Is there something you believe to be wrong with "option 4"? — Leontiskos

You said it's heresy. But, assuming we don't care about that, I'd say it's perfectly fine to say the OT and NT are incompatible and you've got to choose one, the other, or neither. But to declare which must be chosen because it's the correct one is simply to declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong

I don't know public declarations that you worship the true God bring much fruitful discussion.

You said it's heresy. — Hanover

A Christian heresy is only a problem for a Christian. To accuse a non-Christian of heresy would be a form of begging the question.

But, assuming we don't care about that, I'd say it's perfectly fine to say the OT and NT are incompatible and you've got to choose one, the other, or neither. — Hanover

Okay, good. But I want to highlight that @Bob Ross is not a Marcionite, given that he does not embrace the NT. He is rejecting the OT on other grounds.

But to declare which must be chosen because it's the correct one is simply to declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong — Hanover

"It's correct because it's correct," would be a tautological declaration. I don't see @Bob Ross doing that. His central premise is <It is unjust to kill the innocent>. He is neither declaring a tautology nor begging the question. Here is the argument he accepted as a representation of the second point in his OP:

1. The God of the OT commanded Saul to put the Amalekites under the ban
2. There were innocent children among the Amalekites
3. Therefore, the God of the OT commanded the killing of the innocent
4. The killing of the innocent is unjust
5. Therefore, the God of the OT is unjust — Leontiskos

Do you think that argument is "to simply declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong"?

I was not aware of that, and that’s fine as long as we agree then that:

1. Not all people who lived in the culture of the Amalekites were Amalekites, since an Amalekite is a religious affiliation and those who lack the capacity or choose not to engage in it were not be properly affiliated. — Bob Ross

I find it implausible that no one in an entire city [...] [was] a person that disagrees with the cult but lacks the means to escape... — Bob Ross

Well that is precisely what I am disputing, although I want to leave children to the side for the moment.

It seems like part of your argument is <The OT God told Saul to kill all of the adult Amalekites, even though only some of them were evil>.

My point is that religion/cult in the ancient world is not an optional add-on. There is no such thing as an Amalekite who is not an Amalekite in a cultic sense. The difficulty is that modern preconceptions color the way one reads these stories, and the notion that religion/cult is optional or accidental is one of those. Again, we will get to the question of children soon.

Else, Stephen De Young explains that there are precedents and examples where defectors are not under the ban. So if someone defects from the Amalekites and abandons their cultural abominations, then they need not be killed.

Compare especially the story of Genesis 18, where we find that God will not destroy Sodom if there can be found righteous within the city.

You make weird, contentious claims about neo-Platonism — Leontiskos

Aristotle wasn't a Neoplatonist because he wasn't alive when Neoplatonism came into existence. There's nothing contentious about that. Anyone who knows the definition of Neoplatonist knows it.

It's as immoral to turn the other cheek to evil and allow it to destroy the innocent as it is to annihilate.without restraint to protect the innocent. Both at extremes are not virtuous, and, in practice, adherents of the OT and NT behave in moderated ways. There is as much turning cheeks and firing weapons from both sides.

The problem is in taking these stories too literally. It destroys all nuance and creates dichotomies that never really exist

Fast forward 600 years after Amalek to the Book of Esther. Haman is noted to be an Agagite, meaning a descendant of Agag, the sole survivor of the Amalek, who King Ssul failed to kill from sympathy. Samuel did kill him soon after, but the story being told is that evil. If allowed to spawn (and the rabbinical suggestion is Agag impregnated someone in that extra day) begets more evil. And, of course, Haman sought to murder all the Jews in the Esther story.

The point is this is a mythological story about responding to evil and the consequences of misplaced sympathy. I don't think a Christian should find that notion objectionable. It's the literalism that is unworkable.

Do you think that argument is "to simply declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong"? — Leontiskos

I think if you begin with an immovable preconceived notion of what God is (love, etc.) and you encounter a tradition inconsistent with that, you are left with either judgmentally or non-judgmentally responding to it. Non-judgmentally, you'd recognize it academically and consider yourself educated. Judgmentally, you'd tell the other side they were worshipping a false god.

- But this is little more than a quibble. Neoplatonism is heavily indebted to Aristotle, and therefore ' counterpoint was perfectly valid. Clearly Ross is claiming that his conception of God is philosophical and is based on classical theism, particularly thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, etc.

