Why is the OT God so different from the NT God?

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Question is pretty straightforward: Why is the God of the Old Testament so different from the God of the New Testament?

It seems like in the OT God is a little bit meaner, he favors the Jews over all other ethnicities to the point of killing other groups of people, destroys cities and even almost the entire population at one point, and just in general is more of a God to worship out of fear than love? And then you come to the New Testament and God all of the sudden loves all humans (not just the Jews), spreads a message of totally loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, and all that?
 
This is a question that I struggle with a bit as well. It would be a great question for one of the Apologists.
 
I mean you look at the Book of Exodus and Leviticus, where God kills off virtually all of Egypt, says that aldulterers should be stoned, etc. Then you have Jesus who tries to love everyone and allow those who are wrong to be wrong. Why such a dramatic shift?
 
NextElement said:
Question is pretty straightforward: Why is the God of the Old Testament so different from the God of the New Testament?

It seems like in the OT God is a little bit meaner, he favors the Jews over all other ethnicities to the point of killing other groups of people, destroys cities and even almost the entire population at one point, and just in general is more of a God to worship out of fear than love? And then you come to the New Testament and God all of the sudden loves all humans (not just the Jews), spreads a message of totally loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, and all that?
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This topic was touched by me in another thread:
“Our God the Father of Jesus is God of All”;
Except I didn’t pull any punches and stated that their idea of their god, that is, both the Muslim idea and the Hebrew idea isn’t our idea;
So I basically stated that I didn’t believe that their god could be the same as God the Father of Jesus Christ and of the Roman Catholic Church.

PS:
Unfortunately it seems to be a taboo topic which in my thread at least didn’t draw much attention …
Hope you have better interest in your thread because I’ll be happy to discuss my views here.

rex
 
God isn’t different. The circumstances we are in are different. That’s all.
 
I’ve wondered about that also. It doesn’t make much sense and sometimes I wonder if the OT was largely a lot of made up stories by elders trying to control their people by instilling fear of eternal punishment…
 
petras52 said:
I’ve wondered about that also. It doesn’t make much sense and sometimes I wonder if the OT was largely a lot of made up stories by elders trying to control their people by instilling fear of eternal punishment…
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If that were the case, why did Jesus reference them so often?
 
God is God, eternal and unchanging. He is One God, not two: there is no OT God and NT God, just one and the same God all the time.

The stories are inspired–they are not “made up by elders trying to control their people.”

I see one way in which we still have something similar. Consider a parent when the child is very young, and then again when the child is an adult. A mother will tell her toddler that he will eat his vegetables, but look aside at the grown son’s plate with the vegetables left uneaten, no?

Despite the geneational proximity of the people of the earth to the time Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, they turned away from God in sin and God destroyed them with a flood. Despite the flood and the warnings of prophets, people continued to turn away ffrom God and sin. Is it any wonder He destroyed people who worshipped the Devil?

What is surprising is that now we are not destroyed, except insofar as we destroy ourselves.
 
The OT convers a huge expanse of time. There are allegorical stories, historical stories, all kind of ways of describing events and also all kinds of ways of describing the purpose and meaning of the lesson. People of those ancient times often believed that bad things happened as a direct result of illness, that natural disasters were a sort of chastisement, that victory of their enemies meant they did not pray enough, etc.
In the New Testament Jesus preached mercy. He indeed made all of the lessons of the OT new in that He underscored that even through all the drama of the OT, that the LORD had never abandoned the people. His way was the “new” way of looking at God. He preached about a Father who would not write a person off, or condemn people without the chance for redemption. Witness the prodigal son.
It’s the same God, but within the truths of the OT, there is also an undercurrent of fear of God. The truths of Scripture never changed…but the way people understood God the Father changed with the arrival of Jesus the Christ. God was now accessible…God was now one of us, God was compassionate, not a powerful tyrant. Many places in the OT God is viewed as a beautiful Father. But the tragedies of human history, the things that happened that seemed to “teach a lesson of judgment upon the people of God” were indeed a focus of the writing. Because that’s how these stories were passed down.
Once Christ came to tell us DIRECTLY what the will of God is, and how we can be in communion with Him, the message and the stories are less monumental, but also more personal and more universal for the people of the world. Jesus public ministry was a few short years. The “Good News” is evident in the entire NT. A collection of books that in contrast, covers a shorter amount of time, and entirely about Jesus and His message.
Peace.
 
He’s not different. OT is prophesy, NT is the fulfillment of those prophesies. OT is the promises, NT is the fulfillment. OT is more symbolic, NT is more reality. Promise to fulfillment, symbol to reality. Jesus is the Passover Lamb described in the OT. Eve didn’t follow the Lord’s direction and she ate of the Tree of Knowledge, which doomed humanity. Mary response to God’s will, “Fiat,” means “Thy will be done according to your will,” saved humanity. Mary will ultimately crush the head of the serpent, whereas Eve ate apples with him. I’m not a philosopher or a theologian and I haven’t been Catholic all that long but it makes perfect sense to me. The old and the new testaments are sacred, the story isn’t complete without them both and that also goes for the 9 books- I think it was 9- that Martin Luther took out after the reformation. Who was he to decide what should stay or be tossed out?
 
