The traditions represented by the hebrew bible (and the nt) are as complex and conflicted as are its interpretive traditions. Yes, I agree that the god of the hebrew bible is at best a problematic character (and in some ways downright evil, really -- the way he fucks with abraham is, well, ungodly), but let's also remember (1) that there are multiple versions of god in the hebrew bible, nevermind figuring out the relationship between the god of the old testament and the god of the new; (2) that the prophetic tradition, in particular (let's say, e.g., amos: let justice roll down like waters), is rich with concerns for social justice and the relief of the oppressed; and (3) that it's the god of the new testament who demands the blood of jesus for the redemption of humankind, indeed, according to John 1, he planned to have to sacrifice jesus all along -- sounds pretty old school, when you think about it, human sacrifice and all.
A lot of what I do with my students is to problematize their readings of these texts (especially staples like the first three chapters of genesis), but there's a lot in there (including those first three chapters of genesis) that's quite powerful.
And as carl points out, there are lots of ways of reading these texts. The text is what it is and came out of the cultures it came out of. The question for the faithful of today is how they understand it to be meaningful in the present context. Not the only problem, but probably the biggest, is people who claim to be christian who have never bothered to grapple with the text at all. Many of them are the very same people who claim to read the text "literally". This indicates a more serious issue with the tradition(s) of interpretation than with the text itself.
My two cents
j
On 3/22/04 7:34 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> C'mon, Doug. You would of course apply a much more sympathetic hermeneutic
> to 2500-year-old texts in practically any other cultural tradition. What
> I (and I think you) do oppose is the Gnostic reading given to the Hebrew
> bible by 20th-century Fundamentalism and its associated right-wing
> politics (a position which after all doesn't pre-date the First World
> War). The error on all sides is to suppose that that's the only one.
>
> To read these texts with the historical sensitivity that you would apply
> to anything else like them is to realize that all the modern Abrahamic
> religions are developments of the religion of ancient Israel (and its own
> development can be observed in the Hebrew bible). Christianity is the
> eldest of these -- modern (Rabbinic/Talmudic) Judaism postdates the
> formation of Christianity -- but they all represent (rival)
> interpretations of the Hebrew bible. That's the real argument among them:
> how is the HB to be understood?
>
> One of the earliest Christian solutions (that of Marcion, 2nd.-cent. son
> of a bishop) would have cut the knot as you suggest: "the brutal,
> vengeful, judgmental stuff ... at odds with JC's turn the other cheek
> wussiness." But that was rejected by the Christian movement that read the
> HB as an on-going discovery of deity quite at odds with natural human
> account of the gods. That discovery is embedded in a remarkable welter of
> literature (but as someone recently remarked here, "What's wrong with a
> little cheap sensuality?")
>
> As a late friend discussed an aspect of this, only a little ironically:
> "The Hebrews were probably the only people in the world who even in their
> official propaganda about their own revolution took an entirely honest and
> realistic view of the events. Exodus describes in some detail the immense
> reluctance of the people to be liberated; they had to be practically
> dragged out of Egypt by the hand of Yahweh. We may well imagine how the
> Egyptians complained of the terrorist methods of Moses and he fellow
> agitators to intimidate a people who really only wanted to be left alone
> to serve their masters."
>
> This site you recommend is as obsessive in its way as any fundamentalist.
> (Who counted all God's casualties?) In fact it seems to come from
> precisely the same mind set, but with, as it were, the signs reversed. I'd
> prefer to discuss the better if controverted readings of the Abrahamic
> traditions. --CGE
>
>
> On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> [thanks to Kelley]
>>
>> <http://www.evilbible.com/>
>>
>> Welcome to the Evil Bible.com Web Site
>>
>> This web site is designed to spread the vicious truth about the
>> Bible. For far too long priests and preachers have completely
>> ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so
>> called "God" of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy
>> Scout. This "God", according to the Bible, is directly responsible
>> for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse
>> and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children. I have
>> included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and
>> follow along. You can also follow along with on-line Bibles such as
>> http://www.biblestudytools.net/ or
>> http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/...
>>
>
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