Old Testament VS New Testament

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nbcrusader said:


Scripture that shows that:

1. God is not love
2. God changes

well clearly there are no verses that explicitely state that god is not love etc... but you can contrast the description of love given to us by paul with descrption of god in the ot and realize that they are incompatible. a 2 + 2 = 5 sort of thing.

for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...
exodus 20:5

for the LORD your God is...a jealous God.
deuteronomy 5:16

he is a jealous God.
joshua 24:19

+

[Love] does not envy.
1 corinthians 13:4

=

god is love (?)

------
or...
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sodom and gomorrah; the great flood; ordered slaughter of entire city populations; animal sacrifices; etc...

+

[Love] is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...always protects.
1 corinthians 13:5-7

=

god is love (?)

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seems pretty inconsistent to me. that's why i see the two honest options being that a) god is not love, or b) god changes.
 
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AvsGirl41 said:
The way I understand it, the Hebrews followed a code of strict monotheism. All good comes from God--and so does all evil. The evil spirit that plagues Saul, for instance, is sent by God. Originally, there was no Satan figure because that was a compromise of monotheism. (Job is one exception, and you'll notice that The Adversary is portrayed as being a member of God's court, not exactly the Satan figure we are familiar with)

How does the Old Testament support the notion that all evil comes from God?

In Job, it is Satan who desires to test Job. Job 1:7 and Job 2:2 both describe Satan "roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Hardly a description of a "member of God's court".


AvsGirl41 said:
After the fall of Israel to Babylon, if you read the prophets there is a real shift in perception. You start to see a move away from the "sins of the father" and into one of individual faith and responsibility. With Jeremiah, God establishes the internal covenant.

Do you have the reference for this covenant? I know that God established a number of covenants, but I cannot recall of the top of my head the one from Jeremiah.
 
ah ha, I have read that part of the Bible Se7en! I think by jealous it is meant that it displeases Him when people don't love Him totally. Hmm this is tough, by displease I mean it makes Him sad/hurt because He wants our complete love.
 
Se7en said:
well clearly there are no verses that explicitely state that god is not love etc... but you can contrast the description of love given to us by paul with descrption of god in the ot and realize that they are incompatible. a 2 + 2 = 5 sort of thing.

for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...
exodus 20:5

for the LORD your God is...a jealous God.
deuteronomy 5:16

he is a jealous God.
joshua 24:19

+

[Love] does not envy.
1 corinthians 13:4

=

god is love (?)

An interesting theory, but God clearly wants (demands) that we love Him alone ("Have no other gods before Me"). I don't see this as envy, but as a command and desire of God for our own good. God's love is a jealous love that desires that we keep Him in the center of our hearts.

It would be odd to suggest that if God is love, and love does not envy, then God would approve of our worship of other things.

Also, I think we get mixed up on the statement "God is love". The only time the statement appears in Scripture is as follows:

1 John 4:7-9 "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."


Se7en said:
sodom and gomorrah; the great flood; ordered slaughter of entire city populations; animal sacrifices; etc...

+

[Love] is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs...always protects.
1 corinthians 13:5-7

=

god is love (?)

-----

seems pretty inconsistent to me. that's why i see the two honest options being that a) god is not love, or b) god changes.

In this second example, you are using the definition of love to essentially elimiate God's role as Judge and Protector.

The Corinthians passage is directed to us, to direct us in our limited notion of love. God's love for His own can be shown in each of the examples above.
 
Macfistowannabe said:
I can understand how you feel about God and I have nothing against it. However, to sight an example, Jesus was angry quite a few times in the Gospel. It could've been because he was in the form of a man, but for sure God isn't always pleased with humanity. Yet he had the mercy to save us.


Yeah, I know, which is why I said I wasn't totally sure how I felt yet. Maybe b/c Jesus is both fully human AND fully divine so in order to be fully human, he was able to express anger? I dunno.
 
nbcrusader said:


How does the Old Testament support the notion that all evil comes from God?

In Job, it is Satan who desires to test Job. Job 1:7 and Job 2:2 both describe Satan "roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it." Hardly a description of a "member of God's court".

Do you have the reference for this covenant? I know that God established a number of covenants, but I cannot recall of the top of my head the one from Jeremiah.

Well, the simple fact that Satan, no matter how hard you look for him, is *not* mentioned in the Old Testament apart from Job.

Of course, you can argue the snake but understand that this was a belief that came about only in the Intertestamental-New Testament era. The apocryphal Book of Wisdom (if your Catholic or Orthodox, it's in the Bible, but neither the Jews or the Protestants recognize it) is the first to actually mention Satan as the snake, and the concept of original sin. Going strictly off the Hebrew Bible, the snake is just a crafty snake. (There is, of course, a difference between faith and history. My faith says the snake is Satan, but history did not always believe this to be the case.)