And you got it exactly right, Deana83.

In the OT, God gave the Chosen People chance after chance after chance to mend their ways. And, time after time after time, the Chosen People disobeyed God.

They even turned their backs on Jesus. So, the Gentiles were invited by God. The Jews hated that but it was what it was.

Jesus IS the new Lamb. Every year, my parish has a Christian Seder meal, patterned after the Jewish Seder at which Jesus became the New Lamb. Our Catholic faith parallels so much of the Jewish faith from which Christianity came.

If you ever have the opportunity to take Jeff Cavins’ Bible Timeline Bible Study, I would jump at it. It is fascinating and follows the OT through history.
 
I think you need to be a little bit careful here.

First of all, it’s not as though the mean Jews ran around the countryside harming peaceful pagans for millennia for no good reason.

That is a secular-progressive talking point, and people will even use that to the point to show that they “care” about what happened to the Amorities or whatever tribe. :rolleyes:

The fact is a lot of these pagan tribes were cruel, even to their own people, and in some cases, the Isrealities appeared to have been in dire situations.

Second, God even allowed the enemies of Israel to raid and pillage their holiest place when they didn’t obey him.

Third, do not think in linear time so much. Jesus died on the cross even for those that came before Him.
 
Deana83 said:
He’s not different. OT is prophesy, NT is the fulfillment of those prophesies. OT is the promises, NT is the fulfillment. OT is more symbolic, NT is more reality. Promise to fulfillment, symbol to reality. Jesus is the Passover Lamb described in the OT. Eve didn’t follow the Lord’s direction and she ate of the Tree of Knowledge, which doomed humanity. Mary response to God’s will, “Fiat,” means “Thy will be done according to your will,” saved humanity. Mary will ultimately crush the head of the serpent, whereas Eve ate apples with him. I’m not a philosopher or a theologian and I haven’t been Catholic all that long but it makes perfect sense to me. The old and the new testaments are sacred, the story isn’t complete without them both and that also goes for the 9 books- I think it was 9- that Martin Luther took out after the reformation. Who was he to decide what should stay or be tossed out?
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Well, that’s an even better answer. :tiphat:

The symbolism is perfect.
 
Deana83 said:
He’s not different. OT is prophesy, NT is the fulfillment of those prophesies. OT is the promises, NT is the fulfillment. OT is more symbolic, NT is more reality. Promise to fulfillment, symbol to reality. Jesus is the Passover Lamb described in the OT. Eve didn’t follow the Lord’s direction and she ate of the Tree of Knowledge, which doomed humanity. Mary response to God’s will, “Fiat,” means “Thy will be done according to your will,” saved humanity. Mary will ultimately crush the head of the serpent, whereas Eve ate apples with him. I’m not a philosopher or a theologian and I haven’t been Catholic all that long but it makes perfect sense to me. The old and the new testaments are sacred, the story isn’t complete without them both and that also goes for the 9 books- I think it was 9- that Martin Luther took out after the reformation. Who was he to decide what should stay or be tossed out?
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Because Martin Luther decided in his own pride and ignorance and without a Mandate from God to do just that- what had been respected and taught for 1500 years he threw out in order to try and justify his heretical teachings. So did every other Reformer after him do the same. Lord I know better than you, and these are getting tossed out, shouted the reformers.
 
NextElement said:
Question is pretty straightforward: Why is the God of the Old Testament so different from the God of the New Testament?

It seems like in the OT God is a little bit meaner, he favors the Jews over all other ethnicities to the point of killing other groups of people, destroys cities and even almost the entire population at one point, and just in general is more of a God to worship out of fear than love? And then you come to the New Testament and God all of the sudden loves all humans (not just the Jews), spreads a message of totally loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, and all that?
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He is not different. He is the same.

What is different?

The place
The culture
The sociology
The abilities of people to understand morality
The sociological norms

And of course

Our points of view.

Adjust these things to the proper place and it will all come together.
 
St_Francis said:
God is God, eternal and unchanging. He is One God, not two: there is no OT God and NT God, just one and the same God all the time.

The stories are inspired–they are not “made up by elders trying to control their people.”

I see one way in which we still have something similar. Consider a parent when the child is very young, and then again when the child is an adult. A mother will tell her toddler that he will eat his vegetables, but look aside at the grown son’s plate with the vegetables left uneaten, no?

Despite the geneational proximity of the people of the earth to the time Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, they turned away from God in sin and God destroyed them with a flood. Despite the flood and the warnings of prophets, people continued to turn away ffrom God and sin. Is it any wonder He destroyed people who worshipped the Devil?

What is surprising is that now we are not destroyed, except insofar as we destroy ourselves.
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Wow St Francis, 👍
you certainly have a way of putting things in proper perspective, because Yes, now I understand:
“God is God, eternal and unchanging” as you say, except the problem is with His free willed creations or like for example 5lbs. of oranges that go bad …
you don’t eat them anyway, you throw them away; 😃 😊
That is, hopefully salvaging some of them. :o

Seriously,
that explains it, even to this day and again I’m almost using your words without looking.
He didn’t tell the Muslims to go on jihads or tell the Jews to sell to gentiles chickens that died by themselves, I’m sure … :eek:
they made a lot of their own rules imvho. 🤷

rex
 
Jon_S said:
He is not different. He is the same.

