going to retry a subject I have a particular interest in and have discussed with some here before.

Hey Huckleberry. Wanted to come back and chat a bit. As you can see, this is not a discussion for “those with intellect”, which is why most of the replies you got on your thread were links to “the Bible is awful/evil/full of blood, etc.” instead of an actual discussion which you actually deserved just as much as anyone else here. It strikes me as amusing that all these intelligent people who have so much knowledge to spread around can’t give much more than an “it’s false, chuck it” when it comes to the idea of religion and spirituality. I’m getting kind of tired of these theories that if you believe in the supernatural, that there is something inherently wrong with you. And no matter how many times it’s pointed out that in many cases religion is not the culprit for the world’s evil, those who have been harmed by it will just change the dictionary (if they can), close their eyes, shut their ears….which is exactly what they claim the rabid religionists are doing. Why they can’t see this is hypocritical, I don’t know. But anyways…

I believe that the Old Testament contains the best, most humane and hopefilled concept of God that exists in human culture.

I’m gonna have to disagree with you on some tenets with regards to this. I think that the Bible was again, written by men for men. It is a book written by many different authors trying to explain a mixture of history and what those people perceived to be supernatural experiences from a certain cultural point of view. Have you ever heard the quote, “history is the lies of the victors”?

I do not look at the Bible literally, I stopped doing that around the time I stopped going to church with my grandmothers. But I do see some things worth keeping in spirituality. And I don’t think that our “rational elite” are making the changes that they think they are within the religious world. Example: postmodernism and Christianity. Back in the spring a class I was in had a big discussion about that, and Christianity is pretty divided on how to approach this subject. It’s agreed among many that a great deal of the mentalities, rituals, beliefs, concepts, etc. that folks have held onto in the church are outdated, but few see the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater as some anti-theists do. Many of us are trying to figure out how to approach both our faith and the world we live in from a postmodern point of view without compromising either aspect. I personally think it’s quite possible.

I realize that the biggest factor contributing to my being Christian is the culture I was born into. I have no shame in saying that, it’s the truth. Had I been born in another culture, I probably would have adopted that culture’s beliefs and habits. I see my path as simply that, a path.

I realize many people do not see this and infact see a completely different image in the Old Testament. If a person does not see the positive and hopefilled picture of God in the Old Testament then I think atheism is the only sensible conclusion. There would not be a developled picture of God worth belief.

Again, I disagree. I don’t think that the only options are Christianity and atheism. The world is a vast palette of people, beliefs, cultures, you get the picture. I am a fourth generation African-American Jew by birth. There are many different faiths in my family. I chose to convert from the faith I grew up in (definitely unorthodox *smile*), but at no time have I ever felt that spirituality was that black and white. Perhaps it’s because of the dichotomy I grew up with, two grandmothers, one Christian, one Jewish, both vying for my spiritual attention. Neither got it, really. I don’t do well with the fire and brimstone crap.

When the anti-theists let go of their rhetoric, actual discussion can begin to take place. They claim we don’t want to talk…What many of them fail to realize, in their need to hear a “nuh-uh” to their statements coming from “faithers” like us, is that some of us actually agree with some of the things they’re saying. Sorry, but parts the Bible are indeed very sexist and violent. But who wrote it? Did God?

I think that the biggest problem mankind has is in blaming God for every damn thing. And I hate it when I see an atheist or an anti-theist joke about that. So, we’re saying that man is essentially an automaton, a chess pawn on some sort of holy board, and that every time a trigger gets pulled or a bomb goes off, it’s God’s fault? “Well, yeah….why didn’t God stop it, if there is a God?” Um, you’re not supposed to believe in God (I’m speaking to the figurative anti-theist fool who makes statements like these), and if you’re so rational, don’t you know that you control your own actions? Isn’t that what rationalism is all about? But let’s just go back to blaming our parents, the concept of God, anything “bigger” than us that we can to escape ultimate responsibility for our actions. I love Western culture. My parents screwed me over big-time, but if in a year I don’t meet my goals, that’s not their fault, it’s mine.

It is difficult to see a positive and hope-filled picture in the Old Testament if you read it straight. I’ve told many people, even people I go to church with, do not read the Bible, study it. Study the culture, study the semantics of the language, study the back story of what you are reading, or you will come away confused or worse. The object isn’t to get the reader to come away thinking that the text is literal, but at least let them come away with an understanding of who wrote the Old Testament (in theory in some areas) and how it got to be in the Bible in the first place.

Some of these people who post random scriptures, or lovely pictures of a bloody Christ with some “rational” clever quip on it…I doubt they’ve done that. I’m only ankle-deep, and if I can see certain things, why can’t they? Because they don’t want to, and it’s much more fun to disagree and throw feces.

Now the Old Testament is a large mass of material and it is varigated in views. If one selects some material it is easy to see a negative view. There are laws which are unfair to women and a few others. There is strictness beyond reason on somethings and legal ambiguities on important things. The laws of holy warfare are grotesque. The story of the conquest of Canaan is problematic and has lead to morally wrong descisions by faithful people.