Aristotle wasn't a Neoplatonist because he wasn't alive when Neoplatonism came into existence. There's nothing contentious about that. Anyone who knows the definition of Neoplatonist knows it. — frank

I think if you begin with an immovable preconceived notion of what God is (love, etc.) and you encounter a tradition inconsistent with that, you are left with either judgmentally or non-judgmentally responding to it. Non-judgmentally, you'd recognize it academically and consider yourself educated. Judgmentally, you'd tell the other side they were worshipping a false god. — Hanover

And again I ask, is this what @Bob Ross is doing? Are you representing him fairly? Is his argument a "declaration"? Is he merely "considering himself educated" or "judgmentally telling the other side they are worshipping a false god"? Isn't he doing something altogether different when he offers you an argument?

It seems clear to me that you think it is impossible to give an argument for a religious position, and yet this is precisely what Bob Ross is doing. So apparently you are forced to construe Ross' argument as something other than an argument. That doesn't make any sense to me.

Both at extremes are not virtuous [...]

The problem is in taking these stories too literally. — Hanover

Would you say that taking these stories too non-literally is also an extreme?

The point is this is a mythological story about responding to evil and the consequences of misplaced sympathy. I don't think a Christian should find that notion objectionable. It's the literalism that is unworkable. — Hanover

That's possible, but the arguments are where the rubber hits the road, and those will necessarily be religious arguments. If the story is mythological then the religion which takes it to be mythological will be better than the religion that does not, ceteris paribus. Thus in order to support your own religion you would want to show that the story is in fact mythological. The point is that religious argument is inevitable. We can't make progress in any of this without it.

It's the literalism that is unworkable. — Hanover

One of the reasons I think the Stephen De Young is because it addresses your approach as well, specifically at 1:00:17, where De Young considers using Game of Thrones as a religious text.

The response to your claim that the story is unworkable when taken in a literal sense would be, "Actually the story is unworkable even when taken in a mythological sense." For example, when Plato critiques the Greek myths, he is critiquing them qua mythology. Such a critique is equally open to @Bob Ross or anyone else who takes issue with the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). I think De Young is correct when he says that the mythological pivot doesn't solve the problem.

Why do you refuse to defend your own position? I outlined mine clearly: can you do the same?

Agreed. @frank brought up the claim and then "justified" it by saying I am clueless. Frank, can you elaborate on what you mean?

Why do you refuse to defend your own position? I outlined mine clearly: can you do the same? — Bob Ross

Bob, "Neoplatonism" is a word invented by academics to categorize a specific set of ideas, typified by Plotinus. People don't debate the meaning of the term.

I directed you to the Wikipedia article on it. Read it.

:roll: You obviously don't know what neoplatonism is which is evident from the fact that you can't explain it. I have.

Bob, I always feel respected by you without you saying it, so no need. Have at it! I hope you see that Inrespect you as well.

That said, reading through these posts, I have some honest questions for you. I see a lot of contradictions and incompatible positions in your reading of the OT.

Do you think God is all good and all just?
Or do you think God orders evil and commits injustices?

Do you think God is not capable of committing evil?
Or do you think God is capable of committing evil?

Do you think the OT tells history, or it does not?

Do you think the Bible ever tells lies to us, purporting to describe events that are fictional as if they were historical?
Do you think God reveals himself to us through the OT or not? If so, is God a historical figure in the OT or the NT or both, or neither?

Did Abraham and Moses live and worship the same God whom Jesus called Father and whose Holy Spirit remains with us to this day, or no?

I can’t really tell your answers to these.

I am arguing that God’s nature contradicts the actions attributed to God in the OT; and so that can’t be God doing it. — Bob Ross

So God is good, but the alleged God of the OT is not good, and so the OT is false history of what God did; God didn’t actually do what the OT says God did. That’s what you think.

It's the killing of innocents that my OP is objecting to: I recognize that the Canaanites were doing horrible things and a war against them is justified. However, that doesn't justify purposely attempting to genocide the people in their entirety. — Bob Ross

So killing of innocents is bad, but killing of Canaanites is justified, but not killing all Canaanites; God was ok killing some innocent Canannites, but not ok committing genocide of all Canaanites, innocent ones or not. That can be inferred from what you just said here.

given Christ as love and mercy that the Old Testament has to be primarily spiritual lessons and not conveying historical events. However, most of the events we have some reliable historical evidence that they at least happened to some extent. — Bob Ross

So the OT is not about history, and though it purports to be history, many of this purported history is not history but is spiritual lessons, although some of things happened historically to some extent.

