Current Events > Do you believe the Bible basically describes one god or two gods?

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Marcion of Sinope, and various other people, believe that there are 2 gods in the Bible, the Old Testament god, and the New Testament god, because the behaviour in the 2 parts of the Bible is pretty different. Mainstream Christian doctrine and belief clearly dictates that there is only 1 god described in the Bible. What do YOU think?

There is only one God.

I dont understand this belief. The Bible clearly says there is only one god as you mentioned and it also clearly differentiates between the Old and New Testaments already

TBQH, God's behaviour is quite different in the OT to the NT. In very reductive terms, he becomes a lot more pleasant and nice in the NT.

NT God chilled out after he had his kid and watched him die. It really made him pump the brakes.

Personally I don't view YHVH as a god so much as an extremely evil divine entity who has convinced the world that blind and absolute subservience to his will is the only good

Wtf. Do you have anything more to say on the subject of Yahweh?

I've been reading the Bible myself for literary purposes, and doing some extra research on top of that. The truth is that people believed in multiple gods during the time that the Old Testament takes place. There were opposing factions who only wanted to worship Yahweh, and those who wanted to worship Him in addition to other gods. The Yahweh-only faction won out in the end, and they were the ones who ended up writing the Bible. That long list of kings who did evil or good in the sight of the Lord? An indication of which factions they were part of.

Interestingly, Amos 4:11 has a remnant of these multiple gods in the KJV and NASB translations, but gets scrubbed from NIV and the like.

I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a log snatched from a fire;
Yet you have not returned to Me, declares the Lord.

If you look at the original Hebrew for this verse, God refers to Elohim while the Lord refers to Yahweh.

Which is why Baal and Astaroth are mentioned repeatedly.

Damn_Underscore posted...

I dont understand this belief. The Bible clearly says there is only one god as you mentioned and it also clearly differentiates between the Old and New Testaments already

I would respect Christians more if they dumped the old testament and declared its part of a totally different religion. Most of the negative opinions Christians have, come from the old testament. A Christianity that only believed in the new testament would be far less hateful

Gods radical change in personality is one of the first retcons.

Zikten posted...

I would respect Christians more if they dumped the old testament and declared its part of a totally different religion. Most of the negative opinions Christians have, come from the old testament. A Christianity that only believed in the new testament would be far less hateful

Im guessing you arent trying to imply that Judaism is a hateful religion, but thats exactly what you did. Because Judaism is based on the Old Testament and a few other things directly based on that (such as the Oral Torah).

Yet you would still be hard pressed to find Jews who agree on every religious issue. And that applies to pretty much every religion, especially the big ones. I dont know what people get out of strawmanning religious beliefs to attack entire religions

NT God had a stroke at some point

Zikten posted...

I would respect Christians more if they dumped the old testament and declared its part of a totally different religion. Most of the negative opinions Christians have, come from the old testament. A Christianity that only believed in the new testament would be far less hateful

They can't really do that, the NT is built on the OT. It's like a Jenga game. Things have already been removed/retconned, the tower is shaky as it is. Remove half of the pieces and it'll collapse. Easier to just ignore various minor things from the OT and not interpret it 100% literally, since reading the bible so literally is not something that people have done throughout most of its history. Of course that's apparently really hard for Americans, abstract thinking and metaphor and whatnot.

I do like the idea of a tyrannical God being overthrown and replaced by a benevolent God without anyone knowing. That's some badass lore.

There is a Holy Trinity but only One True God.

BTW, the Old Testament speaks of a completely different afterlife than Heaven and Hell as we know it in the New Testament. Back then, they believed in Sheol, which worked basically the same way as Hades. Everyone went there when they died regardless of how they lived their lives. And it was explicitly shown that mediums could call forth spirits from Sheol to communicate with them. The switch to a good and bad place seems to come out of nowhere.

The narrative/interpretation of the Bible changes as societies change because religion is created by people.

Damn_Underscore posted...

I dont understand this belief. The Bible clearly says there is only one god as you mentioned and it also clearly differentiates between the Old and New Testaments already

Yahweh says that he's the only god who should be worshipped. He definitely acknowledges the existence of other gods several times.

Not to mention the historical evidence we have that the holy trinity came about as an amalgamation of several different gods that various Semitic people worshipped.

