Subject:
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Re: One of my issues with the god of the old testament
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 14 Nov 2001 19:51:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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628 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
> I'd offer that one shouldn't read a great deal of Old Testament history with a
> literal eye. Much of the ancient work has a very folklorish quality from which
> we are meant to learn certain truths (such as the folly of pride in the case
> of Babel) from a story with fantastical (and/or fantastically simple)
> precepts. The tower of Babel may imply certain things about what the people
> who told the story believed about God, but I think that we would be in error
> to disregard many centuries of religious experience, scholarship, and
> educated doctrinal development that have led Christiandom to firmly believe
> that God is not in fact spiteful.
But that puts us squarely back in the "is it all true or not" debate, and
how does one distinguish biblical truth from biblical falsehood? I'm not
putting this forth as an all-or-nothing question, and I'm delighted to
accept the assertion that some of the bible is wrong and some is right, but
I need to hear the criteria for how this is determined.
Someone here on OT.Debate (actually, it might have been you) suggested
that the New and Everlasting Covenant trumps the Old Testament, but even if
that's the case, the God of the OT is still portrayed undeniably as a
vindictive, petty, and spiteful being. If the OT God is the same as the NT
God, how do we explain His change of heart? Further, there are enough
fundamentalists quoting the OT that one can reasonably assert that, for some
folks at least, the OT is still in full effect. Even if it's not, and even
if the New Covenant trumps parts of the OT, how does one determine which
bits are trumped and which are not?
You mention "religious experience, scholarship, and educated doctrinal
development" leading to a conclusion that God isn't spiteful. I won't ask
you to document these experiences or developments, but I would ask how such
evolution of faith is tangibly different (from the perspective of a
non-believer) from an evolving sales pitch designed to fit a changing market.
Dave!
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