Opinion on Old Testament?

If you're talking about a science book, where "up-to-date" information is paramount, you'll probably want the latest one available. If you're talking about a book that contains unique insights, perhaps divine revelations, "up to date" might not matter. Truth and profundity matter. If only a few chapters contain that and you can find another book that has it all, by all means use that. I don't know of a book like that on the market. If you haven't read Origin Of the Species yet, you should. It will give you insights into the development of evolutionary theory that newer books won't provide, even though Darwin is no longer state of the art evolutionary theory and is , therefore, "false" or out of date. As you say, textbooks provide "basic knowledge". But if you want advanced knowledge, you have to take some upper division courses and go back to the classics.

As for "the discrepancy" in terminology for God, "Abba" means "father" in Aramaic. There's an obvious reason why other writers who contributed to the Bible might not have used that term. In the Old Testament, God is variously referred to as El, Elohim, Yaweh, and Adonai, and His real name is the not to be mentioned JHVH (or YHVH). Is this evidence that the Hebrews where really polytheists?

 

No, we don't know how many people were killed, but does that make murder right? Does killing a hundred Hebrews justify the death of a hundred Egyptians? If you believe this is true, then it sounds like you are forgetting that "an eye for an eye makes the world blind." Why should I believe a mythical entity loves all his creations when he destroys them over and over again? Man is imperfect and it seems like you are holding man to a higher standard than their God- so why should we hold humans to perfect standards?

Peace and love

 

Right now I'm focused on geology and not biology, so I am not interested in taking evolutionary biology classes right now. I have enough on the table as it is! Maybe when I have more time, though.

I don't know why there are different names for the same God. I have not studied the early begins of Judaism, do you know why the name changed?

Peace and love

 

Some scholars think that El and Elohim were used by the northern tirbes of Israel in the earliest Hebrew Scriptures, the so-called "E" writers, to describe a more human-like or anthropomorphic concept of the deity who sits down and chats with Abraham in his tent; Yahweh is used by the later "J" writers of the southern kingdom to describe their idea of a less human and approachable deity of the buring bush. (However, Yahweh assured Moses that he was the same God who visited Abraham; and when Moses asked him what God he should tell the Israelites had sent him, God said to tell them "I that am". Conjurers of the period believed they could gain power over a god by invoking its name, and Yahweh was not about to let that happen, which is why the it was considered a sin to pronouunce the letters JHVH or YHVH). Freud even speculated that "Adonai" (Lord) is a derivative of "Aton", the god of Egypt's first monotheist, Pharoah Ikhnaton, and that Moses was fleeing persecution after Egypt turned against that god. Or maybe they were just different titles to describe the same being--like our father could be called Father, Pater, Dad, George or Mr. Jones. All of the above, none of the above, any of the above--all possibilities.

 

... OI ... Do you guys know a comedian by the name of Lewis Black? He was making fun of this very thing one one of his shows... but you know he had a point. (Lewis Black is born and raised Jewish by the way...)

Ill summarize a 10 minute bit by saying that he was making fun of christians who were trying to analyze the old testament LITERALLY.

He basically said it like it was ... he said Jews are really good at bullshit and in this context not lies ... HELL NO, he was saying they were a bunch of whiny drama queens. :O I found this extremly enlightening.

Read the book with that idea in the back of your mind, and you can see it's more poetic and people COMPLANING and trying to take a best guess at the unexplained rather then saying THIS is the GOD of all ... this is his way and that's it and that's all...

BY THE WAY i'm NOOOOOOT saying any of this to Bash JEWS... I am in NOOOO way an Anti-Semite. I'm just saying this is the explanation Mr. Black offered his audience to this dilemma. And honnestly it was not only funny... but it made a whole lot of sense to me.

 

I believe that religion in general is the PATHWAY towards God the creator and the God in YOU. Religion is put here to teach us ways to handle life until we die and become one with God again in his presence. Of course all these books cant be PERFECT because they were written by humans. God used the ones who wrote them to get the KEY message out to us. I believe that message as a whole is to love everyone and be the ultimate example(like jesus) on everyone, and to put faith in the God in YOU, so youll be ready to meet God when you die.

 

Crazy X... I was gonna post right after reading the first dialogue offered by Hippie Chick only to find your post here pretty much summarizes my response ;P LOL.

I would also like to add that the old testament always seems to take a REACTIVE approach to defining god as opposed to proactive. As in something bad happens. Then everybody goes WHOA GOD HATES US, He's WRATHFUL, and JUDGES us, and so on... They never once think that they have any input on what happened at all. Jesus is the first to introduce the idea that with faith and thought you can just command things to get and move. Hence as you mention, they may have had alot more to do with their own suffering then God did directly. Power, Greed, and so forth are not a path of comapssion and love, The God I know would NOT fight fire with fire. If hardship arose it's beacuse once upon a yesteryear Jews chose this path for themselves.

As usual nothing personal against jews, i'm just calling it as i see it and still love a jew as much as much as any other human out there.

Much hugs and love all.

 

Anyone seen "The Hebrew Hammer?" It makes fun of a lot of the different Jewish and other stereotypes. Andy Dick kills Santa Claus and takes over the North Pole, turning it into a sweat shop and tries to ruin Kwanzaa. It's a good movie if you enjoy movies like "Undercover Brother."

Peace and love

 

Okay, first if you are to be a Christian you have to believe that the Bible is the word of God. 2Tim3:16, 17. When Jesus said what was written in Matt5:17 he was talking about what is called the Old Testament. Remember that if God is to truly be God. He should he able to have a book written that would contain what he wants us to know with out having errors and falsehoods in it.

Next there is to be no glossing over or cherry picking. Everything in the Bible tells you something about God. So read it and get to know this God you worship! If you leave out parts you’re no better than the web site that was mentioned that takes things out of context, then calls God a murder.

If you read and try to understand the whole Bible you will see that God is not one dimensional, yes God is love and that is his main quality but he is also a God of justice among many other qualities. When the Bible says; thou shall not kill, it’s not talking about killing in general, it’s talking about murder because the Bible also says justice is an eye for an eye, so if a person murders someone then he is to be put to death which would involve killing that person.

Last, all this talk about wiping out whole cities just because they worshiped another god and that this shows God to be a murderer, come on, have you even bothered to read what they were doing to please their god. They were burning their own children alive to please their god and that’s not even half of it. That is not something that God ever asked us to do or wanted us to do. So face it, these people were not just innocents minding their own business but a cruel and evil people that were being punished for what they were doing and for what they had done.

Now you may bring up Abraham and Isaac but remember that God did not allow that to happen and also remember that Isaac was a prophetic picture of what Jesus would later do for us.

 

There's a good scripture in Ecclesiastes,cast your bread on many waters. Habakkuk,chapter2, verse1: "I will stand my watch, and set myself on the rampart, and watch what he will say to me."