And the alleged historical God of the OT is not about love, peace, justice, eternal life, goodness, hope, faith, charity, humility, mercy, forgiveness and redemption - but instead, in the OT, alleged God is basically a God of wrath and enforcement of law and demonstration of power, and sometimes evil deeds. We should read the OT to learn lessons, but not as containing any facts.

God is perfectly good with perfect knowledge of His own perfect goodness; so He not only cannot sin but He always chooses not to....but this presupposes that He is capable of moral accountability — Bob Ross

Is God capable of committing sin or not, and is God a moral agent or not?

I agree that God is a moral agent AND that he is not capable of sinning. But these contradict each other. How is that possible?
Maybe, God does not follow the law like we must, though maybe he follows the law like the Son does the will of the Father. But God, simultaneously IS the law. God is the word, and God is with the word. “The word was with God, and the word was God.” God became man, and the man Jesus, the son of God, both is the Law as God, and follows and fulfills the law as the Son of man. Jesus is the way, and those on the way must follow the law. But those merely on the way cannot always see God’s ways (or see them without God’s help to understand).

So linear LNC reasoning can’t really see how the Son has two natures, man and God, where one is capable of sinning and the other is not, but the other is still a moral agent. This takes deeper discussion, but if one didn’t believe a logical explanation was possible (because God was genocidal), then what are we talking for.

the OT seems incompatible to me with the NT. — Bob Ross

This is not what Jesus wanted anyone to think. There is one God in the Bible. From Genesis to Revelations - one and the same God, known to Abraham, to Moses, to Saul, to Peter and to Paul. The OT is perfectly compatible with the NT.

If you think the two are incompatible, then Moses and Abraham were only fools; Peter and Paul were the first to know God.

Are you saying Jesus was tricking the Jewish people when He upheld all of the law of Moses and referred to the God the Jews knew and lived as Farher?

they did kill at least some children. — Bob Ross

So the one God, or for you, the alleged God of the OT, ordered unjust, evil, killing of children.
Or the OT is just misleading and confusing, historically and/or spiritually?

it would either have to be good for Him to have committed these alleged atrocities being no atrocity at all or it was not God (or did not happen). — Bob Ross

Exactly - these refer to many of my questions for you. Is the OT history or not? Is God all good or not? Does the Bible tell some historical lies in order to make some other spiritual points, but if taken literally it would be telling lies? Is God in the OT or not and is this the same God as the NT or not.

You seem to be basing most, if not all, of your epistemic chips in God as Divinely Revealed and deducing from that how God is; whereas, I base most, if not all, of my epistemic chips in natural theology and deduce how God is from that.

This is a good example, as you think God is all-good and all-just only because God has revealed this to us; whereas I think we know God is all-good and all-just because we can reason about His nature from His effects. — Bob Ross

I believe God is all-good, all-just. Period. Never in question as I seek to understand what God says and does.
There is only one God, revealed to us over time, expressly, since Abraham. So God made himself directly known to history and to me from the OT.

I believe we can know of God through natural reason (Aristotle was the first to do this best), but we would not know very much of the specific personality and thoughts and intentions of this natural God, like Abraham did and like Jesus is, without revelation. You are asking about God’s intentions and thoughts, not about God’s nature.

Why conclude from natural reason that God loves every single person? Why conclude from natural reason that if God was a man he would do what Jesus did and die on a cross to save me from my sins? These are not reasonable by natural reason alone.

You say we can know God through reason and our own natural gifts, but then, Jesus referred to the God of Abraham and the whole of the OT lovingly as his Father, and yet you don’t see this as truth. You see the father Jesus spoke of as possibly committing genocide of children.

It is contradictory to say you can know God through reason, and to believe what Jesus said about the OT. Unless you are not a Christian, in which case you can believe whatever parts of this you want.

Don’t get me wrong - it is ok to have doubts and to need to understand more - at least I hope so for my sake!

But this all seems very confused and the point of my prior posts is that the method to understand it cannot be to simply use reason alone.

God doesn’t commit evil murdering genocide - even if he floods the earth.
That can’t be a premise or a conclusion about God (not on any normal definition of “genocide”), because God is all good and all-just.

God told Saul to do a lot of things including to kill all. If Saul did exactly what God told him, then it would be entirely on God to justify what happened. But Saul didn’t do exactly what God said to do - what Saul did, therefore, was Saul’s will, not God’s. Now evil can be found. If you want to blame unjustifiable killing of children on anyone, you can choose those of us who don’t listen to God to blame.

God takes care of all children justly.

