Is God of the NT different than God of the OT?

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You didn't answer my question about what I wrote argued that Christ is God because He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Was it subtly buried in one of your wisecracks or just ignored?

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Sure I did. See Message 281.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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List what is in your view "Paul's authentic writings" please.

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Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, I Thessalonians, and Philemon

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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purpledawn writes:

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Given the way you read the Bible, I would say you would choose Acts 2:38. I would disagree. Otherwise I see no other verse that could be miscontrued as such.

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I gave my reasons why I think "His own blood" refers to "God" about 8 words previous rather than "Lord Jesus" four verses previous. I saw no alternative rational from you which was more convincing. If *shrug* and go on is supposed to impress me with your better reasons, it didn't.

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I have no idea what you are talking about.Acts 2:38 isn't the one you had in mind?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

None of the verses were an argument that Jesus being filled with the Spirit makes Him God. In fact I don't think the filling of the Spirit is mentioned in any of the verses.I don't think you are understanding what I wrote about. Perhaps I need to use more words to minimize as much as possible you're misunderstanding.Those references were not an argument that the man Jesus was God because He was filled with the Holy Spirit.

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I don't think you are understanding what I wrote about. Perhaps I need to use more words to minimize as much as possible you're misunderstanding.

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I have no doubt I'm not understanding what you are saying. I suggest less words, less dogma and more to the point.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

I'm glad you said that instead of me.

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The caricature that sees only a 'God of wrath' in the Hebrew scriptures and a 'God of mercy' in the NT does not take all the literature into account. But a key difference does exist.The main difference is that Judaism, with its strict monotheism, had to ascribe all qualities to God. A pillar of Judaism is the Shema: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. God is ultimately the source of every opposite tendency: both darkness and light, justice and mercy, violence and peace, destruction and creation. That's the way monotheism works. You have to account for all the opposite forces that exist, and there's only one deity you can pin everything on. Ergo.Christianity developed a, shall we say, not-so-strict monotheism: the doctrine of Trinity + 1 (Satan). It gave Judaism's God a Son and promoted Satan from his job as God's prosecuting attorney (Hebrew scriptures) to being the polar opposite of Christ (New Testament). This new structure allowed positive aspects of the universe to be more consistently associated with God as the more troublesome aspects of it were blamed on the Devil. God comes off looking better.

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Archer

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‘ ,
— ‘ ;
, —-—

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I form light and create darkness,
I make peace and create evil,
I am Yahueh, I do all these.

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(Isaiah 45:7)

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there is an evolution of hasatan in the text, from nonexistant, to tempting force employed by god, to a force in opposition to god. once the strict good-and-evil monotheism was broken, the christian interpretation was the natural extension. we can actually see this shift in ideology; it happens between sam/kings and chronicles.

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2Sa 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

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1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

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the wrathful actions of god become the evil actions of satan.

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Thanks for sharing these illuminating quotes.Most criticisms leveled at 'the Old Testament God' follow naturally from the monotheistic premise. YHWH is accused of being self-contradictory, capricious, moody, arbitrary, tyrannical. These are predictable reactions when a single personality plays every role while holding all power.

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Archer

do oyu understand english at all?, do you know what the meaning of "might be" is? its not it IS i said it might be as in there is more than one option than the one you think it is not that it IS so you can read my mind now? for a christian isn't that rather arrogent?and yes you did put words in my mouth, you mis-represented what i said, you claimed i really was talking about real shepards when i said, might be, which if you didn't play with words means possiblity and not must be, the only conclusion you came up with was "oh he really means it is a literal sheperd" when i said no such thingthanks for treating what i said with little or no understanding

i'm sorry? i guess trying to understand it from the JEWISH pov is wrong somehow? the arogence of this quote just shows what ringo is talking about, you don't even have the decency to allow for other view points other than your own no,no really they arn't you are taught they are but they arn't, genesis is just myths retold twice and out of order, i read the OT in light of the culture and people who wrote it not from some other book that claims domonation over it i understand this, its really disingenious to the OT writers and the people who believe it i'm saying that reading it without trying to shoehorn on a guy that doesn't even belong there is wrong - sorry but being that the bible was formed by commity i don't really think its the word of godyou see the problem i have really with the NT is despite the authors claims christ does not fit the OT at all! he isn't really human, hes not related to david by blood, he didn't fulfill any real messiah prophicies (unless you play with the meanings of words and alter them and make them up) uh, zech was saying this not god, and the jewish people do not really make prophicies that are far into the future, zech was speaking of what the people did at the time he lived and what god did what?, i didn't say them i said they wailed because they were punished by armys and shown gods power over them for breaking covenent it could be both after reading it, need to find an easier translation, keep getting kjv when i look for scripture, kjv is crappyas far as i can see there hasn't been much in the way of anything convencing per the topic, i still say the only reason the OT is counted is because the authors happened to be jewish, whats better than a flesh and blood "son" of god who's also the messiah?
the problem remains that jesus never fulfilled prophicies that they invision the messiah to fulfil, the second comming is a pure ad hoc cop-out. i mean you could argue that he never fulfiled anything in his lifetime, but people can say "oh well his second comming is when he will do that!"
the problem is the authors wrote of contempory things, it wasn't suppost to be three thousand years into the future
its all ad hoc like creationismEdited by ReverendDG, : No reason given.