What is different?

The place
The culture
The sociology
The abilities of people to understand morality
The sociological norms

And of course

Our points of view.

Adjust these things to the proper place and it will all come together.
Click to expand...
So, God can keep behaving inconsistently, and we can keep blaming that inconsistency on ourselves?

At what point ought God to be held accountable to be true to His own character—or, more specifically, the human beings who claim to define God and demand obedience to their personal definition----at what point ought those people be held accountable for force-feeding us an incoherent definition?
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
So, God can keep behaving inconsistently, and we can keep blaming that inconsistency on ourselves?

At what point ought God to be held accountable to be true to His own character—or, more specifically, the human beings who claim to define God and demand obedience to their personal definition----at what point ought those people be held accountable for force-feeding us an incoherent definition?
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No, you misunderstand.

God is the same, unchanging.

We are different but there is nothing anyone should be held accountable to.

Read the Bible and you will see Gods love and protection in the Old Testament. It’s everywhere. People cherry pick verses about how the enemies of Israel were handled and when using our modern lens we see no mercy or love. But if we viewed it with the lens of 3000 BC, we would see the mercy much more clearly because of the violence of the time.
 
Instead of trying to quote anyone in this post, I’m just going to post a quote from the Bible that I’ve been wanting you all to see:
enduringword.com/commentaries/4015.htm
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  1. (3) Jesus answers with a question setting man’s tradition against God’s will.
    He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?”
    a. Why do you also transgress the commandment of God: When the disciples were accused of sin, Jesus answered with an accusation. Jesus was strong in His reply because these leaders were far too concerned with these ceremonial trivialities. When they declared people unclean because of their tradition, they denied the people access to God.
    i. This was a strong reply from Jesus. Ultimately, these conflicts with the religious leaders became the outward reason why Jesus was delivered to the Romans for death.
    b. Because of your tradition: Jesus repeated what the scribes and Pharisees had already mentioned - that this accusation was based on tradition. The religious leaders demanded these ceremonial washings based on tradition, not the Scriptures.
  2. (4-6) An example of how their traditions dishonored God: the practice of not helping your parents with resources said to be devoted to God.
    “For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”; then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.”
    a. Honor your father and mother: The clear command of God said that everyone should give honor to their father and mother - even stating a penalty for extreme disobedience to this command. When we are adults and no longer in our parents’ household or under their authority, we no longer have to obey our father and mother. Yet we are still commanded to honor them; that command endures.
    b. Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God: Some Jewish people of Jesus’ day had a way to get around the command to honor your father and mother. If they declared that all their possessions or savings were a gift to God that were especially dedicated to Him, they could then say that their resources were unavailable to help their parents.
    i. “This convenient declaration apparently left the property actually still at the disposal of the one who made the vow, but deprived his parents of any right to it.” (France)
    ii. “Our Saviour here also let us know, that the fifth commandment obligeth children to relieve their parents in their necessity, and this is the sense of the term honour in other texts of Scripture.” (Poole)
    c. Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition: Through this trick one could completely disobey the command to honor his father or mother, and do it while being ultra-religious.
  3. (7-9) Jesus condemns their hollow tradition as hypocrisy.
    “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
    a. Honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me: This was true of the religious leaders Jesus confronted and quoted the passage from Isaiah to. Yet it may also be true of us. We can appear to draw near to God, all the while having our heart far from Him. It is easy to want and be impressed by the image of being near to God without really doing it with our heart.
    i. God is interested in the internal and the real. We are far more interested in the merely external and image. One must take care that their relationship with God is not merely external and image.
    b. Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men: The quotation from Isaiah accurately described the real problem with these religious leaders. They elevated man’s tradition to an equal level with God’s revealed Word.
    i. Jesus didn’t say, “All traditions are bad.” He didn’t say, “All traditions are good.” He compared traditions to the Word of God, and put them at a much lower priority than what God has said.
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Jesus in the quote above scolds the Pharisees for accusing the disciples of Jesus of being “unclean”, telling them:
“The religious leaders demanded these ceremonial washings based on tradition, not the Scriptures.”

In other words as I’ve said before, Jesus accused the Pharisees of making it too difficult for gentiles to get into Heaven because of “unclean” rules of their own tradition instead of being commandments of God;

That is, not that there’s anything wrong with getting washed, except that I’m sure in ancient Israel it wasn’t as easy for poor folks to get washed as it was for some other folks.

Anyway, I just always wondered if a line I read in the OT of The Holy Bible may have been words of man instead of the Words of God …
they went something like:
“You may not eat of the flesh of a chicken that died by itself, but you may give it or sell it to a gentile”;

And I’m being polite because when I read that over 55 years ago, I really don’t re-call the part about “giving it to a gentile”;
Whereas it is stated that way now, except I can’t find anything about “the flesh of a chicken” now. :rolleyes:

rex
 
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