Old Testament God

[Frankk]

Marcion’s heresy was that the OT God was entirely different from the NT God.

However, the OT God is certainly portrayed as vengeful, violent, bigotted, etc… It seems he created some people whose only reason for existence was to be slaughtered, man, woman and child by the Israelites. On other occasions the Israelites are violently punished for ‘failing to get the message’.

I have two questions:

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the OT as those of a loving, compassionate God?
2. Is it just the case that we are too far separated by the centuries and a completely ‘alien’ culture for the modern mind to be able to unravel this seeming paradox?

 

[NHInsider]

(2) is a possibility we must always be aware of.

I have read discussions of this issue that focus on the gradual development over time of the Jews’ knowledge and understanding of God - and on God’s gradual revelation of Himself and His nature to His people.

I have read explanations that say the “God said to kill them all” interpretation was the Jews interpretation to themselves years later of their actions in light of their growing understanding of God’s call.

I have also read assertions that the edicts are simply manifestations of God’s holiness and the need to maintain the purity of Israel in order to provide the dynastic line that would produce Jesus.

I know scholars and faithful who have struggled with this issue for many years, so I am sure there is no “easy answer.”

One thing I feel confident saying is that Jesus is God’s self-revelation, the Logos become Flesh. One of the reasons for doing this is because we could not possibly “figure God out” and so God chose to reveal His nature in this most powerful and intimate way (Heb. 1:1). And that self-revelation was overwhelmingly one of a Loving Father - in fact, that Love is His Essence. (1 John 4:8). So whether that means that the ancients got it wrong because of their inability to understand, or whether it means that what appears to us to have been horribly unjust and cruel was actually in some mysterious way loving, we can know that God is love.

Sorry if that sounds like a cop-out, it’s really just my thinking “out loud.”

 

[Fidelis]

Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin has written an outstanding treatment of this topic which has helped a lot of people get a good grasp on this concept. It can be found here.

 

[Frankk]

NHI,

I fully agree there’s no easy answer!! And thanks for your very thoughtful post - I certainly don’t think it’s a ‘cop out’.

And Fidelis,

Thanks for the Jimmy Akin link. It was very interesting and certainly food for thought. ‘Ultimate’ recompense definitely has an appeal to it.

Mind you the idea does bring to my mind Ivan’s perspective on God. (Ivan Karamazov from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’). Ivan becomes an atheist - but one who believes in God. He classes himself as an atheist because, although he believes God exists he totally and utterly rejects him and wants absolutely nothing to do with him.

His reasoning is that he doesn’t want anything to do with a God who permits a completely innocent child to face unbearable suffering - even if there is some vicarious good which comes from it.

Which just about brings us back to Jimmy Akin’s point about later recompense for suffering in this life.

Yep! NHI is spot on - there are no easy answers!

 

[Fidelis]

His [Ivan, the character in The Brothers Karamazov] reasoning is that he doesn’t want anything to do with a God who permits a completely innocent child to face unbearable suffering - even *if there is some vicarious good *which comes from it.

Which just about brings us back to Jimmy Akin’s point about later recompense for suffering in this life.

Exactly. And the argument isn’t just about ‘some’ vicarious good but about the ultimate vicarious good that is recompense for the (relatively) short and limited time of suffering on earth—that is, *eternal *and blissful life in the Beatitude of God, “who will wipe away every tear from every eye” (Revelation 21:.4)

 

[Evan]

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the OT as those of a loving, compassionate God?

Another question you might ask is

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the NT as those of a loving, compassionate God?

Jesus spoke many times of eternal punishment, fire, condemnation, judgement, gnashing of teeth, etc.

Our culture has made him loving and compasionate, in part, because we don’t want to be judged. have to catch a train…

 

[Fidelis]

Another question you might ask is

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the NT as those of a loving, compassionate God?

Jesus spoke many times of eternal punishment, fire, condemnation, judgement, gnashing of teeth, etc.

Our culture has made him loving and compasionate, in part, because we don’t want to be judged. have to catch a train…

Statistically speaking, Jesus spoke far more about hell and judgment, that he ever did about heaven. And maybe it was because want to hear about hell less.