Or, if you want to say what God thinks and what God loves and hates can be known from what Saul does in God’s name and if you want to say you know what those murdered children think and who they fear and who they love and who saves them and who destroys them, be my guest but I don’t think you do. That’s not natural reason. Genocide is a human invention and a human deed. So is murder. And death and all of our suffering is a wage and debt God did not ask us to incur - we chose it ourselves. God seems to work to take away death and the wages and evils and burdens of sin. Such work is nasty work.

Does it perplex you that you don’t understand?
Or does it trouble you that God is an unjust evil doer?
Or does it not trouble you and you think God is simply not in the OT?
Or are you doubting your faith?
Or are you doubting your reason?

We need to see how God thinks and how God reasons. We are asking for God to explain himself to us.
I agree there is a reasonable explanation for the apparent atrocities, but that explanation can never prove “God commits injustice and evil” or I need to keep looking for explanations.
I call the atrocities “apparent atrocities”. I don’t assume what God does are atrocities and call him “apparent God”.
If the explanation concluded “God commits injustice and evil” then God isn’t God and there is nothing to question - the OT and what Jesus said of his Father are all lies.

”If a man kills another person can you tell if he is an evil murderer without knowing his heart, his reasoning and his intention?” -FireOlogist

I think you are conflating absolute certainty with sufficient evidence.

“This is why Jesus tells us not to judge our brothers and to leave justice to God”. -FireOlogist

I don’t believe Jesus teaches that we should never judge each other; and based off of your example, then, wouldn’t you need to hold that Jesus is teaching that you shouldn’t convict murderers on earth but rather leave it to God? — Bob Ross

You are conflating judging actions with judging souls. We have to convict murderers and put them in jail for life. We can learn this from natural reason. Period. That’s politics, survival and common sense. That has nothing to do with judging them as evil doers who we would put in hell for eternity. That is never up to me, nor can I possibly make that judgment.

Your OP doesn’t ask whether a God like the the God in the OT should go to jail, you ask whether such a being is evil (and so not the God you want to know).

Vengeance and ultimate justice are for God. We better be careful when we convict murderers (which we usually are), we better show mercy when we sentence them, and forgive them when we visit and care for them in prison - we’ve learned this is God’s way by revelation of Jesus Christ, and if you look carefully, in the OT just as well.

I’m not saying we should ever abandon natural reason - I’m not saying there is not a reasonable explanation for the actions of God in the OT. I’m saying the evidence we need, to use our reason to understand does not simply come from nature. Eyes and and earthly educations ALONE cannot show us God is good. We need to hear God himself to know his heart.

Why did God wait for you and me to come into being to ask him for these explanations? He says because he loves us. Are we so lovable after all, now that he created us with all of our reason and lived experiences, that we would accuse him of sin, evil and injustice for things we really don’t know about, and may have participated in without God’s command? It all seems weak to me, and in need of prayer as much as anything else like our reason alone.

So you should know, there ARE reasonable explanations. The approach to those answers is not one that doesn’t involve God telling us what he was thinking and who God is. This is not all about what the facts are.

Same thing about a murderer. Murderers need to go to jail on the facts. But unforgiven punishment in hell? We need to know the murderer’s heart. Where does Jesus find evidence that. Murderer is lovable? How does God love a person who sins against him? I don’t think God uses reason alone when judging us.

So I am not saying your questions aren’t good ones, nor that answers don’t have to be reasonable, but that approaching this problem like a scientist/mathematician /philosopher ONLY, and not like a child seeking God’s help to answer, knowing that God can and will answer everything, leads to all of the contradictions in your positions above.

Bottom line. God never does evil. So we need to find out how God treated the Cannaanites and all of us reasonably when we are murdered and drowned. We can’t seek how the God of the OT was not actually God, because everything else that is good about the Bible falls apart if “evil God” so “Biblical lies” is anything close to an explanation.

How do you think Abraham approached questions for God?
What did Moses think was reasonable when he listened to a burning bush for evidence of God’s intentions? Or when he chastised his people because of a golden calf, but built a bronze serpent to heal them?
You won’t be able to penetrate these things with natural reason alone.

God kills us all, innocent and guilty alike. You can thank Him for the limited gift of temporary existence, or berate him for His cruelty and injustice, because that choice comes with the gift of human life. But don't hold your breath waiting for Him to appear in the Court of Human Rights.

You won’t be able to penetrate these things with natural reason alone. — Fire Ologist

Supernatural reason would be more applicable.

