the god of the old testament is not the god we know in jesuse

[rollson]

okay my name is craig, iv been a christian for a year our 2 now and like most i had my ups and downs but the other night i was talking with a close friend and was telling him the love that god as for him, then he started to go into the god of the old testament and its not the god that i know and love. i mean for a year now i told all my family and friends that the bible is gods word. i used to belive that. but if the bible is god words then why as the old testament got such evil in it? i will show you a list of what my friend was reading out and would love some feed back it. i still love jesus but i dont know what to think of the old testament.

1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.
2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.
3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
4. God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites – men, women, children, infants, and their cattle – for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years earlier.
6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)
7. 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are bored, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” About 3,000 people died.
8. The Amorites destroyed by sword and by God’s rocks.
In Joshua 10:10-11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.
9. God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot’s wife for looking back at her burning home.
10. God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them. (Newer cosmetic translations say the bears “maul” the children, but the original Hebrew, baqa, means “to tear apart.”)
11. A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1-23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.
12. 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27-30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.
13. A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22-29, a mob demands to rape a godly master’s guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and ships the pieces around the country.
14. Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30-39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God’s favor in killing the Ammonites.
15. God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11-19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.
16. God demands you kill your wife and children for worshiping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.
17. God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9-10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.
18. God kills a man for not impregnating his brother’s widow.
In Genesis 38:9-10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother’s widow.
19. God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27-29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.
20. The coming slaughter.
According to Revelation 9:7-19, God’s got more evil coming. God will make horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails, who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth’s population. If he came today, that would be 2 billion people.


i trust in the new testament and got faith in jesus from my prayers but i really dont know how to deal with this. i dont want some half answer. if the bible is got words what the heck is with the evil nature of how he was, god is not ment to change but if you look at him in the new testament he as changed more then any one i know

 

[cfultz3]

The Old Testament was God dealing with men under the Law.
The New Testament is God dealing with men under Grace.

How to deal with it: Praise God we are under Grace.

 

[crossnote]

The God of the ot and nt is the same. In the ot we seen him bring temporary judgment on the worlds, Israel's enemies, and even on Israel.
In the nt his wrath was poured out on his son...wrath deferred on the world and love extended until in Revelations (nt again) we see His full wrath unleashed..same God, one of love and one of judgement.

 

[hattiebod]

okay my name is craig, iv been a christian for a year our 2 now and like most i had my ups and downs but the other night i was talking with a close friend and was telling him the love that god as for him, then he started to go into the god of the old testament and its not the god that i know and love. i mean for a year now i told all my family and friends that the bible is gods word. i used to belive that. but if the bible is god words then why as the old testament got such evil in it? i will show you a list of what my friend was reading out and would love some feed back it. i still love jesus but i dont know what to think of the old testament.

1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.
2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.
3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
4. God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites – men, women, children, infants, and their cattle – for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years earlier.
6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)
7. 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are bored, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” About 3,000 people died.
8. The Amorites destroyed by sword and by God’s rocks.
In Joshua 10:10-11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.
9. God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot’s wife for looking back at her burning home.
10. God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them. (Newer cosmetic translations say the bears “maul” the children, but the original Hebrew, baqa, means “to tear apart.”)
11. A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1-23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.
12. 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27-30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.
13. A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22-29, a mob demands to rape a godly master’s guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and ships the pieces around the country.
14. Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30-39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God’s favor in killing the Ammonites.
15. God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11-19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.
16. God demands you kill your wife and children for worshiping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.
17. God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9-10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.
18. God kills a man for not impregnating his brother’s widow.
In Genesis 38:9-10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother’s widow.
19. God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27-29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.
20. The coming slaughter.
According to Revelation 9:7-19, God’s got more evil coming. God will make horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails, who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth’s population. If he came today, that would be 2 billion people.


i trust in the new testament and got faith in jesus from my prayers but i really dont know how to deal with this. i dont want some half answer. if the bible is got words what the heck is with the evil nature of how he was, god is not ment to change but if you look at him in the new testament he as changed more then any one i know

