The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Abraham, Isaac, and the Atonement

If Tom forgives Mary her debt, Tom must take the loss. He now is poorer. He has lost something of value. He has “shed blood”. This is what forgiveness means. The innocent party willingly takes the loss for the sake of the guilty. Without this “shedding of blood”, forgiveness is impossible by definition.

The father of the prodigal son was prepared to “shed his blood” for the sake of his son. He took the financial loss on his chin, the emotional cost, the loss of status and reputation. He swallowed all his son’s sins and destroyed their power. Love, wisdom and hope impelled him.

God also swallows our sins and destroys their power. He sheds blood for us. Christ is the revelation in time and space of this eternal truth.

Allan, you should write a book, bro :slight_smile:

And you too Cindy :wink:

Hey Cindy, I was just thinking… maybe you might want to check out Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard…

I haven’t read it myself, but I hear that it’s a whole book of philosophical reflections on that one story about Abraham and Isaac… it’s considered a classic in philosophy and one of Kierkegaard’s best works…

I don’t know much about Kierkegaard, but I know that he was a strange duck, a bit eccentric and quite melancholy, and something of a loner… but I also heard that he was a Universalist (though he was more of a philosopher than a theologian, from what I can gather, so I don’t think he brought it up too much…)

Here’s a really cool quote by him from his journals concerning UR though:

“If others go to Hell, I will go too. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that all will be saved, myself with them—something which arouses my deepest amazement.”

Here’s a Wiki article about his theology, where I found that quote:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_o … ierkegaard

And here’s a Wiki article about Fear and Trembling: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling

Who knows, maybe his book might give you some insight into this… it might be worth checking out :slight_smile:

Blessings to you in your search for answers. :slight_smile:

Matt

I remember you saying that before, Allen. Only I’d forgotten – sometimes I need telling more than twice. :blush: I’m sorry it took me so long to respond, but I’ve been thinking about all the things you and Sherman have said. You’ve really helped to open this up for me. :smiley:

And thanks to you too, Matt. I’ll check out those articles. I’m not sure someone like Kierkegaard might be too difficult for me to follow, but maybe I can find a writing sample so I can get an idea of his style.

Blessings, Cindy

That passage in the Old Testament has bothered me too…and it still does to this day…along with a lot of other passages.

I’m not buying “it was not God’s intention to have Abraham kill Isaac but only a test - he saved Isaac at the last moment” thing. It might comfort some but it does not hold water for me. What loving God tests people with a mortal sin? What if Abraham asnwered “No God, I will not committ murder to prove myself” Would that have been the wrong answer?

If a loving parent tells his son/daughter that to prove their love & devotion for his parents they must steal something from their neighbour…and then at last moment as they are about to steal it the parent stops them, saying “Stop, it was only a test…you’re a good child”. That’s crazy!
Recently on History Channel I watched the mini series “THE BIBLE” and the scene where Abraham had to kill his son was very gut wrenching. The expression of pain on the fathers face as he tied up his son and painfuly raised the knife was horrible. Very disturbing!
Maybe I’m not as well read as you here on this forum but I cannot see how a loving God would do that.

Honestly - I think there are MANY other, better ways, to prove ones love and devotion, than to test them by committing a crime (breaking a Commandment). Would it not be better to ask them to go out and perform good deeds, loving your neighbour as yourself, providing for the poor and misfortunate etc., to prove their love & devotion to God insted of violating one of the Ten Commandments? and yes I know this happend before he gave Moses the Ten Commandment but in my books a loving God would never ever ask his people to committ such a hainous act…Test or test! Any sacrifices - human or animal are anathema to Christianity.

Jesus never asked his disciples to kill a family member to test them before following him.

Just my two cents.

Frank

Considering that God doesn’t mind if Abraham tries to negotiate Him down for sparing the city of his ally, the king of Sodom, along with some other intriguing hints in the OT, my impression is yes, that would have been an even better answer. :slight_smile:

Still, the point seems to be that Abraham trusts God to bring Isaac back to life, assuming God doesn’t spare Isaac after all, thus fulfilling God’s promises and covenants; thus Abraham tells the servant that he and Isaac will be right back down after the sacrifice is over! Trusting God to care for Isaac even if God Himself demands the life of Isaac, is the issue at stake here – no doubt in the face of an apparently contradictory command for human sacrifice.

(This seems to have been the prevalent interpretation of the rabbis, too, btw.)

Let me restate the part of the previous replies that resonated with me . . . I won’t go back and re-read them, so maybe I’ll use different words and ‘accidentally’ clarify what I saw in them.