The most clear-cut case is, as I mentioned before, the affliction of Saul. "The spirit of the Lord had forsaken Saul, and at times an evil spirt from the Lord would seize him suddenly. His servants said to him 'You see how an evil spirit from God seizes you; sir, why do you not command your servants here to go and find someone who can play on the lyre? Then, when an evil spirit from God comes on you, he can play and you will recover" (1 Samuel 16:15-16) It doesn't say God had forsaken Saul, so Satan sent an evil spirit, as is the case with Job. It says God sent it. This is because, at this time, the Hebrews had not yet incorporated dualistic concepts into their faith.

As for Job, I suppose it's really a draw. The passage states "The day came when the members of the court of heaven took their places in the presence of the Lord, and the Adversary, Satan, was there among them. The Lord asked him where he had been..." You can take it to mean he doesn't have a permanent place in the court, but to me, "ranging over the earth" isn't any more concrete. In fact, God asks him where he's been. That seems to imply, to me, that if he's not a member, he's at least a frequent guest. Hardly the Lucifer, cast out of heaven, that we've come to recognize.

My Biblical footnote states, "Adversary: Hebrew "the satan," accuser, apparently a legal term and yet not the proper name for an evil being that it was to become later. The title and function possibly derive from the Persian secret police, and the duties would compare to those of a district attorney in the United States. The Adversary is the enemy of human beings, not of God."

The covenant of Jeremiah can be found in Jeremiah 31: 31-40.

"The days are coming, says the Lord, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, a covenant they broke, hough I was patient with them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant I shall establish with the Israelites after those days, says the Lord: I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts, I shall be their God and they will be my people. No longer need they teach one another, neighbor or brother, to know the Lord; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the Lord, for I shall forgive their wrong doing and their sin I shall call to mind no more"
 
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Here is where I am at this point in my life, and it is now that I find myself completely in a different place from 12 years ago.

I feel that they are completely the same God and that there was NO CHANGE.

I see again and again through the Old Testament right now the same God. I see a consistently forgiving God. I have been trying to look for the examples of the Grace of God. The more I see it, the more I am thinking like Pax, that the change is in the writers.

Jesus came not to abolish the law. God is consistent. Jesus to me brings new meaning to the same law for us.

I look at God choosing Abraham or even choosing Jacob over Esau, and I think wow, he is a forgiving God because these two are not even deserving, yet by God's grace, they are chosen.

I think Jesus was a physical representation of how the law was to be applied verses the way it was being applied.

All I know is 12 years ago all I saw was the vengeful God, and more and more, I think it was the writers who saw it that way. Ulitimately, God had to come down to straighten us out. For me, it is exciting to read the Old Testament believing in my heart that it is the same unchanged God of the new testament.

I am now officially babling.

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The Hebrews were not monothesitic through the early stages of Genesis. That is a misconception. They did recognize other gods, but believed theirs was THE GOD above all others. There is a term for this belief. I cannot remember it now.
 
Thank you to all for staying on topic, and what I find excitingly shocking, is that no matter what our denominations, we are all really close to finding common ground.

Exciting stuff..
 
Dreadsox said:

The Hebrews were not monothesitic through the early stages of Genesis. That is a misconception. They did recognize other gods, but believed theirs was THE GOD above all others. There is a term for this belief. I cannot remember it now.

You are right. It's henotheism--a god among many, a chief or head god and yes, the early Hebrews were of this school of thought. I think Genesis is one of the most facinating books to read for this reason! :) Such ancient, ancient stuff...

It was to diffentiate themselves from these other Near Eastern faiths that they adopted strict monotheism--our one God doesn't have or need a Goddess figure, he can have sons without one.
 
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Dreadsox said:
The Hebrews were not monothesitic through the early stages of Genesis. That is a misconception. They did recognize other gods, but believed theirs was THE GOD above all others. There is a term for this belief. I cannot remember it now.

The Hebrews recognized that other people followed other gods. They did not follow any other god - so I think you can call them monotheistic.
 
AvsGirl41 said:


Well, the simple fact that Satan, no matter how hard you look for him, is *not* mentioned in the Old Testament apart from Job.

Of course, you can argue the snake but understand that this was a belief that came about only in the Intertestamental-New Testament era.

I believe there are other references to Satan in the Old Testament. I have those at home and will follow-up later.

The fall of Satan is described in Isaiah 14

The snake as Satan is supported by the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
 
Dreadsox said:
Jesus came not to abolish the law. God is consistent. Jesus to me brings new meaning to the same law for us.

I look at God choosing Abraham or even choosing Jacob over Esau, and I think wow, he is a forgiving God because these two are not even deserving, yet by God's grace, they are chosen.

I think Jesus was a physical representation of how the law was to be applied verses the way it was being applied.