God kills us all, innocent and guilty alike. — unenlightened

In this context, it’s more accurate to say we’ve all killed ourselves - all are guilty.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I have a different take on this - which I consider as a side comment. Apologies if you are already familiar with it, but if you want to understand what the bible is actually saying, I suggest the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. I recently finished the OT and am now plowing through the NT (up to Romans).

It is clear (at least it is clear to me) that the god of the OT is not the Christian God. The OT God is very specifically the god of the Jewish People (AKA the children of Israel, AKA the 12 tribes, etc). As long as the children of Israel follow all the laws - as laid out in Exodus, Deuteronomy. Numbers, & Leviticus - they are entitled to the land of Israel. The OT God holds all other groups of people to be outsiders - Jews are not even allowed to marry non-Jews. The OT God even assists the Children of Israel in committing genocide (think Jericho).

So when you say

God is perfectly good — Bob Ross

or

5. It is unjust to directly intentionally kill an innocent person (viz., it is wrong to murder); — Bob Ross

you are making this judgement from outside the OT. Now this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do - as long as we are aware of what we're doing. But the OT god is not perfectly good. The OT gets angry and changes his mind - not the expected behavior of a perfect entity.

As long as I'm here, here are two other fun links from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible:

A list of all God's killings
A list of ALL the commandments on both the OT & NT

he OT God is very specifically the god of the Jewish People — EricH

Books like Genesis and Jonah present a more universalistic picture, while Exodus is more particular/nationalistic. A group (Israel) accepted him as their God, but his dominion extends far beyond that, and others are free to accept him.

In Jonah, he cares deeply about Israel's historic nemesis -- the Assyrians.

The OT gets angry and changes his mind - not the expected behavior of a perfect entity. — EricH

God can be negotiated with and questioned; otherwise, you have a God who is beyond question. Some religions do perceive God like this.

Books like Genesis and Jonah present a more universalistic picture, — BitconnectCarlos

I'm not an expert in interpreting the bible, but I'd disagree with this. The plain language of Genesis makes it clear that Israel belongs to the Jews for all eternity. Here's from Genesis 13:

14. And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:.

15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.

18 Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.

The later books add the proviso that the Jews must also follow all the laws.

God kills us all, innocent and guilty alike.
— unenlightened

In this context, it’s more accurate to say we’ve all killed ourselves - all are guilty. — Fire Ologist

You put your words into God's mouth, and I'll put mine. I will not say that infants are already guilty. Rather I will say "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away." And perhaps it is a kindness that he spares them temptation, but it is not my business to make such judgements in His place. It is a matter for faith and doubt.

Yes, Genesis includes the patriarchal tales, but before that are stories about God's interaction with humanity more generally. Noah is saved on account of his righteousness and given seven rules that all of humanity must follow. It is only after these universal prescriptions that we see the shift to Abraham and his tribe.

I am ok with granting this, because you are excluding the kinds of people that would not be defectors but would not be meaningfully an Amalekite. I am just being careful to note that, e.g., a disabled person being taken care of by Amalekites would seem to count as an Amalekite in the sense you mean. Are you saying that the correct interpretation of the text is that God was specifically referring to an Amalekite in this strictest sense that would preclude children, disabled people, etc? If so, then how do you explain the fact that God punished Saul for sparing some animals? Doesn't that suggest that God was including everything that lived in the City itself?

It seems like part of your argument is <The OT God told Saul to kill all of the adult Amalekites, even though only some of them were evil>. — Leontiskos

Sort of, but that would be immune to the strongest part of my argument; which involves the children. We could dispute plausbly either way if, for example, there were any healthy adults which could be held to be an Amalekite proper and I am willing to concede, given the seemingly identity relation between being an Amalekate and a part of the cult, that there weren't any. We also could dispute whether or not there were any disabled adults, such as cognitively disabled adults, which would be harder to classify as meaningfully an Amalekate even though they lived with them.

At the end of the day, I emphasize the children, although I understand you are setting that aspect of it aside for a second, because it is really implausible in my mind that there were no Amalekate children and it seems like they would be a part of the ban.

Bob, I always feel respected by you without you saying it, so no need. Have at it! I hope you see that Inrespect you as well.

:up:

Do you think God is all good and all just?

Yes I do.

Do you think God is not capable of committing evil?

Yes.

Do you think the OT tells history, or it does not?

I don’t know: it seems to be both history in a more literal sense of events, dates, and people and also literary. It’s hard to decipher what was meant to convey a lesson vs. a mere exposition of historical fact; and it becomes dangerously close to confirmation bias, IMHO, with some of the interpretations I’ve heard.

Do you think the Bible ever tells lies to us, purporting to describe events that are fictional as if they were historical?

