It’s become one of the most-quoted passages to emerge from the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins’s tirade against the God of Israel: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser. . . .”
Less well-known is Dawkins’s approval of Jesus, who is “from a moral point of view . . . a huge improvement over the cruel ogre of the Old Testament.” Jesus’ ethical teaching was, indeed, “admirable,” or appears to be “by comparison with the ethical disaster area that is the Old Testament.” Unfortunately, the rest of the New Testament does not live up to Jesus’ high standards: “No good person should support” all the teachings of the New Testament.
Dawkins is right. Readers uncomfortable with the Old Testament will not be reassured by the New. In fact, they will not be reassured even by what the New Testament says about Jesus. And atheists are not alone in their discomfort with the Bible. Some years ago, the biblical scholar David J. A. Clines confessed that he found Psalm 2 disquieting. The Psalm describes a king facing a political crisis stirred by what Clines, to give a face to the raging nations, labeled the MLF, the “Moabite Liberation Front.” Claiming divine right and with the support of Yahweh who laughs derisively at the rebels, the king crushes the opposition with an iron rod and dashes them like pottery.
Clines was well aware that Psalm 2 is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament, and also aware that from the first century until the modern period, Christian interpreters universally read it Christologically. When the Jewish priests first clamped down on the preaching of Peter and John, the disciples gathered to pray Psalm 2 (see Acts 4:25-26). They identified God’s “holy servant Jesus” with the Christ of the Psalm, already clear enough (v. 27), and enumerated the nations who rage against Him—Pontius Pilate, other Gentiles, even the people of Israel. Acts does not quote the final verses of the Psalm, but Jesus’ message to the angel of Thyatira does: Jesus claims authority to “rule with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces” (Revelation 2:26-27; see 12:5). Near the end of the Apocalypse, Jesus marches out with the saints to rule with a sword and a rod (19:15).
For Clines, these New Testament uses of Psalm 2 did nothing to legitimate the “ethics of the Psalm” but instead “problematizes the New Testament.” Clines, like Dawkins, knew that the heretic Marcion, who separated the Old and New Testaments, offered no solution. The New Testament itself was the problem. Clines called for an RLM—a “Readers’ Liberation Movement”—in which each reader will be “free to decide for oneself whether one will accept that these are appropriate terms in which to speak of the divine.”
You have to admire Clines’s honesty. Faced with a choice between his own scruples and the Bible, he openly clung to his scruples. Most Christians, though, would rather stick with the text, but that only tightens the quandary: How can the God of Israel be revealed in gentle Jesus? How can we reconcile the gospels’ portrait of crucified Jesus with the militant Messiah of Psalm 2? Is the Jesus of Revelation the same as the Jesus of Isaiah 53? Can the same Savior carry a cross and a club?
Another Psalm, Psalm 72, points toward a solution. It depicts a kinder, gentler king who judges with righteousness, delivers the afflicted, shows compassion to the needy. Like gentle rain on the mown grass, the king waters the land so that it bursts with an abundance of grain, fruit trees mighty like cedars of Lebanon, cities fruitful as orchards. Nomads and distant kings bring him tribute, but his reign is marked by compassion for the weak (vv. 12-14). Though never quoted in the New Testament, it is just as Messianic as the much-quoted Psalm 2. Here is a Psalm, and a Davidic Christ, that David Clines could like. Almost. Psalm 72 does not diverge completely from Psalm 2. The ideal king of compassion and justice saves the oppressed by “crushing the oppressor” (v. 4). Crushing oppressors is not, by the Psalmist’s lights, another act of oppression, nor even an act of violence. Violence is what the king delivers from.