Study of the Old Testament is exciting when you see the consistency of God's message of grace throughout. The more we understand what it means to be Jewish, the more we understand what it means to be a Christian.
 
nbcrusader said:


The Hebrews recognized that other people followed other gods. They did not follow any other god - so I think you can call them monotheistic.

They became monotheistic.....

Henotheistic would describe them before they became monotheistic.
 
AvsGirl41 said:


You are right. It's henotheism--a god among many, a chief or head god and yes, the early Hebrews were of this school of thought. I think Genesis is one of the most facinating books to read for this reason! :) Such ancient, ancient stuff...

It was to diffentiate themselves from these other Near Eastern faiths that they adopted strict monotheism--our one God doesn't have or need a Goddess figure, he can have sons without one.

Thank you for refreshing my memory....:wink:

This means you are close to being as big a geek as me!:wink:
 
nbcrusader said:


Study of the Old Testament is exciting when you see the consistency of God's message of grace throughout. The more we understand what it means to be Jewish, the more we understand what it means to be a Christian.

I feel like I am looking at the book for the first time.

I figure if guys like Abraham and Jacob were alright in God's eyes, I have a fighting chance:wink:
 
One way of putting the relation between the two Testaments is that the New Testament in one sense serves as a commnetary on the old, ie. it tells you how it should be read. And you can't have one without the other. Most of what Jesus said was either direct quotations from the OT or derived from the OT in some way. Paul was a Pharisee and as such made heavy use of the Herew scriptures. The two are inseparable.

Where the difficulty lies, is that as otehrs have said, each book of the OT represents a different understanding of God. For example the Deutornomic histories (Joshua through 2 Kings) are all interprative histories which look at the history of Israel through the lense of Deuteronomy. They take the relation between success and keeping the covanant very seriously and interpret all things in that way.

Israel means roughly "he who struggles with God" and that is really what you see in the OT, a people's trials as they strive to understand the God who chose them. At first they don't even know his name, calling him the god of Abraham, or of our fathers or El-Shaddai. Only when we get to Moses do they know what to call him. The authority of God moves from local to the universal level.

And if one doubts this just look at Genesis, there are some weird bits there. Gen 6:1-4 describes "sons of God" who mated with human women to produce "Nephilim", heroes and warriors. who get wipedout in the flood. The Apocryphal book of Enoch expands on this. Most scholars believe that ancient Israel had a much more devloped mythology than whatis recorded in the OT, and that the writers of the OT rejected it,though a few bits remained like the mysterious figure of Azazel. Again more step along the way to understanding the full nature of God.

And given that Christians believe that the only way God became truly knowable was in coming in as a human in Christ, such limitiations to earlier understandings of God are not surprising.

BTW, there's nothing inhernetly wrong about anger. What matters is the reason for it, how one acts upon it and wheter it goes any further into rage, bitterness etc. Righteous anger over sin and wrong doing as long as it doesn't lead to sinful behaviour is perfectly right. Hence there is nothing off in God being described as angry. Jelous is more problematic and I tend to think that a flawed analogy as I can't hink of that emotion withou negative aspects. God is personal but not human and we are limited in that to describe him we must use allegories of human emotions.
 
nbcrusader said:


I believe there are other references to Satan in the Old Testament. I have those at home and will follow-up later.

The fall of Satan is described in Isaiah 14

The snake as Satan is supported by the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."

Isaiah 14 is actually a dirge on the King of Babylon, as evidenced by the prose passage before it.

"On the day when the Lord gives you relief from your pain and trouble and from the cruel servitude imposed upon you, you will take up this taunt-song over the King of Babylon." (Isaiah 14:4)

My footnote backs this up. "This dirge is referred to the king of Babylon in its prose introduction and conclusion, but the song itself could have been applied to any of Israel's oppressors."

I suppose by oppressor you can name Satan, but it's stretch.

I'm curious to know some more.
 
nbcrusader said:

The Corinthians passage is directed to us, to direct us in our limited notion of love. God's love for His own can be shown in each of the examples above.

honestly i'm not sure how smiting sodom and gomorrah with burning sulfur displays love of any kind. especially when paul describes love as holding no record of wrong. also, god must have loved the woman and children of non-jewish cities so much that he ordered joshua to systematically murder them along with every other living inhabitant...this after god ordered moses to purge the holy land upon his arrival.

where is the love?
 
The Bible says that God is always has been and always will be the same.

Just because the laws changed doesn't mean he did. Man had no direct mediator between himself and God before Jesus came along.
 
Se7en said:
honestly i'm not sure how smiting sodom and gomorrah with burning sulfur displays love of any kind. especially when paul describes love as holding no record of wrong. also, god must have loved the woman and children of non-jewish cities so much that he ordered joshua to systematically murder them along with every other living inhabitant...this after god ordered moses to purge the holy land upon his arrival.

where is the love?

