Am I the only one who feels this way about the Old Testament?

[The Arizonan]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

[Sir Mohamed]

Well, I didn't read larger parts of the bible, but agree. The same is true with quran.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No, you're not the only one. That's a very common take on the OT and has been for centuries.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The only way I can hack it is to say the Old Testament is an allegory and example of life (and death) under the Law.  The New Testament is about life and death under grace.

One system illustrates that you must always strive for perfection because it is the price and requirement to be with God... but you will never attain it and this cycle will continue forever.

The other system turns the system on its head and puts the sin on God himself as the only perfect being and the only being able to handle it, but because of free will, you must choose to accept his grace and sacrifice on your behalf.  Without that choice, you are still condemned.

I believe God gives you every chance to let him unburden you of your sin.  I'd like to believe you will literally have to face God and reject him even after your earthly death and walk into hell yourself.  Did Doubting Thomas not have his skepticism answered and his proof provided before he believed?

[SnowLabrador]

That was one of the biggest problems I had as a Christian. I could never reconcile the concept of a kind, loving God with the idea that God murdered all of these people. Of course you're not alone.

Eventually, I realized that the position with the least cognitive dissonance was atheism.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There's a religion that makes do with the OT as its entire written scripture, and does so without being markedly more martial compared to other religions. It's called Judaism.

Rabbis have been discussing these aspects of the OT for thousands of years and their perspectives are generally a lot fresher than the stale "muh Old Testament harsh and punishing God and muh New Testament gentle and forgiving God" takes in this thread. Much of God's behavior in the OT represents the earliest strata of the Jewish religion and of the covenant with God that Jews and some Christians believe the Jewish people still to have. God uses His power of life and death over His creatures, a power which was apodictic and unanswerable then and is still apodictic and unanswerable now, much more actively and obviously in the "heroic" (so to speak) period of the Patriarchs and Former Prophets than He does later on; the Jewish people's forebears are living in hard and violent times and the ways in which God manifests His providence towards them comport with that hardness and violence because the covenant is relational and affects God in addition to affecting the Jews.

I'd appreciate elaborations or (if need be) corrections from any Jewish posters who might read this; I'm writing it as a Christian with relatively remote Jewish ancestry and a primarily academic familiarity with Judaism as practiced.

[DC Al Fine]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

It's a natural sentiment to have at times. That said it's a little... I guess cursory would be the best word. Much of the anger or confusion at God's actions are based on a failure to maintain a a proper creator/creature distinction or an overly positive view of humanity. Once those points are nailed down, the questions change.

Rabbis have been discussing these aspects of the OT for thousands of years and their perspectives are generally a lot fresher than the stale "muh Old Testament harsh and punishing God and muh New Testament gentle and forgiving God" takes in this thread.

On a related note, this has been one of the weakest points in Evangelical catechesis. When the tensions between the "two Gods" of this approach are inevitably pointed out, there's a tendency towards either umbelief like the poster above you, or Andy Stanley style quasi-Marcionism.

Evangelical churches would do well to make sure their people learn about the safrificial system pointing us to Christ, the faith of the patriarchs etc. Basically, a good strong dose of Hebrews would do wonders here.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

It's a natural sentiment to have at times. That said it's a little... I guess cursory would be the best word. Much of the anger or confusion at God's actions are based on a failure to maintain a a proper creator/creature distinction or an overly positive view of humanity. Once those points are nailed down, the questions change.

     Wanting to punish God for His actions means that one has sinned in Pride, for one has deigned to believe that he can judge God as he would another human.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

It's a natural sentiment to have at times. That said it's a little... I guess cursory would be the best word. Much of the anger or confusion at God's actions are based on a failure to maintain a a proper creator/creature distinction or an overly positive view of humanity. Once those points are nailed down, the questions change.

     Wanting to punish God for His actions means that one has sinned in Pride, for one has deigned to believe that he can judge God as he would another human.

The Arizonan is a proud non-believer. Therefore, him wanting to punish or otherwise react to God does not carry the same significance that a believer with the same view might.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

It's a natural sentiment to have at times. That said it's a little... I guess cursory would be the best word. Much of the anger or confusion at God's actions are based on a failure to maintain a a proper creator/creature distinction or an overly positive view of humanity. Once those points are nailed down, the questions change.

