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[Joel Blazing Pants]

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are vastly different entities.

If one were to take away the biblical writings of the two, and focus solely on the actions/commandments of them, it would be extremely hard to assume that both deities are the same.

The God of the Old Testament is depicted as a staunch ruler that favors obedience and abiding laws over true morality. You see it in how he "tested" Abraham by commanding him to kill his son, even though human sacrifice is detestable to Him. He rewards the Levites for killing their own families in loyalty to Him, and tortures Job to prove how devout his follower can be.

However, the God of The New Testament is depicted as a loving father, seeking to save humanity from themselves, even sacrificing himself in the process. You see it in the story of Jesus, in his teachings to love one another, and how the Father in Heaven will accept anyone who seeks him.

For example:
John 3:16 states that "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. "

Yet in the Old Testament, God required the slaughter of countless men, women, and children, mass-killed his own people when they stepped out of line, and even drowned the entire human population.

In fact, God was going to wipe out the Israelites entirely, but Moses convinced Him not to. Not because he loved the Israelites, but because killing them all would make Him look bad.

To go even further, it was the common belief at that time that only Jews could be saved by God, which is why books such as Jonah were written.

There's no explanation for when or why God makes such a change, He didn't start loving everyone after he sent Jesus, he sent Jesus because he loved everyone. But God's actions in the old testament all but debunk this idea. And beyond salvation itself:

James 4:8 says: "Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.",

Which once again means anyone can come to God, yet in the old testament God executed Korah for believing it.

1 John 4:12 claims " No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

But God appeared before several old testament figures, such as Adam and Eve, Moses, Solomon, and Jacob full on wrestled with Him.

In the Old Testament, God had a man put to death for doing even minor work on the Sabbath,

While Jesus heals a man and has him break this same law.

And one of the most notable changes, God commanded in Deuteronomy 19:21 states
" Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. "

But Jesus said the complete opposite when he claimed:
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. ’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” – Matthew 5:38–39

The actions of these two God's are mutually exclusive. Unless there is a major change within the core deity itself. But due to God's depiction of being perfect and unchanging, is impossible.

I'd go as far as to say that Allah, another derivative of God who is more traditional "eye for an eye", is a closer rendition of the Hebrew God than the holy trinity is.

[jimwalton]

Your thesis is incorrect.

- Both demonstrate love as a primary attribute (Ex. 34.6; Jn. 3.16; 15.9; and many others)
- Both demonstrate justice where it is warranted (Gn. 18.25; Jn. 5.22)
- Both demonstrate initiating a covenant to form a people, a community, belonging to God
- Both are holy and righteous (Lev. 19.2; Lk. 4.34 and many others)
- Both test their followers for trust and faithfulness.
- Both are as concerned with the heart as with actions (Micah 6.8; Lk. 8.15 and many others)

Secondly, to claim that "The God of the Old Testament is depicted as a staunch ruler that favors obedience and abiding laws over true morality" is simply untrue. Righteousness is always the goal (Micah 6.8; Isa. 1.11-17).

> You see it in how he "tested" Abraham by commanding him to kill his son

This is a distortion. Abraham knew that child sacrifice was not what was being asked. This is a much longer answer.

> He rewards the Levites for killing their own families in loyalty to Him

This is a fallacy of reductionism. There is FAR more going on here than your caricature admits or allows.

> and tortures Job to prove how devout his follower can be.

Job is not a historical account, but a philosophical/theological treatise. No one got tortured.

> Yet in the Old Testament, God required the slaughter of countless men, women, and children, mass-killed his own people when they stepped out of line, and even drowned the entire human population.

This is a distortion and a misunderstanding. There is no genocide going on the OT: not the Conquest, not the flood.

> it was the common belief at that time that only Jews could be saved by God, which is why books such as Jonah were written.

It was a common mistaken belief, not something God had ever taught.

> In the Old Testament, God had a man put to death for doing even minor work on the Sabbath,

Another superficial caricature. There is much more going on here that warrants fuller discussion.