This same distinction, and the tensions it creates, runs through the Scriptures. “Yahweh tests the righteous and the wicked,” says another Psalm, “And the one who loves violence His soul hates” (11:5). No biblical passage endorses “violence,” and there are frequent condemnations of violence (Psalm 7:16; 18:48; 55:9; 58:2; 73:6; 140:1, 4, 11; etc.). Yet, the same God who hates violence threw down fire on Sodom, brought devastating plagues on Egypt, sent Joshua across the river to conquer Canaan, and finally rules with a rod. The biblical writers see no contradiction between a God who laments “the earth is filled with violence” and then decides to stop the violence, “I will destroy them” (Genesis 6:11). Even the church’s first martyr acknowledged the difference. As his murderers fingered their sharp stones and limbered their arms, Stephen preached a sermon that described Moses’s killing of the Egyptian not as an act of violence, but as “defense” and “vengeance for the oppressed” (Acts 7:24).
Put into a more philosophical idiom, the biblical writers imply that intentions, aims, contexts, and results are not extraneous additives to our actions, but constitutive of actions. Our actions are more than their physical components, just as we are more than the matter that makes us. Change the intention, and you change the act. In many cases, if you change the actor, you change the act. A sniper on a battlefield is not a murderer; a sniper in Brooklyn is. Enslavement and exodus are not two forms of violence, one perpetrated by Pharaoh the other by Yahweh, any more than marital sex and adultery are simply variations on the generic physical act of “having sex.”
Dawkins to the contrary, the “ogre” of Israel never acts violently, nor does Jesus. The Judge of the earth does right, and if Jesus carries a rod, it is as the Good Shepherd who strikes the earth to deliver the afflicted and bring justice to the wretched.
Peter J. Leithart is pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New St. Andrews College. His most recent book is Athanasius (Baker Academic).
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Comments:
And yet God commands us to know Him. One of Dawkins favorite techniques for refuting religion is to claim that it is so full of contradictions that it is completely unreasonable.
Our limits make it impossible to "make God fit into (our) understanding" but just like the meaning of violence in the article, understanding requires "intentions, aims, context."
If we attempt to know God with the intention and aim of loving and serving Him, He will reward us with light from the Holy Spirit to know Him better within our meager capacity.
... think Theological poetry , that may help ....
We've got Dawkins on one hand, and Leithart on the other. It might be more useful to think about what an intelligent, yet impartial, reader would take away from the OT, and the controversial texts in particular.
I love the distinction Peter Leithart makes between God and man; God's works and man's motives. May His kingdom be built in our hearts, eradicating every bad motive.
So don't get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers. Only then will any one of us get to hear the "Well done!" of God. I Cor. 4:5, The Message
Hmmm....But then, both are equally evil (at least murdering innocent child among thousands of firstborn child in Egypt or sending plagues to all its population, regardless if they participated or not in slaving hebrews, is not evil). And we could go with many other acts and laws given by God that appear in the Old Testament (like stoning adulterers or homosexuals).
God the Father is just and should certainly be feared. Just consider *how* we were crafted from the dust, or what goes on in the vicinity of black holes. And we disobey Him at our peril. But He is merciful, too. (Why else would we even be here? Why would a creator not love his creation?) Unless we freely reject Him, i.e., disdain His love, we *will* be saved. Just as Pharoah exercised his free will in refusing to obey God, and subjected his nation to judgement, so we as individuals may freely decide to reject God's Truth and mercy . . . and the consequences will be worse than we can imagine.
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If I want to learn about biology, I go to a biologist. If I want to learn about theology, I go to a theologian. Wouldn’t it be a little silly to do it the other way around?
Jesus didn't seem to think that the account of Noah was symbolic, or that God was a trickster. He seemed to take the account "straight up." If Noah's experience was symbolic, then how is Jesus' second coming not symbolic too?
"For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be." Matt 24:37-38 (NASB)
The same equivalency between mankind's previous encounters with God's judgment and the future judgment by the Lord Jesus is observed by Peter:
"For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority." 2 Peter 2:4-10 (NASB)
Indeed, the continuity of God's judgments shown by these and other passages such as Jude, and his frequent warnings to us using these events as examples, makes God the very opposite of a trickster. The literalism of those past events and the literalism of his second coming with its judgments are one and the same. If we are wise, we will accept them as such. By abiding in his word, including these passages, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free, including the freedom to avoid the coming judgment.
