T
ThePapaTX
Guest
I’ve always had kind of a problem with some parts of the Old Testament. Let me tell you why and explain how I see the Bible.
I see the Bible as a bunch of different books authored by a bunch of different people, which one should read in order to understand the “subject” of Christianity. Some of these books have contrary views on things. Just like how if you were to study Political Science, you’d be studying people with varying points of view.
Some of these books provide one side of an issue based upon the thought patterns of the time, like Ecclesiastes (and pre-Hellenistic Judaism as a whole) for instance has no concept of anything beyond the here and now. Some of the more ancient Psalms and traditions ascribed to pre-Exilic Judaism even reference other (small-G) gods (imho, the earliest Jews were henotheists) and there is a lot of residual paganism and commonly shared traditions of the Ancient Near East.
Some people might say “contradictions” but I don’t see it that way at all. The Bible is not the Koran, it’s not like one person went into a trance and then snapped out of it and this 1000+ page book was written in front of him. It’s been made by hundreds of different people, some of whom probably more divinely inspired than others. I think contradiction is the wrong word because the question, “why are we here” is such a complex mystery and the books in the Bible do, when taken together, paint a whole picture but not a simple one.
So back to my OT dilemma, I read many of the older tribal narratives of the Jewish people (for example, Judges) and I have a hard time believing that every time God is said to have said this or that, or ordered this or that, that was actually God doing it. I know it sounds bad, so that’s why I’m here asking for someone to reconcile this issue for me. Basically, it sounds like a story of brutal semitic inter-tribal warfare in the incredibly hostile world known as the Ancient Near East. Most likely, the ancient Israelites of that time believed that other gods existed, but their god was the strongest one, and would help them as long as they served.
Of course this is where it gets really interesting, its here that God begins to reveal himself- they wanted a tribal god to fatten their bellies, and God begins to makes his way onto the scene with a completely different idea! I think CS Lewis described it as like when children pretending to be burglars in the dark, happen to stumble on a real burglar! Yes the switch from tribal henotheism to the real thing, is so interesting and I think its the so called “contradictions” that really show us how that was experienced and lived by the people involved. BTW, why did Jonah try to go to Tarshish? Because he believed that God was just a local small-g god bound to a particular area, but God had different plans for him.
Still it leaves us with a tension, between the tribal god portrayed in some parts of the OT and the God we know today. Some people explain it away as necessary to make sure Christ could come into the world, or how evil the enemies of the Israelites were, but I think there is more than that. I’m not simply talking about wrathful OT vs. loving NT… I’m saying where can you say “this is because of the culture they lived in” and where can you say “this is God trying to get through to these people”?
I see the Bible as a bunch of different books authored by a bunch of different people, which one should read in order to understand the “subject” of Christianity. Some of these books have contrary views on things. Just like how if you were to study Political Science, you’d be studying people with varying points of view.
Some of these books provide one side of an issue based upon the thought patterns of the time, like Ecclesiastes (and pre-Hellenistic Judaism as a whole) for instance has no concept of anything beyond the here and now. Some of the more ancient Psalms and traditions ascribed to pre-Exilic Judaism even reference other (small-G) gods (imho, the earliest Jews were henotheists) and there is a lot of residual paganism and commonly shared traditions of the Ancient Near East.
Some people might say “contradictions” but I don’t see it that way at all. The Bible is not the Koran, it’s not like one person went into a trance and then snapped out of it and this 1000+ page book was written in front of him. It’s been made by hundreds of different people, some of whom probably more divinely inspired than others. I think contradiction is the wrong word because the question, “why are we here” is such a complex mystery and the books in the Bible do, when taken together, paint a whole picture but not a simple one.
So back to my OT dilemma, I read many of the older tribal narratives of the Jewish people (for example, Judges) and I have a hard time believing that every time God is said to have said this or that, or ordered this or that, that was actually God doing it. I know it sounds bad, so that’s why I’m here asking for someone to reconcile this issue for me. Basically, it sounds like a story of brutal semitic inter-tribal warfare in the incredibly hostile world known as the Ancient Near East. Most likely, the ancient Israelites of that time believed that other gods existed, but their god was the strongest one, and would help them as long as they served.
Of course this is where it gets really interesting, its here that God begins to reveal himself- they wanted a tribal god to fatten their bellies, and God begins to makes his way onto the scene with a completely different idea! I think CS Lewis described it as like when children pretending to be burglars in the dark, happen to stumble on a real burglar! Yes the switch from tribal henotheism to the real thing, is so interesting and I think its the so called “contradictions” that really show us how that was experienced and lived by the people involved. BTW, why did Jonah try to go to Tarshish? Because he believed that God was just a local small-g god bound to a particular area, but God had different plans for him.
Still it leaves us with a tension, between the tribal god portrayed in some parts of the OT and the God we know today. Some people explain it away as necessary to make sure Christ could come into the world, or how evil the enemies of the Israelites were, but I think there is more than that. I’m not simply talking about wrathful OT vs. loving NT… I’m saying where can you say “this is because of the culture they lived in” and where can you say “this is God trying to get through to these people”?