Depends on how delicious your neighbor is looking today.
Yes, but He is also “good to all His creations, and His compassion extends over all His works!” This thing really needs an editor.
Seriously, the idea that the OT God isn’t (sometimes) portrayed as universally loving and compassionate is just Christian BS. At least He isn’t condemning anyone to eternal torment in Hell.
That is a pleading, a prayer. It’s not saying God is good to everything, it is a prayer in a song of prayers - ‘may God be good to all His creations…’.
ETA: Found it. Psalm 145:9
טוֹב־יְהֹוָ֥ה לַכֹּ֑ל וְ֝רַחֲמָ֗יו עַל־כׇּל־מַעֲשָֽׂיו
~Max
Every translation I’ve ever seen renders it as a declarative sentence. I’m not fluent in Hebrew, but it seems pretty straightforward and I don’t see where the “pleading” comes in.
I mean the entire chapter is a prayer, literally attributed to David, rather than something considered the word of God.
And then you get into theodicy, the Old Testament approach is to define goodness as what God does, rendering that line kind of tautologic.
~Max
“Just swallow the communion wafer. If it sticks to the roof of your mouth, don’t use your finger! Wait…what are you doing? YOU’RE CHEWING JESUS!”
Mmmmm… toenails.
I know you don’t mean it, but all this talk of “God 1.0” vs. “God. 2.0” smacks of classic medieval antisemitism. It’s saying that Jewish God was evil and nasty, while the Christian God is merciful and good. It’s offensive.
In fact, all the talk in this thread insulting my people’s national epic is deeply disquieting. Just because some white people have appropriated my culture’s foundational text without our permission, doesn’t give you the right to mock it. If you have a problem with Christians then attack them, not us.
100% agree, although I’m pretty sure Max actually identifies as Jewish.
Heel calluses. Like the Son of God never even HEARD of exfoliating.
I can appreciate how this is a more modern antisemitic trope. But classic medieval antisemitism? Did anyone really have a problem with all the Old Testament smiting in that era? I thought they embraced it (even if they did not expect it…)
It is medieval antisemitism, or at least approaches some forms of Gnosticism, which I meant tongue-in-cheek, and apologize for.
~Max
There have been a lot of Christian sects and heresies over the years, a lot which believed some pretty crazy stuff. The Gnostics’ belief system, for example, held that the God of the Old Testament, who created the physical world, was a rogue servant of the “true” (Christian) God, who had intended creation to be purely spiritual. Christianity is meant to be a way to save us from the trap of the physical world and escape the clutches of the “Demiurge.”
You can likely extrapolate from there how the Gnostics felt about Jews.
@Riemann, if interested here is information on one such religion, courtesy of historian James McDonald: https://www.cathar.info/
~Max
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the Old Testament has always been more of a Protestant obsession, while the Catholics have tended to focus more on the NT.
Catholics focus on saints, martyrs, and why can’t you be one too.
Food insecurity and starvation can often cause psychological damage to those who suffer from it. i.e. If you’re starving to death you’re probably not psychologically healthy.
No doubt. And no doubt many such horrific things have actually occurred in human history. But is it typical that people starving in a siege would specifically eat their own children? Is it psychologically healthy to be focused on such a thing when discussing people’s fate in a hypothetical siege? Is there anything a human could do that could possibly justify deliberately condemning to the specific punishment of eating their own children?
I wanted to say nothing. But then I remembered all the kids sitting behind me when I went to see the Dawn of the Dead remake in 2004 and now I’m not so sure.
I think we already have the answer as to what genre of literature the Bible is. From the link in the OP:
It’s a chain letter!