> Deuteronomy 19:21 states
" Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. "

Have you read any of the context to give you understanding? The case at hand is a false witness in court who deliberately lies to be malicious. (Dt. 19.16). Bearing false witness will ultimately lead to a complete travesty of justice and bring to an end the effectiveness of a court of law. In a world where truth is disregarded, words become nothing more than tools of power.

Jesus, in Matthew 5:38–39, was talking about personal revenge, not courtroom proceedings. Please read more than just the words. You're making many interpretive mistakes by, so it seems, lifting verses out of context without doing any reading or research beyond the actual words you're lifting out. It is leading you to false conclusions.

> The actions of these two God's are mutually exclusive. Unless there is a major change within the core deity itself. But due to God's depiction of being perfect and unchanging, is impossible.

This conclusion, therefore, is both misguided and mistaken. The actions of God the Father and God the Son are not even different, let alone contradictory or mutually exclusive.

> I'd go as far as to say that Allah, another derivative of God who is more traditional "eye for an eye", is a closer rendition of the Hebrew God than the holy trinity is.

This is because you have made so many interpretive mistakes, not reading contexts, not getting the true meaning, and distorting what we do have by yanking verses out of context.

I'd be glad to discuss this more with you.

[Old Born]

Job is not a historical account

This is one of the main problems with the Bible. There is no rule of when to analyse the text literally or metaphorically.
God says that he is unchanging, yet the new covenant is supposed to represent a new relationship.

[jimwalton]

> There is no rule of when to analyse the text literally or metaphorically.

Sure there are. There's an entire discipling of interpretation called hermeneutics, with lists of principles and rules. It's taught at seminaries, and you can buy books on the subject.

> God says that he is unchanging, yet the new covenant is supposed to represent a new relationship.

The new covenant doesn't represent a change in God any more than high school undoes anything you learned in middle school. It's the next step, not a change.

[Right]

> Job is not a historical account, but a philosophical/theological treatise. No one got tortured.

What makes you confident in that?

[jimwalton]

1. The genre is most like wisdom literature, not historical literature. There is nothing in Job that demands or even indicates that it needs to be a historical occurrence.
2. It makes no claims about the nature of the events or their historicity. The author is using various parts of the book to pose a philosophical/theological scenario that will be used to address the wisdom themes in the book.
3. The book is not really about Job, his friends, or the satan. It's about God and our questions about His nature. It presents a theological issue, not a historical one.
4. The restoration of Job's family and fortunes at the end of the book are historically unrealistic.
5. Indications that is was intended to be hypothetical include:

* The absolutely maximum amount of suffering brought on an individual of the most impeccable righteousness.
* The setting in a foreign land of unspecified locale.
* The presentation of direct dialogue. Obviously no stenographer was present.
* The necessity of all these extreme situations in order to present the theological issue in clear relief.

[Wolf born]

> There's an entire discipline

God didn't make this rule, humans did; that's my point.

> The new covenant doesn't represent a change in God

How is this true if the new covenant changes the way God acts toward people?

[jimwalton]

> God didn't make this rule, humans did; that's my point.

First of all, if this is true we can say the same thing about science, and yet we don't reject science. Second, there's no harm in recognizing that God gave us brains to use. If you're going to reject everything that comes out of a human brain—Houston, we have a problem.

So I don't think your point holds. The fact that humans, though millennia of study, have derived reliable principles of literary interpretation (just as we have derived principles of scientific methodology, jurisprudence, and logic) doesn't require that those principles are worthless or so deeply flawed that we can cavalierly toss them aside.

> How is this true if the new covenant changes the way God acts toward people?

My point was that the new covenant did not change the way God acts toward people. God is consistent. If you scroll back to my original post, you will see the argument I gave and the evidence I presented to support my thesis.

[Right]

Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate it. I’ve not really had the opportunity to discuss this with anyone previously.

I don’t know your stance on the historicity of other books or Biblical characters, so I apologize if I assume anything incorrectly.

> There is nothing in Job that demands or even indicates that it needs to be a historical occurrence.