 

[Luke_K]

This question is like asking why there is a difference between my childhood dad and my adulthood dad. When I was a child my dad was always telling me what I could and couldn’t do and setting ridiculous boundaries and punishing me. But now that I’m an adult my dad seems like a really admirable man and is a friend.

Did my dad change or did I grow up?

 

[Crumpy]

Marcion’s heresy was that the OT God was entirely different from the NT God.

However, the OT God is certainly portrayed as vengeful, violent, bigotted, etc… It seems he created some people whose only reason for existence was to be slaughtered, man, woman and child by the Israelites. On other occasions the Israelites are violently punished for ‘failing to get the message’.

I have two questions:

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the OT as those of a loving, compassionate God?
2. Is it just the case that we are too far separated by the centuries and a completely ‘alien’ culture for the modern mind to be able to unravel this seeming paradox?

This is a deep subject, because, if nothing else, there is so much evidence in scripture. But, what does that evidence say?

Last year I was reading some Jewish commentaries on the Torah. The rabbis and sages felt that God had given them a brain to figure things out that didn’t seem so clear in the sacred writings. This reasoning gives them some license to stretch things a bit, without giving offense to the written word of God.

So…take the account of Noah’s flood. It seems like a lot of people would have been killed by this unprecedented disaster. Why would God just be SO? The rabbis and sages reasoned that there must have been an understanding, or perhaps a covenant that was not recorded in the Bible. It is, perhaps, as a result of the breaking of that covenant that God’s wrath was poured out over mankind. See? although this is not strictly Biblical, it does make sense to explain God’s action, especially one that was so severe.

In a post like this, there’s just not space to go into a lot of stuff, but one more thing may shed some light on this topic.

In the first account of creation, roughly the first chapter of Genesis, but including a couple verses from chapter two, the word used for God in Hebrew is Elohim. Now, there are many words in the Old Testament that are used to refer to God, and it is illustrative to see what the purpose of each of those is, if possible. In this case, Elohim is the word that refers to the power and judgment of God – God as a Judge. We lose the sense of this word in the translator’s choice of the simple word – God – in English.

But, to support that idea, we see in this creation account that God creates something and then **judges it **and declares that it is good. And, in fact, there are seven judgments over creation. So, “seven” in the idiom of Hebrew is referring to the totality or absoluteness that God is the Judge of everything, and was so, from the beginning.

In contrast, by the way, in the second account of creation, in chapter two of Genesis, the word for God, which occurs,by the way, on the lips of Eve, is YHWH – the sacred tetragrammaton, the sacred unutterable holy name of God – the name most associated with the mercy of God.

So, even the beginning of scripture teaches about the complex nature of God, which is the title of this thread. And, combining the two accounts of creation, we see the interplay of the just and merciful aspects of the Creator.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

Marcion’s heresy was that the OT God was entirely different from the NT God.

However, the OT God is certainly portrayed as vengeful, violent, bigotted, etc… It seems he created some people whose only reason for existence was to be slaughtered, man, woman and child by the Israelites. On other occasions the Israelites are violently punished for ‘failing to get the message’.

I have two questions:

1. How are we to interpret and understand the actions of God as portrayed in the OT as those of a loving, compassionate God?
2. Is it just the case that we are too far separated by the centuries and a completely ‘alien’ culture for the modern mind to be able to unravel this seeming paradox?

1. Well one needs to step back a bit and see the broad brush. The Old Testament shows why many needs a Savior, and gives basically a warning of what happens to those who turn from God and put their trust in other things. Whether false gods, themselves, money, strong walls, the sword. All those other things are nothing before God.

And we get the warning. Compared to being killed by a sword or whatever, the eternal fate of those who reject God is much, much worse.

But we have to always keep it in perspective that if God was unloving. Then Jesus dieing on the cross makes no sense. Through this all God’s plan is there to save us. To die for us in our place. This is love.

Remember our defalt state is to be lost, it’s basically impossible for us to be saved. But God does the impossible. He brings the dead to life.

