New info on the False God of the Old Testament idea

Hi. so first off, I’m going to mention I haven’t been very active here lately and I’m pretty glad to be back again with another (hopefully) meaningful question to ask.

This is a video which discusses a forgotten sector/denomination of Christianity. My main topic here isn’t about this video, but is actually about a part within the video.
At the 2:56 time stamp, he mentions that one of the teachings back in some specific earlier times by people known as the “Gnostics” was that much of the Hebrew Bible was false, and the God of the Old Testament was actually an ignorant evil God distinct from the true God. This is the second time I’ve heard mention of this, and I was wondering if anyone was able to find out more about it. I tried searching it online but to no avail, as the articles weren’t related much.

On a side note, this channel “Let’s talk religion” is imho, a great one. I’d recommend it if you want to find some good discussions on various religious topics.

Edit: I had another topic about this where a Quora user mentioned this, so that’s why I mentioned about this being the second time I’ve heard it,

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  • One of the neat things about being human is that, historically it seems, each of us is born ignorant, lives a while and dies.
  • The sad thing is that we don’t all go from ignorant to somewhat informed and die at the same time.
  • One consequence of those two facts is that every day, someone will come along and ask the same question that others have asked before he or she came along. For example, close to 2,000 years ago, one or more persons asked: “Who is Jesus?” Today, one or more persons ask: “Who was Jesus?”
  • Another consequence is every day someone will come along and answer the questions that others have asked before he or she came along. For example close to 2,000 years ago, one or more persons answered: “Jesus is ___ .” Today, one or more persons answer: “Jesus was ___ .”
  • A third consequence is that a lot of people end up confused, and somewhere between complete disbelief, i.e. absolute certainty that there was no Jesus, and complete certainty: i.e. “Jesus was ___ .”
  • So, IMO, skepticism runs rampant throughout the world AND throughout time. There are people at one end of the skepticism scale who believe that nothing is certain; and there are people at the other end of the "skepticism scale who believe that certainty about a lot of things is possible. And, at all times, there are a lot of people scattered between the ends of the scale.
  • So,back to the video that you posted. The guy who posted the Youtube, “Was Jesus only a human Messiah? The Ebionites and Jewish Christians” seems to clearly say: “The Ebionites interest me.” And he “muddies the water” with his own version of history, when he tries to describe who they were. If I were to take his word for it, an unspecified number of Jewish Christians, called Ebionites, believed Jesus was human; that he was important; and that “We should avoid the anachronistic view that there was an orthodoxy from the beginning and that various sects diverged from this orthodoxy. The variety of early Christianity was a lot more complex and chaotic than this. In any case the various ways that Jesus’ message was interpreted and put into practice could differ dramatically and there were debates about every conceivable point of belief.” [1:40]
    • I don’t know about anyone else, but that tells me that getting anything useful out of “Let’s talk about religion” 's video is not going tell me anything useful or reliable about Jesus and what he did and what he was about during his life on earth…
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Marcion was one early proponent of that. I don’t think he really qualified as a gnostic, though.

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P.S. Anybody who says Paul didn’t know what he was talking about doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The Ebionites said Paul didn’t know what he was talking about.

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Some today will say ‘Jesus is.’ :wink:

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Everyone in the OT got what they deserved
For me the OT God is the ultimate figure showing what justice should look like.

Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth . End of story.

Can you say killing children (and also some innocent people too) is justice?

3 things here:

Remember who their parents were…
I dont think Jews were able to keep them
God didnt commanded that directly.Remember authors added a lot of their perspective on things in these books

One of them is true.Either way justice was served.

To add to your third point, yes authors can add in their perspective and that’s where part of the issue seems to be. How do we know that the authors were actually just adding in their perspective and it wasn’t a command from God, and how do we know whether something in the Bible is verifiable if we don’t know whether it was “from God” or the author adding something in?

Your first point too, that doesn’t seem like the best logic. If there was a serial killer today, you wouldn’t command for their children to be executed, would you? Their parents may have been horrible, but that shouldn’t be the SOLE reason the children die for it.

I do agree with your second point however.

