Clivedurdle

Comment in a thread that it is YHWH, I assume from KJV Lord, but is it?

Is it a new god invented by Paul and Mark?

TheRealityOfMan

Acts.17
[23] For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

As much as I hate Calvinism and various Paulianities... I have to admire the guy's genius here.

Tom Sawyer

Ya, JC consistently says that it's the Jewish God he's working for. Sure, there's lots of contradictory characteristics displayed in the two versions of the book, but that's the good thing about fictional characters - they have no need to conform to any sort of external reality.

DBT

A nearly complete Personality makeover by Paul and Mark. The New testament version bears little resemblance to the God of the old testament.

William

let's give this a go in BC&H

Clivedurdle

I've passed 10,000 and didn't notice!

Chili

That is why it is called a New Testament.

They have the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob while we have Christ but not as Christian. Christians are God and if they are not God they must have been led astray by satan and are satanic to that same extent they profess to be Christian.

Toto

The Christian God is the Hellenistic Jewish God, which is the older Jewish God after he evolved and was reshaped by Greek philosophy into a less anthropomorphic entity, one who is safely removed to a higher sphere and no longer appears in burning bushes or wrestles with people on earth.

Chili

Kind of like a modified OT God but not the Christ who is home in Rome.

Cesc

Spot on, as far as I know (which is not a whole lot, tho). Would you say that Plato's "the Good" had an influence through neo-platonism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor_of_the_sun

Personally, I see a connection. From the things I've read this is my immediate understanding: YHWH came to be regarded as more and more distant after the highly anticipated Messiah failed to appear on earth to save Israel following the Babylonian exile.

And a clear line of development in Jewish theological speculation throughout the 2nd temple period where the YHWH of the old scriptural fables became more abstract with the spread of Greek philosophy in general along with the movement away from the old primitive Canaanite fertility religions. The times where YHWH came down and chased away Israels enemies were over and the need for the physical mediator became more and more desperate as YHWH became more and more distant and impersonal. In the end, right before the Christian era, God's Wisdom, Spirit, Shekinah, Word or even the Law had all become regarded as Gods mediator or agent by all the Jewish writers who were concerned with the form and character of the anticipated Messiah.

Then Philo came along with his confused idea of the Word, the Greek 'Logos', as Gods mediator. The next step was taken by Paul on top of the Jewish-gnostic school of thought.

The essenian Habakkuk-commentary scroll might be relevant:
Compare Philippians 3:8-11.