I'm really asking---any thoughts are welcome in the comments below, and in the discussion thread.
The Old Testament, Suffering, and Sin
Friday January 9, 2009
This Beliefnet discussion on the OT and suffering is, of course of course, perennial and ancient and never-ending. But anyone who reads the Bible regularly has to face this question all the time. Is the Old Testament a record of suffering and Israel's attempts to make sense of that suffering? Is it a record of God punishing his people for their sin, and if so, how do we make sense of that story?
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Patton Dodd is a senior editor for Beliefnet and the author of My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion (Jossey-Bass).Search This Blog
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There is, of course, another approach and that is that the God of the Old Testament was merely an insane despot of the period writ large.
It sort of reminds me of one evening when a Jewish atheist friend of mine was telling me about his ultra-conservative relatives and the hoops they had to jump through every Shabbas. I had to ask him, "Have you ever asked them why they worship that nutcase?"
In the old testament God was trying to cleaning up the people and stop them from their sinfull ways but that did not work so he had to send his only begotten son so that we would allways be able to get back into his grace.
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