Is The Old Testement Really Gods Word ?

[stevil]

[quote name='mortify' timestamp='1318300778' post='2319479']
Consider a father who scolds his 14 year old son for drinking alcohol, but then buys him a round ten years later. Is this a contradiction? Of course not. Adults deal differently with children than they do with other adults, and for good reason. We have to think of salvation history in this sense.
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But of course it would have been difficult to have a beer with his son 10 years later if instead of scolding, he had chosen to set a couple of angry she bears on to his son

[mortify]

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1318312646' post='2319519']
But of course it would have been difficult to have a beer with his son 10 years later if instead of scolding, he had chosen to set a couple of angry she bears on to his son
[/quote]

I would encourage you to think like an anthropologist, and try to understand the circumstances of what's being revealed. We moderns have a very tough time understanding Truth, and an even harder time understanding the importance it had for past people. Forsaking it meant an eternal consequence, and therefore things pertaining to it, were held with the utmost sanctity and respect.

This is why we can't look at a prophet being mocked and kicked out of a town, like you would an ordinary person.

[Seven77]

I think that God merely allowed the attack but that does not mean he was pleased with Elisha's prayer. You have to read it in light of the NT.

Jesus was basically kicked out of a Samaritan town; think about James and John wanting to call down lighting in retaliation. Christ clarifies and corrects these needs for vengeance that were previously permitted because of the hardness of hearts.

Also, God is free to permit things that he later forbids---and he often does so right within the OT...marrying immediate family is just one example.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Seven77' timestamp='1318905295' post='2322989']
I think that God merely allowed the attack but that does not mean he was pleased with Elisha's prayer. You have to read it in light of the NT.

Jesus was basically kicked out of a Samaritan town; think about [b]James and John wanting to call down lighting in retaliation.[/b] Christ clarifies and corrects these needs for vengeance that were previously permitted because of the hardness of hearts.

Also, God is free to permit things that he later forbids---and he often does so right within the OT...marrying immediate family is just one example.
[/quote]
This is an interesting point, much of the Bible is quoting people such as James and John, humans! and we see a profound difference when it comes to quotations of Jesus, God! So I think I would be inclined to go with your first sentence until such times as something better is proposed. I'm sure that there are many events which are not what God wants such as tsunamis that affect mostly the destitute rather than the well off. Many Catholics believe that we have to accept every teaching without question, but is it really wrong to just say I don't understand much of the Bible so I will just leave a question mark about those things I don't understand. Even though I call myself a Catholic I would consider myself a Christian first because what Jesus said makes profound sense and therefore could not possibly be made up. It must logically be true.

[Winchester]

Pretty sure "testement" is something totally different.

[Guest]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1319233639' post='2324852']Pretty sure "testement" is something totally different.[/quote]hey now...read my first post I corrected myself....lol

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1318152522' post='2318480']
Well, perhaps I shouldn't weigh in on this debate again since I think it's fruitless to try to judge God, but didn't St Paul say that before Jesus died for our sins we were all enemies of God? And even His Chosen People kept defying Him over and over again, even though He kept forgiving them.

So, yeah, God was probably pretty p*ssed off with humans - although that is a total anthropromorphism of Him (or whatever the appropriate word is that has us giving Him human traits), but being so loving and compassionate, even though we were His enemies, He sent the Incarnation to atone for our sins and, according to St Paul, reconciled us with Him.

So there definitely is a before and after time in God's relationship with humans.... we were deserving of nothing but death, but then Jesus died for us all and sent us His Spirit to live within us... so now we have a new relationship with God, one of being forgiven and belonging to Him - St Paul once again, we have been bought and paid for. And our relationship now has changed from one of being enemies to being sons and daughters.

We are the ones who should be judged, not God.
[/quote]

And if i remember on occasions the israelis where crushed for there falling far far away from god, like god would send an army to engulf them and than he would send a prophet to remind them,but even than i can't remember i must read the o.t. again in rehab, but also i know this for sure when moses was on the mountain for the second time i think it was and god sent venemous snakes to inflict them for turning so far away from yhwh, and again he told them to make a statue of all there gold into a snake and i can't fully remember why,but that was like a prophet for them,something like anyone whom touched the golden snake with a pure heart would be healed of the snake bite,please somone tell the story i can't remember

God bless you all.
JC "seek and ye shall find." "knock and the door will be opened." "anyone whom speaks in my name can eventually do no evil." "be baptised and believe and you will be saved." "anyone whom eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood will be saved."

St Paul "persistance bears fruits of hope." "it is holier for a man to have his hair above his shoulders and for a women to have her hair below her shoulders,but this is not to be argued about." "Some have favoured days and some favour every day,but this is not to be argued about."

