Cruel OT God

[sprtslvr1973]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

Why would they say that?

 

[Porter ODoran]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

If it's "apparently legitimate" can you make it apparent to me?

 

[Alveus Lacuna]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

A problem with Semitic perspective. Allah needs Greek influence.

 

[orthonorm]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

I would challenge that Koran  bests the OT in terms of Divine cruelty. I am not sure why people think the God of the OT is "crueler" than the God of the NT. If people thought through the Gospel they might wish they hadn't heard it and were deemed righteous Gentiles by the old covenant Jews.

To Alveus' point, the Greeks did a lot, and successfully, to rehabilitate the God of the Bible into their poor understanding of early Greek though,, so that people think that Jesus Loves Me is beginning and end of the whole,story nowadays.

In short, I think no one is reading the Bible very carefully, or at all if they don't have that most oft chronicled feeling towards God by those who are righteous, that of fear.

If the righteous fear God, how ought we feel?

 

[Porter ODoran]

ITT: Folks with no particular knowledge of the Greek gods. The first Greek supreme god ate his children, and raped his wife so frequently her remaining sons felt bound to kill him. The Spartans sang hymns to hallow the memory of the ban under which they had placed the peoples who had preceded them, killing men, women, and children, and enslaving survivors -- once a year they would go forth among the slaves and again kill men, women, and children as a pious act. Lying was esteemed one of the greatest virtues of man, and even so sophisticated a Greek as Aristotle "proved" from theology that the strong should rule the weak, that the gods have created the majority of man to suffer, die at the hands of warriors, and be bound in perpetual slavery.

 

[Porter ODoran]

Not to mention -- Really? this is what we're doing in Faith Issues now? posting blanket statements presupposing that our God is a synthesis of the invention of various tribes of men?

 

[orthonorm]

ITT: Folks with no particular knowledge of the Greek gods. The first Greek supreme god ate his children, and raped his wife so frequently her remaining sons felt bound to kill him. The Spartans sang hymns to hallow the memory of the ban under which they had placed the peoples who had preceded them, killing men, women, and children, and enslaving survivors -- once a year they would go forth among the slaves and again kill men, women, and children as a pious act. Lying was esteemed one of the greatest virtues of man, and even so sophisticated a Greek as Aristotle "proved" from theology that the strong should rule the weak, that the gods have created the majority of man to suffer, die at the hands of warriors, and be bound in perpetual slavery.

For all your love of paleophilosophy, you sure do have a lot of gaps in your knowledge of it.

 

[Porter ODoran]

And some of you may have overlooked the Holy Prophets and what Jehovah testified of himself thru them, in words rich with tenderness and mercy and justice for the least ones, and with a tone almost contemptuous of sacrifice and law.

 

[Alveus Lacuna]

posting blanket statements presupposing that our God is a synthesis of the invention of various tribes of men?

Fully Human and fully God.

 

[RobS]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

I would challenge that Koran  bests the OT in terms of Divine cruelty. I am not sure why people think the God of the OT is "crueler" than the God of the NT. If people thought through the Gospel they might wish they hadn't heard it and were deemed righteous Gentiles by the old covenant Jews.

To Alveus' point, the Greeks did a lot, and successfully, to rehabilitate the God of the Bible into their poor understanding of early Greek though,, so that people think that Jesus Loves Me is beginning and end of the whole,story nowadays.

In short, I think no one is reading the Bible very carefully, or at all if they don't have that most oft chronicled feeling towards God by those who are righteous, that of fear.

If the righteous fear God, how ought we feel?

I don't know if they aren't reading it carefully as opposed to schizophrenically. Orthodox and the rest of doctrinal Christianity attempts to gloss the "Old Testament" in terms of the New. A profound mistake as far as I'm concerned. Nor is righteousness a important trait except in the commentary and the Sayings of Jesus, which are a different body of texts from the gospel.

I'm something of a neo-Marcionite. I think any honest Christian cannot read the Hebrew scriptures without concluding God is portrayed not only as cruel, but pathological, unless various parts are taken ironically, as something like, This is the kind of cruel, judgmental, homicidal, smug God you want, Israel, so that's the God I'll give you (an unlikely reading except perhaps in a few passages).

The God of the gospel narrative (as opposed to the Hebrew scriptures, the Sayings of Jesus, i.e. the Q document, or the commentary, i.e. theology) is the loving God of John 3:16. That's good enough for me. That's the story I accept. I reject the other stories.

 

[orthonorm]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

I would challenge that Koran  bests the OT in terms of Divine cruelty. I am not sure why people think the God of the OT is "crueler" than the God of the NT. If people thought through the Gospel they might wish they hadn't heard it and were deemed righteous Gentiles by the old covenant Jews.

To Alveus' point, the Greeks did a lot, and successfully, to rehabilitate the God of the Bible into their poor understanding of early Greek though,, so that people think that Jesus Loves Me is beginning and end of the whole,story nowadays.

