Yes i agree but the death penalty wad there. I mean the death penalty is ok i guess but why it was so brutal? I guess they couldnt kill them otherwise? I dont know stoning kinda seems a bit off rather than taking a life with a sword. And i dont get how strict was the system. I mean yes righteousness played a big role back then but a simpliest sin could get you killed. Why? Didnt they had animal sacrifices for their atonements?
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Klax i dont want to get into a debate . That is the last thing i want. Some here me as well believe the same God was both of the New and the Old. If you dont thats fine . Peace and love brother.
How could it not be the same God in the same story? But which Person of God?
You said you believe it wasnt the Father. I said i do believe that it was the Father who commanded and did all the things in the old testament.
Good questions.
You might like this podcast
And this book Book Review: Cross Vision by Greg Boyd
It gets more confusing in that if I recall correctly, the sacrifices were for unintentional sins. Some argue that Paul in Romans said it was faith and God’s mercy that forgave sins anyway all along, and the sacrifices were just outward trappings or signs of the covenant.
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I mean with the ressurection of Christ all of the previously damned were saved but im just trying to understand why he implemented such a strict system. Thanks randy again for the response. God bless 
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Thanks. I agree, it’s hard to see. In the first podcast, she shows that the rules were more cultural. In the book, Boyd argues that the first revelation of the Old Testament was God working with a difficult time and that Christ superseded this as a better revelation…that the OT was wrong in its savagery because of a poor vision of what God was. It fit in with the violence of the time. I lean towards that, in a way. However, there are problems with that view (see @Marshall’s review on the link; actually, anything he writes on the Biologos blog reflects very good scholarship in my opinion). Andy Stanley preached a sermon series about focusing on Christ instead of the OT as well.
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Not according to Jesus.
As i said again i dont want to be in a debate. Jesus affirmed everything in the old testament though didnt he? When they tried to stone the woman Jesus dint tell them"Woah there thats not in the Old Testament " he rather criticized them for their hypocrisy
Then don’t mate. Jesus believed that He was the incarnation of the Killer God of the OT. That is not questionable. If you want to show that He was wrong and that it was the Father, please go ahead. And ask your priest.
I’d be interested to hear your opinion of wine so entered the creation
I heard a great sermon once where it was noted that the nature of Jesus being the ‘lamb of God’ wasn’t just a part time act He could hang up after. His sacrificial giving is a core and integral part of his character. If sin and evil were never in the world, then I suppose this aspect of God’s character would have never been revealed. Still, to have all the sin and suffering in the world as a means to reveal how much you care about sin and suffering is totally contradictory. Almost schizophrenically so. Sometimes I wonder just how influential Lucifer’s fall actually was - in terms of him being an extremely high being in the creation and his decision to rebel staining maybe more than we know. Jesus says
“He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.”
John 8:44
I probably have this wrong … but John’s use of the phrase ‘from the beginning’ in the gospel is connected to matters of origin. So maybe at the very origin of this creation, murder stained it. I mean, I’ve sometimes wondered … who was murdered? If Satan was a murderer from the beginning … who did he murder? Or is this just a broad reference to his underlying character, for example in how he took Cain over (essentially) and killed Abel. But I think he ‘killed’ someone or something else precious before the creation …
Perhaps all acts of God’s instituted justice are connected to corrections - corrective actions - against humans falling into the same evil ‘Dark side’ the devil did …
Just spouting out some thoughts here - interesting though to think on such things
Im assuming you meant how sin entered the creation. For me it was already there. Satan didnt just went from a second to another"oppp i just decided to overthrow the creator now" no i dont think so. So sin was already there and entered satan in some way. Then the story unflods itself
@Christopher_Michael, good questions. What beginning? The beginning of what? Behavioural modernity? 40,000 years ago? Or the beginning of speech, fire, toolmaking, shelter building (not mere nests) ten times that ago? Or since Chicxulub? When did Satan rebel? And how big is his territory? Earth? What about the 10 to 10 million other inhabited worlds in our galaxy alone? Let alone the trillion galaxies of our insignificant universe. Is he the demiurge from eternity for the infinity of inhabited universes? Of creation?