St Francessca Cabrini the american saint "he that dares nothing recieves nothing,a missionary should be fearless."
St Mary Mackillop of the cross. "be eager in your desires yet patient in there accomplishment."

Onward christian souls.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[AccountDeleted]

Tab'le - the details don't matter (but by all means read it again in rehab if you have time) -- the message is that according to God, we have been faithless, but He continues to try to show us mercy and forgiveness, better than any good parent even. His punishments are on a much larger scale because He isn't dealing with an individual child but with all of humanity. He explains what we deserve, then offers us ways to avoid that punishment by repentence and returning to faithfulness. To me it's like a parent saying, you're grounded for life! But then mitigating the punishment for good behaviour. God has the power of life and death however (which human parents cannot control or they might threaten with that too!) and He is reminding us that we owe our very lives to Him and He is going to 'ground us for life' if we don't start behaving! Yes, I know I am anthropomorphising again but that seems to be only way to convey the message that He loves and cares for us ENOUGH to chastise us severely, for the sake of our immortal souls.

[beatitude]

As a teenager, I was very disturbed by the prayers contained in some of the psalms - people calling for God to slaughter people who had hurt them and taking great relish in the thought of revenge. Jesus never prayed like that. The viciousness even seemed to spoil one of my favourite psalms, 139 - the beautiful verses on God's love for each individual and His creation of each are concluded with a reference to hating His enemies 'with a perfect hatred'. How could hatred ever be perfect? There's just no room for it in our religion. Jesus tells us to love our enemies. It seemed to me that these weren't proper prayers.

Some years later, I was angry with a woman who had done something really terrible to me, and I was trying to pray for her. But I was too angry, and I couldn't make the prayer 'right' - I had so much bitterness and fury towards her. I wanted her to be punished for what she did. I wanted her to feel as miserable as she had made me feel. But this wasn't Christian. I tried hard to squash the feelings so that I could pray, but I couldn't.

Then it occurred to me that prayer involves a total offering of self to God. That includes all the vicious feelings as well. Sometimes I do feel savage towards people, and so I will give Him that savageness. Sometimes I'm petty and jealous and I want revenge and I dislike people and I want to say really nasty cutting things. I give Him all that too. I know that He will not act on my darker thoughts. In Jesus He has already shown me how He will act. But because of Jesus, I also know that I can give Him the contents of my heart and mind without fear, and He will do what is necessary to transform me and make me see what is right. Now I pray all the psalms with feeling, every last word, because I know I am saying something about the human condition. In offering that to God, I make space in my heart for His mercy.

The Bible to me is not just God's monologue, but His dialogue with humanity. This is how I understand its violent aspects. This approach made all the more sense when I started studying the history of the Bible as part of my theology MA. The Old Testament wasn't all written at one time and in one place, and the stories in many books were elaborated upon over time. They grew with their tellers, a community that had a vibrant tradition of oral history. The bloody conquest of Canaan, for example, doesn't feature in the earlier narratives of the Israelites' release from slavery - the earlier narrative ends with them on the banks of the River Jordan, and God dwelling in their midst. The symbolism of that story is beautiful, as crossing the Jordan has become an image of the journey to redemption, and Heaven. The bloody details of the conquest were written into the story retrospectively, during the time of Assyria's oppression of the Israelites. This makes perfect sense - they were being crushed, stripped of all power, and they tried to seek solace from history by remembering themselves as a warrior nation. They depicted themselves as they wanted to be, and at the cornerstone of that depiction was reliance on a faithful God who would deliver them from oppression. Turning to the New Testament, we see that deliverance taking place - but in a very different way from how people had dreamed and imagined. No military glory here. Studying the OT and people's lively, interactive relationship with it helps us to understand why Jesus was rejected as the Messiah. It also teaches us a lot about our own expectations of God, the human understanding of power, and so on.

The Bible is the inerrant word of God. That does not mean that every story in it is literally true. Catholicism never has taught this. What it has taught is that the Bible is inerrant inspired truth. The question is, what truth is a particular story trying to teach? Sometimes we have to look deeper than surface events to find that out - although the surface events have powerful meaning too. This is the wonderful thing about Scripture; it is meant to be read on many levels.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='beatitude' timestamp='1320414233' post='2331225']


Some years later, I was angry with a woman who had done something really terrible to me, and I was trying to pray for her. But I was too angry, and I couldn't make the prayer 'right' - I had so much bitterness and fury towards her. I wanted her to be punished for what she did. I wanted her to feel as miserable as she had made me feel. But this wasn't Christian. I tried hard to squash the feelings so that I could pray, but I couldn't.

[/quote]
At confession a priest told me that emotion is not a sin, it is how you deal with it that counts. To be angry at someone who has done you an injustice is a natural emotion. It's your attempts at recompense that negate any sin.