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God is Holy and You Better Worship Him!
There are, of course, good reasons for people thinking that the God of the Old Testament was a “God of Wrath.” God does indeed engage in wrathful acts of punitive justice throughout the Hebrew Bible, and he requires his chosen people to execute his wrath as well. As one would expect, often this wrath is directed against people who break his commandments. But less expected, probably, for many modern readers, is that these commandments do not involve merely what we would call “ethical” rules involving personal and communal behavior per se – e.g. murder, adultery, robbery, etc.. At least as, or even more often they involve situations in which the “Chosen People” have begun to act like “outsiders” who are not among the people of Israel, and against those outsiders who try to “seduce” Israelites into worshiping and behaving like everyone else. In these cases God’ vengeful wrath is about “purity.” The terms “purity,” “holiness,” and “sanctity” all have the same root idea. They involve an object, activity, or person that is “set apart” from […]
August 11, 2021
Why God Had to Destroy the Outsiders…
As I pointed out in my previous post, the “purity” of Israel was seen as massively important to most of the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, including the various sources that eventually came to make up the Pentateuch and the other books (Joshua – 2 Kings) that describe the history of ancient Israel. Nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in narratives about the children of Israel as they journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, after God delivered them from their slavery at the Exodus under their leader Moses. Once Israel escapes (Exodus 1-15), Moses leads them to Mount Sinai, where he is given the Law — starting with the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 all the way through Leviticus). Much of this law is about how Israel is to worship and live, now that they have been chosen by God to be his people. Once they receive the law, the Israelites journey to the promised land, but they sin en route, and God judges them by forcing them to remain in the wilderness […]
August 12, 2021
Jesus Healing the Paralyzed. How Do We Explain the Stories? Platinum Guest Post by Douglas Wadeson, MD
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July 29, 2021
The Essence of Religious Literacy: A Christian Perspective. Guest Post by Fredrick Ackun
As you probably know, Platinum members of the blog receive several additional perks — a quarterly webinar with me, a chance to provide a “guest post” for Platinum members only, and so on. After several of the guest posts have been posted, the Platinum members vote on one of them to be posted on the entire blog for all blog members to read. Would you be interested in getting in on that action? Check out the membership tiers and see what it (and each of the tiers) involves. Just click Join Now and you’ll see them. Here is the latest Platinum post winner, Frederick Ackun, who provides us with an unusually interesting set of reflections on issues related to faith, knowledge, and how to read the Bible — important matters for anyone interested in our blog. Here is Frederick’s post. Enjoy! ****************************** In this post, I wish to share and elaborate a bit on some personal realizations I have made in my faith journey. They are some of the main reasons why I am of […]
August 17, 2021
Congratulations Fredrick Ackun!
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Tags: Platinum
July 30, 2021
Is This a God You Want to Worship? Some Horrors of Scripture.
Parts of the Hebrew Bible insist on the absolute purity of the Israelites – they are to have no contact with outside influences that might compromise their devotion to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in any way whatsoever. If they do come to be influenced by outsiders, God punishes them severely; and sometimes, as a further response, he orders the slaughter of the outsiders. This is the wrath of God in its most severe and unbending form, evidently against people who didn’t even know he existed. Nowhere is this theme shown more graphically than in the case of Moses and the Midianites, as found in Numbers 25 and 31, passages that I would venture to say very few people on the blog or otherwise have ever read or at least paid much attention to. But they are among the most horrifying narratives of the entire Hebrew Bible. The account begins with a group of outsiders, the Moabites (inhabitants of the land of Moab). While Israel is still in the wilderness during their 40 year wandering, […]
August 15, 2021
Finally: Cephas and Peter. What Do I Really Think?