God has not changed...He is the same before, now and for all eternity. The OT, when presented as you have listed the scriptures, does seem unjust, cruel...but God tells us He is just and He will not tolerate those who go against Him.He demands obedience. He can do that...because He is the creator. Those that do not obey Him, who are sinful and disobedient are destined for eternal separation and death. When we read of the things that happened in the OT we need to read and understand them in context. We need to study the Word prayerfully and this takes time. God is God. He is not a cuddly, warm person. He is not a person!! we tend to put human attributes onto God. God is the almighty, powerful creator of the universe. Omnipresent, omniescenct...we really are not able to get our small brains around it all but He gives us enough...to know He is Lord of All. God sent His Son, so all who believe in Him can have their relationship with God restored. This plan was set in motion (and told) in Genesis. The OT is not separate from the NT, it simply prepares the way for the full revelation of Christ. God remains constant, the same. Always. From the beginning of time. You cannot know Christ, if you do not know the Father, the Father who is displayed to us in all His glory from Genesis to Revelation. God Bless you as you seek this understanding, that can only come from Him. Study the Word, to know what is true, in its entirety. <><

 

[Blain]

I recall The saying saying to his people when they cried out to him: If you are such a good and righteous God why are our lives so horrible? He Replie- and this is meant for this thread also: I the lord your god do not change.

 

[crossnote]

God has not changed...He is the same before, now and for all eternity. The OT, when presented as you have listed the scriptures, does seem unjust, cruel...but God tells us He is just and He will not tolerate those who go against Him.He demands obedience. He can do that...because He is the creator. Those that do not obey Him, who are sinful and disobedient are destined for eternal separation and death. When we read of the things that happened in the OT we need to read and understand them in context. We need to study the Word prayerfully and this takes time. God is God. He is not a cuddly, warm person. ​He is not a person!! we tend to put human attributes onto God. God is the almighty, powerful creator of the universe. Omnipresent, omniescenct...we really are not able to get our small brains around it all but He gives us enough...to know He is Lord of All. God sent His Son, so all who believe in Him can have their relationship with God restored. This plan was set in motion (and told) in Genesis. The OT is not separate from the NT, it simply prepares the way for the full revelation of Christ. God remains constant, the same. Always. From the beginning of time. You cannot know Christ, if you do not know the Father, the Father who is displayed to us in all His glory from Genesis to Revelation. God Bless you as you seek this understanding, that can only come from Him. Study the Word, to know what is true, in its entirety. <><

Nice with one caveat, God is a Person and probably One in a truer sense than we are. He is very personal too as seen in the Godhead John 17.

 

[hattiebod]

Nice with one caveat, God is a Person and probably One in a truer sense than we are. He is very personal too as seen in the Godhead John 17.

Yes...sorry but what i meant to get across was how God is not a person, like us, he is not a human...he is divine...maybe i should stop now? is the hole I am digging for myself deep enough? <><

 

[PS]

Nice with one caveat, God is a Person and probably One in a truer sense than we are. He is very personal too as seen in the Godhead John 17.

They had two G/gods in the Old Testament. They worshiped pagan gods and sacrificed their children to Moloch on the one hand and on the other hand we see the the love of the true God who continued on into the the New Testament.

 

[PS]

okay my name is craig, iv been a christian for a year our 2 now and like most i had my ups and downs but the other night i was talking with a close friend and was telling him the love that god as for him, then he started to go into the god of the old testament and its not the god that i know and love. i mean for a year now i told all my family and friends that the bible is gods word. i used to belive that. but if the bible is god words then why as the old testament got such evil in it? i will show you a list of what my friend was reading out and would love some feed back it. i still love jesus but i dont know what to think of the old testament.