     Wanting to punish God for His actions means that one has sinned in Pride, for one has deigned to believe that he can judge God as he would another human.

The Arizonan is a proud non-believer. Therefore, him wanting to punish or otherwise react to God does not carry the same significance that a believer with the same view might.

     It is a common thread that atheist critiques of Christianity proceed from the assumption that God is like Man, but more powerful, i.e. that the difference is quantitative and not qualitative in nature. This was also the fundamental error of the Devil in Paradise Lost.

[°Leprechaun]

Being angry at God doesn't make much sense. There are some atheists who were brought up in a Christian or theistic faith, who "fired God", that is became atheists because they couldn't see how a loving God is possible. (There is the well known "Epicurean paradox"*).
I doubt that most atheists became atheists due to what might be called existential angst.



*
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Epicurus

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

No, you're not the only one. This idea is as old as the New Testament itself, Marcion, e.g., believed around the year 140 BC that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.

[The Salad Days]

All the OT stories are both historical and allegorical...

1Cor 10:11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I mean yeah, this is what happens when you try to reconcile a collection of texts compiled over several centuries by dozens of authors holding differing moral codes into an eternal tome of reference for ethical behaviour. The Old Testament was put together 2500 years ago by Iron Age people living in a vastly different ethical context to ours. If you read any other book from the 7th century BC would you be surprised or angry at finding the author condoning what we today would consider evil behaviour? Like, to a scribe who was writing about Joshua righteously massacring the city of Jericho for resisting an Israelite invasion it was like, whatever. The world was incredibly violent, people died all the time anyway, Israel itself was constantly getting invaded and destroyed by its neighbours too, that's how the world worked. It's not like he had any sense of something like universal human rights. And even if you were killed everyone went to sheol anyway no matter who they were, so what's the big deal. 

Plus in a larger sense the authors of the Deuteronomistic History weren't really concerned with whether what God was doing was moral or not. God's actions in those books is a vehicle to explain and justify the history of Israel to its Judean readers.

[The Salad Days]

I mean yeah, this is what happens when you try to reconcile a collection of texts compiled over several centuries by dozens of authors holding differing moral codes into an eternal tome of reference for ethical behaviour....

You're having trouble reconciling the Old Testament with the New?! I didn't even know there were "problems" needing to be reconciled. Nor do I see the authors holding "differing moral codes". All the writers of the Old Testament (expect possibly Job, which may have been written before Moses), lived under the same moral code (the Law of Moses). And the New Testament establishes a new covenant enabling men to fulfill the spirit of the Law of Moses without all the exterior/ceremonial clutter (clutter put in place that pointed to the Messiah).

You'd be better off just saying, "I don't believe the bible", than using a silly uneducated argument as an excuse.  Jesus and the writers of the New Testament had no problem "reconciling" the Old and New.

[The Salad Days]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

No, you're not the only one. This idea is as old as the New Testament itself, Marcion, e.g., believed around the year 140 BC that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.

So, you're saying he's not the only heretic, as Marcion blazed the trail of heresy long ago?!

Well, that's comforting!

[Statilius the Epicurean]

You're having trouble reconciling the Old Testament with the New?!

Not that it troubles me (why would it?), but I was making a hopefully obvious point that different authors tend to have different views. This is not a divide between Old vs New Testament but a fact about the relationship between pretty much any two books in the Bible (and even within books).  
 

I didn't even know there were "problems" needing to be reconciled.

I agree. I don't see authorial differences as a "problem" which needs to be "reconciled". Quite the contrary, I think this multiplicity makes the Bible a far more interesting set of texts to study than had it been written by one person at one time advancing one particular viewpoint.

All the writers of the Old Testament (expect possibly Job, which may have been written before Moses)

This is a curious claim, since
1) We have no idea how old Moses is (or if he even existed)
2) Job contains a significant number of Aramaic borrowings, which just one piece of evidence heavily suggesting a late date of composition. But hey, maybe Moses spoke Aramaic.

lived under the same moral code (the Law of Moses).

Which, even if we accept as true, says nothing about how individual interpretations of the Law on the part of Biblical authors can result in different moral applications (indeed, isn't this the entire point of halacha?). Because in the very next sentence you give a significant difference in how the Law is to be morally understood compared the traditional Jewish understanding based on the Hebrew Bible...