Abraham is from a culture in which sacrificing one’s offspring was a commonly accepted practice and not an unusual thing for a god to ask of his followers. Though (as Jason pointed out) Abraham has passed one test in that he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, God still has work to do in revealing Himself to Abraham. So He gives Abraham another situation to deal with to ‘see what he will do’ – not that He doesn’t know, but Abraham doesn’t know what he’ll do and God wants him to know. (imo) Because Abraham doesn’t go into this expecting to lose his son, he is willing. The thing that amazes me is that Isaac is willing too, as (I probably already said) he is not a little boy at this point but a strapping young man indubitably stronger than his aging father. They are alone on Moriah. Isaac must choose to submit to this drama and he may not have the faith of his father that he will be restored – nevertheless we’re not told that he resisted in any way. The assumption has to be that he voluntarily cooperated.

This turns into a beautiful picture of the cooperation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Jesus’ own sacrifice much later – especially in that God does in fact provide Himself a sacrifice. The sons of Adam are not sacrificed, but rather God sacrifices Himself to reconcile us to Himself. Amazing love.

But Abraham – I don’t think it was as bad for Abraham as we might imagine in our society. Yes, he loved his son, but the idea of sacrificing a son to one’s god was nothing like as horrifying to him as it would be to us. Second, Abraham had been walking with God for many, many, many years and had come to genuinely trust Him. Abraham talked with God face to face on many recorded occasions and possibly on other occasions as well. Abraham was ready for this demonstration of God’s love. I think it’s reasonable to think that this was one more object lesson in Abraham’s development. Abraham already did not believe God would permanently deprive him of his son. He trusted the earlier promises. He needed to learn that this is not a thing his God would ever require of humans. God Himself provides the needed sacrifice.

And I agree with Jason that Abraham’s response, while good, was most likely not the best response possible. Nevertheless, it showed his trust in God’s love and faithfulness. So . . . that’s what I heard – a father – THE Father – teaching the father of His chosen people that He will provide the sacrifices and that He is not the kind of god that requires or desires or is pleased with the sacrifice of one’s offspring.

Right; and the rabbis had an absolute field-day with this. You could hardly get to the end of their praise of Isaac for that voluntary faithful cooperation. (It also helps that Isaac has the fewest evil deeds reported of him among the patriarchs and ancestors; maybe none??)

A tradition arose that, in order that the word of God would be fulfilled, Abraham did indeed slightly nick Isaac with the knife before he could fully stop, and so one drop of Isaac’s blood was spilled, and wow did they pile on the poetic merit of that one drop of Isaac’s blood!–in it was all the blood of Israel and so all the blood of Israel was sacrificed in Isaac!–no, that one drop of blood was worth more than all the blood of Israel because Israel was (and still is) notoriously unfaithful but Isaac was utterly faithful! Etc.

I’m a bit surprised this line of thought didn’t come up in the NT canon texts, too, as a precursor to the blood of Christ. But maybe the idea developed among non-Christian Jews after the coming of Christ as a way of competing with claims about the blood of Christ. (i.e. we don’t need the sacrifice of the lamb/ram on the same hill as Isaac, we already have the blood of Isaac spilled on our behalf.)

I rather doubt that’s true, although we’d have to speculate I guess since the scriptures don’t report what he thought on that topic (or do they?) – he was called out of that mess to live as a light in that mess. El Elohim was supposed to be higher and different than the idols he had carved as a younger man. For God to order him to do that, completely aside from the question of God seeming to go back on His promises about Isaac, would introduce the question of whether God was really morally better (even if more powerful) than the false gods.

I’d say this has some bearing on Christian universalism, too: we read of terribly bloody wrath ordered and promised by God, the kind of things we’d expect from a morally lesser god, and those routinely all over the world call into question whether God is morally superior in quality to brutal lesser gods or whether the difference is simply one of power. And we deal with that problem in various ways – by denying the things did and/or will happen (because the real God wouldn’t do such things), or by collapsing into a might-makes-right morality after all (effectively denying the underlying precept of trinitarian theism, by the way), or by insisting that the people must deserve it (which might be true, except relative innocents get caught up in the devastation as well, and wouldn’t it be better for God to lead at least the relatively less guilty people, who didn’t have much choice about being in that situation, to be better?) even though the same explanation could be offered for the wrath of lesser gods.

But we also read that God loves everyone, and there are portions of scripture which seem to prophetically promise that God will bring everyone together in joyous resolution on a Day of the Lord to come.

So do we read those (relatively fewer) scriptures in light of the (relatively more numerous) scriptures, or vice versa? On what principle do we interpret one in favor of the other?

Abraham was faced with a shocking atrocity ordered by God, an atrocity that seems no different than the false gods around him, not even demanding the death of an enemy but of someone both beloved and faithful (actually worse than passing one’s baby through the fire), an atrocity that seems to go against apparent promises God made about this person.

If Abraham had told the servant “I’ll be back soon,” he would have been interpreting the promises of hope and fair-togetherness subordinate to the promise of tragedy. He’d’ve found a way, in his mind, to justify the final tragedy one way or another. (“I’m just following orders from Authority,” or whatever.)