1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.
2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.
3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
4. God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites – men, women, children, infants, and their cattle – for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years earlier.
6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)
7. 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are bored, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” About 3,000 people died.
8. The Amorites destroyed by sword and by God’s rocks.
In Joshua 10:10-11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.
9. God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot’s wife for looking back at her burning home.
10. God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them. (Newer cosmetic translations say the bears “maul” the children, but the original Hebrew, baqa, means “to tear apart.”)
11. A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1-23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.
12. 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27-30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.
13. A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22-29, a mob demands to rape a godly master’s guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and ships the pieces around the country.
14. Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30-39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God’s favor in killing the Ammonites.
15. God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11-19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.
16. God demands you kill your wife and children for worshiping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6-10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.
17. God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9-10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.
18. God kills a man for not impregnating his brother’s widow.
In Genesis 38:9-10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother’s widow.
19. God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27-29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.
20. The coming slaughter.
According to Revelation 9:7-19, God’s got more evil coming. God will make horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails, who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth’s population. If he came today, that would be 2 billion people.


i trust in the new testament and got faith in jesus from my prayers but i really dont know how to deal with this. i dont want some half answer. if the bible is got words what the heck is with the evil nature of how he was, god is not ment to change but if you look at him in the new testament he as changed more then any one i know

I didn't see your post or I would have responded directly, sorry.

Before Jesus and Christianity the world was pagan. Everything that was done was done in the name of god. The terrible German dictator did what he did to the Jews in World War Two in the name of God, but his was a pagan God.

This is why we need to rightly divide scripture. We all need to try and not confuse the Christian God with the pagan deities.

Thanks.

 

[livingepistle]

okay my name is craig, iv been a christian for a year our 2 now and like most i had my ups and downs but the other night i was talking with a close friend and was telling him the love that god as for him, then he started to go into the god of the old testament and its not the god that i know and love. i mean for a year now i told all my family and friends that the bible is gods word. i used to belive that. but if the bible is god words then why as the old testament got such evil in it? i will show you a list of what my friend was reading out and would love some feed back it. i still love jesus but i dont know what to think of the old testament.

i trust in the new testament and got faith in jesus from my prayers but i really dont know how to deal with this. i dont want some half answer. if the bible is got words what the heck is with the evil nature of how he was, god is not ment to change but if you look at him in the new testament he as changed more then any one i know

This is a valid yet common questions for every Bible student. Although your question seems simple on the surface, it is an involved study that deserves an answer based upon the same text OT & NT in order to deliver an intelligent Spirit led understanding. Be prepared for a plethora of varying responses and opinions from the Christian Chat Family, we all have respected opinions and I can say from personal experience that every Christian here are sincere and loving.

One word of caution; there be "Atheists" in this chat place; they may or may not identify themselves.

For the record: I believe that Jesus is the Lord and Savior.

"My" Answer and Belief for this thread concerning Genocide by God: Destruction of a corrupted human species that were without any natural or Spiritual acknowledgment of the Creator. Yes, I believe that God performed genocide of an ungodly race.

I believe that it connects to human genetics. God created Adam a new and special creature, the only being that God created in His image. At some point, after Adam's sin, humanity became corrupted; genetically and spiritually, this condition is what the Bible refers to as "sin".

You will find in depth understanding if you make this a personal research theology project; the answers you find will be surprising.

I offer these research subjects to assist should you decide to perform an in-depth study:

1. Genealogy of Christ; the book of Matthew will help tremendously
2. Cain's genealogy
3. Research the term "Nephilim" in the Bible and the genealogy of Goliath
4. Universal Laws of God for Humanity and All Other Creatures made by Him
5. Redemption of Man After the Fall

Livingepistle
I personally believe The Holy Bible is the inspired text of Word in print: It is preserved for all generations of godly women and men born as a guide to understanding past, present, and future knowledge of His existence. After believing He will lead and guide us into all truth concerning himself.

 

[danschance]

[SUP]5 [/SUP]Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.[SUP]6 [/SUP]The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved [SUP][e][/SUP]in His heart.[SUP]7 [/SUP]The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the [SUP][f][/SUP]sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”[SUP]8 [/SUP]But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Gen. 5:1-8

Your list is long and I don't have the time to respond to every point.

You claim God killed everyone on the Earth. This is true. Does this make God an evil person? No, defiantly not! The bible states clearly why God caused the flood. The people were very evil in what they did and even their thoughts were set on evil continuously. God simply put an end to their evil by killing them. You may think of this as being unfair, but keep in mind that God found favor in Noah and spared him and his family.