And the New Testament establishes a new covenant enabling men to fulfill the spirit of the Law of Moses without all the exterior/ceremonial clutter (clutter put in place that pointed to the Messiah).

Obviously the Jews themselves, who had been living under the Law and studying the Hebrew Bible for centuries, didn't consider their own laws "clutter" or were convinced that their own texts proved Jesus' Messiahship.

You'd be better off just saying, "I don't believe the bible", than using a silly uneducated argument as an excuse.  Jesus and the writers of the New Testament had no problem "reconciling" the Old and New.

An "uneducated argument" which virtually every critical scholar considers a matter of fact.

[Ban my account ffs!]

You're having trouble reconciling the Old Testament with the New?!

Not that it troubles me (why would it?), but I was making a hopefully obvious point that different authors tend to have different views. This is not a divide between Old vs New Testament but a fact about the relationship between pretty much any two books in the Bible (and even within books).   
 

I didn't even know there were "problems" needing to be reconciled.

I agree. I don't see authorial differences as a "problem" which needs to be "reconciled". Quite the contrary, I think this multiplicity makes the Bible a far more interesting set of texts to study than had it been written by one person at one time advancing one particular viewpoint.

All the writers of the Old Testament (expect possibly Job, which may have been written before Moses)

This is a curious claim, since
1) We have no idea how old Moses is (or if he even existed)
2) Job contains a significant number of Aramaic borrowings, which just one piece of evidence heavily suggesting a late date of composition. But hey, maybe Moses spoke Aramaic.

lived under the same moral code (the Law of Moses).

Which, even if we accept as true, says nothing about how individual interpretations of the Law on the part of Biblical authors can result in different moral applications (indeed, isn't this the entire point of halacha?). Because in the very next sentence you give a significant difference in how the Law is to be morally understood compared the traditional Jewish understanding based on the Hebrew Bible...

And the New Testament establishes a new covenant enabling men to fulfill the spirit of the Law of Moses without all the exterior/ceremonial clutter (clutter put in place that pointed to the Messiah).

Obviously the Jews themselves, who had been living under the Law and studying the Hebrew Bible for centuries, didn't consider their own laws "clutter" or were convinced that their own texts proved Jesus' Messiahship.

You'd be better off just saying, "I don't believe the bible", than using a silly uneducated argument as an excuse.  Jesus and the writers of the New Testament had no problem "reconciling" the Old and New.

An "uneducated argument" which virtually every critical scholar considers a matter of fact.

I guarantee Jmfcst/whoever this Kansas milk person is thinks he's "one of the elect" along with people like DC Al Fine et al. 

It's not worth arguing with them.  If they disagree with you, they'll just report you and the "nearly-elect" moderators will moderate your posts.

[The Salad Days]

You're having trouble reconciling the Old Testament with the New?!

Not that it troubles me (why would it?), but I was making a hopefully obvious point that different authors tend to have different views. This is not a divide between Old vs New Testament but a fact about the relationship between pretty much any two books in the Bible (and even within books).   
 

I didn't even know there were "problems" needing to be reconciled.

I agree. I don't see authorial differences as a "problem" which needs to be "reconciled". Quite the contrary, I think this multiplicity makes the Bible a far more interesting set of texts to study than had it been written by one person at one time advancing one particular viewpoint.

All the writers of the Old Testament (expect possibly Job, which may have been written before Moses)

This is a curious claim, since
1) We have no idea how old Moses is (or if he even existed)
2) Job contains a significant number of Aramaic borrowings, which just one piece of evidence heavily suggesting a late date of composition. But hey, maybe Moses spoke Aramaic.

lived under the same moral code (the Law of Moses).

Which, even if we accept as true, says nothing about how individual interpretations of the Law on the part of Biblical authors can result in different moral applications (indeed, isn't this the entire point of halacha?). Because in the very next sentence you give a significant difference in how the Law is to be morally understood compared the traditional Jewish understanding based on the Hebrew Bible...

And the New Testament establishes a new covenant enabling men to fulfill the spirit of the Law of Moses without all the exterior/ceremonial clutter (clutter put in place that pointed to the Messiah).

Obviously the Jews themselves, who had been living under the Law and studying the Hebrew Bible for centuries, didn't consider their own laws "clutter" or were convinced that their own texts proved Jesus' Messiahship.