When Abraham tells the servant “We’ll be back soon,” he’s interpreting the promise of tragedy subordinate to the promises of hope and fair-togetherness. He didn’t believe the tragedy would be final, if God even allowed it at all. He believed God was greater than final tragedy, that in God there would be no final tragedy. (Not for his own loved one anyway. I don’t want to press Abraham’s faith in God too far. :wink: )

So maybe I’m wrong; maybe it was the best response possible after all. :slight_smile: After his many many many years of personal experience with God, Abraham couldn’t seriously challenge (as we might) whether he was being deceived by something pretending to be El Elohim. Perhaps he could have self-critically asked whether this meant God saw him to be of such poor moral character that he would agree to do it–since God uses immoral agents for His purposes, too, and then punishes them for acting immorally! (“If you agree to do the job of Satan, you had better be prepared to be content with his wages!” – C. S. Lewis.)

But his hope in God was stronger than his fear of final tragedy from God (after all these years of God seeming to allow final tragedy while promising the fulfillment of hope), and that makes a big difference in the meaning of how he chose to act (even if he could have been more self-critical about his own character).

**First and foremost I want to thank you all for this discussion. I am not here to condemn anyone’s views…but rather to learn. If one is not forced to defend their beliefs how can you know they’re the right beliefs?

I would like to address some points in Cindy’s post;**

Let me restate the part of the previous replies that resonated with me . . . I won’t go back and re-read them, so maybe I’ll use different words and ‘accidentally’ clarify what I saw in them.

Abraham is from a culture in which sacrificing one’s offspring was a commonly accepted practice and not an unusual thing for a god to ask of his followers.

Cultural practices and religious practices are two different things. Are you saying that God in the Old Testament accepted human & animal sacrifice/burnt offerings
and then in the New Testament his Son comes along and now he does not condone sacrifices of any kind?
It’s not jiving for me sorry. To me God is PERFECT and INFALLIBLE…Not someone that learns & evolves as he goes along. I don’t believe that he would he say something like “Ok people, back in the day I liked it when you sacrificed living things to me but not anymore…I changed my mind.”
Yes you can bring up Jesus’ death on the cross as a sacrifice but it’s a little different when He says “Abraham, I have one more test to prove your devotion to me, I want you to kill your son.” The difference is that the Father, the Son & Holy Spirit are three in one. So in essence God sacrificed himself but God can’t really die so it’s not the same as a human sacrifice…because God/Jesus/Holy Spirit are not human
.

Though (as Jason pointed out) Abraham has passed one test in that he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, God still has work to do in revealing Himself to Abraham. So He gives Abraham another situation to deal with to ‘see what he will do’ – not that He doesn’t know, but Abraham doesn’t know what he’ll do and God wants him to know. (imo) Because Abraham doesn’t go into this expecting to lose his son, he is willing.
So he goes into this because he knows God will stop him before it’s too late. Hmm I would rather have God that tests me with acts of good rather than horrific acts.

The thing that amazes me is that Isaac is willing too, as (I probably already said) he is not a little boy at this point but a strapping young man indubitably stronger than his aging father. They are alone on Moriah. Isaac must choose to submit to this drama and he may not have the faith of his father that he will be restored – nevertheless we’re not told that he resisted in any way. The assumption has to be that he voluntarily cooperated.

This turns into a beautiful picture of the cooperation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Jesus’ own sacrifice much later – especially in that God does in fact provide Himself a sacrifice. The sons of Adam are not sacrificed, but rather God sacrifices Himself to reconcile us to Himself. Amazing love.

But Abraham – I don’t think it was as bad for Abraham as we might imagine in our society. Yes, he loved his son, but the idea of sacrificing a son to one’s god was nothing like as horrifying to him as it would be to us

Wow, really? The act of killing ones child was not as disturbing then as it now?
You make it sound like it was just another day at work.
And going to back to an earlier statement about human sacrifices being acceptable in his day – see my comments above.

Second, Abraham had been walking with God for many, many, many years and had come to genuinely trust Him. Abraham talked with God face to face on many recorded occasions and possibly on other occasions as well. Abraham was ready for this demonstration of God’s love. I think it’s reasonable to think that this was one more object lesson in Abraham’s development. Abraham already did not believe God would permanently deprive him of his son. He trusted the earlier promises. He needed to learn that this is not a thing his God would ever require of humans. God Himself provides the needed sacrifice.

And I agree with Jason that Abraham’s response, while good, was most likely not the best response possible. Nevertheless, it showed his trust in God’s love and faithfulness. So . . . that’s what I heard – a father – THE Father – teaching the father of His chosen people that He will provide the sacrifices and that He is not the kind of god that requires or desires or is pleased with the sacrifice of one’s offspring.

**My closing thoughts:

One of the most noticeable contrasts one notices between the two books is that the Old Testament is full of violence & vengeance. A sharp contrast to the New Testament of Jesus’ teachings of Love & Compassion.

