Who is the God of the Old Testament?
Was Jehovah a God of Love?
Did the following words [OT] come from the heart of love? [Appendix A]
>> "When the Lord thy God shall drive them before thee, thou shall smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shall make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them."
>> "I will heap mischief upon them. I will send mine arrows upon them; they shall be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction."
>> "I will send the tooth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust."
>> "The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin; the suckling also with the man of grey hairs."
>> "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labour; let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children."
>> "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and daughters."
>> "And the heaven that is over thee shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron."
>> "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field."
>> "I will make my arrows drunk with blood."
>> "I will laugh at their calamity."
Did these curses, these threats, come from the heart of love or from the mouth of savagery? Was Jehovah god or devil? Why should we place Jehovah above all the gods? Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster? Have the barbarians of any land, in any time, worshiped a more heartless god?
Brahma was a thousand times nobler, and so was Osiris and Zeus and Jupiter. So was the supreme god of the Aztecs, to whom they offered only the perfume of flowers. The worst god of the Hindus, with his necklace of skulls and his bracelets of living snakes, was kind and merciful compared with Jehovah. Compared with Marcus Aurelius, how small Jehovah seems. Compared with Abraham Lincoln & Nelson Mandela how cruel, how contemptible, is this god.
Jehovah’s Administration
He created the world, the hosts of heaven, a man and woman, placed them in a garden. Then the serpent deceived them, and they were cast out and made to earn their bread. Jehovah’s plans had been thwarted.
Then he tried again. He went on for about sixteen hundred years trying to civilize the people. No schools, no churches, no Bible, no tracts, nobody taught to read or write. No Ten Commandments. The people grew worse and worse, until the merciful Jehovah sent the flood and drowned all the people except Noah and his family, eight in all. His plans falling apart for the second time.
Then he started again, and changed their diet. At first, Adam and Eve were vegetarians. After the flood, Jehovah said, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you", snakes and buzzards.
Then he failed again for a third time, and at the Tower of Babel, he dispersed and scattered the people.
Finding that he could not succeed with all the people, he thought he would try a few, so he selected Abraham and his descendants. Again, he failed for a fourth time, and his chosen people were captured by the Egyptians and enslaved for four hundred years.
Then he tried again, rescued them from Pharaoh and started for Palestine. Then he changed their diet, allowing them to eat only the beasts that parted the hoof and chewed the cud. Again, for a fifth time he failed. The people hated him, and preferred the slavery of Egypt to the freedom of Jehovah. So he kept them wandering until nearly all who came from Egypt had died.
Then he tried again; took them into Palestine and had them governed by Judges. This, too, was a failure; no schools, education, no Bible.
Then he tried kings, and the kings were mostly idolaters. Then the chosen people were conquered and carried into captivity by the Babylonians. Another failure. By now we stop counting…
Then they returned, and Jehovah tried prophets, howlers and wailers, but the people grew worse and worse. No schools, no sciences, no arts, no commerce.
Then Jehovah took upon himself flesh, was born of a woman, and lived among the people that he had been trying to civilize for several thousand years. Then these people, following the law that Jehovah had given them in the wilderness, charged this Jehovah-man, this Christ, with blasphemy; tried, convicted and killed him. Jehovah had failed again.
Then he deserted the Jews and turned his attention to the rest of the world.
Now the Jews, deserted by Jehovah, persecuted by almost every one (including themselves), are the most prosperous people on the earth. Again, has Jehovah failed?
What an administration!