Note for instance those people in the promised land. They stood condemned. Yet some turned to God in faith. Even though they did not belong to the nation of Israel, they too were saved. No one who turned to God was lost. This is true even of those who deceived the nation of Israel by pretending to be from far off. Even though their faith was not what we would think of as perfect, the fact that they believed was sufficient to save them.

Those who were killed were really already dead.

1. It’s not really a paradox I don’t believe. But it is true we never really will totally understand the mind of God. But I don’t think our mind is too far removed to understand it. For instance were the doctors being cruel to amputate the limbs of people trapped in the rubble in Haiti without any way of putting the people out. Without even the proper tools so it often took much longer. No, though the pain was intense, it was done for their own good. So too the pain that God inflicts is ultimately for the good of man.

 

[Crumpy]

I wrote post #9 last night and have many follow-up thoughts.

One way of looking at punishments of God or what appear to be punishments of God is to consider the consequences of sin. We cannot see the consequences of sin on God, except to encounter them in scripture, the effect on God of our sins.

In the case of men, the Bible recounts again and again what various consequences of sin are. Any consideration of this topic must eventually see those consequences at the spiritual level of thinking.

 

[Frankk]

So…take the account of Noah’s flood. It seems like a lot of people would have been killed by this unprecedented disaster. Why would God just be SO? The rabbis and sages reasoned that there must have been an understanding, or perhaps a covenant that was not recorded in the Bible. It is, perhaps, as a result of the breaking of that covenant that God’s wrath was poured out over mankind. See? although this is not strictly Biblical, it does make sense to explain God’s action, especially one that was so severe.

In Tel Aviv airport last year I thought I’d struck paydirt when I found a book called ‘Unlocking the Torah Text’. (Surely Jewish rabbis and experts would have a definitive take on things!) They cover a number of topics, one of which was the destruction caused by the Flood and, later, the destruction caused at the Tower of Babel.

It turns out that for each scenario they discussed there were upto 6 different interpretations of what it meant. These were from respected modern scholars but also ‘patriarchs’ from earlier times, such as Rambam and Rashi from the 11th Century.

The ‘search’ goes on!

 

[Crumpy]

In Tel Aviv airport last year I thought I’d struck paydirt when I found a book called ‘Unlocking the Torah Text’. (Surely Jewish rabbis and experts would have a definitive take on things!) They cover a number of topics, one of which was the destruction caused by the Flood and, later, the destruction caused at the Tower of Babel.

It turns out that for each scenario they discussed there were upto 6 different interpretations of what it meant. These were from respected modern scholars but also ‘patriarchs’ from earlier times, such as Rambam and Rashi from the 11th Century.

The ‘search’ goes on!

That says a lot, in itself, doesn’t it. I was re-reading a part of The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, and there is a serious branch of Bible study that is like that, namely, what did the bible mean in terms of the author and the ancient audience, and what does it mean today. “What does it mean today?” Easy to see why there might be so many insights (“interpretations”) of what it means, as scholarship and archeology and linguistics studies go on.

NJBC, like like the rabbis and sages, take the view that the study of scripture never ends. Even in the Catholic Church at large, the Catechism recognizes four possible senses of scripture.

(As a casual reader of the Bible, certainly I like to get the meaning quickly, if possible. Protestant minister Tim LeHay had a book out on Bible study, and he (seriously) suggests reading a book of the Bible 50 times before starting to get serious about “interpretation.”)

 

[Crumpy]

In Post #9 I remarked how Eve used the YHWH word for God, which is the name that was used (later) only by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Somebody can argue about Eve using or not using that word, from a historical or literary point of view.

From the ‘canonical’ point of view, that is how Genesis comes down to us. It suggests that either Adam or God himself taught Eve about God, and I’d have to be on God teaching Eve what the meaning was, about God’s mercy.

That deepens the impact of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, their pride in becoming like gods as the serpent promised, in that THEY took to themselves to decide what was right and wrong, and to pridefully ignore the command that God had given to Adam.

Does it seem that God is unjustifiably vengeful in reacting to these creatures who project divinity upon themselves?