(Photo Credit: Idan Arad)
I’m having to read through Genesis-Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) for my current graduate course. Some of the things I used to try and make excuses for are even worse now: Abraham’s near murder of Isaac, God making Pharaoh’s heart so He can kill all of the firstborns in Egypt (from tiny babies to the elderly), etc.
If I hadn’t have been brought up in church and taught to believe in the Bible, I never would have. It’s brutal and unjust and if there is to be any theology that unites the whole, it has to dismiss God’s “schizophrenia” to exalt one personality over another. I don’t say any of this to bash believers of Christianity or Judaism (or even Islam for that matter). But if I hadn’t have been brought up religious, I never would have believed that this is a God worth following.
But then again, very few people bother reading the books they claim to believe. Forgive me if I offend You or you. Know that I have no joy writing this. Just honesty.
Just a note…..
My breaking point was when I applied the interpretative method (hermeneutics) of evangelical fundamentalism to the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old Testament. I found that it didn’t work. Fundamentalists would argue with the apostles if they were side by side. Test it and see.
Madman's Lantern 