That's one way to put it. But then we should say this of Mr. Leithart: Faced with the choice between criticizing the Bible and whitewashing violent, tyrannical oppression, he openly chooses to whitewash violent, tyrannical oppression. Faced with the choice between criticizing the Bible and clinging to a morally dubious doctrine of retribution, he openly chooses to cling to the morally dubious doctrine. Faced with the choice between exposing the Bible to honest scrutiny and denying that vengefully burning the inhabitants of a city is "violent", he openly chooses the latter.
Btw, a sniper picking off the unarmed inhabitants of Brooklyn will generally remain a murderer regardless of his intentions, and regardless of who he happens to be. Perhaps theologians aren't so well-equipped for making moral distinctions.
I've come to more or less the same conclusion, even if I know of no more powerfully inspired document. Did God really send bears out of the forest to tear 42 little children to pieces for teasing Elisha about his bald head? And how godly was Elisha's behavior when he cursed the children, instead of forgiving them or even laughing it off? When Paul testily wished that those who were stubbornly committed to circumcision might suffer a slip of the knife, was that a divinely inspired statement, or was it just Paul speaking?
The Bible is highly complex and includes a great deal of the human in it, as well as some of the particular mentality of ancient societies. In some ways, I think that makes it all the richer, and we must always depend on the gift of inspired discernment to mine its riches. Absolutely pure document or not, we probably shouldn't be too shocked to find that God sometimes comes across in contradictory or even frightening ways in the Bible. Who can define God?
†
Thousands of children are dying in East Africa from starvation from the drought right now and we wonder why God asks us to feed the hungry when His power could have brought rain and prevented these infants dying with flies on their faces as their moms carry them for days on the way to Kenya.
We can understand why God permits a Pablo Escobar to be killed in a gunfight with police in South America. We cannot understand why he permits so many children to be killed....many in disgusting ways. Perhaps we simply do not talk of satan enough. It is he who kills Job's relatives with a wind storm in Job and it is he who is called the prince of the air around us in the New Testament. Not a sparrow nor a child falls to the ground without your Father's leave....but maybe the disgusting deaths...the crushed heads....the flies on the face....the stray bullets in the ghetto killing a two year old....maybe the disgusting manner is always from Satan when it is children. With adults it is different. The angel leaves Herod Antippas' body in Acts 12 out on the ground to be eaten by worms because this was an adult who committed sacrilege.
But with children, disgusting details are probably sometimes from Satan....like the iron gate in New York City.
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Given the careful distinctions that Pastor Leithart makes, could you please illustrate:
1) how and where the Bible displays violent, tyrannical oppression
2) what in Scripture amounts to "a morally dubious doctrine of retribution"
You also wrote: "And btw, a sniper picking off the unarmed inhabitants of Brooklyn will generally remain a murderer regardless of his intentions and regardless of who he happens to be. Perhaps theologians aren't so well-equipped for making moral distinctions."
Did you actually read that penultimate paragraph carefully. How about this sentence "the biblical writers imply that intentions, aims, contexts, and results are not extraneous additives to our actions, but constitutive of actions."
It's not just a matter of intentions alone and you're being incredibly uncharitable and careless in your reading of Leithart... So read the piece again and then I suggest modify/correct your comments.
K
God could have done that with a sudden heart seizure in the little girl. The parents will remember identifying the body with the crushed head til they die....hence, if they are good people, the crushed head detail came from Satan. Theresa of Avila said that if Satan cannot get one to sin, he will at least make one sad.
Aquinas had a fascinating explication of the words "hate" and "anger" when Scripture uses them of God. We are faced with scriptures that say that there is no change in God: "I am the Lord and I change not"...." In Him there is no change nor shadow of alteration". But "hate" and "anger" are a change from John's "God is love". John is saying not that God has love but that God is Love so that He is never for one moment non Joyous....non Love....non Peace. Anger and hate end joy, peace, love...at least in the sense of producing a change. But God does not change.
