I started to leave this post as a comment on ratamacue0‘s recent post, What Started My Questioning? but decided to post it instead. Fellow blogger (and friend) unkleE left this comment as part of a conversation that he and ratamacue0 were having:
…most non-believers seem not to recognise that there isn’t one consistent portrait of God in the Bible – it changes through both Testaments – and then to choose the worst picture (which is often the earliest one) to critique. But if the claimed revelation of God is progressive, it would surely be fairer to choose a later picture.
I think most non-believers do recognize the difference; it’s just hard to forget that first impression given in the OT.
And really, how progressive is the picture the Bible paints? The NT points out that God doesn’t change, so those harsh characteristics he possessed in the OT are still being claimed by NT writers. The NT also repeats some things like “vengenance is mine, I will repay.” And it tells us not to fear those who can destroy the body, but he who can destroy both body and soul. The NT also gives us the doctrine of Hell, regardless of what that might mean.
I think some of the NT writers, like Paul and the author of Hebrews, are arguing that the method of salvation and the specific requirements God has for people are changing, and in that way the message becomes more progressive. More emphasis is placed on the mind and not just physical acts, for instance. But as to who God is, I don’t think that image really progresses from OT to NT. The same God that killed Uzzah for trying to steady the ark, condemns anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus, even though it’s hard to blame many of the Jews for saying Jesus was a blasphemer, considering the teachings in the Old Law.
Such a God is irrational. Many Christians seem to agree, which is why they don’t believe in parts of the OT. But since the NT still claims the same irrational God, I see no reason to believe in him at all. And to me, that seems much more consistent than trying to hold onto parts of the mythology, while rejecting the unsavory parts. If that god were real, and he wanted people to know about him, I think he’d keep the one source of information about him pure. Since that obviously didn’t happen with the Bible, why continue to hold to it at all? Why not put faith in a god who isn’t concerned with petty dogmas, one who simply set things in motion for us? One that may inspire people from time to time, but is largely content to let us live our lives without interference? To me, that seems to fit the evidence far better… and while I don’t have any actual belief in such a deity, I can see why some would. Why mesh it with Christianity, when it seems so superfluous?
Finding Truth 
Nate, this is your house and I would not call your guests names.
I don’t think I have talked trash to unkleE. In any case, his first response to me was to dismiss my question and then he intended to set the ground rules for engagement. If asking him to clarify a few issues here and there is talking trash, I apologize.
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@William — yep 🙂
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It’s cool, mak — I appreciate the apology, but it’s not necessary. I don’t feel like anyone needs to apologize, and I don’t even remember who said what to whom for most of it. I just felt like we were getting too sidetracked from the actual issues.
Thanks 🙂
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william, you have said it well.
and that for me is my issue with every time telling me to read this or that scholar, that some absurd story will begin to just make sense
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Nate that said, since am certain I haven’t sidetracked from the thread any bit. I would be interested in why we should believe Enns.
Was he given a manual for interpreting the bible? Do all of us need to understand dead languages to know what the bible is saying? What happens to my grandmother who spoke only one language, but believed sincerely, could her belief been misguided given it was based on a reading that may not be reliable?
When we are asked to believe the so called gospel writers, is it god we believe in or in their word? What reason have we to trust them that they were honest?
And finally was it impossible for an all powerful being to reveal himself continuously to people of all ages without deference to miracles?
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Spot on, william.
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@william — Excellent post!
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So, there really isn’t a war on christians and babies?
dammit!
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i know. if it werent fall the weak and war-fearing liberals, we could have our war.
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“unkleE, thanks for posting the long reply about your position. You’ve probably said something similar to me before, but I think this comment really helped it click for me. Of course, like you said, I still find atheism or deism to be a better explanation of the facts, but I at least see your line of thinking now.”
Hi Nate, thanks for your support. Again, I appreciate it. And I’m glad it clicked. While we all may hope to change another person’s viewpoint, a more realistic goal is to achieve understanding of each other’s viewpoint.
“1) Do you have any thoughts about why God (or the Holy Spirit) doesn’t choose to interact with everyone, if that’s the method that’s primarily used today?”