I have recently finished republishing a series of posts from years ago that explored the tradition that Peter and Cephas were in fact two different people. Anyone who is not interested in the Bible would care, of course, but then again, no one like that would be on the blog! For those who are both interested and familiar with the New Testament, the idea is unusual and odd – a bit of a bombshell, actually, since it is normally assumed that these are two names for the same disciple of Jesus, Simon son of Jonah, nicknamed “Cephas” (an Aramaic term that means “rock”) by Jesus. When the term “Rock” was translated into Greek by later story tellers, they simply used the Greek term “Petros,” which gets transliterated into English as “Peter.” No problem, right? Well for 99.99% of the readers of the NT over the centuries, right. No problem. But for roughly .01% of us there is a problem, as I have outlined in the previous posts. I showed that there was in fact an […]
August 10, 2021
The Naivety of the Nativity: Platinum Guest Post by Joel Scheller
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August 4, 2021
What Do YOU Think? A Matter of Life and Death
A NEW BLOG FEATURE! I’ve decided to try something new on the blog today. I’d like *your* view about something, your honest opinion based on serious expertise or complete non-expertise. For this new feature, which I’m calling “What Do You Think?”, I will NOT be responding to comments/questions, I’ll simply be posting them, without making a reply, comment, question, or anything else to, so you can express yourself and have others can see your views. (As always, I will not be posting comments that are rude to others or irrelevant to the question – for example, castigations of particular politicians that many but not all of us may despise, on one side of the political chasm facing us or the other. [!]) Others of course can comment on your comment as they choose — and I hope they do. I’ll be listening in. For my own fun, education, and edification! If this turns out to be a nice feature for the blog, I’ll do it again later. Here is the issue that I would like […]
August 21, 2021
For Blog Members in the U.K.! Special Zoom Event.
Are you on the blog? Do you live in the U.K.? Well lucky you! A group of blog members who came to a London Blog Dinner last month have decided to host a UK Zoom meeting among themselves, to discuss topics of mutual interest. For and by Brit Bloggers! It is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug 10, 2021, 8:00 pm (London time). The organizer is Angus Nisbet. If you need additional information, you can reach him here: [email protected] Below are the topics and the Zoom link to join. English members only please. Enjoy! Topics for discussion Should we throw the Bible out with the bathwater? Revelation Heaven & Hell Jesus – a failed apocalypticist? Zoom Details: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86859219342?pwd=SHlyMnBDNlV5MTFZNnIzQjhXenBJUT09 Meeting ID: 868 5921 9342 Passcode: 605295 ******************************************************************************************************************** This message may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient please inform the sender that you have received the message in error before deleting it. Please do not disclose, copy or distribute information in this e-mail or take any action in relation to its contents. To do […]
August 7, 2021
God’s Destruction of the “Other”: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho
In this thread I have been discussing the wrath of God as manifest in the writings of the Old Testament, in preparation for a later discussion of the divine judgments meted out in the New Testament book of Revelation. In a number of Old Testament narratives God asserts his raw divine power not because he is angry at the disobedience of his people but because he does not want them to be corrupted by outsiders, the “Others” who will lead them astray. In one sense I suppose God could be said to be angry with these outsiders, but it is a little difficult to see why, since he has not revealed himself to them and they are simply worshiping the gods they and their ancestors have worshiped from time immemorial. But in any event, the outsiders need to be destroyed to prevent them from badly affecting the Israelites. Nowhere is this theme played out more consistently and graphically than in the book of Joshua, the sixth book of the Hebrew Bible (right after the […]
August 22, 2021
Destroy More Others! The Israelites’ Conquest of the City Ai
In my previous post on the narratives of the Old Testament, I talked about God’s complete intolerance with the “other” – the non-Israelite who might influence his people to worship other gods and not obey his laws. The other had to be destroyed in order to preserve the purity of his people. It did not matter if some, many, or most of these others were decent, loving human beings who cared for their children and did acts of kindness, doing the best to help others and be good people. They were to be destroyed. Every one of them in the city of Jericho: man, woman, child, and, well, the animals for good measure. The taking of Jericho is the first major battle of the book, and others follow suit. To illustrate, here is the one that comes next, less known to Bible readers today but equally instructive (and gruesome) (and with an interesting military tactic). Again, this come from my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford University Press). ****************************** The […]
August 24, 2021
Gold Q&A for August!
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August 8, 2021
Israel’s Conquest of the Promised Land: Did Any of That Happen?
