God is depicted in the Old Testament with a very bad reputation. David Lamb is an old testament professor and he addresses some of the reasons for this bad reputation. In Lamb’s book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? In his book, there are seven specific citations addressed that provide proof and evidence for those who would believe “God behaves badly.” The examples that Professor Lamb chose are: angry or loving, sexist or affirming, racist or hospitable, violent or peaceful, legalistic or gracious, rigid or flexible, and distant or near. With each chapter that Lamb writes, it provides multiple biblical narrative accounts and establishes a basis for the particular argument aimed against God.
The bible teaches us many things about God. From Genesis and Exodus we can learnwhat the Judeo-Christian view of God was. Genesis shows us that God made the sun, the moon,the earth and every living thing. During the days of creation God made all things good. On theseventh day of creation God rested and declared all he made to be very good (Genesis 1:31). God created human beings in his own image. We as humans can be certain of our owndignity and self worth because we have been created in the image of God. The book of Genesisshows us that people disobey God by choosing to do wrong. Even great bible heros failed Godand disobeyed him. The bible teaches us that God is forgiving. God has many attributes. God makes no mistakes and this is wisdom. God is infinite, heknows
80. Why Is ‘OWNERSHIP’ An Illusion? The two gospels, The Old Testament and The New Testament provide mirror images of Terrestrial Humans mentality Evolution and the comprehensive overview of the mental developmental trends over a span covering last five millennia. The Old Testament moral norms served in establishing a legal system with base in an absolute, irrevocable right of private ownership. Incontestable proof of continuous process of Evolution in this micro-segment of Spiral is an emergence of ‘The New Testament’, as a herald of a new mental era on the Earth, which naturally succeeds ‘The Old Testament’. Needless to remind, that The Old Testament also inspired adherents to vehemently follow the principle "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth", a total ‘defence of ownership’ “…based on the superstition or the illusion that one was ‘God 's chosen people’ and was superior to all ‘heathens’ ". (Quote from ‘Livets Bog’, Vol IV #1310)
is not a loving God, he is a vengeful God. He smashed his people he created like they were playdough during the flood. You grasp the evil side
Kevin Alves-Stone. OT302. Zechariah 1-5. Guided Essay. What did you learn about the character or nature of God? Zechariah: 1-5 the Lord will destroy the enemy of Israel. Those who are opposed to Israel are always opposed to God. Israel is considered the church, so that means God is opposed to those who are opposed to the church. God loves Israel the physical and spiritual Israel. God will always fight for her. When God stretches out His hand and shakes the nations, it is in the utmost wrath. The only time that the worldly people will serve the people of God, is when Jesus reigns as King, and His people as His subordinates. God had saved Israel from out of the fire of captivity in Babylon. Satan tries to remind God of the sins. Jesus paid
home the point that God does not hate. He is merciful and is willing to work with mankind.
Second, God need to prepare the land for His people to create the proper religious setting to make ready the coming Messiah who would bring redemption to Israelites and Gentiles alike. Slaying the Canaanites was not racially motivated; rather, it was theologically and morally motivated by divine mandate.
At the start of the book, I was struck by the idea that God would allow one of his finest worshipers to go through tragedy and grief so that God can prove a bet with Satan. God is supposed to bring happiness and greatness to all of his followers, yet he uses Job as a pawn. I believe that God allows suffering to occur to teach his friends and the readers a lesson. Suffering will happen to good people. Regardless of how good in nature we all are, horrific things will happen. The book uses this to appeal to skeptics. People who believe that there is no God because suffering occurs. God describes in chapters 38 and 39 that he is omnipotent and omniscient. He also, is the only force that can safeguard humans from the Leviathan. This shows that God
In stark contrast to God’s presence in Genesis, the character of God in Job strays from the ideal perfection of the divine. The concept of the ideal manifested in Genesis is embodied in God’s moral, reasonable, and rational behavior. In Job, on the other hand, rather than being reasonable, methodical, and creating life, God displays more human characteristics and plays the role of both creator and destroyer. The book of Job begins with God’s boastful bargain with Satan, which subsequently leads God to allow the total destruction of Job’s family and livelihood. Job is even attacked physically with “loathsome sores… from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7). In an uncharacteristically immoral decision, God gives Satan the power do
God never condemns Job’s doubt or despair . . . He actually seems to appreciate it.
Throughout these chapters we see many portrayals of God’s character: The destroyer, the ever-judging, a God with expectations, a God that grieves, feels pain, repents, a God that demands justice; a self-evaluating, ruling and omnipotent God whom also passes on saving grace to the deserving.
Professor Johnson explains how society sees God in five different ways. One, that God is invisible higher being or entity, who sees everything and can intervene with our world in order to bring changes. Second, God is seen as someone who oversees everything and thus “rules” the world in manner that seems fit. Third, God is always portrayed as “He”, even though being referd to as the Supreme Being, and is remote from this materialistic world. Forth, God is presented as one who loves the world but is not contaminated by its messiness or wrongdoings. Fifth, he is described as distant lawgiver who is present in our society, church, and family. When I was growing up, the portrait of God was not presented or enforced on me within my family. I shaped
The names “Old Testament” and “New Testament” are inherently theological in nature. Because there is a difference distinctly built into giving them different notations, it implies that there are differences between each the Old Testament and the New Testament, whether it is subtle in nature or obvious in nature. To Christians, the difference means that the Old Testament contains dealings between God and the world and even some of the rules made are made irrelevant by the interactions of Christ Jesus with the world. One of the differences between the New Testament and the Old Testament is the way each of the Testaments describe God and God’s nature. The Old Testament describes an angry God, one who only created the world and was obsessed with laws and rules. The New Testament describes a loving God who redeemed the world. The different ways the Old Testament and New Testament describe God and his nature are very much influenced by their perspective of God. By the rules, actions, and laws God made, the early writers of the Old Testament made their judgements about God and wrote those perspectives into the books of the Old Testament. The writers of the Old Testament did the best they could with the information they had and got some things about God right, but also got things wrong. The writers of the New Testament and therefore, Christian believers understand God better.
The concept of faith and suffering in the Hebrew Bible has filled worshippers with fraught throughout the ages of its existence. The crux of the matter is that there is no definition of what exactly these things are and what they mean, leading to many different theories to emerge on the concept of whether suffering is necessary for faith in God. This has historically caused strife between many populations of worshippers, and continues to be a point of bitter disagreement between people. Wildly contradicting itself between various books, the Hebrew Bible is at best ambiguous in many of these concepts, but when analyzing small passages, certain themes can be argued for with much more strength. In the Book of Job, loyalty to God is questioned, and ultimately the theme of free will in faith is addressed through the pain and suffering of its characters.
Some of the arguments that God would not command destructions of the Canaanites or any other nation because it would portray God as an immoral God. It would portray God as cruel, unmerciful, ruthless, unloving, unforgiving and unjust which is the opposite of what Christians believe and preach to the lost. Christians today tell unsaved people that