I have taken the liberty to illustrate some of these contrasts:**

In His sermon on the mount, in Matthew chapter five, Jesus teaches in contrast to the Law of Moses at least six times. One of which was “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” (Lev .24:20 & Matt. 5:38&39) He continued; “But I tell you not to resist an evil person.” Jesus taught against taking revenge. “Repay no one evil for evil’. (Romans 12:17) Jehovah always sought revenge! While the Heavenly Father loves and is not revengeful!
30. Concerning the Heavenly Father, Jesus told the Pharisees, “You have never heard His voice nor seen His form.” (John 5:37) John said, “No one has seen God at anytime”. (John 1:18, 1st John 4:12) According to the Old Testament Jehovah had been both visually seen and audibility heard several times. “So Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus.33:11) Moses also saw him. Jehovah was visible but God the Father is Spirit and invisible. Paul used the expression, “the invisible God”. (Col.1:1`5)

Jesus had the following to say, “No one knows the Son but the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11:27) According to Jesus, the Heavenly Father was not known in the world until He revealed Him. He told the Jews, “It is my Father who honors Me, of whom you say He is your God. Yet you have not known Him”. (John 8:54) Jesus once and for all confirms to the Pharisees, the Heavenly Father was not the God of their religion neither was He known in the Old Testament. He was not known until Jesus revealed Him. (Matthew 11:27)

**I have read here many versions of “oh he was going to save him at the end all along” but no one has answered:

  1. Why a loving benevolent God would use a heinous act to prove devotion?
  2. Why didn’t Jesus ask of disciples to perform such acts in order to follow him?

In the Old Testament Jehovah destroyed anyone and anything for Israel. Jesus on the other hand lived in a occupied land. Palestine in those days was a Roman province and under the rule of the Caesars. Something the residents did not like. Why didn’t “Jehovah” smite all the Romans with Jesus at the helm? No instead Jesus’ approach was the complete opposite of anything in the Old Testament. Apart from the Binding of Isaac story the other huge contradiction is “An eye for an eye” vs. " Turn the other cheek".

How many of you ask of your children heinous acts to prove their love of their parents only to stop them at the last moment? That to me is diabolical in nature. If I were Abaraham after God stopped me I would still be in a state of mental distress.

One last thing that I cannot get my head around is the term “Christian Jews”. To me that is a text book oxymoron. You are either Christian or Jewish. Jew, Jewish, Judaism is a religion not a race of people or a geographical place on the earth. Would it be true to say a “Christian Muslim”? or a “Christian Budist” etc?

I know I will probably get banished from here for my views.

Respectfully

Frank **

Hi Frank –
I’m sure you won’t be banished for your views – your views are heartfelt, but you’ve not set out to give offence, no way.
I’m not offended :slight_smile:

There are indeed many passages in the Hebrew Bible that are disturbing – and which have filled me with some mixture of horror, disgust and terror at some point in my life; the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Moses being made a ‘bridegroom of blood’ to avert the night attack from Yahweh, the story of Jephtah and his Daughter, the conquest narratives in Joshua, massacre that closes the Book of Esther etc. An early Christian teacher Marcion of Sinope – who had a huge following – felt the same horror and dealt with this by saying that the God of the Old Testament is in fact an inferior semi-diabolic being, completely different from the loving Father of Jesus Christ. He was pronounced a heretic but his logic about the moral character of God in the Bible is still influential (although he also drew other conclusions that would not cut much ice with many today). But I think Marcion’s solution was too drastic by far.

As well as disturbing passages, the Hebrew Bible also contains many passages of wide charity, mercy and justice – especially, but not only, in the Great Prophets – the God who desires mercy and not sacrifice. So even in the OT/Hebrew Bible there are narratives that question the seemingly cruel and brutal passages. And even in the New Testament there are seemingly violent passages.

I do think there is a progressive revelation of the ethical in the Bible – it is not all a clear cut development in a straight line but progress is there. For example in Genesis we have Lamech who speaks of revenge justice – if one of his kin is killed seven of the kinsmen of the killer will have to die; then in the ‘eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth’ statue we have a law of proportionality – a great advance eon revenge justice; and then in Jesus Sermon on the Mount we have the counsel of perfection to practice benevolence towards enemies. So I often think in terms of a light shining dimly at first and then gradually getting brighter.

Human sacrifice was a fact in archaic religion – often prettified and glossed over by myth. Anthropologists consider passages say in the early Vedic hymns of Hinduism that speak of the cosmos being created from the body of a microcosmic man as actually referring to human sacrifice – likewise the myths of the Greeks and Romans where gods and goddesses fall in love with human beings and abduct them are euphemisms for a terrible reality of human sacrifice. At least in the text of the Bible we see sacrifice unvarnished alongside many texts that proclaim the deeper truths of the innocence of victims. I guess this conflict within the text is what has always stirred the conscience of mainstream rabbinic Judaism and mainstream Christian tradition as these developed anti-sacrificial ethics.

