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Does the Flood look like Christ? What about the Egyptian plagues?

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Does slaughtering millions of people look like Christ? No. So, that tells me there's something else going on beneath the ugly surface that does testify to Christ crucified.

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After all, I think Christ's behavior on Earth was the perfect model for human behavior, not necessarily an extensive representation of the nature of God.

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Except the Scriptures say that Christ was the exact representation of God's nature. He was the full radiance of God's glory. Christ is what God looks like.

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Does slaughtering millions of people look like Christ? No. So, that tells me there's something else going on beneath the ugly surface that does testify to Christ crucified.

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This seems like an early slide into Marcionism. IE, Christ is good and what God really looks like while the violent God of the OT isn't really God and has nothing in common with Christ. To me, the God of the Bible looks like the God that created this world. Life is a struggle, animals live and die by violence every minute, and suffering exists across the world, because God made it that way. The only way to turn God into a pacifist is to attribute the violence and suffering of the natural world and the OT to something other than God.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Does slaughtering millions of people look like Christ? No. So, that tells me there's something else going on beneath the ugly surface that does testify to Christ crucified.

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This seems like an early slide into Marcionism. IE, Christ is good and what God really looks like while the violent God of the OT isn't really God and has nothing in common with Christ. To me, the God of the Bible looks like the God that created this world. Life is a struggle, animals live and die by violence every minute, and suffering exists across the world, because God made it that way. The only way to turn God into a pacifist is to attribute the violence and suffering of the natural world and the OT to something other than God.

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Yes. God did not create death.

Because God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being,
and the creatures of the world are wholesome;
There is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of Hades on earth,
For righteousness is undying.

It was the wicked who with hands and words invited death,
considered it a friend, and pined for it,
and made a covenant with it,
Because they deserve to be allied with it.

Wisdom 1:13-16

For God created man for incorruption
and made him in the image of his own eternity
but through the devil's envy death entered the world
and those who belong to his party experience it.

Wisdom 2:23-24

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Does slaughtering millions of people look like Christ? No. So, that tells me there's something else going on beneath the ugly surface that does testify to Christ crucified.

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This seems like an early slide into Marcionism. IE, Christ is good and what God really looks like while the violent God of the OT isn't really God and has nothing in common with Christ. To me, the God of the Bible looks like the God that created this world. Life is a struggle, animals live and die by violence every minute, and suffering exists across the world, because God made it that way. The only way to turn God into a pacifist is to attribute the violence and suffering of the natural world and the OT to something other than God.

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Not Marcionism at all. I don't reject the OT. I'm saying the violent depictions of God are largely the result of man's fallen nature and cultural conditioning, and God was willing to accommodate such ugly depictions in order to maintain a covenantal relationship while working below the surface. God is one who is willing to stoop to the furthest extremes, as evidenced by becoming His own antithesis on the cross, in order to work things for His glory and maintain relationship w/ His creation. When we reject Him, He may eventually withdraw His protection allowing mankind to suffer the natural consequences of their hardened nature, but that violence/suffering we may suffer isn't from God. It's similar to the Prodigal Son and how the father allowed his son to go and suffer at the hands of others because that's the choice he made. The father didn't harm his son, but instead was constantly looking for his return and, when he did return, he ran to throw his arms around him.

But it's not about rejecting the OT texts or dismissing them. It's about, IMO, holding a view on God's nature that is consistent with the exact representation we received through Christ crucified. When there's an inconsistency, we always side w/ Christ. Always. Then we dig below the hideous surface to see how this "literary crucifixion" points to Christ.

JJMt said:

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You're missing his point, Retired, plus you are assuming that your view of Christ is the only correct view.

His point isn't moral relativism, but rather that we don't know enough to say if God's command to kill children was evil. It may appear that way to us today, but perhaps we simply don't know enough. Was Churchill's decision not to warn the citizens of Coventry of an upcoming German air raid on that town evil, even though Churchill knew that the raid would undoubtedly kill children?

