Nope
It makes humans poor assessors.
Richard
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I do believe that the God of the Hebrew Bible is the same one that was worshipped and served by the first Christians, no matter what we think about it.
I also believe that God is still the God who may judge and punish, although what Jesus did changed much. The soft ‘teddybear’ god who accepts anything we feel and do is not the God of the biblical scriptures. It is good to stress the merciful side of God as many of us know well how much we need forgiveness but that is not the whole truth.
I also think that we need to consider the original context when we interpret the scriptures. Hebrew Bible should not be interpreted as modern literature. At least part of the apparent conflict between the God in the Hebrew Bible and the ‘post-NT’ image of God is based on interpretations that do not consider sufficiently the context.
Jesus has been described with words that could also be said from the God of the Hebrew Bible (OT): a combination of truth and mercy. Mercy is an essential part of how the OT pictures God.
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So do I. I never said otherwise.
it is the impression and understanding that has changed.
That is a very shallow and uninformed view of a forgiving God.
You appear to want to cling to the human view of justice and retribution.
This makes further discussion difficult
Richard
Sometimes it is enough to conclude that we disagree about something.
The claim that my view of the forgiving God is very shallow and uninformed is only partly true.
True in the sense that I can never understand God or His acts completely.
Possibly not true in the sense that I use the biblical scriptures as a measure to judge my personal opinions. We all have our opinions that have been modified by our life experiences and logical thinking. These personal opinions form a diverse and often disagreeing mess. Using my own intuition or ‘educated guess’ as the measure that can be used to judge differing opinions is likely to be misleading. i do not know a better ‘measure’ than the biblical scriptures in cases where people disagree about matters of faith. If I knew a source that is more reliable, I would use it.
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It may have started off as a tribal one, and we could have some stories and views stemming from tribal people, but there seems to have been a trajectory moving towards a more universal Creator–especially in the prophets who often criticize or go well beyond earlier ideas. This is why I caution Christians from thinking that the only way or best way to interpret a Bible verse is in light of what its specific audience would have understood. That it actually unChristian in my view. I prefer looking for trajectories or running themes and prioritizing the New over the Old. Our Bible is a library of discreet publications but it is also a singular work with a canonical dimension. If we want to read it as historians, then we atomize passages in isolation from other Biblical works, try to identify sources within our sources and understand them and try to apply historical critical tools to interpret it. If we want to read it in faith as Christians, we start with the end, with Christ and interpret the final form of canonical scripture in its relation to other scripture and within its original context. To be sure, we still need historical-critical tools, but the canonical dimension goes beyond what they can reconstruct and limiting a proper understanding of scripture to them is incorrect.
I’d say these dark, warfare passages reflect an incomplete understanding of God. The accounts follow the ANE practice of hyperbole for sure but that doesn’t really resolve things for most people. Some would say they stem from a time that did not distinguish between God’s positive will and his permissive will. “This material limitation results in the biblical text describing God as the direct cause of a warfare that, in fact, he only allows as a result of human sin.” – John Bergma
Another interpretation is the Deuteronomic Concession Explanation which is a bit complex and has some moving parts, but I think has some things going for it.
“In support of this salvation-historical explanation, scholars emphasize that the Old Testament itself describes the herem laws of Deuteronomy and various other concessions—such as the permission to divorce—as “not good”.20
I [the LORD] gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live [= the Ten Commandments]. . . .
Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life [= certain laws of Deuteronomy]. (Ezek 20:11, 25)
Jesus likewise speaks in the New Testament of the permission to divorce in Deuteronomy as something that Israel was “allowed” to do because of the hardness of their hearts:
[The Pharisees] said to [Jesus]: “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Mt 19:7-8)”
. . .
“Notice that this explanation emphasizes the canonical and historical context of the various commands given by God. It stresses the point that not all laws in the Old Testament are created equal, and any evaluation of their moral or theological character must be carried out with the utmost attention to when, where, why, and how the law is given. In the case of the divine command to carry out the herem against the Canaanites, it is clear that although Moses commands the second generation of Israelites to enact total warfare against the Canaanites, “from the beginning it was not so.”
For me, all roads lead to Christ. I read the Old in light of the New and Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” “pray for those who persecute you,” and “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Yet, the warfare stuff probably captures some real truth about the sovereignty of God. God gives life and He can take it. To an atheist (e..g. @Roy) where death is the end, this might be extremely problematic. I would understand these passages from the perspective of the Cross and the Christian worldview where death has been defeated.
““The Cross reveals God the Son, who himself experienced an innocent death of the worst kind; God the Father, who willingly gave up an innocent son; and God the Spirit, who raised the innocent Son from the dead (Rom 8:11), thereby triumphing over death. Therefore, when God permits the death of the innocent, he does not ask of them anything God himself, in the person of the Son, has not experienced in his human nature. He himself understands their suffering and has demonstrated through the Cross that he can right the wrongs of this temporal life in the life to come. For this reason, Jesus teaches that physical death is not to be feared (Lk 12:4), because it is only temporal. God may take life because he first gave it as an unmerited gift, and he can restore it in the world to come. He is the Lord of life and death (Deut 32:39), and, as the entirety of Scripture attests, he is also a loving Father who will restore life to the innocent in the resurrection.” A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament John Bergma and Brant Pitre
And truth be told, an exegete possesses the literacy level of a rock if they read the entire Old Testament and think that God is not described as compassionate, merciful and forgiving throughout. Even when the text says God is jealous and avenging and punishes children to the 3rd and 4th generation, it also says he shows his steadfast love to a thousand generations. In its own culture and time, this sort of verse is telling us the love, mercy and compassion of God greatly outweigh his punitive or retributive side.