Just to clarify – I think the Holy Spirit is active everywhere if we allow him, especially in interpreting the Bible. So I would say the Bible and the Spirit together are the primary method today.
I have wondered the same thing. My guess is that (1) he’s more active than we know (we may not recognise some times), (2) we don’t always allow him (that includes christians), and (3) he’s God and he does things differently to how I would. Not much of an answer, I know, but …..
“2) Is it possible for a Christian to have an incorrect view of what God wants? For instance, if Bob believes the Holy Spirit has told him something that seems to violate scripture, should he go with what the Holy Spirit has said? Or if two people believe the Holy Spirit has told them two separate and contradictory things, are both still right? Does God send different instructions to different people?”
Obviously it’s possible (common even) to be wrong. That’s part of growing up, and how we learn. God could send different instructions to different people, but only about personal things that would likely be different. I think it is very easy for people to impute to God things they have thought of themselves. We each have to decide for ourselves (that’s also part of growing up), but the Bible suggests a few guidelines – if the thought is contrary to scripture then it may be wrong (but since scripture changed over time, that rule isn’t infallible), decisions made in consensus with others are more likely to be right, allow God to transform our thinking so we’ll think better (sort of like an education process), unloving and unfaithful actions are most likely wrong, if it glorifies Jesus than it’s more likely to be right (or perhaps we might say if it’s right then it glorifies Jesus!), etc.
I think the process is far from infallible, but so is every human process. Scientific conclusions change over time, and we even have scientific fraud; Bible inerrantists can’t agree on interpretation; etc.
I have concluded that God can tolerate us being wrong. He doesn’t want us to be wrong, but it is more important to him that we grow, fulfil our potential, choose to follow his ways and have a right attitude. Mistaken ideas can be corrected if our attitude is right, but true knowledge rarely trumps bad attitude.
Thanks.
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“unless said scholar can produce new evidence, their leaps in conclusions mean very little to me. “jesus was likely thought of as healer and is believed by some to the son of god,” does not equal “jesus must have been a miracle working son of the one true god.””
Hi William, I wanted to comment on this, for I agree with you, and I think clarifying why I agree yet we still disagree about belief might be helpful.
I believe very few things in life are certain, so most of life is a blend of fact and uncertainty. When considering any issue (whether it be personal, religious, ethical, political, etc) a sensible person gathers as many facts as they can lay their hands on, and then makes the best decision they can. Some times that decision is to withhold judgment, but in the end we generally make a choice. If we are religious, we may call the jump from the incomplete evidence to a decision “faith” – in other areas we may call it something else.
So I agree completely that the best evidence is that “jesus was likely thought of as healer and is believed by some to the son of god”. That is what the majority of scholars say, and that is therefore the best evidence we have. Then we have a choice whether we make the jump to “jesus must have been a miracle working son of the one true god.”, or the jump to jesus was not a miracle working son of the one true god, or we withhold judgment (which in the end will tend to drift into one of the other two conclusions. When writing as academics, few scholars say what their personal conclusions are – most stick to the historical evidence.
I stress what the scholars say because without having the best evidence, we can’t make the best conclusion. But if anyone can agree on what the scholars say, I can then share why I have made the jump they have made, and they can share the same, based on the same evidence.
I can understand that you cannot draw the same conclusion I have, and I am sad about that. But it is good that we recognise that there is evidence and we all end up drawing some conclusion. Thanks.
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@unklee
Oh, my goodness!
You have no idea how disgustingly arrogant this sounds. You truly don’t do you?
I think with this one sentence you may have cemented your place in blog annals.
Is that spelled with one n or two? Can never remember.
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lol, william
well I have certainly been enjoying reading this particular thread, good stuff.
Nate, I wasn’t trying to be rude to unklee, I was just being moved by the holy spirit and pointing out the enormous plank in his eye.
about public schools and churches,
in florida, every public school in the district where I live becomes a christian church on sundays. for real.
and I can’t tell you how many times I have called the local school board and complained about these churches pushing there agenda mon-fri by advertising on public school property their services.
I’ve even gone so far as to remove the temporary church signs that are supposed to only be up on sunday, but somehow conveniently are up all week, off of the school property that my nephew attends.
it’s fuqqin crazy.
anyway, in answer to your question, does god change from OT to NT?
yes, in the OT he was wearing a designer gown by Dior,
in the NT he opted for a more casual off the rack blouse and shift skirt from calvin klein sportswear as it went well with his sandals.