And you are insisting on viewing the OT through the lens of your own, personal view of Christ, refusing to allow the OT to assist in defining that view. Perhaps your view of Christ is too limited?

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No, my view of Christ isn't qualified by flawed, or incomplete portraits of God we see in the OT. My view of Christ is derived from the nature of God we see clearly revealed to us on the cross.

If it is better than one have a millstone hung around their neck and thrown into the sea if they should hinder a child from coming to Him, how can that be reconciled with infanticide for something that occurred 400 years prior to the birth of these children? It can't.

While his point may not be "moral relativism", in reality that's exactly what he's arguing.

So if God did not create death, then why does every single living thing die? Was the fall of man so powerful as to taint all of existence down to making bacteria mortal?

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I'm not saying that this is the reason, since I truly don't know. But, if one believes in infant salvation, then killing the children in a horrifically evil culture may be the only way to ensure that those children come to Him.

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It's never the only way, unless you diminish the power and appeal of God's infinite love. Also, beware this rationalization as it lends itself to be used to support abortion.

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You are running the risk of judging what God has told us about Himself by your own standards of right and wrong. You are using your own, extra-Biblical standards of morality, to determine what parts of the Bible you want to believe.

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It's not my standards of right and wrong. It's based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who is the exact representation of God's nature. Not the "partial" or the "most accurate", but the "exact".

I refuse to run the risk, however, of creating conflicting portraits of God that require the embrace of moral relativism and a dualistic nature of God.

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Christ's own explanations of His judgment sound pretty horrific. How do you explain those in view of your idea of what Christ looked like?

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I'll have to look at these exact judgements later, but I will read them in a way that's consistent with the exact representation of God's nature as revealed through Christ crucified. That's how all things should be viewed.

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Thanks for the reference, particularly since I have such little personal knowledge of this topic. In googling Finkelstein, however, I found out that he is considered to hold distinctly minority views by other archaeologists and scholars, some of whom seem to get somewhat heated in their reaction to his arguments.

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That's not the case that I've seen at all. They do have some disagreements between scholars (often heated), but what he puts forth is not at all a minority view. The historicity of the exodus hasn't been supported by most archaeologist for a long time. He's considered by many the leading expert in the field.

"Finkelstein is the Laureate of the Dan David Prize in 2005. The select committee noted that he is "widely regarded as a leading scholar in the archaeology of the Levant and as a foremost applicant of archaeological knowledge to reconstructing biblical Israelite history."

"So while a few scholars, notably Kenneth Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier, continue to discuss the historicity, or at least plausibility, of the story, arguing that the Egyptian records have been lost or suppressed or that the fleeing Israelites left no archaeological trace or that the huge numbers are mistranslated, the majority have abandoned the investigation as "a fruitless pursuit""

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Historicity

This wiki does a brief overview.

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Finally, you say that there is "a very large amount of evidence against this . . . ." Is that correct, or would it be more appropriate to say that "there is very little archaeological evidence to support this"? If there is actual evidence, can you point me to links or other sources describing that evidence?

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There is both. No evidence rests in favor of the proposition (which is evidence in itself as it would be peculiar for such an event to go without archaeological impact and much searching has been done), and there are a number of strong pieces of evidence against. The very few who argue for the historicity are basically trying to argue for a mistranslated body count and that the migration was very small and not detectable.

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Finally, other than Finkelstein, are there any other sources on the topic of Biblical archaeology you can point me to?

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The wiki article above gives a quick rundown. If you are looking for another leading scholar on the matter who disagrees with Finkelstein some look to William_G._Dever. He readily acknowledges that the historicity flat out fails for the bible in many areas, bu he's less of a "minimalist" than most modern scholars seem to be and believes the storys are often based on a not far off truth.

https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136

Aggrad08 said:

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https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136

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There is also a video series with Finkelstein called Bible Unearthed. It's very good and actually shows you the archeology. I watched it on Amazon prime, I don't know what other platforms it is on.