A LONG TIME MISREPRESENTED GOD (Part 3)

Read part 2 here.

(Exodus 6:3, Acts 17:21-31).

Now that we have briefly looked at the concept of free-will, the gods, Monism, and dualism, let us now turn to the atrocities (in the name of God) in the Bible.

For those of us who have had interactions with Atheists and other pagans who do not believe in the Christian loving God, am sure you have heard them challenge the goodness of God based on the evil committed in his name according to the Old Testament narratives. Before we even look at the historical events and their mystical presentation in the Bible, I want you to imagine such a speech from a god assumed to be the god of all people and love:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you … and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2).

First, God who is the creator of all has preferences. It is this very wrong theme that we suffer with modern Zionism in the name of pray and bless Israel to be blessed by God.

This madness of election gave birth to the doctrine of predestination that Apostle Paul wrestles with in Romans 9-11. How can God and his preferred people invade other peaceful nations and kill the owners, destroy them and show no mercy? How you answer this question, has way too much to do with who this God is.

Is Yahweh and Jesus Different Gods?

God cannot create all of us in his image and then love some and hate others.

The Old Testament (OT) from their literal first man Adam, whom they believed all nations came from (Acts 17:26), misrepresented the true God by exhibiting that he accepted Abel but Cain he rejected (Genesis 4) and therefore, throughout the Old & New Testaments, we are going to have two classes of people: the people of God and the gentiles.

No sober Theologian (Bible student) will teach that Adam and Eve were literal beings from which all races came ; for that wouldn’t be a creationist but an evolutionist. While the first recipients were right in presenting the two sides of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17, Revelation 12:1-6, 18:4-11) they were wrong to attach a people to each side.

In other words, there are no good humans and other evil. God plays no favourites for all have fallen (Romans 3:9-19).
When you literally read the Bible, anyone thinking will conclude that either the Jesus of the New Testament (NT) is not the god of the Old Testament and some parts of the New Testament or that he is the same God but misrepresented.

My school of thought is that he is the same God but misrepresented. When you read the NT you have a God who treated Jews other tribes and equal (Mathew 8:5-13; 15:21-28), hugs gender and moral sinners (Luke 7:36-50) and offends traditions (Mathew 12:1-8), all these were forbidden by the OT God. In the first two episodes of this response, we said that a God who created free-will beings cannot punish choices.

The Jesus in the NT does not punish choices (John 8:1-10) however the one in the OT is a punisher. In the OT is presented as promising punishments and actually delivering on them. According to Leviticus 26:14-39, these punishments include sickness, defeat in the time of war, and famine etc.

The land will be punished that parents will be reduced to eating their children.

“If a man is discovered committing adultery, both he and the woman must die. In this way, you will purge Israel of such evil.” (Deuteronomy 22:22–24)

There are other crimes which specifically attracted a death penalty in the name of God. And these belong to three categories:

(A) Other Crimes: Murder (Exodus 21:12-14); hitting a parent (Exodus 21:12-14), cursing a parent (Leviticus 20:9), a son disobeying his parent (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), disobeying the decision of a court (Deuteronomy 17:8-13), and false testimony in a lawsuit (Deuteronomy 19:15-21)

(B) Sexual Practices – rape of an engaged woman in a field where no one could hear her (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), consensual adultery with an engaged woman (Deuteronomy 22:23-24) or a married woman (Leviticus 20:10), marrying one’s mother-in-law (Leviticus 20:14), incest with one’s father’s wife or one’s daughter-in-law (Leviticus 20:11-12), male-on-male intercourse (Leviticus 20:13) and bestiality, with both the human and the animal to be executed (Leviticus 20:15-20).

Also, if a bride cannot prove she was a virgin before her wedding night, she may receive the death penalty (Deuteronomy 22:20)

(C) Religious crimes – sacrificing to other gods (Exodus 22:20), offering a child sacrifice to Moloch (Leviticus 20:1-5), false prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:20-22), necromancy – calling up the spirits of the dead (Leviticus 20:22), witchcraft (Exodus 22:18), blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10- 16), working on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14)
What we have here a god to whom morals matter more than life.

People rather die but his moral code not violated. We know today that while God hates sin, he loves sinners (John 8:11).

In Mathew 5 we see God himself advocating for love and in John chapters 8-10 we see him distinguishing himself from being evil and the cause of evil, However in Deuteronomy 32:39-40 (Yahweh Sabaoth-desert god of war) the same God was presented as the god of war and pain.

He kills by the arrow and his sword drinks human blood and feeds on human flesh. In the wisdom writings of the Bible especially the book of Psalms. Four interesting psalms present our God in a manner we wouldn’t love to hear:

~Psalm 94:1 identifies God as a God of Vengeance.

~Psalm 58 goes into more detail, praying that God will break the teeth of wrong-doers, and exulting that the righteous shall wade in the blood of sinners.

~Psalm 109 is intensely personal, asking God to totally destroy those who have lied about the writer.

~Psalm 137 (written after the destruction of Jerusalem) is jihadist for it prays for the destruction of Judah’s enemies, even promising that those who dash out the brains of their babies on the rocks shall be blessed. This is more of a terrorist on children bus with a bomb and exploding in the name of Allah.

The Argument of Misrepresentation

God in the NT presents himself as a God of forgiveness (Mark 11:25) and at the same time the same God was again represented as one who forgives (Psalm 130:4, Isaiah 55:7) one reason for this can be due to the timing of the psalms and the level of revelation.

God in the NT asks us to love our enemies and to pray for them (Mathew 5:44) either the OT worshippers invoked a different god or they actually misrepresented this very God who clears his name in the NT. Since the God in the NT insists that he was the very God with the people in the OT (John 8:48-59, Mathew 22:41-46) it defeats any argument that they are different gods and also defeats the argument that this God evolved and we are left with the option of him being misrepresented.

To argue that they are different gods, dismisses the entire Bible for the Bible by interpretation insists that 1-it is one text and 2- this was the same God but vulnerable to then perceptions and subject to the traditions of the first recipients.

The process that produces graduates in the academic world begins in kindergartens where the future professors and doctors of philosophy spend the whole day playing, sleeping, eating, laughing, crying and singing alphabets.

The role of the modern theologian (any serious Bible student) is to trace and detect the universal God (creator of all and redeemer of all) within or alongside the traditions and gods of ancient people.

Jews and other ancient people in all civilizations were religious (belief in gods) and their political-economy was theocratic (rule and behaviour in the name of God or gods).

So in their civilization, it is the gods who are in charge of fashion and style (mixed fabrics and colors= Leviticus 19:19, Deuteronomy 22:5, 11-12, Ezekiel 44:17-18), speech, wars, peace treaties, economy, Health and diet etc. for instance, in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 Swine among other animals is not just forbidden to be eaten but even contact makes one unclean before the gods.

Why would God create an animal to be abused because of its menu status? If swine is not just good for food but also makes the land, environment and worshippers unclean, why continue creating pigs?

It is these seemingly contradicting matters that lead me to the school of thought that the all good, all love creator and redeemer God is misrepresented by the first recipients.

I promise the next time we meet I will comment on the events that my sister asked about. I just thought this background is key to understanding the ’participation’ of God.

God bless you, I invoke Truth, Wisdom and Faith
Priest M.I.T White
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
Questioning to Believe, Believing to Live