I understand with Jason – for example – that the Talmudic rabbis view the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac as a test for Abraham to reject sacrifice, and many Rabbis also concluded that Jephtah was a bad man obeying an evil impulse in sacrificing his daughter (as the text implies). Mainstream Christian tradition has likewise often reflected on the violent passages in the Old Testament and seen these as shadows of something greater that is fulfilled in Jesus.

But I have every sympathy with you for feeling outrage at the bloodier and more disturbing stories of the Bible. I think it good that you feel this disquiet and outrage. The bloody stories can operate as the irritating piece of sand in the oyster that produces the pearl of compassionate reflection.
All the best

Dick

Frank,

Thank you for sharing your perceptions. You’re not alone. It appears that Greg Boyd shares your honest impressions in his forthcoming book that Scot McKnight has just begun discussing on his blog, Jesus Creed (patheos). Two other honest reflections are C. S. Cowles in the 4 Views book, “Show Them No Mercy,” and Kenton Sparks in his “Sacred Word, Broken Word.”

Grace be with you,
Bob

Um, no – I didn’t say that. If that’s what you got from my post, I’m sorry for communicating poorly. It does seem clear that He accepted animal sacrifices though in another place one of the prophets says “Sacrifice and offerings You did not desire . . .”

That’s not quite what I meant. Certainly the request from Abraham for the life of his son was horrifying to him. BUT what I was trying to say was that while in our modern-day society we do not do this – at least we don’t sacrifice our children to things we think of as actual gods – we may sacrifice them (before birth) to convenience and we may ‘sacrifice’ them in other ways such as ignoring them in the quest for financial success, etc., in Abraham’s day, this WAS a thing that was done. In the culture (religion and culture were pretty much synonymous in those days) in which Abraham grew up, this was an accepted and expected practice of society. It was not unusual. That was my point. Not that Abraham would have said, “Oh yeah, whatever you say, Boss! No biggie! Right away.” My point was that the idea would not have been foreign to his experience as it would be to ours.

I actually have heard of “Christian Muslims, Buddhists, etc.” After asking many questions, my understanding from those I’ve asked is that these are true believers in Christ who no longer worship Allah or believe in principles not compatible with following Jesus, but rather they call themselves this because their former religion and their culture are so inextricably intertwined that they still think of themselves as “Muslims” because they still adhere to many practices of the Muslim culture – not because they worship the god of the Quran. Ditto for the Buddhists and Hindus (as I am told), though those religions/philosophies are not something I’ve studied. A “Christian Jew” would, I expect, be along the same lines.

Were you aware that many, many religious Jews see the ancient ‘histories’ of the Old Testament (or at least many of the pre-exilic stories) as being parabolic and metaphorical? They don’t believe these stories were ever intended to be seen as literal histories. That works for me; I lean in that direction at least in part. Historically it’s believed that these stories were written in Babylon as a response to Babylonian world-views/religious views.

I’m sorry to have offended you, Frank. That wasn’t my intent. Sometimes on-line communication can be difficult, especially surrounding such sensitive subjects. And of course my comments were directed toward the conversation already at hand and I couldn’t have known the particular hot buttons of everyone who might be reading.

As for yourself, while I won’t pretend this is a guaranteed “safe” place in the sense that no one on the forum will ever be rude to you (it’s happened), I can promise you that so long as you are kind to others and abide by the forum rules, no one will ban you for expressing your views. You’re welcome to say anything you like so long as you’re sincere and respectful to others. Welcome to the group. :slight_smile:

Dick,

Great post :smiley: Somehow or other you posted it twice, so I deleted the first one – in case you might have modified the second one and I missed where, but I think they were both the same.

Blessings, Cindy

First off Cindy, I was not offended in the least :slight_smile:
I agree with you that online communication can and often times are difficult to interpret because we cannot hear the tone of the other person. This is probably why we have these little funny emoticons to my right LOL.
I come from an era (and I suspect most - no offence lol) before the cell phone texting craze and being connected. When I was growing up, etch a sketch and light bright were high tech and drinking from the garden hose was an everyday thing.

I also want to thank Dick for his wonderful response. I am still not 100% clear but I am way further ahead than when I first posted here. I have to say that I stumbled across this forum while searching for questions pertaining to the binding of Isaac and in the search, Cindy’s thread came up.

Not that It matters to me but I noticed but I noticed the name of this forum is Evangelical Universalist. I was born and raised a catholic and have gone to church regularly all my life and still do. I’m sure it makes no difference to everyone here but I thought I would just put it out there as part of a mini introduction.

I really liked Dick’s line “the irritating piece of sand in the oyster that produces the pearl of compassionate reflection”. I firmly believe in open dialogue to better understand what you believe in.

Cindy’s response to the “Christian Jews” thing helped clarify the title to some degree. Maybe I had/have a little trouble getting my head around because of the “names” of two religions side by side. I agree in that what makes it hard to differentiate is that Judaism and Islamic religions are so entwined in how they live their daily life that it’s hard to separate what is tradition and what is religion. Christianity (to the best of my knowledge do not have strict codes such as not being allowed to eat pork ( I love bacon too much LOL) or not being allowed to keep dairy & meat in the same fridge or eat them together. I know for a fact (being Italian) that they won’t eat meat on Christmas Eve. It’s not church doctrine, I can tell you that however I am unclear as to where & how that tradition started.