Same God, just a greater understanding revealed in Christ. Those warfare passages are very difficult.
Vinnie
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I agree that some commandments or guidelines in the OT did not reflect the ultimate will of God. Some commandments may have even been commandments of the leader (Moses, Joshua) but treated and written as a commandment of God. It also seems that there is quite much accommodation to what the audience could understand and swallow.
Maybe there is even something comparable to what a person here told as an advice on how to approach a student who makes all the possible errors: pick one thing to focus on. Once that gets sorted, move on to something else.
Also I tend to interpret the Hebrew Bible in the light of Jesus & NT. That includes a caveat: we may easily interpret the past in an anachronistic way - we see such ‘teachings’ in the text that the original text did not teach. One example may be in the creation story of Genesis, when God speaks ‘let us …’. Some Christians see this as the persons of Trinity speaking to each others. I think that interpretation is not supported by the text or the context.
Considering what the whole set of scriptures (library or canon) teaches is part of considering the context. Even in that there is the caveat that we insert to a writing and interpretation something that is not there - eisegesis, not exegesis.
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Perhaps there is a difference between trying to understand and agree with early writers and taking Scripture as a whole and seeing how the view changes as more of God is revealed.
This is the problem with trying to make the script either inerrant, or specific teaching from God. The needs of the Israelites in the wilderness are not the same as the needs of modern humans. Such principles as “buddy planting” go against what Scripture would seem to suggest, as do modern woven fabrics that use different types of thread. It is a bit like hyperbole, whereby you make a blanket rule because the exceptions would be beyond understanding. Now they are not.
Richard
If you want to see the changes you have to understand what early writers were trying to say. Just because you put the work in to understand the text as received doesn’t mean you automatically agree with it. I don’t agree with those that take a later understanding and try to force fit it to the older text (sort of SOP for apologetics).
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Did i say that?
There is a difference between forcing a modern view onto the text and rejecting the original view of the text.
Unfortunately I then get accused of “picking and choosing”.
I can’t win whichever I decide.
Richard
The lengths we have to go to to apologize for God, eh? Was Jesus His unspoken, begrudging apology? He Zenned through our culpably disordered passions. But who’s to blame? Ah, Zen. Perhaps excuse is a better word. We have to infer Love regardless, according to disposition.
I think you are confusing God with our sacred scripture which though inspired, has men as its author. We aren’t apologizing for God, we are saying the Christian worldview is correct and men are fallible sinners.
Vinnie
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I’m not confusing my ideal God in the slightest. The patronizingly projected confusion is entirely yours.
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What’s confused is the atheist repeatedly disparaging belief in God on a Christian forum and the absent moderation that allows it to persist. I am truly sorry you’ve let materialism/scientism become your god. Been down that road. It’s lonely.
Vinnie
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I greatly admire faith that does not pervert science and full and free rationality, that does not have unexaminable Thomist axioms, that does not try and justify the insanely, evilly, murderously unjustifiable, that does not declare lovelessness, hate, damnation to be love.
I defend faith that says I believe without any scientific evidence and existential requirement whatsoever. Which increases generally with education here.
I can make it work, even though I can no longer believe it. That God Zens. That incarnate God was 100% divine in his 100% human ignorance. That his moral compass in human error was perfect. I worked all that out as a Christian. Until Occam’s razor gutted me in a moment.
All I need to make that best case God real is a fossil. Of Love. You have screeds of theodicy. That like all apologetics, utterly fails.
May be the moderators need my thorn in your flesh. It’s not in theirs.
And why do claim not to see me, yet reply?
Ah, you are okay with faith as long as we say it has no basis in reality. Yet you think God is refuted by Occam’s razor. Got it. As the kids might say, you are so delulu.
Maybe us dumb folk will be first and you brights will
last. Education suffers from the same mechanistic image of God as does a lot of theology. Fallacies living rent free in your head.
Vinnie
3 Likes
Wasn’t intended to apply to you as you don’t normally do apologetics.
Aren’t they the same thing?
And you don’t know the Rogerian do you? For one so dumb, how come you post such vast screeds of apologetic? I’m dim but dogged mate. Until the light goes out. Forever. Tho’ it does seem that you are reverting to a chosen, folksy, populist, double, and dumbed, down kinda guy. Not a proper Roman intellectual. You know that can’t work. But going lo-brow always will.
My image of Love isn’t in the slightest mechanistic, so I’m uneducated therefore.
Could you classify the fallacies squatting in my head? You know, identify them? [Or rather after identifying them? Any? But no, you don’t need to. Just gleefully smear the sticky brown stuff with your own hands, imply, sneeringly. Get the mob on side.
Oh and more anadromously, faith has plenty of basis in the subjective reality of the human mind, and I know that God is refuted by Occam’s razor, I felt the gutting first hand. And in your childish Trump-speak, what is my delusion? How am I deluded in not finding any basis for faith in outside of how I feel? In not finding a singe fossil of Love? In text or in nature?]
No, accept what the original meaning is but decide that it doesn’t apply, rather than justifying my view using a distorted version of the text.
Clearly you would rather justify the text than reject it.
I just claim that it was appropriate at the time, but not anymore. Is that an “oh dear”?
Richard
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If faith is only subjective and reality is fundamentally loveless, on what basis do claims about “ought,” injustice, innocence, or delusion have any authority beyond personal preference?
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Reality is as loveless as our contribution.