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God v. Satan
Topic Started: Jun 6 2009, 10:42 PM (341 Views)
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ngc1514
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Was reading a piece in the latest Time Magazine by Robert Wright taken from his just-published The Evolution of God (a title sure not to win him a lot of Christianist readers!) Like Jack Miles' God: A Biography it looks at how the perception of god changes as the historical context of the believers changes over the centuries. Jehovah swung from annihilationist in Deu 20:
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16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

to being quite tolerant of other gods. Judges 11:
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24 Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.


But, yeah, old Jehovah was a bloody-minded desert god.
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And Jesus came to offer a new covenant, or was it uphold the old prophesies? Depends which Gospel you read.

In exchange for Jack Miles' God: A Biography (adding to Amazon shopping cart), Karen Armstrong's The History of God.
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ngc1514
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I've read Armstrong's book as well and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, those who most need to see what has been learned about the bible since the days German higher criticism first looked at it as it does other works, are those who most reject textual criticism.
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Yes, they do.

You've read Bart Ehrman then? Carrying on German high criticism, as a popularizer of that tradition.
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ngc1514
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Ehrman is one of the authors on my list of books to read.... the list gets longer every day!
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He's pretty light reading, in part because he's popularizing what padres and pastors hide, in part because his writing is clear and organized. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why is where to start. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) is what I'm reading now. I would say far from turning me away from the Bible it has renewed my interest in it, from what Ehrman calls a historical perspective, rather than a devotional one.

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