Aquinas concludes that "hate" and "anger" are anthropopathisms when said of God and whereas in us they denote the emotion realm....in God they denote the Will. "Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated"....is not about God actually hating Esau but about His willing to Esau less spiritually than He willed to Jacob. As long as anyone is alive, they and Esau still fall under the umbrella of His will that all men be saved...." I desire not the death of the wicked but that he turn from his way and live"...." who wills all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth".
Both those passages were true of Esau too....as long as he was alive....along with the other passage...." Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated" Rom.9:13. But all three were true of Esau not just the hate passage whereby God could not have hated Esau literally if the other two passages were true too about God willing salvation to him as long as he was alive and to will salvation to someone is to love them. Therefore "hate" as to Esau is really not the emotion of hate in God but the willing within God of willing less to Esau spiritually than to Jacob. That's why Christ said no man was greater than John the Baptist....God had willed more good to John the Baptist than God willed to Judas to whom God willed salvation also unless we are to undo "I desire not the death of the wicked"...."who wills all men to be saved"
....but we can't undo them which means God loved Judas since Christ said in Jn10:35...."the scriptures cannot be broken".
Aquinas explains that in men there is a lower part of the soul and a higher part of the soul. In the lower part is that which changes: anger, affection, sadness, happy feelings etc. In the higher part is the hopefully unchanging with God's grace:
real love, committment to vows, wisdom etc. Thus you can lose your affection for your niece because of her conduct in a second but you still love her in the higher part of your soul. Your love is unchanging....your affection changes like the wind.
Aquinas concludes....God only has the higher part of the soul....He does not have the changing...hate, anger....of the lower part of the soul. They are used of Him metaphorically as to His will because His will is against those people while loving them who are unrepentant as yet....or at their life's end. God helped Judas right at the end with a wave of repentance grace whereby he threw back the 30 pieces of silver....God was loving Judas right there and then....but Judas through sloth in not hoping by not remembering the care of God toward him...did not continue to work and work with that love....and he chose his own will in the subsequent hours right after being loved once more.
Who said there weren't dinosaurs? I didn't.
Sure, there are things that we don't understand, even with a view that denies death before the fall (if you want to call that young earth, go ahead). But there are many more loose ends, both scientific and theological, with an old-earth/evolutionary viewpoint than with mine. As an engineer, I design and test complex systems (something most scientists have never done) for a living, and I know how narrow is the combined operating range of all the variables I must control. I examine similar highly-tuned system characteristics found in the microscopic cell, and I reject the hypothesis that human life, or any biological life, could have evolved as is supposed in the macro-evolution approach. In my considered view, a more literal reading of the Bible fits the data better than the currently more popular alternative.
The scientific worldview of the West was formed by people who believed in a rational creator, and who assumed that this rationality would be found throughout his creation. Many of today's scientists unknowingly sit on this limb while sawing away at at it.
@ Bill:
God is also a just God. And though many may vehemently disagree with the fact that His brand of justice is not confined to an event, and that it spans generations, He is just. To blame God for death that "should not have been" is an isolated view of that death. It is possible that the innocent death could be a result of the sins of the victim's ancestors.
Exodus 20:5 - 6 (NASB)
"You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
You cannot use Exodus for death as punishment of offspring because of Ezekiel 18:19..."Yet you say, 'Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?' When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
You can use Exodus for a different process "visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children" as it says. Read it again. The 3rd and 4th generation are not being killed....they are having the evil of the father visited upon them.....otherwise throw out Ezekiel who is saying the children are not punished for the father....but they do have his evil visited on them in an unhappy family life which continues for their children, grandchildren, and great grand children who all must put up with his depressing selfishness at family gatherings. Ask an innocent child of an evil man
what this process "visited" means.
Your understanding of Exodus voids Ezekiel and both are from God.
Absalom declared himself king, slept with his father's concubines, and revolted against David the King and thus committed treason and was killed in battle. How is that taking on David's punishment? And are you hoping it voids Ezekiel which you have not commented on. Are you undermining Ezekiel...and why?
Nothing really to do with Exequiel. It is simply God being merciful and just at the same time.