You'd be better off just saying, "I don't believe the bible", than using a silly uneducated argument as an excuse.  Jesus and the writers of the New Testament had no problem "reconciling" the Old and New.

An "uneducated argument" which virtually every critical scholar considers a matter of fact.

I guarantee Jmfcst/whoever this Kansas milk person is thinks he's "one of the elect" along with people like DC Al Fine et al. 

It's not worth arguing with them.  If they disagree with you, they'll just report you and the "nearly-elect" moderators will moderate your posts.

that's "the" jmfcst, to you....and he doesn't report people.

[Kingpoleon]

I have seen believer and non-believer alike make one God into two separate parts. This notion is as strange as it is illogical, and as illogical as it is un-Biblical. The God of Abraham and Isaac was and is a God unlike any other: whereas all other ancient gods, each and every false god, channeled their “power” through the wealthy and powerful of society, my God took up the case of the oppressed, defended the immigrant, fed the widowed, and protected the orphaned.

It is true that the ancient Israelites defended themselves against immoral, hostile, and unbelieving peoples to absolute destruction. But they knew that if they had lost a battle, they would be treated the same way.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I have seen believer and non-believer alike make one God into two separate parts. This notion is as strange as it is illogical, and as illogical as it is un-Biblical.

Is that any more illogical than the orthodox Christian position which makes God into three separate parts and has one third killed by another third?

[DC Al Fine]

I have seen believer and non-believer alike make one God into two separate parts. This notion is as strange as it is illogical, and as illogical as it is un-Biblical.

Is that any more illogical than the orthodox Christian position which makes God into three separate parts and has one third killed by another third?

That's modalism Patrick!

More seriously though, what you are describing is not what Christians confess in the Nicene Creed.

[Greatest I am]

The only way I can hack it is to say the Old Testament is an allegory and example of life (and death) under the Law.  The New Testament is about life and death under grace.

One system illustrates that you must always strive for perfection because it is the price and requirement to be with God... but you will never attain it and this cycle will continue forever.

The other system turns the system on its head and puts the sin on God himself as the only perfect being and the only being able to handle it, but because of free will, you must choose to accept his grace and sacrifice on your behalf.  Without that choice, you are still condemned.

I believe God gives you every chance to let him unburden you of your sin.  I'd like to believe you will literally have to face God and reject him even after your earthly death and walk into hell yourself.  Did Doubting Thomas not have his skepticism answered and his proof provided before he believed?

Accept the sacrifice eh.

Is that a moral thing to do?

Do you agree that having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral? Do you agree that to abdicate personal responsibility or use a scapegoat is immoral?

If not, please show how it is morally and legally good to punish the innocent instead of the guilty, bearing in mind that all legal systems think that punishing the guilty is what is justice.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

There's a religion that makes do with the OT as its entire written scripture, and does so without being markedly more martial compared to other religions. It's called Judaism.

Rabbis have been discussing these aspects of the OT for thousands of years and their perspectives are generally a lot fresher than the stale "muh Old Testament harsh and punishing God and muh New Testament gentle and forgiving God" takes in this thread. Much of God's behavior in the OT represents the earliest strata of the Jewish religion and of the covenant with God that Jews and some Christians believe the Jewish people still to have. God uses His power of life and death over His creatures, a power which was apodictic and unanswerable then and is still apodictic and unanswerable now, much more actively and obviously in the "heroic" (so to speak) period of the Patriarchs and Former Prophets than He does later on; the Jewish people's forebears are living in hard and violent times and the ways in which God manifests His providence towards them comport with that hardness and violence because the covenant is relational and affects God in addition to affecting the Jews.

I'd appreciate elaborations or (if need be) corrections from any Jewish posters who might read this; I'm writing it as a Christian with relatively remote Jewish ancestry and a primarily academic familiarity with Judaism as practiced.

If Jews were literalists, perhaps. They are not.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Further.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&list=PLCBF574D

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I’ve never read the Old Testament, let alone the whole Bible, in its entirety. Even so, it’s impossible for me to read it and not want to literally slap God in the face for murdering all of those people and what not.

No, you're not the only one. This idea is as old as the New Testament itself, Marcion, e.g., believed around the year 140 BC that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.

You might want to go check when the N T was written.

You are trying to see a dead Jesus 170 years before he was born.

Regards
DL