that's what i'm here for i don't mean to sound like i'm defending something here, as this does correspond quite highly with my own personal beliefs. this is really understood best in terms of the evolution of thought in near-eastern (and now western) philosophy. we can see a very marked, if gradual, change in the perceptions of god through the bible, because it represents several hundred years (or more) of hebrew and early christian mythology, and many different region and intellectual backgrounds.this, more than anything, accounts for the contradictions: there is no one view of god presented in the bible. for instance, much of the impression of the torah and nevi'im is that god is extremely just. if you are wicked, wickedness befalls you. if you are good, god blesses you and keeps you. but how does this jive with the book of job? job was written as the counter-argument to this view of god -- that god is not always just, and we cannot the judge the righteousness of the person by their station in society. the bible is such a large and varied library of texts that for any one particular idea of god, we can find quote to rebutt it. (i've been playing this game here for YEARS)but the earliest depictions of god, even taken alone, are quite fickle, arbitrary, and very often tyrannical. quite human, really. we had a thread about this here, recently. it went down in flames. later depictions of god slowly tend towards more and more abstract -- and some of the more recent books of the old testament don't even have god in them at all. it's not a strict trend, but it is noticeable.as for the op, is the nt god different? not really, he extends quite easily from some of the later prophets. it's very out of character for the god of the torah, but so is quite a lot of the hebrew bible.

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The main difference I see between the OT and the NT is the disappearance of the cook-up. YHWH loved the smell of a bar-b-q and kept the injunctions coming till the Israelites got the recipe correct. Right up till Jesus drove the sacrificial animals from the Temple, apparently the meat fry was still in fashion. No wonder the authorities went off him. Interfering with Elyon`s will. 'No more sizzling sausages,' said Jesus, 'I`m here to change things'. And He did! Did His Father worry about cholesterol? Did YHWH go vegetarian?Wonder if modern-day Jewry still does a nosh-up for the Lord?

Regarding Nighttrain's 'nosh-up for the Lord':Your post is funny, but I take a serious point from it. (I hope I'm supposed to.)
You're talking about practice of animal (and vegetable) sacrifice. You're saying, if I understand you, that the Hebrew scriptures are full of references to it while the New Testament plays it down.If so, I take the point, but suggest it risks missing the forest for the wood chips. The NT is saturated with sacrificial images and allusions, even if depictions of a literal cookout play less of a role. The essential premise of Christian theology--that God requires a perfect sacrifice if one is to get right with him--is carried over directly from ancient Judaism's practice of animal sacrifice.The argument that Christ represents 'the ultimate sacrifice' (NT book of Hebrews) would indeed be most convincing to people who have grown up thinking of sacrifice as a normal act of worship. In the first century this was a lot of people, Gentiles as well as Jews. People who do not grow up with sacrifice as a form of religious expression--as many people today do not--find the logic of 'dying for our sins' harder to fathom. 'What kind of God has to beat up on an innocent person in order to forgive someone else?' It's a reasonable question. But it's not one a sacrificial system tends to ask. (The sacrifical system has its root, IMHO, in a basic human impulse: when we feel gratitude, we want to offer something.)Historical necessity, more than theology, ensured the decline of animal sacrifice. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.c.e. buried the Hitachi for good. Both Judaism and Christianity faced the end of Temple worship and had to come to terms with it. The earliest books of the NT began to be written at this time, so it's natural that the divide shows in literature at this point.arachnophile makes an excellent caution against all our generalizations when he points out that the Hebrew scriptures are themselves a library of books written over a vast amount of time. The writings reflect many different views. The Torah might concern itself with recipes, but dissatisfaction with animal sacrifice as an adequate expression of devotion can already be seen in Isaiah 1-2.

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Archer

Excellent points all, arachnophilia. Thanks.You mentioned that as the idea of YHWH became more exalted the picture became more abstract. The trend not only invites the casting of a villain. It also invites the casting of another figure in the role of accessible, benign face of deity.The earliest images of YHWH are of a personality embodying all the opposites--one that seems 'human', as you say. He can seem moody, temperamental and impatient along with showing more admirable traits.In time YHWH goes from being Elohim to the Most High God to The Only God. As this happens the picture of him becomes more abstract. In response, one branch of Judaism postulates a growing population of lesser beings with recognizable personalities: Michael, Uriel, Raphael and so on.Christianity picks up the trend, as you note. Yeshua becomes the definitive human face of the divine. If YHWH--whose name can no longer be said out loud--is abstract, unknowable and scary, his son is human in scale, approachable and forgiving.As time goes on his followers exalt Yeshua the Teacher more and more into the role of Christ Pantocrator, co-regent with the Father, resurrected ruler of the universe, judge of the world. As Christ acquires more attributes of YHWH, his exalted status makes him more intimidating and remote as well.Christians begin postulating a more approachable group of saints. The group consists mainly of mortals like themselves, though it also includes angelic figures, like Michael, from Jewish tradition. Unofficially, a new figure gets Jesus' old job of acting as the approachable, benign, human face of deity: Mary.The trend hints of a psychological balancing act that would apply to other religions--anywhere, really, that anthropomorphic images operate.

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Archer