Dick mentioned Marcion. My knowledge of him is somewhat limited. I first heard of him while watching a BBC documentary on the Lost Gospels. I googled his name. There aren’t a lot of books out there for sale on him but I did read some stuff online and found out that he is credited with the formation of the New Testament books. What I didn’t know is that he was even before the council of Nicea (325 A.D.)

I am starting to digress here, so I will thank everyone for their insights.

Respectfully

Frank (Francesco)

(I fixed a minor BBCode error in your post, Frank, where there was an extra “bold” format. I only removed the extra formatting code at the beginning.)

Well, not only is the contrast not completely sharp when it comes to charity between the two Testaments (although quite a bit sharper when it comes to charity toward enemies), Jesus has some hair-raising words Himself on occasion in the Gospels! (Not even counting RevJohn.)

That includes, not incidentally, the Sermon on the Mount (including Matt 5 and chapter 7); Matt 11; and John 8. All three of those “contrasts” include harsh statements of punitive violence against Jesus’ enemies. (Romans 12’s “repay no one evil for evil” is predicated on the promise that God will do vengeance, too, citing a verse from the OT on that topic!)

But then, most of those two green paragraphs (starting from item #30) weren’t about contrasting the love and compassion of Jesus vs. the violence and vengeance of God in the OT. They were more about contrasting God being visible in the OT compared to not being visible in the NT.

Which is a trinitarian/anti-trinitarian dispute: trinitarian apologists like myself combine that detail with some other details about the visible YHWH, such as His occasional subordinate reference to a higher YHWH, with frequent citational identifications of Jesus as the YHWH of the OT, to argue that the NT texts present Jesus as being the person of God acting in pretty much all the famous and obscure OT stories. There are non-trinitarians who conclude that, too, in theologically different ways, of course. But the salient point for your comparison is that the NT authors treat Jesus as being the entity Who-or-who is so zorchy in the OT.

Having said that, when St. Paul cites Deuteronomy in Rom 12 about leaving room for God to take vengeance, the scripture he’s referencing is talking (as a prophetic promise) about God vindicating His own rebel people despite them refusing to repent of their sins: God may have to destroy them so utterly that they “are neither slave nor free” (a poetic way of saying they’ll be killed as far as anyone can be killed), but then the hardcore rebels will finally learn better, repent, and be restored to fellowship with God and man, with a happily ever after.

So the narrative and thematic contrast is not simply between seeking and not seeking revenge, nor even (a little less simply) between taking our own revenge and letting God take our revenge (which is the usual interpretation); but is about contrasting merely human revenge with divine revenge, because as sinners we can’t be trusted to really have reconciliation with our enemies entirely and fully in view, the way God does! So it’s better for other people, that we should not even try to seek revenge. (Which Paul doesn’t confuse with proper soldiering and police/magistrate work; he’s entirely fine with that in principle, as he immediately demonstrates in the next chapter, even when pagan authorities are the ones doing it!)

I did provide a detailed and nuanced answer about that at length in the comment immediately preceding yours. You might not agree with it (and/or understand it), and so not regard it as a sufficient answer, but it’s still an answer, and a coherent one to that question. It isn’t like my answer has nothing to do with that question.

You could adjust the question, though, to include the answer given and highlight what you’re still having problems about. But the narrative and thematic contexts are important, which is why I mentioned them in some detail.

Actually, by the cultural standards of the time, He did: the general call of having to hate one’s own family, the way it’s expressed, would have been shocking to any civilized ‘paterfamilias’ culture in that time and place, and would have looked especially outrageous to Jews since (on the face of it) it seems to run against one of the Ten Commandments!

True, He didn’t expect people to physically kill their parents (or even hate them, except as a rhetorical comparison to being loyal to Him–and the theological implications of calling for that level of loyalty!) But Jesus Himself pointed out that what one intends counts the same as what one actually does.

Relatedly, to one man in particular (apparently a scribe, per GosMatt), who asked permission to wait until his father had died, Jesus told him very bluntly to “let the dead bury the dead” and follow Him instead. In the cultural standard of the time, refusing to care for the body of a parent after death would be tantamount to murdering him.

So the underlying refining test of such acts is still there, even if the acts themselves are physically non-violent.

(Besides which, as noted, the NT authors have no problem treating Jesus as being the same YHWH Who ordered the OT heinous acts, including the sacrifice of Isaac.)

In the OT, YHWH also nukes Israel via the horrors of invading pagan occupiers (although He also makes a point of treating the invading pagan occupiers as villains who will be punished for, in effect, volunteering to nuke Israel), when (1) they refuse to worship Him and (2) they refuse to be self-sacrificially charitable.