The same thing happened with Sodom and Gomorrah They were evil and out of control to the point they had their hearts set on homosexual rape of the two angels God sent to that city. Only the few who were righteous were spared.

Now think about this. What sort of God would permit evil to flourish? Imagine a city where men rapped men, women and children and even murdered others for little or no reason at all. Would you want to worship a god which allowed that to go on day after day, year after year, unbridled?

 

[RedTent]

Craig, it is important for you to open your heart and mind to the God of the OT, for this is the God who is operating in our world today. You are asking God to operate His world He created under the rules you want, and God isn't going to do that. It would be like asking the Wright brothers to reinvent the airplane under your instructions. Won't fly.

I can't go through the entire OT to explain it to you page by page, you should do that. But here are some principles that God gives that may help. God created man to live forever, and loves man. Man cannot live on in eternity and bring sin with him. If man insists on that it means he will die. God doesn't want that, and sent Jesus so that through just only understanding that and trying not to sin we can live on. When man decided on only sin, like in the world before Noah, God decided to start the world over again and hope for man who would live. He created a race of people starting with Abraham, and used these people to train us in His ways so we could live.

God did his best to train these people to live, and live well. They often wouldn't follow God's lead, and God won't force anyone to do that. He often cleaned out what interfered with their living on with Him. How God did that takes a step by step study of OT.

You are seeing the destruction that resulted from people not following God to live abundantly through your fleshly eyes. That is not seeing the true reality. God rules the earth, you don't.

 

[Maranatha-TheLordIsComing]

He Was And Is To Come, The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever, God has never changed in all eternity, there is no variation nor shadow of turning in Him, you should look back at the OT and understand it was just on His part, and see that He is righteous in all His ways.

 

[AgapeSpiritEyes]

In the Old testament everything God demanded in Laws and specific rules and ordances judgements was to manifest His only Son, everything opposed was seriously removed because it was a rebellion to His Son coming a tool and instrumental tactic and plan of Satan in and with rebellious men. Nothing and no one were going to stop the infinite wisdom and desire for God to send Jesus for us to vanquish sin and rebellion ultimately for God to dwell with mankind all and in all.Penetrating, effusing, refluging shinning and permetrating all and in all those who are and will be willing for God to be all in them. Every Record of rebellion and disobedience was a insult and rebellion to God's preparation which was to send His son to come removing whatever or whom ever that was. His greatest wisdom and deterrent is to dwell with men all opposition was judge and removed.

 

[RedTent]

The Old Testament was God dealing with men under the Law.
The New Testament is God dealing with men under Grace.

How to deal with it: Praise God we are under Grace.

There was atonement through blood in the sacrificial system, it is in scripture. It is in eternal time. God used our kind of time to complete it and perfect it, but by studying the shadow of this atonement in the OT, even that, you can better understand the completed way we can live eternally.

It has never been part of the character of God to want death for us. The world has never operated without Christ. Humans have never been able to achieve grace through anything they did, God is holy. God is God. God is love. God's love has been in the world from the beginning, and that is grace.

When God says we are under grace, not law, God is telling us we have forgiveness available. We are not under death from the law, but God would never withhold law from us. The law expresses His love for us, God never withholds His love.

 

[TheAristocat]

1. God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and perhaps unicorns. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37-42, gentle Jesus approves of this genocide and plans to repeat it when he returns.

The Bible also doesn't detail what these people were doing and why they were worthy of death. Maybe that's the silence you should be concerned about. It does make passing mention that the whole earth was filled with violence and "corruption," though. If you want your children to inherit a world like that then that's up to you. I wouldn't. As for the unicorns, unicorns (in the sense that there are horses with single horns on their heads or animals with single horns on their heads) are very real. Heck, human beings can grow horns on their heads. It's just a defect, depending on your view of evolutionary adaptation.