I have been discussing the book of Joshua and its descriptions of violence inflicted on others on orders of the God of Israel — massive military campaigns and massacres (is there any reason NOT to call it a genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan?). I have wanted to cover this material as background to the New Testament book of Revelation, where the slaughter is even more full scale. One of my points is that the contrast between the “God of wrath” in the OT and the “God of love” in the NT does not really hold up, especially in view of the New Testament’s final book; another will be that the devastation of Revelation is indeed consistent with a common motif of Scripture. I will be getting to that later, and emphasizing it, since at the same time it is inconsistent with another motif of Scripture. But first I want to address a question lots of people typically have about these stories of the Conquest of Canaan in the book of Joshua. Did any of […]
August 25, 2021
Jesus the Healer, Repossessed? Platinum guest post by Douglas Wadeson MD
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Tags: Platinum
August 11, 2021
A Blog Event! Want to Join a three-week Blog Book Club??
Are you interested in joining a Blog Book Club (the BBC)? We’re going to give one a try! This will function as a fund-raiser for the blog. This first BBC will involve three meetings over the course of three weeks, discussing one of my books and a published (unfavorable!) response to it. I will be joining participants in the third meeting for a Q&A about it all. The first week all participants will read and discuss my book Misquoting Jesus. This is my best-selling book and probably my most controversial (which has always struck me as odd, since to my knowledge there isn’t any factual misinformation in it!) There were five books written to counter it! The second week participants will read and discuss one of the counter-books, Misquoting Truth: A Guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, by Timothy Paul Jones. The third week everyone will join a Q & A, as we discuss the matter among ourselves, with questions from you and attempts to answer them from me. How’s it sound? […]
August 14, 2021
Sin and Divine Punishment As a Dominant Theme of Scripture
In this discussion of God’s wrath, I want to emphasize that it is not an isolated view of this or that biblical author in the Hebrew Bible. It is a highly pervasive view. God punishes those who disobey him, and he destroys anyone who might lead his people astray into disobedience. Here is how I talk about God’s active role in suffering in my book’s God’s Problem (Harper One, 2008) ****************************** The thematic idea that God punishes disobedience drives the narrative of all five books of the Pentateuch. In some ways it comes to a climax in the final book, Deuteronomy. The title of this book literally means “Second Law”; in fact it is not a second law that is given in the book – instead, the book describes the second time the Law was given to the children of Israel by the prophet Moses. The way the narrative sequence works is this. In the book of Exodus God saved Israel from its slavery in Egypt and miraculously allowed it to escape the […]
August 26, 2021
Bruce Metzger and Me: Reminiscences on my Dissertation
I have been enjoying reposting these reminiscences of my relationship with Bruce Metzger, widely seen as the most learned and important textual scholar in North America in the 20th century. I was privileged to study with him and honored to be his final student. Here I reflect on his supervision of my dissertation. Different dissertation advisors have different approaches to supervising a dissertation. Some are extremely hands on, to the point of working over every thought and every sentence. Not too many are like that, because if they were, they would never do anything else with their life. Plus, the idea is for the student to figure it out and get good at it. That takes some trial and error. Other advisors go for the big picture and like to talk over the big ideas. Others basically don’t give a rip how the dissertation is coming along – they want to see it at the end, and when it’s done, they’ll tell the student whether it’s good enough or not. Others … well, there are […]
August 28, 2021
Does God Really Care How He Is Worshiped? The Book of Hosea.
I have been discussing the wrath of God in the Old Testament and have mentioned a point that here that I want to reemphasize, a point rarely observed by Bible readers (in fact I think I didn’t take much notice of it until recently). In the Bible God sometimes punishes people because they misbehave toward others – kill, exploit, oppress, and so on; other times he punishes them because they do not worship him properly or at all. This is a difference worth considering because it goes to the heart of a fundamental matter: is God more worried about how people treat one another or about what they believe and do in relationship to him? Is it all about him, or is it all about our fellow humans? Most Christians, I suppose, would say “both”! But it’s interesting that different parts of the Bible tend to focus on one or the other, sometimes exclusively. I have talked, e.g., about the prophet Amos, who predicted the coming destruction of Israel because the elite among them had […]
August 29, 2021
It’s Coming Soon
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August 18, 2021