The kids could have easily retaliate and take revenge especially if many of them when they grow up

Simple we wont know for certain.Ever. If God is the ultimate authority and therefore the ultimate judge he cannot possibly do such thing. Its common sense. God is incoruptable.So thats why i believe some things are the authors making up stuff

Same with Jesus "all-forgiving"nature.All made up.Its in direct contradiction to the character of God in the OT and therefore not valid

If innocent kids who never sinned got what they deserved and that was death…. Just imagine what we deserve. Unless you think you’re more innocent than a baby.

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Yeah, they could’ve.
If they weren’t brainwashed into their parents’ ideals and culture. They’re CHILDREN. That’s the entire point, they really don’t know any better. Especially growing up around it.

That’s not valid proof though. That’s like saying “Impossible! I’m unable to walk, so me actually standing up and walking is just you hallucinating”

You have a habit bypassing my replies.I gave 3 possible answers above on the matter. And because you are ignorant and didn’t read what I have said on the matter above I won’t waste my time with you. Have fun trying preaching to me . Your words fall on deaf ears. You won’t convince me

You are asking proof for something we can’t prove. Can you prove God generally? Nope. That’s when faith comes in.
Can you prove Jesus rose from the dead? No

That’s the same thing with the Bible. You can’t prove anything expect some miniscule things.
Asking for proof that the authors made that up is like asking proof of God.
I can point somewhere else in the Bible when all agree authors added up things and pinpoint it as an example but I can’t 100% speak for everything in the Bible.
Same with God. You can pinpoint arguments in favour of the idea but can’t ultimately prove it
And as I said God can’t be an evil God if there’s already an adversary iee the devil. Two evils can’t exist in the world. It’s logical thinking.

In this period of time everybody were brainwashed into their culture.

I did read them. That’s why I responded.

One of the arguments you presented was “ the god of the ot was a true god of justice. Eye for an eye. Remember who these kids parents are. God did not permit the Jews to keep them. They could have grown up with revenge. Those who died in the OT got the death they deserved. “

So i responded to that line of thought that was traceable through not only one post, but several posts on several threads.

I pointed out if that’s justice…. Then imagine the justice we will get versus what a baby got.

Fair and square. We’ll get what we deserve. Make peace with it and you’ll be fine.

For sure. Since I know Yahweh is best reflected as Jesus Christ, and that they are love, mercy and justice I know that I’m in good hands. It’s part of what makes faith easy. When you are no longer worried about the details except for the sake of engaging the texts and having fun to learn and better teach it to those you come across, it takes away a lot of the stress and makes it easy to know what path to take.

Prioritize the needs of others over your wants in general in any sustainable way you can.
Enjoy this beautiful world Yahweh has given us.
Chose love over hate.
Don’t let self defense turn into revenge.
Seek out others to learn from, to teach, to help, to be helped by and to fellowship with.

As I’ve said before

Unless youve lived a life harming only yourself so that you can ask forgiveness,you are on the way to hell buddy. Same as me.
We’ll see each other again there. Don’t worry
Ask forgiveness as many times as you want and keep talking about grace and all that bs. In the end you’ll see if you live a life of complete sinning (and I do mean sinning in the expense of others) you’ll end up way far from God.
There’s no escape . As it should be.
Make peace with it and you can live without remorse for it.

The killing for the first born sons prior to the Exodus seems like a rather direct act of killing children on the part of God. Even worse, people who weren’t even involved in imprisoning the Hebrew people had their child killed by God.

I also fail to see how God could not have taken care of children, especially when God took care of the hundreds of thousands of people who wandered the desert for 40 years by dropping food from the sky.

At the same time, the accuracy of the Exodus account is even questioned by scholars who are believers, so there is that.

If someone thinks killing a criminal’s child is justice then I don’t know what to say.

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Retalation was a thing.Ive said it countless times

Exactly although i do beleive in a part of it to be somewhat true.Doubt the whole account

Same way GOD HASNT INTERVENED IN HUMAN HISTORY SINCE HIS EXISTANCE.Duh
Ignorant question

Direct part of God?As if the author couldnt have made that thing up?

I guess common sense is lacking here in the forum huh?
Use your brain people.