If we use the notion of love to say that God cannot judge or punish, we will get no where. It is akin to saying "if you love me, you must forgive me". God gives his forgiveness freely, but is under no obligation to us whatsoever.

God, in His love for His own, wanted the Hebrews to live free from the influences of the ungodly cultures. Hence the directives to purify the land.
 
I believe it is the same God, who reveals himself to people in different ways.
 
Se7en said:


honestly i'm not sure how smiting sodom and gomorrah with burning sulfur displays love of any kind. especially when paul describes love as holding no record of wrong. also, god must have loved the woman and children of non-jewish cities so much that he ordered joshua to systematically murder them along with every other living inhabitant...this after god ordered moses to purge the holy land upon his arrival.

where is the love?

Like I said in the other thread, please don't base your opinions on God on some OT narrative stories that may never have happened anyway.
 
nbcrusader and others:

There is an interesting story in Exodus 32 where human intercession clearly changes God's mind, and thus, his plan.

When we say that God does not change, we are saying that his compassion, his love, the goal of his guidance of history does not change. Sometimes the plan may change, or his mind may change (as we perceive it), but I think God, in ultimate freedom, may reserve that right.

What is constant about God is not necessarily the brass tacks about how he accomplishes his will in the world, but that his will is always to redeem--in some way--all of his creation. That is a constant. As Christians, we look to the cross to see the ultimate length to which God will go to enter the human experience and affect victory over all things which stand in opposition to his will.
 
The notion of Moses changing God's mind is what is in the text and reflects a the idea that God is changeable. But if one reads the whole account there is also another reading possible. In deciding to destroy Israel God also offers that Moses alone would be the founder of a great nation. But Moses rejects this offer and chooses to save his people.

The puropse of this text is to show the righteousness of Moses, which is why God is shown to change his mind. The ultimate point is that Moses is put to the test and choses the well being of others, even those who betray him above glorifying himself. Taken against what the rest of scripture has to say about the unchangeable nature of God one should read this story as God testing Moses rather than Moses changing God's mind, otherwise Moses comes out as having a higher moral character than God. One must read any verse in the Bible against the entire Bible.

Though the books were originally separate it wasn't for purely human reasons that they were gathered together as an authoritative collection. No single book quite gets the matter right, only together does one get a reasonably complete picture of God. On a smaller scale take the Gospels. If any particular Gospel were sufficient in and of itself why have four? Becasue all four are necessary to get a full picture of Christ, and to balance out the opinions of four different writers. One keeps the each book nuances and unique insights but balances these with others. We don't harmonize becuase to do so would lose those unique insights. A harmonized version would be easier to understand (as would an amalgamated, rewritten OT) but critical material would be lost. Thus we keep the books in their original forms and learn from their nuances.
 
The God of the OT and the NT are the same. Testament is another word for 'covenant'.

The definition of covenant is a solemn agreement that brings unrelated people into kinship relationship. There are many different covenants that are formed in the OT, that bring God into relationship with His people. Covenants must be kept as long as they are valid...therefore there are several instances in the OT that have convenant renewals (off the top of my head I know there is one within Joshua 23-24).

So in the New Covenant (Testament) there are several 'covenants' that aren't renewed, for example the circumcision rites as well as many of those from Leviticus for example (those strange laws really served a certain purpose at the time they were made--ie. boiling a goat in it's mother's milk was a pagan ritual at the time and that is why the book of Levit. outlaws it). However there are some that still do remain...for example Jesus sums up the Two Greatest Commandments by qupting an OT source from the book of Dueteronomy. And of course the nature of God isn't contradicted either.

So my point is the two Testaments are deeply connected. I bristle when I hear Christians who speak of only being familiar with the NT. There is a lot of understanding to be gained of God's nature through the OT and one can really see how they are connected....there are many instances of the OT that point to the coming of Jesus that can be seen casual reading or nuanced through tranlation of the Hebrew & Greek.

Also through reading the OT you can better understand the concept of progressive revelation....God slowly reveals Himself and His nature more and more throughout the OT.
 
Blacksword, your response to the story in Exodus 32 is insightful, but I can't discount God's action simply as a test for Moses. I think the Hebrews understood that something was really going on in the heart of their God at that point.

The Hebrew word (nifal) for "changes his mind" in Exodus 32 is "be sorry, moved to pity, have compassion." This same root in the nifal is used in Psalm 90:13 as "have compassion." Thus, the emphasis for the Hebrews who would have recorded (and revised) this story would have been God's mercy and compassion, not God's inconstancy. Even at a time when God's people have committed such a heinous offense to God's commands, at a time when the people of Israel seem as lost and confused as ever in the Sinai, God is swayed to respond with mercy, pity, and compassion. This theme of atonement and mercy bears direct relationship to the word of the cross.
 
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