God cloned himself and turned his original evil self into Jesus and placed a curse upon him. Everytime Jesus wanted to to something evil (in line with the original God) the curse kicked in and forced him to do something good.

Finally Clone God became bored and had OG Evil God (Jesus) killed, which he later regretted so he revived him 3 days later.

I read it on the back of a menu at IHOP so you know it's true.

The god of the Bible is a perfect example of an evil, abusive spouse that gaslights you into thinking he loves you.

Like many people, he had to grow up and reprioritize some things after having a kid.

I believe it doesn't matter whether ancient people made up one god or two.

Perhaps the god of the OT is Satan?

One god.

I think its just because the bible is a collection of writings/stories from a long enough period of time that religious beliefs and cultural norms changed a lot.

Cheater87 posted...

Perhaps the god of the OT is Satan?

No, but Job 1:6-12 says that God allowed Satan to fuck with one of his most devoted followers just to try and win a bet with him.

pokedude900 posted...

No, but Job 1:6-12 says that God allowed Satan to fuck with one of his most devoted followers just to try and win a bet with him.

Aaah, okay.

You guys would love Christian Gnosticism, which teaches that the OT and NT God are different entities.

And counting

pokedude900 posted...

No, but Job 1:6-12 says that God allowed Satan to fuck with one of his most devoted followers just to try and win a bet with him.

The whole point of that story is that he let Job's faith be tested to prove the sanctity of one's relationship with God even in times of hardship. Job was also justly rewarded at the end of the story.

Well, fuck his original wife and kids then I guess. If you're not going into these stories with the predetermined conclusion that god is the good guy there's no way you don't come away from it thinking he's a massive asshole.

Even the supposedly nicer version is still threatening people with eternal hellfire if they don't love him/his kid enough

Billyionaire posted...

The whole point of that story is that he let Job's faith be tested to prove the sanctity of one's relationship with God even in times of hardship. Job was also justly rewarded at the end of the story.

It's also clearly written in the form of an epic poem

IMNOTRAGED posted...

Well, fuck his original wife and kids then I guess. If you're not going into these stories with the predetermined conclusion that god is the good guy there's no way you don't come away from it thinking he's a massive asshole.

Even the supposedly nicer version is still threatening people with eternal hellfire if they don't love him/his kid enough

To be fair, they're considered merely objects and possessions just like his sheep, camels, servants, etc. so it helps if you think of them as such.
God had to prove a point God dammit; and prove it he did! Or so we're told.

Billyionaire posted...

The whole point of that story is that he let Job's faith be tested to prove the sanctity of one's relationship with God even in times of hardship. Job was also justly rewarded at the end of the story.

story of Job is pretty terrifying. Does the word job come from the bibles Job? because it makes the implications way scarier

Zikten posted...

I would respect Christians more if they dumped the old testament and declared its part of a totally different religion.

The thing is, the New Testament is supposed to have basically done that with huge sections of the OT, like Leviticus.

Runeboggle posted...

The god of the Bible is a perfect example of an evil, abusive spouse that gaslights you into thinking he loves you.

The fucking Book of Job. God dammit that one's such a load of BS. "Here Satan, fallen angel my followers are supposed to fear and revile, torment my most loyal follower, because he'll love me anyway."

Whenever I say God is a dick, Job is how I back it up.

Cheater87 posted...

Perhaps the god of the OT is Satan?

I believe that was actually part of the Cathar beliefs, in addition to being tied to Gnosticism. Regular Christians reviled the Cathar beliefs so fully that their last fortress was slaughtered to the man, and was the oldest recorded instance of "kill 'em all and let God figure it out." Well, the actual quote was "He will know His true Flock" or something similar.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I mean, this is the real reason. As far as scholarly interest in religion goes, rather than an active religious interest, books and stories removed or not included in the Bible is a pretty interesting rabbit hole to go down.

The story of Lilith for instance. Adam's first wife, who was raised from the soil the same as Adam. She refused to obey him because they were both formed from the Earth by God. Then she ran away. Adam demands a new wife that will obey him, God uses a rib from Adam. Eve is made from Adam therefore must obey him. All women are descended from Eve, women must therefore obey men.

Anyone with reasonable critical thinking skills can figure out why they didn't include the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife. Wouldn't want women getting ideas.