Well, on the one hand, it facially tells inaccurate information and is not inerrant; however, on the other hand, most of the text I would be referring to can be interpreted as allegorical, metaphorical, etc. Still then, it seems unsuccessful at solving the issues.

For example, the beginning of Genesis outlines the creation of the world prima facie and it blatantly incorrectly states that God created the light that shines on earth before the sun. However, somebody could say that it is metaphorical for God creating the universe. Still then, why would God divinely inspire His message to be conveyed in a manner where it gets facts blatantly wrong like that?

Whether or not the Biblical writers are lying is a separate question; and I would lean towards no. I don’t think the author was intentionally messing up the facts to deceive people.

Do you think God reveals himself to us through the OT or not? If so, is God a historical figure in the OT or the NT or both, or neither?

That’s what I am evaluating and why I started this OP. I believe if God voluntarily creates a world, then He will always have to (1) create the best possible world and (2) freely will to incarnate Himself through hypostatic union as a representative member of the species of any that are persons to save them. I think, and @Leontiskos can correct me on this, this would be a heresy for Christianity of God being forced to always pick the best.

Did Abraham and Moses live and worship the same God whom Jesus called Father and whose Holy Spirit remains with us to this day, or no?

I would find it plausible that Abraham and Moses were real people and worshiped the same God who Jesus called the Father.

So God is good, but the alleged God of the OT is not good, and so the OT is false history of what God did; God didn’t actually do what the OT says God did. That’s what you think.

That’s what I am arguing and what I would find most plausible right now. I don’t have a strong intuition or position on this yet though. The point of this OP is work through my thoughts and see what other people bring to the table for me to digest.

So killing of innocents is bad, but killing of Canaanites is justified, but not killing all Canaanites; God was ok killing some innocent Canannites, but not ok committing genocide of all Canaanites, innocent ones or not. That can be inferred from what you just said here.

I am fine with that assessment. My minor quibble would be that a just war does not entail it is just to have as your end to kill all the adults engaging in evil: a just war entails that you are justified in fighting with them to stop the evil—which should be done with a principle of proportionate response in mind. If I can stop someone from committing child sacrifice without killing them, and this can be done with reasonable safety to myself and others, then that’s what I should do. I would be being disproportionate in my response to the evil by still killing them anyways (unless that is a proportionate punishment, such as capital punishment, for their past sins of sacrificing children).

And the alleged historical God of the OT is not about love, peace, justice, eternal life, goodness, hope, faith, charity, humility, mercy, forgiveness and redemption - but instead, in the OT, alleged God is basically a God of wrath and enforcement of law and demonstration of power, and sometimes evil deeds. We should read the OT to learn lessons, but not as containing any facts.

I see, so you are taking the spiritual approach of interpretation—correct? What lessons are we learning from portraying, according to your own view, God purposefully incorrectly? What do you think about the aspects of the OT that seem to be historical (such as lineages, outlining laws, the people, the places, etc.)?

Is God capable of committing sin or not, and is God a moral agent or not?

God is a moral agent because He is a rational agent that has absolute freedom; but His freedom is supreme freedom which is sometimes referred to as liberty of excellence. He does not have liberty of indifference: the liberal idea of freedom being having the ability to have chosen otherwise.

God is both absolutely free and incapable of sinning. A rational agent that is absolutely unimpeded by anything external and of which has absolute knowledge of the good necessarily will always freely choose to do what is good; and, here’s where I think (@Leontiskos) the heresy maybe smuggling in here, to choose what is best.

If you think the two are incompatible, then Moses and Abraham were only fools; Peter and Paul were the first to know God

But how can you say the God from the OT through the NT is the same God if you acknowledge that the OT portrays God in ways God is not?

Are you saying Jesus was tricking the Jewish people when He upheld all of the law of Moses and referred to the God the Jews knew and lived as Farher?

I think Jesus was, in good faith, referring to himself as related to the Father of the OT; which to me means that your view that God can be portrayed incorrectly for the sake of a spiritual lesson as false. Was he lying about being the Son of God? I doubt it, but I don’t know.

This this getting too long, so I will stop here and let you respond (:

At the risk of prolonging a side discussion - while they could be derived from Mosaic Law, the 7 rules are not in the Bible. They were invented by Talmudic scholars. WIkipedia says this might have occurred sometime in second century C.E.

The Noahide laws are in Genesis. See, for instance, Gen 9:4 and 9:5. The injunction against murder goes back further to at least Cain and Abel. God is first the universal God, then he is followed by Israel.