Theres not proof that there are aliens . The potision is flaud. From now on i want the answers here to stay close to the op
Of course there is. All you have to do is think.
Ahh, that is pretty funny … anyone want to offer their various opinions of wine here?? Gotta laugh at such spelling mistakes. I wonder if the moderators have a list of best (and worst) spelling mistakes around?? I know some of you read this haha 
We are I suppose getting off topic … and I acknowledge part cause of that.
Justice. Morality. Brutality. Did God institute brutal justice methods in the Old Testament? If so, why? and what does this mean about God’s character? These I believe are the topics Nick has raised and hopes to focus on. Significant topics indeed. I’m sure discussion about Lucifer’s fall in the context of evolution would make another cracking thread, for another time. So I will get back on topic …
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It could be that there will be no good answer to this that everyone will find compelling. Job asks why God could allow such injustice to happen to him. At least now our horizons have been perhaps somewhat broadened to ask how could God allow injustice to happen to all these others. Are we going to get a different answer than Job got? - which is to say … no direct answer at all such as would ‘silence-all-theodicy-forever’?
At some point we have to jump beyond our agonizing desire for understanding, and make what feels like the premature jump to … “well, in the meanwhile then, … now what?” And that question does (perhaps not accidentally?) have more satisfying answers available. Whatever people may have taken to be God’s justice in the past, we no longer kill people for disobeying parents or committing adultery now. Make no mistake, though, if we are arrogant enough to think that all self-righteous sentiment of all history is now to be credited to our generation’s account, as we frown in stunned indignation about the horrific transgressions of long-past moralizers, … rest assured that after we’re long gone, some future generation will almost certainly look back on our so-called “refined” sensibilities of today and shake their heads in horror and wonder at how we could have been so barbarically cruel.
That we can even ask these questions or imagine ourselves as mere players in a much larger story in which we do not (our arrogant delusions notwithstanding) enjoy any god-like privilege of perspective except what bits God may deign to show us in our humble turn; – that we can even enter into that story and struggle, even just as bit players; isn’t that privilege enough? Privilege enough that we should be able to temper our obsessions with backward gaze, put our hand to the plow, and set our gaze steadfastly ahead to cultivate the ground that is before us for such good as we are presently given to know.
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In a lot of threads recently we end up in a conclusion like that. That we cant know or understand. But thats just sound blind faith to me and i dont like this
I agree that faith does not demand that we should blindly proceed when we have eyes and daylight to use. But there is also a time to recognize that one will not resolve problems that have (apparently) defied thousands of years of faithful and biblically literate minds more brilliant than ours. And if such faith as we may have is to be held hostage to the contingency that our understanding must first be completed, then we may be opting to forego having any faith at all.
I do think there is value in looking back and asking the questions - don’t get me wrong. We use our eyes to see and understand everything we can. But that understanding will never be complete. Never has been. Never will be. So at some point trust must kick in because life still carries on without pause, even if our comprehension has stalled out short of 100%. It’s just an observation of an inevitable state of affairs.
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I need to reread, but I think it was Walton who wrote something to the effect that we see the Levitical laws through modern eyes and read them as strict rules whereas the ANE would have recognized that they were more guidelines and as what is permissible, not what is mandated. As to the brutality of stoning, well, when all you have is rocks… (somehow putting a smiley face here seems wrong)
You must also realize that it was a vastly different culture and time. There were no prisons. There were no law enforcement officials as we have them today. It was as mobile group. Unity and conformity was necessary to survival, so offenses in that setting was a threat to life itself.
Also, remember that we as western society were probably worse in recent history. Look around old London and read of the hangings done at various locations. The executions at the Tower. King wants a new wife? Off with the old one’s head. Petty thief? Hang him. Prisons were for debtors and those awaiting trial.
One sort of interesting thought about stoning, is that because of the brutality and the community involvement, it probably was taken a lot more seriously than sending someone to the gallows or putting their head on the block for a professional executioner to lop off. What at one time was societal involvement and participation became public spectacle.
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