How to reconcile the differences in portrayal of God in the New and Old Testaments...?

Question

On one hand we have a vengeful, wrathful deity and on the other, in the New testament, we have a forgiving and understanding God. Why the big discrepancy?

Answer 1

You have to consider them as two different books, some religions believe one over the other. (Jewish people don't believe in the New Testament,only the Old for ex.) So choose the one you think makes more sense and run with it.

Answer 2

I agree with you. I have asked myself many times why does Jesus describe god as loving and forgiving but he is vengeful and full of wrath in the OT. Why would god support slavery, discrimination, order the killing of women, children and animals during wars. Why would he think that if a woman was raped she should be killed or that if the man pays her father for her he can marry her. What about her wishes? I don't get it and I don't accept that we are supposed to forget it and go by the NT now.

Why was he ever like that to begin with. My conclusion, I agree with the Gnostic's that the god in the OT is not the true god. In the NT when the man asked Jesus how to get to heaven and he told him to keep the commandments, and he asked which ones, Jesus only told him 6 not 10. Some of the ones he left off were about god.

Jesus often contradicted the teaching of the old testament and tells the followers to act differently towards people rather than responding to sins with the punishments from the OT. To me, that supports my feeling that Jesus knew the god in the OT was not the true god either.

Answer 3

I agree with you. The Old Testament has this vengeful God that has a chosen people and he turns into this loving caring God for everyone. A couple of years ago I quit reading the Old Testament. It made no sense with the God of my understanding. When I saw the movie Passion of Christ by Mel Gibson. I came home and literally threw the whole Bible in the trash. If God was ok with brutalizing his own son, what would he do to me. That was the most violent movie I have ever seen and the God that set that in motion is nothing I would want to deal with let alone worship. I still believe in God I quess I just Lost my religion. Spirituality is a better place for me.

Answer 4

Ancient Gnostic Chrisians believe they are two different entities. They believe the Old Testament "God" was our creator but evil and the "God" of the new testament is the God Of Transidentalism (Of good and Light).

Early Babylonian religions are very similar to modern Christianity, the only difference is that in their text each personality was a actually a group of people. For example, God was actually a group of gods. The same goes for Adam and Noah, they weren't individuals but a group of people, possibly like a generation. This creation theory claims that "gods" came here to create but the workers went on strike (This Mirrors the Satan). One of the gods proposed to change man and allow them to finish creation. Two of the gods somehow combine or join into one God and this was said to be the God of the New Testament from my understanding. If you look at some ancient texts, it seems the modern bible was simplified becuz only the priniciple of the story is important.

Keep in mind, most of the knowledge of ancient times were destroyed when Ceasar and Cleopatra burned the Alexandrian Libraries and sent humanity back a 1000 yrs. My only suggestion is to study as much as you can and determine what make most sense to you. Hope this helps.

Take Care!

Answer 5

In most religions, $DEITY has a venegeful side and a gentle side. For the true believer and follower, there is forgiveness for inevitable sinning, love and understanding that we are simply what we have been made. For the nonbeliever, there is punishment, outcasting, the eternal burning of the fiery pits.

The Old Testament focuses on the heavier hand of God against the unbelievers. The New Testament focuses more on the personal nature of God's relationship to us, of the forgiveness for the inevitable sinning our imperfect natures will leads us to and that the creator bears a tremendous love toward his creations.

It's the same God; which side you take determines which face you see.

Answer 6

As Jehovah told the people of Israel: “I am Jehovah; I have not changed.” (Malachi 3:6.) This was some 3,500 years after God’s creation of mankind and some 1,500 years from the time of God’s making the Abrahamic covenant. While some claim that the God revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures differs from the God revealed by Jesus Christ and by the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures, examination shows this claim to be without any foundation. Of God, the disciple James rightly said: “With him there is not a variation of the turning of the shadow.” (James 1:17) There was no ‘mellowing’ of Jehovah God’s personality during the centuries, for no mellowing was needed. His severity as revealed in the Christian Greek Scriptures is no less nor his love any greater than it was at the beginning of his dealings with mankind in Eden.
The seeming differences in personality are in reality merely different aspects of the same unchanging personality. These result from the differing circumstances and persons dealt with, calling for different attitudes or relationships. (Compare Isaiah 59:1-4.)

If you would like further information, please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall. Or visit http://www.watchtower.org

Answer 7

I think that God was extremely fed up with His chosen people, because time and time again they turned their backs on Him. He really did offer them many chances to prove their devotion to Him, but they never stayed true to Him for long. He offered a last chance by offering His Son. We really don't read about God the Father at all in the New Testament; rather, we read about His Son speaking of His Father.

One of Jesus Christ's jobs, while alive, was to attempt to remind the Jews that He met to keep God's Laws. Now keep in mind that here was Jesus, their Messiah, who had fulfilled every single prophecy that their prophets of old had written of. Yet because He wasn't a king, and obviously had no intention of rescuing them from their oppressors (the Roman Empire), the Jewish leaders of the day scoffed at the notion that He was their Messiah. But they had closed their minds to anything other than what THEY wanted.

I'm getting off track, but you see, once Jesus became human and experienced the things that only a human (and not God) could, His Father finally had a true understanding of humanity and empathy for His children. That's where the change, so to speak, occured. I really don't think He changed so very much, because he still hates sin and in the end, He will judge those who deny that His Son really is His Son. And I don't think it will be pretty.

One more point - the Old Testament spans thousands of years, and we've only had two thousand years from Christ to us. That isn't much time in terms experiencing the wrath/love/frustration/mercy of God.

Answer 8

I think it's more a matter of the scriptures that get taught and preached from the Hebrew Scriptures. Unforunately they are the more negative ones. But the OT is full of wonderful, tender, loving images and metaphors for God. There are great, hopeful stories in the OT, just as there are ones that portray God as vengeful etc...It's more a lack thorough reading of the OT.

Answer 9

Do you really think so?
(Old Testament)
Psalm 86:15 - But you, O Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to get angry, full of unfailing love and truth.

(New Testament)
Matthew 10: 34 (Jesus speaking) Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! No, I came to bring a sword.

Your question is one that is often asked. But was God not patient and gracious toward his chosen people? Didn't he send them prophets, and signs and warnings. He disciplined them only to bring them to their senses. But now Jesus brings the whole truth and says to choose. We have the ocean of life before us and many choose their muddy water hole over Christ. The New Testament, as well as the Old, is a story of God's love, and his offering of forgiveness and atonement.

Hope that helps!
Bobby

Answer 10

The two pictures you describe are really in both the OT and the NT. For example, in Genesis the first two chapters, God is all powerful in chapter 1, then in chapter 2 and following he talks kindly with the man, breathes and so forth.

What matters most is that people come closer to God by coming closer to people. So how we live and treat one another and help others is what religion is all about.

Answer 11

The old testament is the Word of God, the New was written by the apostles.