Rules that bind humanity have been present from the very beginning, in Eden.

I see. Can you respond, then, to the three examples I gave and explain how they are allegories and what they are allegories about?

Not briefly lol. Consider that the Noah story is rarely tackled in isolation and is normally always considered with everything that has happened up until then, particularly the "Third Creation Narrative" of Genesis 5, which seems to be nothing but a bunch of "begats" but actually has a lot of interesting things going on.

First, when considering what is meant to be taken "literally," as a sort of crime report or history:

- The first two creation narratives, which are delivered back to back, while not necessarily contradictory, appear to contradict each other on the order in which creatures came into being when read as a sort of ordering report.

- The above was often read as the difference between the creation of the forms of creatures, which are spoken into being in the first narrative (by the Logos, Christ, in the Christian tradition), and the creation of matter in the second narrative, where man is shaped from the dust and God's spirit is breathed into him (and presumably all living things), which was often taken as relating to the Holy Spirit. But things appear to happen in different orders in each, and in the first narrative man and woman are created seemingly simultaneously, not so in the second.

-The text does not concern itself with where wives for the sons of Adam come from or how there appears to be peoples aside from those mentioned specifically in the genealogies. If you're committed to an extremely literal reading, then you're also going to find it impossible to justify the claim that "God killed children in the Flood." They are only implied.

-There are indications that predation (between any animals) does not exist in the Garden but also that it didn't exist after the Fall either, until man's poor guidance of the cosmos led to progressive degeneration.

-Aside from how literally we are supposed to take the slide into predation, some of the language seems to be metaphorical. Cain's generations produce a picture of the human race that is typical of a bronze age heroic era. His descendents all have names that reflect a sort of independence from God, and a sort of heroic brutality, and it is from these that we get the first city. But note that Cain himself is banished to the "Land of Wandering," presumably "to be a wanderer," but then turns "wandering" into a city, and his line gives birth to the arts, and seemingly war. Women are not mentioned at all in this set of generations.

-The generations of Seth are a sort of mirror image of the generations of Cain, but they do mention women, and the names, while similar (and identical in some cases), are slight but important variations of the earlier names. But we also see how long people lived, and if you read closely you'll see that, while death entered the world with the murder of Abel, no one dies a natural death in the Bible until the end of the generations. Noah is the first person born after any man appears to have died a natural death.

-Man's descent into wickedness then seems to be a response to the revelation of man's mortality and finitude, although it also obviously involves a conflict over "beautiful women" (and thus generation).

-The "sons of God" are sometimes taken to be rebellious angelic beings, although I think the most convincing reading is that these are the sons of the line of Cain.

-The story is itself an inversion of similar Near Eastern stories (a lot could be said here).

-Noah, having heard that he is to let the animals go forth to be fruitful and multiply, without any divine instruction, immediately gets off the Ark and begins butchering all the "clean animals." If read literally, as all terrestrial life having to be descended from just one male and one female of each species, Noah is here driving all clean animals to extinction immediately after God had him save them.

-Noah repeats Cain and Abel's mistake of thinking God is "just like me and likes what I like." The text is quite ambivalent as to what God thinks about this act. Actually, God responds by saying he will not bother trying to start over again because man is evil from his youth in response. That is, "even simple Noah of the line of Seth is already killing and consuming and failing to be a good steward, and so it isn't worth trying to simply 'reroll' and hope man chooses the right course, because he won't," is one interpretation that suggests itself. But note that if read literally Noah has already engaged in a mass extinction event and you'd have to assume that God recreated all livestock and game animals without the text telling us that.

So, whereas the story of the Amalekites is taken more literally (as suggesting a war and the destruction of Amalekites, although we know this doesn't happen because there are Amalekites centuries later to try to exterminate the Jews in exile) by pretty much all the Church Fathers (which is not to say it isn't also read allegorically), the early Genesis stories often weren't read literally because they are extremely stylized in this way (literal readings are bizarre without adding all sorts of extra details that aren't in the text), and it certainly seems like they aren't meant to be read as straightforward reports.

But I won't go on about the Amalekites because others have already responded to you on that one.

As an aside, references to allegorical reading crops up even in the NT. Consider Saint Paul on the story of Hagar and Sarah, which he calls allegory (although what exactly he means by this is open to interpretation).

I find this implausible for, e.g., Exodus where they are outlining rules. Rules are not usually meant metaphorically or allegorically.