I think you kind of skimp over a lot of what bothers folks about the Old Testament. Why not go into why it is you think that there were laws which were unfair to women? I’d love to find some good reading on the Levitical and Deutoronomistic laws, and just what influenced them. I believe that people who believe in God have a tendency to “fail to filter” some of the things they take in on a day-to-day basis, and often will perceive something to be from God that is not. Example: sexism, homophobia. When dealing with Judeo-Christian culture and doctrine, I keep my BS meter fine tuned. In the new member class at the church I’ve joined, the teacher keeps going back to the scripture in Leviticus about men not lying with men. Yet he’s selling Mary Kay, and trying on makeup, not that I object, but it’s hypocritical of him to keep turning to that scripture on Sunday and trying on lipstick on Saturday. Who the hell is he to judge another person when he’s near in drag? Anyways…

Let me get into my theory on what the Old Testament is. The purpose of it, in a sense. You have a people who, in the beginning, had no idea who they were in relation to God. Apparently, these folks think they’re special. But that’s not uncommon; there are other mythologies within which the adherents feel themselves to be special, or chosen; to have a unique connection to God.

I believe that from the ancient Judeo-Christian POV, the Hebrews were supposed to be God’s ambassadors. You start with Abraham, whom God brings aside and makes this amazing promise to. From there the story really truly begins, and even branches off to include Islam (Gen 21:13; 25: 12-18…there’s also a wacky scripture about Ishmael, the father of the Arab nation “warring with his brethren”, but I can’t find that right now). I didn’t know this until a few years ago (they never tell you stuff like this in church, Islam is the “enemy” to some), and was amazed to read the creation story in the Koran. But moving on, my point is that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are siblings, all think they’re special, and all at different points in time have caused and are causing problems amongst themselves which spread out to affect other people. That happens when you think you’re so special that God sanctions everything you do.

You move onto the enslavement of the Hebrews, and supposedly this was foretold. You move through the story of Moses, into the Exodus and the Wandering. During this time, under the plagues and the rules, there is a story of one person learning who he is and what his destiny is supposed to be, as well as an entire people doing the same. If you take the Bible literally, you could conjecture that the purpose of the stringent (and oftentimes ridiculous) Old Testament laws were to test the Hebrew nation to see if they would obey. Well, obviously they didn’t. But why would they? This is a people who had no reason, other than the word of one man, accompanied by occasional miracles, strange deaths, and flashes of lightning, to change their ways. They grew up with household gods, idolatry as seen by Yahweh.

If one is a Bible literalist, one could conjecture that the point of the whole Old Testament narrative was to take the Hebrew nation and set them apart, make them a “peculiar people” (to use some favorite Mormon language). But it wasn’t to stop there. So you’re wearing a polka-dotted shirt with some flowered pants in a spiritual sense. You’re also supposed to have your act together. From the Judeo-Christian POV, the Hebrews were supposed to represent God to the world, bring all people to God through them. But they failed miserably in this.

One of the reasons why I think this happened (if you are looking at this from a literal POV) is because of the “mixing up of messages”. I personally do not think that the command to kill every man, woman, and child in Canaan came from God. I sometimes think that we human beings tend to look at another’s misfortunes when they are attached to our lives and think in a self-righteous way that this is “God’s wrath”, if we believe in God. This is sick and destructive. I corrected my teacher last Sunday on that mess; he was going on about people suffering because they were doing something wrong in God’s eyes. I brought to his attention that sometimes people suffer because others around them make them suffer; sometimes we don’t know why there is suffering…that God is not always “in the picture”. Glad he finally shut up about it. One wise pastor put it this way: in life there are three types of storms, storms of direction, storms of correction, and storms of perfection. For me, that was enough said.

In this story, the Hebrews never got the point. But then again, I don’t think that the directions given them were very good anyways. I personally look at the Bible from an allegorical standpoint, and don’t see the point of having to spend my life trying to follow 600-some odd different laws. That’s what my conscience is for, and each situation is different.

It took hundreds of years for the Hebrew nation to acclimate themselves to their new lifestyle, and is it no wonder? All during this time, you see in the different books, a storm brewing. Some focus on the wars and the idolatry. Others focus on the grandeur of God as they perceive it to be. Still, others write from what they feel is God’s point of view, which is where I got the idea of “wounded lover” from when reading Jeremiah. If you look at the Old Testament story broadly, you see this being who has created something that apparently it wants to love and interact with, but perhaps does not know how. Well, killing it isn’t the answer. Sometimes I wonder when reading the Old Testament. But that’s another theory. I think that men reversed the “made in Our image” scripture, and put a lot of human-like qualities onto God.

As the Old Testament story progresses, as you yourself have said, you see God sending prophets to warn the people. And these prophets write down what they feel God is saying. When reading Jeremiah, it was like I could hear an anguished man’s voice, personally I’d love to do a kind of play (my church has a drama ministry) with some of these scriptures, I think it’d be cool. Let me quote a few:

Jeremiah 2

God’s Case Against Israel

Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord:

I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after me in the wilderness in a land not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase. All that devour Him will offend; disaster will come upon them’ says the Lord.

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. This says the Lord:

‘What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and become idolaters? Neither did they say, where is the Lord, Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, through a land of drought and the shadow of death. Through a land that no one crossed and where no one dwelt? I brought you into a bountiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness. But when you entered, you defiled My land, and made my heritage an abomination.

When reading this, I do not see a wrathful God, I see a pleading parent, or even a lover, when you look at the Bride analogy. Of course, later in the book Jeremiah is prophesying about the destruction of Israel and Judah, but even then in the language, it’s as if God is not wanting to see this happen, even up to the end the language is saying, “there’s still a chance”.

Many miss this.

When the Hebrews were finally overtaken by the alien nations and taken out of Jerusalem, it was then that they began to listen. And when allowed to come back by Cyrus, it was then that the Hebrews took themselves seriously. Too much. In comes the Pharisees and the “Tradition of the Elders”, the verbal-nitpicking that was truly the roots of fundamentalism within this religious culture.

And in walks Christ. We know the rest of the story.

-cont'