Bible Reconciliation

[Fallen-Angel]

Okay. This thread is on the contradiction in tone in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is NOT a thread to pose and preen about how much Christianity and religion in general sucks; we've debated that topic to death.

Reading the Bible, I came across two completely different messages.

In the Old Testament, God is one seriously nasty bastard who kills thousands because He felt like it, told the Israelites to massacre the Canaanites and take their land, and lays down the law for the Jews to follow, with the penalty for breaking them pretty much always involving death. Having read through books and books of gloom, doom, and death, one's opinion of God generally stands as "This guy is NOT a person whom I would like to meet in a dark alley."

In the New Testament, however, it appears that God got tired of being a ruthless asshole. Suddenly, the books are filled with stories of God's eternal love, to forgive your enemy, and, most importantly, the capacity for those who are less than nice to others to get back onto the path of righteousness. In the Old Testament, you don't get a chance to repent; you get stoned the first time. I think it's Leviticus where a guy gets executed for picking up firewood on the Sabbath. Meanwhile, when a prostitute is brought before Jesus, his statement is "Let the man who has not sinned throw the first stone." After everyone says "Yeah, he's got a point" and leaves, he tells the woman, "Where are all the men condemning you? Are there any?" The woman replies in the negative, and Jesus says "Go forth, and sin no more."

How do you reconcile these two views? On one hand is God's velvet glove, and on the other is God's flaming iron fist of DOOM that kills thirty thousand people because some poor loser married a Canaanite. I'm honestly at a loss on this; my dad certainly didn't have a good answer.

[meow]

simple, they made it all up anyway, and they decided perhaps time had changed and perhaps it wasnt the best way to try and control people by using fear anymore, so they tried using love instead and re wrote it all.

either that or god is getting soft in his old age, thats kinda happened to my Dad.

[Sabretooth]

Originally Posted by meow

simple, they made it all up anyway, and they decided perhaps time had changed and perhaps it wasnt the best way to try and control people by using fear anymore, so they tried using love instead and re wrote it all.

either that or god is getting soft in his old age, thats kinda happened to my Dad.

Exactly, The times changed from when they needed a harsh set of rules and even harsher consequences to control the populous so they changed God's image to make him seem more inviting.

[emma roids]

its cos its part of a sequel, you cant have the same story for both episodes.

[Ixpah]

I've never read the Bible and have no intention of ever bothering tbh, so I'm not sure of the "facts", i.e. when the Old Testament & New Testament were actually written.

However its logical to assume (as others have mentioned) that the tone is likely to be a product of the time at which the various parts were written. For instance maybe the Old Testament was wrote at the point were the people were in a strong civilisation which seemed to have zero external threats and so was potential likely to go "soft"; hence the strong punishments for not conforming & the New Testament was wrote at the point were the people were in a weak civilisation which had strong external threats and so preached forgiveness, etc. in order not to appear a threat.

Ah, whatever, probably a load of b*****ks.

[darktidus]

You're a legend. I hope you started Russell, if not, I'll have to eat my hand.

Regardless, one can address the disparity simply by accepting that the Bible is (like the Greek and Roman myths before it) never intended to be taken literally. Rather, it is a set of guidelines for living one's life. If this is the case, it surely follows that the early Bible is a series of truth myths about humanity's separation from God, the pain and destruction shown are 'birth pains' of humankind. What happens in the New Testament is this becomes reconciled, and Jesus, by sacrificing himself, removes any need for such evil in the world, saving us all from the sin our ancestors saw fit to pass onto us.

[Tagred]

Strange, the caninites and isrealites are the same religion, they are just different tribes of judaism, which i thin ithere was 12 or 12 tribes.

God of the old testament is an evil genocidal bastard, god of the new testament is a total contradiction, because it was solely made up by the christians.

Odd how christians often say the old testament doesnt count but take a lot of the stories of there as true when it is in fact a Jewish religion.

Therefore all religion is bullshit. Christiansd have no right to adopt made up stories of the old testament to back up stupid ideaologies of the new, which as a lot of us know, where agreed upon during the 10th century by a load of utterly ignorant so called religious people to make up the new testament.

As far as im concerned everything in whatever scripture of religion is nonsense, rubbish and so unsubstaintiated crap it beggers belief that so many mornonic, disaffected, unintelligent misinformed people follow, that we still have what is called a society left in the world.

There is no proof whatsoever that the scriptures are true at all, in fact, most of the stories are taken from older paganist stories such as those from Egypt and others.

blehhh :pfft:

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by darktidus

You're a legend. I hope you started Russell, if not, I'll have to eat my hand.

Regardless, one can address the disparity simply by accepting that the Bible is (like the Greek and Roman myths before it) never intended to be taken literally. Rather, it is a set of guidelines for living one's life. If this is the case, it surely follows that the early Bible is a series of truth myths about humanity's separation from God, the pain and destruction shown are 'birth pains' of humankind. What happens in the New Testament is this becomes reconciled, and Jesus, by sacrificing himself, removes any need for such evil in the world, saving us all from the sin our ancestors saw fit to pass onto us.

If Jesus died to absolve us of all our sins, therefore none of us who are born are then born with sin, as many christians would have you believe. He died for our sins and we were forgiven of all of them.

Therefore the rubbish spouted by any christian is nonsense. I am born without sin, for the past and future, that is what jesus died for. A contradiction? maybe, thats because the bible are full of them and cannot be proved in any way.

jesus was one of at least 11 messiahs that lived at that time, all of them claiming exactly the same as jesus did. And all of them doing exactly the same as jesus did.

[Sabretooth]

Originally Posted by Tagred

jesus was one of at least 11 messiahs that lived at that time, all of them claiming exactly the same as jesus did. And all of them doing exactly the same as jesus did.

Apollonius being one of the most famous if memory serves.

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by Sabretooth

Apollonius being one of the most famous if memory serves.

Exactly.

Methinks you have seen the same programme as I, or at least researched the same

[teflon]

I don't get what this thread is about.
Surely everyone knows about Constantine and co designing the new testament to add to the Koran. Obviously it's going to be different to the old testament which is all about Abraham and his gay bum-love twin sons what made Israel in the olden days. They make the new one about Jesus and all his poncing around the Sea of Galilee like he is in Westlife or Manchester United.

Harry Potter and all it's 'fan fiction' will probably get discovered again in 1000 years and simpletons will worship him and build churches but probably call them Quidditches. Maybe if they wank enough they can win a Golden Snitch which will just be a crappy brass ball anyway.