First century Jews, including the Alexandrian "middle Platonists" who were the forerunners of Plotinus (e.g. Philo), did find this plausible though. For instance, the idea that the dietary instructions are to direct one to deep Torah study (i.e., ruminating, as one only eats ruminants).

But of course, the law was taken quite literally by many. However, it's also a law for the type of society it regulated. It did not institute slavery, etc., it merely introduces regulations for existing institutions, seemingly moderating them and setting limits on them.

God's exact purposes in giving the Mosaic Law could be discussed at length. It's worth noting that admonitions to honor the spirit of the law above letter in the prophetic writings are among the oldest writings in the Bible. I don't think even a literal reading is committed to the idea that the limits it sets on behavior (for a tribal Near Eastern people mind you) are in any way meant to be the guidelines for a sort of cultureless, Enlightenment-style "ideal behavior for all rational agents for all time." They are largely concerned with limiting excess and guiding worship within a particular context. Part of the point seems to be that the Law is tailored to their current way of life, and they still fail to follow it. Recall that at this point the Hebrews have seen miracles non-stop for years and yet still constantly rebel against God any time the going gets tough (fairly realistic if you ask me lol).

With all due respect, I can't seem to follow what your rejoinder is to the arguments I gave in the OP. Can you take one of my three examples from the OP and demonstrate what interpretation you hold of it that is immune to my critique?

I think you are giving me a lot of substantive information on the topic, but I'm having a hard time relating it to the OP.

You mean:

It is highly implausible that there were no children, including babies not developed enough to even be capable of sinning yet, on the earth when God flooded it intentionally; and Him drowning these innocent children was a means towards His end of cleansing the earth (to start over with Noah). Thereby, He directly intentionally killed innocent persons and murder is the direct intentional killing of innocent persons; therefore, God committed murder.

However, God is all-just and it is unjust to murder; therefore, this "God" who flooded the earth was not truly God Himself (viz., the purely actual, perfectly good creator of the universe).

As noted, the story only mentions men, most of whom are several centuries old. I don't see how it isn't selectively reading to add what you find "reasonable" in a story where animals don't predate one another, men live centuries, etc. Other people are implied, but God creates Adam seemingly as an adult capable of speech and reproduction. Since these others are seemingly also created, why not assume the same for them? Indeed, we might suppose that fertility worked differently in this epoch because Adam appears to be young for centuries without birth control and only has three children (although many more in the tradition, Judaism is not Sola Scriptura). Generally, a principle was that if one adds something to the text that makes God appear evil, one has erred.

If you're allowed to add things from outside the text, then justification is easy. Rashi proposed that God has Saul kill the Amalekite animals as well because they practiced shape shifting through demonic arts for instance.

If the question is: "how is a 20th century fundamentalist reading of the Bible consistent with Christian or Jewish 'neoplatonism?'" I think the obvious answer is it isn't. You're mixing traditions separated by millennia, with vastly different theologies. If you want to know how someone like Philo or Origen found the Bible consistent with their theology, you need to read them and their understanding of Scripture.

I believe if God voluntarily creates a world, then He will always have to (1) create the best possible world and (2) freely will to incarnate Himself through hypostatic union as a representative member of the species of any that are persons to save them. I think, and Leontiskos can correct me on this, this would be a heresy for Christianity of God being forced to always pick the best. — Bob Ross

Quickly, I would not say that the doctrine which holds that God always creates the best is a heresy, although it isn't characteristically Christian and I don't think it comes onto the scene until Leibniz. Aquinas doesn't think the word "best" makes sense in that context, given the infinite possibilities. Regarding (2), it looks like you are claiming that, "He will always have to freely will..." Here necessity runs up against freedom, and beyond that, Christians do not tend to hold that the hypostatic union was logically necessary. They will say that it was conditionally necessary either upon the condition of creation, or else upon the condition of sin.

I haven't been following the thread too closely, but I realize some are imputing (1) to the OP and then arguing against (1). I don't think the OP requires (1)—or (2), for that matter. The OP looks to me like an argument from injustice, and it is much easier to get a theist to agree that God is not unjust than to get them to agree to these other points.

Thereby, He directly intentionally killed innocent persons and murder is the direct intentional killing of innocent persons; therefore, God committed murder. — Bob Ross

Murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. Animals cannot murder, nature cannot murder, and God cannot murder.

Beyond this, God is the source of the Law; for God to be a law-breaker, there would need to be some higher law that God is subject to, which would make him not God by definition—at least not the Judeo-Christian one. Maybe Greek or Roman Gods were bound by pre-existent laws, but not the God of the Bible (who is the source of all creation).