Rome, as everyone agreed, was the latest in the long-running conga-line of pagan oppressors, permitted and even directly sent by God to punish Israel for infidelity. The whole operational rationale of the Pharisee party was to lead Israel to be faithful to God, by means of faithful Torah observance, with the expectation that if Israel was ever even once, even for one day, faithful to God by means of Torah observance, they would thereby merit the salvation of God and God would send the Messiah to destroy the Romans.

Instead the Presence of God shows up, exhorting them (1) to recognize and worship Him, and (2) to be self-sacrificially charitable (even toward their enemies, the hated Roman occupiers). He doesn’t threaten Rome, He threatens Israel and Jerusalem in particular with destruction if they don’t accept Him and commit to fulfilling fair-togetherness with everyone, being a light on the hill for the nations. Forty years after they reject Him and hand Him over to the pagan oppressors to be crucified, they finally try to force their way out of God’s ongoing punishment (Roman occupation), and Rome zorches them, increasing their punishment from God. (And then about 50 years later they rebel again, with a false Messiah leading the rebellion, and they get zorched again, for the final time.)

Like it or not, that’s fairly typical behavior for God in the OT. There are some notable extensions and differences – the Presence comes humbly as a man born among men instead of as the Glory of the Shekinah (or even instead of a mere human/angel manifestation), and fair-togetherness toward enemies is emphasized significantly more. But in other regards it’s business as usual, not “the complete opposite of anything in the Old Testament”.

This, by the way, is why Marcion wanted only to include the Gospel According to Luke and the Pauline epistles–but heavily altered and edited ones! (He isn’t credited with “the formation of the New Testament books”, but he is the first person we explicitly hear about in the surviving records who tried to authorize a proper collection of what does and doesn’t count as canon.)

Isn’t that a different topic? :confused:

The first Christians sure didn’t regard it as an oxymoron: they (including Jesus) taught that they were the fulfillment of Israel and Judaism, and Jewish religious concepts are heavily promoted and accepted throughout the NT (albeit sometimes in ways that aren’t very obvious to us Gentile readers many centuries later). St. Paul warns his Gentile audience in Rome (Rom 11) that they had better not despise the Jews who hadn’t accepted Christ yet, because they are the ones into whose promises we’re grafted. They might be currently grafted out of the vine, but they’re natural to the vine and so will fit even better than Gentiles do when they’re grafted back in; whereas, if God does not spare even branches natural to the vine but grafts them out, neither will He spare Gentile Christians grafted into the vine if they misbehave!

Sure there are critiques of proper Jewish behavior, especially in light of Jesus as the Messiah, but those are critiques from within Judaism as to how best to be properly Jewish.

While I agree with Cindy about Christian Muslims and Christian Buddhists, in that there can be a true Christianization and baptism (so to speak) of their culture, no one can be a Christian Muslim or a Christian Buddhist in the sense that Christianity is fundamentally Jewish. Even the Christological disputes were originally (and still ought to be) how best to account for and reconcile Old Testament scriptural testimony about God and God’s Messiah along with New Testament scriptural testimony about God and Jesus the Messiah.

Christians haven’t been very good about respecting that connection throughout our history, but major steps have been taken among scholars (mostly Protestant and Roman Catholic) in the past forty years or so to reforge those connections, and to teach respect for them among the laity. I can recommend some Protestant and Catholic books on the topic, if you’re interested. (Both of the most recent Popes, John Paul 2 and Benedict, helped contribute to the Roman Catholic side of this reconnection.)

Jason;
I appologize for my lack of Biblical knowledge and missing your answers to my questions and humbly thank you for taking the time to riterate them to me.
Yes I would love the name(s) of some of the books you mentioned. Either post them here or send me an e-mail.

I think I might have to a night school course in theology :smiley:

Frank,

Mainly I just wanted to illustrate that the difference between the OT and the NT isn’t at all absolute.

Several years ago while reading First Things I saw an article from a guest Jewish apologist complaining that one reason Christianity couldn’t be true is that it changes God’s wrath too much. But he knew there was still a lot of God’s (and even Jesus’) wrath in the New Testament, that wasn’t the problem. The problem (for him) was that now God expected people to be merciful and charitable to enemies, too, the way God was merciful and charitable to His enemies!

Okay, sure, I can see how someone would think that, it’s a more obvious topic in the NT than the OT. But even in the OT, God’s wrath toward His enemies (especially but not exclusively rebel Israel, which I thought was ironic considering the scholar who was making the complaint :wink: ), has mercy and reconciliation of His enemies in view. It takes some digging and narrative/thematic analysis to find it and put it together, but it’s there–maybe not in as much proportion as in the NT, but my impression is that there’s more of it in bulk because the OT is that much larger! :laughing:

Anyway, let’s see… for an older (late 19th century) Protestant book (hugely large!) on Jewish connections to Chistianity, I heartily recommend Edersheim’s The Life And Times of Jesus the Messiah. I don’t agree with him on exactly everything (he isn’t a universalist after all), but I’ve found from other sources that what he writes holds up quite well. Edersheim’s book is occasionally given a fresh reprint, so you should be able to find it at various bookstores.

