The God of John's gospel, the God of the Old Testament

a reply to: BlueJacket

These culturally born books do not in anyway indicate a universal truth.

Agreed, with one addition: "These culturally born", copyrighted," books do not in anyway indicate a universal truth."

Numbers 23
19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

If God does not change his mind then why do we read this in the New Testament?

Matthew 5
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.

Key words: "But I tell you". Seems to me as though Jesus did not tell anyone "eye for an eye" especially seeing as how God does not change his mind. If Jesus was in fact God then he would not have changed his mind on that particular issue.

God is not human, Jesus was.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I think the definitive statement would be... I am a Jealous god

yet in the NT we hear that God is love, and love is not Jealous

a reply to: Akragon

And also "All who have come before me are thieves and robbers." Kind of puts the OT god and it's prophets into question.

If you want to know what the God of the OT has done to the Jewish people look at the 800 or so Samaritans and the pathetic 5-10% of modern Jewry the Sephardim.

Ashkenazi Jews are Japhethites, Ashkenaz is a descendant of Japheth. They know this.

They are not even Semitic, forget Israelite.


Yahweh seems to kill all his people.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The God of the Bible is the same God, Old Testament or New. I am not sure on one point here, though; do you not believe that Jesus is God?

I grew up going to church, sunday school, royal rangers, and youth groups. I realized that god is with you everywhere you go and you do not not have to keep banging your head against that wall of faith to cop a feel of gods metaphorical knobbly bits and presence.

a reply to: NewzNose
All the quotations are from the RSV, which is my standard practice.

a reply to: LadyGreenEyes
Yes indeed, I accept that Christ is both God and man, as outlined in the definition of Chalcedon.
All I'm doing here is counteracting the suggestion that Jesus was offering a different God.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I think its very easy to consider that Jesus was in fact offering a different God, and said statements were written into the story to get people to accept that the OT scriptures are still valid

a reply to: Akragon
Yes, you can leave out the parts of the evidence that don't suit what you want to believe.

a reply to: DISRAELI

That's fine but you have actually failed to name the God of Abraham given in Genesis chapter 17 as El Shaddai, which generally gets translated as "God Almighty" but there are serious issues with that.

El Shaddai is conventionally translated as God Almighty but while the translation of El as "god" or "lord" in the Ugarit/Canaanite language is straightforward, the literal meaning of Shaddai is the subject of debate

The name appears 48 times in the Bible, seven times as "El Shaddai" (five times in Genesis, once in Exodus, and once in Ezekiel). It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the "god of Shaddai".

There are a great many complications with this, the God of Abraham and of Israel related to a particular place and cultic conception, in that El Shaddai was a God of the sacred mountain.

Akkadian shadû ("mountain") and shaddā`û or shaddû`a ("mountain-dweller"), one of the names of Amurru. According to this theory, God is seen as inhabiting a holy mountain, The term "El Shaddai" may mean "god of the mountains," referring to the Mesopotamian divine mountain. According to Stephen L. Harris, the term was "one of the patriarchal names for the Mesopotamian tribal god"

If you consider the usage of El Shaddai you will find that it is always applied in terms of the Tribal God of Israel, with regards to continuation of lineage, in fact as noted there are close connections to the God Amurru who was simply the tribal God of the Amorites, which is not to say they are the same obviously but have a similar conceptual basis.

The God Amurru as Emblem of Ethnic and Cultural identity

That's a very good paper and makes the case well that Amurru was simply a construct of the Sumerian scribes to place into a Divine context the nature and role of the Amorites, i think El Shaddai is a similar construct, the Divine personification of Abraham and his descendants, Israel, which of course i am likely to find problematic translated as "God Almighty"

a reply to: DISRAELI

Of course... i mean, Christian doctrine changed the very nature of God to three in one, even though nothing of the sort is taught in the NT or OT, save two passages which are both additions to the text

Its not so hard to believe that Jesus was pushing a God no one knew... especially since he even said that very thing

a reply to: Kantzveldt
I don't see the name question as very important. The Old Testament God is self-described as Creator. I think that role is more vital, in establishing identity, than the labels being used.

originally posted by: Akragon
Its not so hard to believe that Jesus was pushing a God no one knew... especially since he even said that very thing

His point was that they used to know God and then wandered away from him. That is precisely what is meant by the synoptic gospel image of "the shepherd tracking down the lost sheep".

a reply to: DISRAELI

So you believe he was talking specifically to the people in the conversation and not for everyone...

Ye have never seen nor heard God...

yet in the past said being walked with men apparently...

i think he was saying something much deeper then just for that audience

a reply to: Akragon
In the context of the passage, he is criticising the Jews who are opposing what he is doing.

a reply to: DISRAELI

What about the other one though...

No man hath seen God At Any Time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

a reply to: Akragon
The people of the Old Testament did not see their God, in any real sense, either. A real vision of the Creator God is beyond human capacity.
What they saw was an image accomodating itself to their understanding, designed to give them the sense of being in the presence of God. That is why the image takes different forms, varying from Moses and the seventy elders to Daniel.

a reply to: DISRAELI

You don't think it's important yet here you are making a thread stressing the importance of the continuity of El Shaddai from Abraham to Jesus, sorry that simply isn't good enough by any stretch of the imagination, of course the role is vital and the case suggested is that of the Tribal God of Israel, as i said consider the usage and it ever relates to the ongoing generation of the Tribe of Israel.

El Shaddai is never mentioned specifically in terms of the Creator, he is given to be understood in Genesis 17 as an aspect of YHWH and so also naturally an aspect of the greater Theological construct relating to Creation, but the specific usage should not simply be ignored because it seems problematic.

Sp the issue i'm raising here relates entirely to identity and the establishment thereof, because if El Shaddai is the Tribal God of the Hebrews and their ongoing generation then that aspect of God can only ever relate to the descendants of that tribe.