In short, I think no one is reading the Bible very carefully, or at all if they don't have that most oft chronicled feeling towards God by those who are righteous, that of fear.

If the righteous fear God, how ought we feel?

I don't know if they aren't reading it carefully as opposed to schizophrenically. Orthodox and the rest of doctrinal Christianity attempts to gloss the "Old Testament" in terms of the New. A profound mistake as far as I'm concerned. Nor is righteousness a important trait except in the commentary and the Sayings of Jesus, which are a different body of texts from the gospel.

I'm something of a neo-Marcionite. I think any honest Christian cannot read the Hebrew scriptures without concluding God is portrayed not only as cruel, but pathological, unless various parts are taken ironically, as something like, This is the kind of cruel, judgmental, homicidal, smug God you want, Israel, so that's the God I'll give you (an unlikely reading except perhaps in a few passages).

The God of the gospel narrative (as opposed to the Hebrew scriptures, the Sayings of Jesus, i.e. the Q document, or the commentary, i.e. theology) is the loving God of John 3:16. That's good enough for me. That's the story I accept. I reject the other stories.

You miss my point, the God of the NT is arguably more cruel, to use the wording above. Sounds like you need to reread those gospels and explain to me how after hearing them you are aren't better off being a decent gentile while the God of the OT concerned himself with Israel.

In fact the Gospel places the Torah as being more binding than before, jot and tittle and all that.

 

[RobS]

You miss my point, the God of the NT is arguably more cruel, to use the wording above. Sounds like you need to reread those gospels and explain to me how after hearing them you are aren't better off being a decent gentile while the God of the OT concerned himself with Israel.

In fact the Gospel places the Torah as being more binding than before, jot and tittle and all that.

I think I've read the gospels a lot. I suspect you're conflating the gospel narratives with (a) the epistles and theology (i.e.  commentary) and (b) the sayings of Jesus (i.e. Q document) which got into the narratives later.

You need to think clearly about what we mean by the gospel narrative versus other texts and elements of texts.

 

[Porter ODoran]

I suspect you're conflating the gospel narratives with ... the sayings of Jesus (i.e. Q document) which got into the narratives later.

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Thread locked pending review. 

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Hew do you answer the apparently legitimate criticism from atheists that say the God of Deuteronomy and Leviticus is a cruel sadist much like Muslim Allah?

I would challenge that Koran  bests the OT in terms of Divine cruelty. I am not sure why people think the God of the OT is "crueler" than the God of the NT. If people thought through the Gospel they might wish they hadn't heard it and were deemed righteous Gentiles by the old covenant Jews.

To Alveus' point, the Greeks did a lot, and successfully, to rehabilitate the God of the Bible into their poor understanding of early Greek though,, so that people think that Jesus Loves Me is beginning and end of the whole,story nowadays.

In short, I think no one is reading the Bible very carefully, or at all if they don't have that most oft chronicled feeling towards God by those who are righteous, that of fear.

If the righteous fear God, how ought we feel?

I don't know if they aren't reading it carefully as opposed to schizophrenically. Orthodox and the rest of doctrinal Christianity attempts to gloss the "Old Testament" in terms of the New. A profound mistake as far as I'm concerned. Nor is righteousness a important trait except in the commentary and the Sayings of Jesus, which are a different body of texts from the gospel.

I'm something of a neo-Marcionite. I think any honest Christian cannot read the Hebrew scriptures without concluding God is portrayed not only as cruel, but pathological, unless various parts are taken ironically, as something like, This is the kind of cruel, judgmental, homicidal, smug God you want, Israel, so that's the God I'll give you (an unlikely reading except perhaps in a few passages).

The God of the gospel narrative (as opposed to the Hebrew scriptures, the Sayings of Jesus, i.e. the Q document, or the commentary, i.e. theology) is the loving God of John 3:16. That's good enough for me. That's the story I accept. I reject the other stories.

nothing,

The forum rules limit the participation of the non-Orthodox in Faith Issues in order to preserve this area as a reasonably safe place to discuss Orthodox theology.  Both in this thread and in another locked thread in this section, you have repeatedly promoted non-Orthodox views.  In the unlikely event that you've never heard of such a rule, I'm letting you off with a two-fold warning: familiarise yourself with the forum rules and do not repeat this offence.  Future violations, should they occur, will be dealt with severely. 

Mor Ephrem, moderator

 

[Mor Ephrem]

Thread unlocked.

 

[Dan-Romania]

It's not like the New Testament is way better. It does mention the "eternal hell" . I have no answer for this paragraphs. I don't see how this are not cruel. if I would I wouldn't have so many problems believing this doctrines. Even the Church holds the doctrine of eternal hell. The question is : Why did the Church adopt the idea of a literal eternal torment and stressed so much upon it? What is so gracious, so holy , so fair and so just to "an eternal hell" ?