Bobzammel

There seems to be some major differences between the way God, the father or creator is potrayed in the OT, and the way he is potrayed in the New.

In the Old Testament, God seems to have more of a carnal presence. For instance, in Genesis 18 he appears in a human form to Abraham along with two angels, and apparentally even has food with Abraham. Later Likewise he is seen wrestling with Jacob. He also appears to show up in the flesh to kill Moses for some strange reason. The standard Fundamentalist explanation is that these were in fact Angels. But that is not really presented in the text at all.
Also, the OT God is one who gives rewards and punishments in THIS life, as oppossed to the next for following the Law. For instance God would protect Israel from invasion and also give them prosperous harvests and offspring. However if they disobeyed the Law, they would be invaded by a foreign power.
Also God is seen as being in full-charge of the world, having events go to his liking and what-not. The "serpent" is just a snake, not Satan; the description of it's curse is simply a description of the constant conflict between man and snake(Snakes bite heels, ancient people bashed them on the head, get it? No mention of a Messiah here, folks!).
The Messiah, as presented in almost all the prophecies of his coming, is potrayed not as a spiritual ruler but quite clearly an Earthly one, who would deliver the Jews from their enemies, such as the Assyrians. Other Messianic prophecies--as has been stated--are signs, mentions of kings, and what-not.

However in the NT God God seems more spiritual, and Jesus is his human face on Earth. Instead of simply appearing as a human as mentioned earlier, he instead is born physically and has to 'grow up'.
Also Jesus seems to see sucess in this life as extremely negative. For example the Beautitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, the story of the rich young guy and the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus seem to state a negative as oppossed to the positive of the NT, although Jesus at one point states that "in this life" people will have some rewards, but seemingly that means the brotherhood of other Christians and not possessions. Likewise though who got it good would be sent to hell. No mention of Earthly rewards really, or threats of being invaded.
There is also spiritual dualism. Whereas the Old Testament does not have a serious problem with the physical world, the NT seems to potray it as under a curse and controlled by Satan, an attitude that has had some Christians distrust practically everything, even their own senses(Taken to the extreme in Gnosticism) and see absolutely no point in life except to preach how the next one is better. God does not seem to have too much power over the world somehow.

Now it appears something happened here. In the OT the god of the OT is not too different from the various other Gods of the Middle East, while the NT God seems to be a more spiritual entity. It almost seems like Eastern spiritualism(Which denounces Carnality-see for instance the Hindu path of Renunciation) and the dualism of Persian and Greek philosophy found their way in, perhaps thanks to all the exchange during the Hellenistic era.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Yeah, the Bible reeks of religion-theft. As you mentioned, the OT is similar to contemporary middle Eastern religion, and the NT is similar to the Eastern religions and various contemporary philosophies. It seems obvious to me that the Bible was not inspired by a supernatural deity, but rather from contemporary religious and philosophical thinking. I just wonder why the folks in the Council of Nicea decided to keep both the OT and NT books when they describe completely different deities. It sure does create some serious problems for the Christian.

-Nick

Shake

The writers of the NT lived a few centuries later than those of the OT. They reviewed the OT and thought, "Gee, all this sex and violence might be good for ratings, but we can't have our kids reading this stuff! We need to put a kinder, gentler face on our God. In fact, we'll barely mention him directly. We focus on Jesus and everybody will forget how mean his dad was in the OT."

Hawkingfan

I definitely agree with all of the above and would like to add that the religion the NT writers stole from in order to come up with the majority of the Jesus myth was Mithraism (a cult originating in Persia and adopted later by the Romans). The similarities are quite extensive.

Bobzammel

Actually, I am lately seeing more of a Greco-Roman Philosophy influence. The mystery cult influence is still there, but the majority of the theology found in the Epistles is very similar to philosophy. In ACTS Paul even seems to be familiar with Greek Philosophy, so it makes one wonder if Paul was a student of some kind. The works of the Apostle John also betray Greek thinking.

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Bobzammel ]</p>