For a much more recent Protestant book, Michael Brown’s The Real Kosher Jesus is a fine overview summary of the material he treats much more in-depth in his multi-volume Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus; but the longer work is just as accessible. MB is (and Edersheim was) a Jewish convert to Christianity (E. was training in the chief rabbinic school of Europe in his day when he converted), and MB remains very much a Messianic Jewish Christian. (Also not a universalist, btw.)

Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel collects a number of his articles and lectures on how the NT authors (and Jesus by report) connect Jesus to the prophetic and historical God of the Jewish Scriptures. It’s a bit more technical than the other two books, but not as long as MB’s and E’s volumes. (Life and Times… was originally multiple volumes, though now typically printed in one binding.) Bauckham acknowledges that many things in the NT look like they teach Christian universalism, but affirms annihilationism instead (if I recall correctly. He isn’t a universalist yet anyway.)

Kenneth Bailey is a modern Middle Eastern evangelist, and his Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes brings out a lot of connections to Jewish social and religious culture and belief.

Craig Keener’s mega-huge commentaries tend to bring out a lot of Jewish connections to the NT. They’re rather more technical than the works I just mentioned, though. Ditto NT Wright’s larger works. And JP Maier’s for that matter. (One main feature of “Third Quest” scholars over the past generation, whether religiously conservative or liberal or agnostic or atheistic, has been to focus back on Jesus’ Jewishness; those three scholars are moderately conservative Christians in different traditions, but represent the Jewish-connection trend very well. Maier may be Roman Catholic, unless I’m mis-remembering…?)

Roman Catholic scholars would tend to agree with pretty much everything said by these Protestant scholars on the subject nowadays; but for a more specifically Roman Catholic approach I heartily recommend Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre. Very accessibly written. I’ve heard good things about A Biblical Walk Through the Mass by Edward Sri, too – I own it, but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. (With Easter coming up I may change that, though. :slight_smile: )

I haven’t read Pope Benedict’s recent Jesus of Nazareth trilogy yet, but from other things I’ve heard and read about him I expect it features a lot of Jewish connections, too. (Although I could be wrong since, as noted, I don’t own them yet.)

Anyway, those are several tables full of books to start with already. :sunglasses:

If I had to recommend partially from that list, I’d go with MB’s single book, plus Brant’s and then Kenneth’s (to pick up some spares from odd angles), to cover the most ground as quickly as possible. Add Bauckham’s book for more theological detail. (Bowman and Komoszewski’s Putting Jesus In His Place covers much of the same material as Bauckham in a more accessible fashion.) E’s and MB’s volumes then for in-depth. Keener, Wright and Maier for even more depth (but also with much wider topical scope.

Then you will be old and insane like me! :laughing: :mrgreen:

Hi All – just thought I’d add some reflections on the Jewish Bible and love of enemies from Jewish voices of the developed Rabbinical Tradition to supplement Jason’s post (althgouth I don’t know what you’ll think of them Jason :slight_smile: ) :

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber reported meeting an observant Jew and confessing to him that he could not accept the story of Saul and Agag. ‘Nothing’ wrote Buber, ‘can make me believe in a god who punishes Saul because he has not murdered his enemy’. He was startled to find that, far from condemning his scepticism, his more traditional friend shared his qualms. Buber continued, ‘There is nothing in the end astonishing in the fact that an observant Jew of this nature, when he has to choose between God and the Bible, chooses God; the God in whom he believes, in whom he can believe’

(Martin Buber ‘Meetings’)

One respected figure in modern Orthodox Judaism is Rabbi Norman Lamm, Chancellor of New York City’s Yeshiva University, who presents a moral conundrum. Just suppose, he says, that a young Jew goes to a rabbi to report that his neighbour is a direct descendant of the Amalekites. What should the rabbi advise the young man? Should he tell him to follow the biblical command by executing his neighbour. (He was using this thought experiment to explore an apparent contradiction between an explicit moral command of the law, and the overwhelming force of morality as is has shaped Judaism over the millennia. For one thing the Amalekite passages in the Bible flatly contradict later Jewish thinking about eh rules of humane warfare…

(Jenkins – ‘Laying Down the Sword’)

When the pursuing armies of Pharaoh were swallowed up in the Sea of Reeds and the Children of Israel, having reached dry land in safety, were finally liberated from their bondage, Miriam the prophetess – the sister of Aaron – went forth with timbrels and dances singing, ‘Praise be to Yahweh, for the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’ Then all of Israel took up the refrain, ‘‘Praise be to Yahweh, for the horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.’ And then the Cherubim and Seraphim around the Divine Throne caught up the refrain in holy ecstasy. But Yahweh did rebuke them saying –‘My children are drowning, and you would sing?

(Rabbi Hugo Gryn on ‘The Moral Maze’)