Reconsidering the God of the Old Testament

I am currently auditing an Old Testament course at Huron University College in London Ontario.  I signed up for it after getting a taste of what was on offer at the first lecture which is, of course, offered by Zoom.  Lorna had signed up for the course so it is through her encouragement that I was introduced to what should be a very engaging overview of a subject that is well worth exploring further.  The course is being led by Murray Watson who did a great job in the first lecture and left me wanting more.   

I have not taken a formal course in the Old Testament since studying theology at Huron almost twenty years ago, so I thought this would be a good way to dip my big toe into those very deep waters again.  I must confess that I have always been fascinated by the Old Testament ever since I was captivated by all the stories of heroes such as David the shepherd boy slaying the giant Goliath or the blind Samson pulling down the building and killing all those evil Philistines.  The stories of Jesus in the New Testament just didn’t do it for the young me until much later when I could more fully appreciate that love can be more powerful than heroic acts even when the underdog defeats the forces of evil.   

The Old Testament of the Christian bible is deep water with many currents and eddies and even rip tides that can be hard to navigate for Christians who follow Jesus who proclaimed and lived out his life as the son of a God of love.  The first lecture had an interesting exploration of these challenging waters with a short discussion of the heresy of Marcion.  Marcion who was a second century Christian theologian who taught that the malevolent God of the Old Testament was a different God than the benevolent one of the New Testament who sent his son Jesus Christ to redeem the world. 

Now Marcion was heretical and indeed wrong in his belief that the God who made a covenant with Abraham and wrestled with Jacob was not the God whom Jesus Christ prayed to as his Heavenly Father.  However, even a cursory reading of the Old Testament will reveal what might have been the basis of his heresy.  The OT God who – as an aside had many different names such as Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah and Adonai – did not seem to often believe in justice for people who were not his chosen ones despite what the prophets proclaimed and was not slow to anger as the psalmist sang – at least not always.  Yahweh would have wiped out the Israelites after they demanded the Golden Calf to worship if it wasn’t for the intercession by Moses.  It is this God who sent the flood and drowned the world and everything in it except for Noah and the favoured few people and animals in the Arc.  Yahweh also commanded the Israelites slaughter of the inhabitants of the Promised Land, “You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded.” (Deuteronomy 20:17)

So, how do we reconcile the difference between the God the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament without following Marcion down the dead end of his heresy?  How can we reconcile the apparent differences in the actions and behavior of God?  I believe that it was not God that was different but rather, it was the people who saw and heard God through the lens of their culture and times.  The people of the OT were not ready to appreciate a God that did not have at least some of the characteristics that we see as negative today.  Similarly, people today are not ready to embrace the message of what it means to pick up our crosses and truly follow Jesus - I am in no way claiming I do this a lot of the time.  For me the key is in John 16:12-13 - "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." 

Murray Watson addressed this in a more learned manner in a response to me:

I prefer to think more in terms of "evolution" and "transformation" over time (as you suggest in your message). We often speak of "progressive revelation" over hundreds of years, and you're right ... those who received some of that revelation in the earlier centuries lived in a world of warriors, constant violence and battles ... and their understanding of God definitely fit into that familiar framework. I often go back to what I learned in my university courses in Thomistic philosophy; St. Thomas Aquinas said (in Latin): "Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur" (Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the recipient) ... as human beings, we are conditioned by our time

Carl Jung affirmed the same point when speaking of people not being conscious enough to appreciate the truth of the world in which we live, “There does seem to be unlimited knowledge present in nature, it is true, but it can be comprehended by consciousness only when the time is ripe for it.”  I do wonder how the people of the future will regard the follies and foibles and atrocities of our world.

Perhaps we are blessed if we can do our utmost to avoid heretical paths on our journey.