Re: MD Moral values in the election and in the Bible

From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Nov 06 2004 - 03:41:41 GMT

  • Next message: Arlo J. Bensinger: "Re: MD Moral values in the election and in the Bible"

    Erin,

    [Erin:] Okay but first for those who know the Bible well I have a question. I heard in a talk, it was about research about the God concept (sidequestion, is that empirical msh?), that somebody asked doesn't it change from old testament to new testament. Again this is more asking for those who actually know the Bible a lot better than me is there a fundamental division related to old testament and new testament?

    [Scott:] Yes, there was a change, but that isn't the only one. Roughly, there is a sequence:

    - God was a tribal god, not the only one, but (according to the tribe, that is, the Hebrews) the most powerful. One exceptional thing about the Hebrews' god is that he (sic) was invisible, that is, the tribe was forbidden to make images of him.
    - God became the only God, but continued to be mainly a ruler.
    - With the New Testament, came the image of God the Father (or, in modern terms, the Parent -- the term used was 'abba', which is more a term of endearment, like Daddy, than one that might used to refer to the family patriarch), emphasizing love and forgiveness over rule and judgment. Not that the latter concepts disappeared, but that the former became ascendent.
    - With the contact from Greek philosophy, especially Neoplatonism, God became more abstract and theoretical, with God described as Being itself (as opposed to a being), or beyond Being, or the ground of Being. But these concepts were pretty much limited to the intellectuals.
    - Then there are the mystics, and the tradition known as negative theology, which emphasizes God's utter unknowability. While positive theology did not deny it, it would offer analogies, with warnings not to take the analogies too far.

    Karen Armstrong's "The History of God" has been mentioned a couple of times as a good exploration of these issues, including Muslim concepts as well.

    Whether any of these changes should be thought of as "fundamental" is, I think, an open one. In some ways, the change with the introduction of Greek philosophy could be seen as more fundamental than anything in the New Testament, but that could be debated. One finds love images in the Old Testament as well, notably in the Song of Solomon, but also references in the Psalms to God's "lovingkindness". One change that was fundamentally different with the New Testament was the attitude toward the Law. But even here, within the New Testament, there are contrasting issues. Matthew at some point says that "not one jot or tittle" of the law has been changed (the law refers to the multitude of commandments in the Torah, the five books of Moses, like the dietary restrictions). Paul, on the other hand, fights for dropping the law, in particular, the requirement of circumcision, on the part of non-Jewish converts, and Paul won out in the long run. (And, of course, it is more complicated than this -- the Ten Commandments
    were never seen as optional, for example).

    - Scott

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