2. God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15-18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.

Read the whole chapter. The 800,000 (as it's recorded here) were led by Jeroboam who had already stopped the Kingdom of Israel from going down to offer sacrifices at the Temple of God in the Kingdom of Judah as was required by the Law their forefathers swore to uphold in order to receive blessings for obedience (you don't get blessings for doing right without getting curses for doing wrong). What's more, the Kingdom of Israel was being antagonistic toward Judah, trying to supplant the king God had set as ruler over them all. Rehoboam offered them a chance to withdraw instead of fight against God and continue to worship false gods as was the custom in Israel during Jeroboam's reign of the northern kingdom. Those soldiers went into an unprevoked battle against God, hoping to crush a smaller power that did not want to fight them, so God defeated them. I don't exactly think Jeroboam and his troops had the moral high ground.

3. God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.

That's also not necessarily the case. All those who put the blood on the doorposts of their houses would be spared. And we see later that some Egyptians left Egypt when Israel had and chose to join themselves to Israel. The passing over described in this narrative I believe is not a "skipping over" but a "covering of protection." The English word just doesn't differentiate the two.

kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.

The whole congregation is said to have gathered against Moses. When it says, "gathered against," we're not told exactly what this means. But we do know that they blamed Moses for the death of human beings, and they obviously judged it as wrong. What was the penalty for a murderer? Death. So what were they planning to do to Moses and Aaron? Maybe kill them. In fact, we see in Exodus 17:4 that the people of Israel were just about ready to stone Moses. And this was before the event in question here. What were they prepared to do to him now? But the number of the people killed (presumably who had gathered against Moses) was 14,700 - not 15,000.

5. Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20-21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32-35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children. In Deuteronomy 3:3-7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1-9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites – men, women, children, infants, and their cattle – for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years earlier.

Genocide after genocide? I guess that certainly makes it sound a lot more evil than "killing antagonistic, war-mongering enemy after antagonistic, war-mongering enemy." Arguably destroying a group of enemies is better than centuries of conflict where many more would needlessly die in the process. There were plenty of ancient civilizations that practiced the same tactics with much less of a valid reason than God. Machiavelli once said, "Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared." God had a People to protect, and I don't think he was willing to indulge a war-mongering race that worshipped false gods and fought against his People.

6. God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant. (Newer cosmetic translations count only 70 deaths, but their text notes admit that the best and earliest manuscripts put the number at 50,070.)

Let me ask you a question. If you knew that the Levites camped around the Ark of the Covenant to separate it from the Israelites for their own protection and there was this idea that only the High Priest and those assigned to carry the Ark were allowed near it, then would you defy God at the risk of your own health and look into it? So how many stupid people died that day? About 50,000. Exodus 33:20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

I can answer more of these if you like. I just think that your friend has done what inevitably every atheist out there does and reads something without studying the context and says, "Oh my goodness. How evil God is!" The truth is that if God has made us and given us life, then we have done nothing to earn that life. It is a gift that God can just as easily take away. But he would rather that we live. But for the sake of argument here are some Old Testament passages that New Testament teachings come from:

Exodus 23:5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it. (i.e. love your enemy)

Leviticus 19:18 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love
your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. (i.e. love your neighbor as yourself)

I don't think God has changed. I think he loves us and is willing that none should perish. But those who antagonize him and his People are just begging for trouble, especially since they don't have any business being in God's creation if they're against God.

 

[PS]

Yes God always gets the blame.

George Bush claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Tony Blair spoke of God, and Saddam Hussein had "God is great" emblazoned on the national flag in his own handwriting.....

 

[crossnote]

They had two G/gods in the Old Testament. They worshiped pagan gods and sacrificed their children to Moloch on the one hand and on the other hand we see the the love of the true God who continued on into the the New Testament.

They had many gods in the ot but only one was the True God and He is the same in both testaments.

 

[PS]

They had many gods in the ot but only one was the True God and He is the same in both testaments.

That is what I said in post 8.

The One God being Jesus, so do you think Jesus who said to turn the other cheek, ordered the mass murder, rape and genocide?

 

[resurrection33]

God is God, whether it's the New or Old Testament. Jesus is God in flesh. It is all the same person.