# Why are the Old/New Testaments so different in tone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722 "2013-07-05T15:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/41 "2013-07-08T19:05:31Z")
Correct: that particular sentence was pronounced directly by G-d. The human judges had placed him in holding until Moses could clarify his fate. The same was also true of the blasphemer in Leviticus. That does not indicate that the ordinary human courts of the Israelites, which after settling the land of Israel did not exactly have the direct line to G-d that they did in the Pentateuch era, were any more eager to execute than the attitude described by the Talmud. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/42 "2013-07-08T19:17:03Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Correct: that particular sentence was pronounced directly by G-d. The human judges had placed him in holding until Moses could clarify his fate. The same was also true of the blasphemer in Leviticus. > > That does not indicate that the ordinary human courts of the Israelites, which after settling the land of Israel did not exactly have the direct line to G-d that they did in the Pentateuch era, were any more eager to execute than the attitude described by the Talmud. The one in Leviticus 24 expressly states that it is a pattern for others to follow, presuably when the Lord isn’t personally intervening. > [@](#): > > 10 Now an Israelite woman’s son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel. And the Israelite woman’s son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, 11 and the Israelite woman’s son blasphemed the Name, and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan. 12 And they put him in custody, till the will of the Lord should be clear to them. > > 13 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 14 “Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. 15 And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. 16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. > > An Eye for an Eye > > 17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death. 18 Whoever takes an animal’s life shall make it good, life for life. 19 If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. 21 Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. 22 You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.” 23 So Moses spoke to the people of Israel, and they brought out of the camp the one who had cursed and stoned him with stones. Thus the people of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses. Emphasis mine. The plain reading of this is that the Lord expects the Israelites to introduce judicial execution as a general rule for certain offences, even when Moses isn’t around to personally hear God’s express command. I certainly know the theory is that Moses was, orally, given a whole corpus of supplementary knowledge (later written in the Talmud) that essentially undermines this plain reading, but is appears to me that, objectively, it is more likely that if such hesitations existed at the time the OT was redacted, they would at least be referenced in the text, no? Naturally enough, few pre-monarchical records of criminal proceedings exist, either in the OT or outside of it. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/43 "2013-07-08T19:26:10Z")
Malthus: > [@](#): > > The plain reading of this is that the Lord expects the Israelites to introduce judicial execution as a general rule for certain offences, even when Moses isn’t around to personally hear God’s express command. > > I certainly know the theory is that Moses was, orally, given a whole corpus of supplementary knowledge (later written in the Talmud) that essentially undermines this plain reading, but is appears to me that, objectively, it is more likely that if such hesitations existed at the time the OT was redacted, they would at least be referenced in the text, no? Yet, the Rabbis of the Talmud DID point to where in the text these “undermining” technicalities were referenced. That’s been my point - the Talmud is big on Scriptural textual analysis, not on new, humanistic, extra-scriptural thinking. That you see that analysis as a post-hoc “polite fiction” to incorporate modern humanistic sensibilities into the Jewish religion is unsupported by any evidence. Yes, there are few judicial proceedings recorded in pre-Talmudic (i.e., historical books of Prophets and Writings) literature, but what there are a) do not contain any capital punishment cases, that it should indicate those courts would have been more bloodthirsty, and b) are considered authoritative precedent in their fields by the Talmud. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/44 "2013-07-08T19:36:27Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Malthus: > > Yet, the Rabbis of the Talmud DID point to where in the text these “undermining” technicalities were referenced. That’s been my point - the Talmud is big on Scriptural textual analysis, not on new, humanistic, extra-scriptural thinking. > > That you see that analysis as a post-hoc “polite fiction” to incorporate modern humanistic sensibilities into the Jewish religion is unsupported by any evidence. Yes, there are few judicial proceedings recorded in pre-Talmudic (i.e., historical books of Prophets and Writings) literature, but what there are a) do not contain any capital punishment cases, that it should indicate those courts would have been more bloodthirsty, and b) are considered authoritative precedent in their fields by the Talmud. My point is that the Rabbis of the Talmud were experts at disguising “new” thinking as simple textual analysis - and where that did not work, there was always the “oral tradition” of ‘equal validity’ to the text to rely on. 😉 I realize I can never convince a practising religious Jew of this, but I think that anyone not a part of that tradition, when reading the biblical texts and then reading the actual law as stated by the Rabbis, would find that the one varied quite considerably in from both the spirit and the letter of the other - and nowhere is this more obvious, than in the matter of capital punishment. My evidence is the _text itself_, which expressly states that ‘you shall put a murderer to death’ and ‘you shall make this your rule’. Again, if it had been the intention of the writers that a different rule should apply when merely human authorities were all that could be relied on, they might have mentioned that fact. That the laws should change in light of changing social circumstances ought to come as no surprise - after all, the OT contains a complete code for a religion centred around a temple complex complete with a priesthood, none of which has existed for a couple of millenia. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/45 "2013-07-08T21:15:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Why are the Old/New Testaments so different in tone? Really already been answered, but I was thinking that a good analogy would be between the writings of the early founding fathers and their thoughts on democracy and how things are today. And that’s a mere couple hundred years. The gap between the tradition that spawned the OT and the movement that sparked the NT was a lot longer. Just like our society, theirs was a living, evolving society and culture, and a lot changed in that time. Sort of cuts the the heart of whether God supposedly DID write the thing, unless God also evolves and changes/grows along with the society and culture worshiping him/her/it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/46 "2013-07-08T21:41:58Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Really already been answered, but I was thinking that a good analogy would be between the writings of the early founding fathers and their thoughts on democracy and how things are today. And that’s a mere couple hundred years. The gap between the tradition that spawned the OT and the movement that sparked the NT was a lot longer. Just like our society, theirs was a living, evolving society and culture, and a lot changed in that time. > > Sort of cuts the the heart of whether God supposedly DID write the thing, unless God also evolves and changes/grows along with the society and culture worshiping him/her/it. 😉 An evolving god would a cool religion make. 😃 Actually, this was sort of proposed in Olaf Stapelton’s SF classic _Star Maker_ - pretty well the best of what could be termed ‘theological science fiction’, an admittedly small category! > **[Star Maker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Maker)** > > Star Maker is a science fiction novel by British writer Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. Continuing the theme of the author's previous book, Last and First Men (1930)—which narrated a history of the human species over two billion years—it describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing the scale of the earlier work. Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. A pervading theme is that... ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/47 "2013-07-08T21:48:28Z")
In many ways, the books of the Bible reflect the society of the time. Times change. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722/48 "2013-07-28T19:03:36Z")
Somewhat stale thread, but everybody missed the obvious answer for why the angry, asshole god of the OT because the much more reasonable god of the New: Dude got laid for the first time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-old-new-testaments-so-different-in-tone/662722.md?page=2)