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unklee,. thanks for the response, i see what you’re saying until I consider every other religious or superstitious claim in the world.
proof for a man named jesus is not proof or even evidence for jesus the literal son of god. if it were, the discovery of troy would be evidence for the god zues as portrayed in the iliad. or we’d have evidence that mohammad was the literal prophet of god, etc.
proof that others believed in jesus is not proof that their belief was correct. if it were, then all the children that believe in santa would be evidence that he was real…
I just havent seen where any evidence supports the miraculous or the supernatural. but even if I had seen some, what do we do with all the things we’ve seen which were once believed to be supernatural in composition or in origin but have since been shown to be very natural?
so even if “jesus was likely thought of as healer and is believed by some to the son of god” MIGHT mean there is evidence that Jesus COULD be the literal son of god, we still have evidence that would suggest that those supernatural beliefs that jesus was born of a virgin would also be mistaken, with very natural explanations.
i just dont see the leap. I certainly dont see the scales tipping in its favor. I mean, i assume the bible says “walk by faith and not by sight” because if you were looking, you’d never arrive where it wants you to.
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“So, there really isn’t a war on christians and babies?
dammit!”
Is there a war on cows? On chickens? Pigs? Why would I want to go to war against a major food source?
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I had some refutations to his comments as well, Ark, but I didn’t want to offend the sensibilities of our visiting unkle, and since I’m not much of one to chat about the weather, chose to exercise my right to remain silent. Bravo!
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“i just dont see the leap. I certainly dont see the scales tipping in its favor.”
Hi William, I wasn’t trying to present any information about why I have made the jump, but just agreeing with you that there is a difference between what the historians say and what anyone believes, and a jump to any conclusion. Of course I believe there are good reasons to make the jump, and not good such reasons to believe in other religious teachers, but we seem to agree on the situation at least.
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Nate, just one more clarifying comment re your questions – I don’t believe the Holy Spirit has replaced the Bible today, rather that the Spirit augments the Bible and interprets it.
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Haven’t read all the comments yet, but wanted to reply to this one of Mak’s.
Enns is a Christian, but he doesn’t try to sidestep any of the things that you and I would find problematic in the OT. I guess you could think of him like a Bart Ehrman for the OT. I’ve only read his book Inspiration and Incarnation, but I thought it was quite good. He readily acknowledges the role that the Epic of Gilgamesh played in Noah’s story, as well as the importance of early law codes like the Code of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu. He also acknowledges the primitive view of the universe presented by Genesis.
I part ways from him in that he views these things as evidence of a progressive revelation, like unkleE, whereas I view them as evidence that the Bible is of human origin. But I found his book to be a great resource when I was first studying through these things.
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unkleE said:
I can respect that. It’s actually similar to that Marcus Aurelius quote I use, in some ways. I mean, ultimately, none of us knows what the truth is — all we can do is try to figure things out to the best of our abilities. Some of us may get it right; many of us won’t. In the end, I think trying is the most important part, regardless of where one ends up (excepting fanatics who resort to violence, etc).
Thanks again for continuing to comment on this thread. I really do think it helped me get a better feel for your position. While we don’t agree, I can easily see how you’ve come to your conclusions.
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Thanks Nate, if we understand each other better, then that is good. I’ll think I’ll take a breather.
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i feel good about this.
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I watched Laura Ingraham on FOX News last night say that Christians need to do a better job of showing the world that Christianity is the superior religion. I witnessed this first hand in Egypt where the Pharaoh was always depicted with a larger than life appendage to show his superiority. All you have to do is study Obelisks and Church Steeples. You get the idea.
I think Nate said it right, “I mean, ultimately, none of us knows what the truth is — all we can do is try to figure things out to the best of our abilities. Some of us may get it right; many of us won’t. In the end, I think trying is the most important part, regardless of where one ends up (excepting fanatics who resort to violence, etc).”
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laura ingraham wants a portrait of herself with a caricaturely large appendage?
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lol, William, I know, right, but her thingie is really so small.
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