Does Job’s country of origin, Uz, not indicate that? As far as I can tell, Uz is a real place since it is mentioned in other places like Jeremiah 25:20.

> The book is not really about Job, his friends, or the satan. It's about God and our questions about His nature. It presents a theological issue, not a historical one.

How does this differ from books like Esther, which seems to be more about how God works behind the scenes even when he is not visibly present?

> The restoration of Job's family and fortunes at the end of the book are historically unrealistic.

In what sense is it unrealistic?

> The necessity of all these extreme situations in order to present the theological issue in clear relief.

I’m not sure how I feel about this point. In different words, isn’t this just a criticism of thinking the story too convenient? I’m not sure I really agree with that criticism, I think the whole idea is that Job was intentionally caused to suffer in specific aspects of his life.

This feels like a criticism we wouldn’t consistently level against other biblical stories, like Jonah for example, and therefore an unfair/unrealistic stick to measure by.

What do you make of Job being mentioned alongside other, real people:

* as examples of righteousness in Ezekiel 14:14
* in the book of James as an example of spiritual perseverance (James 5:11).

To me, it seems kind of weird to mention a fictional character alongside real ones, and almost disingenuous to suggest him as an example.

[jimwalton]

> I don’t know your stance on the historicity of other books or Biblical characters, so I apologize if I assume anything incorrectly.

In general, I generally take them all to be historical. Job would be the exception, but I'm speaking in general. It's possible you would bring up someone else, and I'd go, "Oh, yeah, forgot about that one." But generally speaking, I find the books and characters of the Bible to be historical events and figures.

> Does Job’s country of origin, Uz, not indicate that? As far as I can tell, Uz is a real place since it is mentioned in other places like Jeremiah 25:20.

The location and identification of Uz is not precisely known. Yes, in Jer. 25.20 it is associated with Philistia, Edom, and Moab. A southern location is implied in Lam. 4.21. But Uz may also have been a general term for the Near East, and as such would be like saying, "A man from around here..."

The real significance os Uz is that Job is not an Israelite. His non-Israelite status explains the absence of many key theological elements in the book, including law, covenant, temple, and references to YHWH (the book uses the name Elohim). Intriguingly, however, the book of Job frequently evidences an Israelite perspective, which suggests that the story of the non-Israelite Job has actually been given its literary shape by an Israelite author for an Israelite audience.

> How does this differ from books like Esther, which seems to be more about how God works behind the scenes even when he is not visibly present?

Esther is completely different. First, Job is a philosophical treatise, Esther a historical one (the preservation of Jews from genocide). Secondly, the book of Job is filled with references about God, but Esther doesn't have a single one (Esther is the only book in the Bible that never mentions God even once). They both include elements of how God works behind the scenes when he is not visibly present, but most books of the Bible do that as well.

> In what sense is it unrealistic?

Job had 10 more children after he recovered from his illnesses—7 sons and 3 daughters, *exactly* like he had had before?? You know what the odds are against that happening in real life.

> "The necessity of all these extreme situations in order to present the theological issue in clear relief." I’m not sure how I feel about this point.

All of the "historical" factors in the book are extreme: Extreme wealth, extreme blamelessness, extreme unfairness in suffering, extreme restoration. If you want to make a point in debate, you use an extreme example. If an argument holds all the way to the edges, you have made your case.

> I think the whole idea is that Job was intentionally caused to suffer in specific aspects of his life.

Correct, and that's the point: Is the retribution principle the way God runs the world? The answer the book gives is "no."

> What do you make of Job being mentioned alongside other, real people:

We do it all the time. It's not disingenuous. There are fictional characters that become part of our cultural river: The Good Samaritan, the boy who cried wolf, the emperor's new clothes, "as Samwise Gamgee said," etc. We refer to them for the lessons they teach, not for their historicity.

I'll hear a newscaster say, "A Good Samaritan is responsible for helping save a boy's life today when he fell in the river..." Is it disingenuous for that newscaster to mention a fictional character alongside a real one? I don't think so.