A serious question for Christians and Non-Christians: How Can Love Hate?

by sabastious 40 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Piercingtheveil81

  Mad Sweeney I think you brought up a good point. I remember as a chrisitian being somewhat confused over this apparent difference of God's personality in the OT and the NT. It has greatly changed in a number of ways. That is exactly way people in the second century, like Marcion, believed the God in the OT was not the one in the NT but were in fact separate individuals.

  The Islamic viewpoint in somewhat different from the Christian perception. While we call the Almighty "Ar-Rahman" and "Raheem", which means Most Gracious and Most Merciful, we also call Him:

  Al-Mumit: The Destroyer, The Bringer of Death

  Ad-Darr: The Distressor, The Harmer, The Afflictor

  Al-Hasib: The Bringer of Judgment

  Allah has 99 names that describe his being and perfect attributes. Although He loves, He also brings calamity upon the unjust and wicked. All human beings were created with these qualities to some degree but they must be practiced in a balanced way. It is good to love, but it can be bad to love too much to the point of breaking God laws by loving those things that are bad. It is good to hate to some degree, especially those thing that God dislikes. But too much hate can lead to a persons own disaster as well.

  The problem with Christianity is that they attach a father-like relationship of God to His creation. The Islamic view is that He is not our father. He is our Creator and Master, who has created us for the sole purpose of worship to Him. Everything in creation obeys his commands, the only exception are humans who have free will to choose submission or not to His will. That is why we are called muslims (One who submits to Allah).

  Again, in regards to love and hate, they are both qualities of Allah that he exhibits to perfection and justice.

  PVT81
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  Doug Mason

  sabastious,

  For example, you only need to compare differences between the accounts at Kings and Chronicles of David or of Manasseh. Since each writer had their own objective(s), their account of each King differs.

  What about the differences between the two stories of Creation?

  Study the subject of "historiography".

  Compare the marked differences between the accounts of the so-called synoptic gospels. As examples, see how differently each handles the stories of his birth, his death and his resurrection. None was an eye witness to any of these events, with the earliest (Mark) written at least 30 years after Jesus had been killed (and later than the death of Paul).

  Worship God, not the Bible.

  Doug
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  Doug Mason

  sabastious,

  Why has God permitted so many changes to be made to these written words? Why has he not preserved the original writings? I presume you understand the meaning of "Lower Criticism".

  Doug
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  possible-san

  Doug Mason.
  
  Thank you for your reply.
  Although I wrote to sabastious, I received the reply from you.

  The other Greek words for "love" refer to emotional love, such as within a family or to erotic love.
  
  So the love that a man has for his wife, or that a child has for their parent, is in no way related to the meaning of "agape" as employed by the NT community.

  With regard to "agape", probably we need to take the "usage in the LXX" into consideration.
  
  Perhaps, in the LXX and the NT, I think that the word "Eros" was not used.
  And in the LXX, the Greek word "agape" was used for expressing "man and woman's love/romance" like Eros
  
  But in the NT, that word (agape) has a meaning deeper than that.
  And that is not only the meaning "he likes her emotionally", for instance.
  http://biblos.com/ephesians/5-25.htm
  
  
  possible
• 

  Scottiebear7

  I think it notable to point out, as some of the posters here have done, that there are an incredible number of inconsistencies in the Bible. Through the varied pulling of texts out of the Bible, the Watchtower would love to have you believe that there are not. That is why they dwell on specific passages, versus taking the whole context, the whole meaning of a book, into consideration. Were these inconsistencies mistakes? I don't think they specifically were... these were stories, traditions, history, etc. that were passed down by a culture of people. Do you honestly think Moses sat down and wrote the initial books of the bible? If he did, then how did he screw up the arrival of the ten commandments between Exodus and Deuteronomy?

  So, to dwell on a phrase like "How can love hate"? That is WBTS thinking. Broaden your perspective.

  PSac is correct... the whole reason Jesus died for our sins was to create a new covenant. It wasn't like "hey, I'm Jesus, I have nothing better to do, so I'll come down and teach a little, perform a miracle here and there, and then die on a cross and then become resurrected". There obviously was a need because the old teachings were being corrupted and used incorrectly, so Jesus came amongst us to set us straight. He also gave us a new commandment, which was to love our neighbors as ourselves, and I think a lot of people (notably the WBTS) forget that.

  As far as the grammatical stuff goes: Love can be a noun and a verb, but God can only be used as a noun. So, no, you can not say "I God my wife", you are replacing a verb with a noun.

  Good topic!
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  sabastious

  There obviously was a need because the old teachings were being corrupted and used incorrectly, so Jesus came amongst us to set us straight.

  Christianity is a train wreck. Sorry to say it :(

  I wonder how many Christian's openly admit their Holy Handbook to be a collection of cultural stories and legends (not to mention admit that Moses didn't write some of the books). The damn book says it's perfect and inspired by God, the Bible, like the WT is a house of cards. If it contains anything false then it has to be thrown in the dumpster because it says that it doesn't.

  What I see are human brains reconciling errors in the Bible to have "meaning" instead of invalidating the Religion. I understand, it's the way it has to be.

  -Sab
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  not a captive

  Dear sab,

  We Christians should be a lot more skeptical of translations and a lot more aware of the problems of understanding another language and culture. If we really want to understand what God is trying to say to us we should do our homework. God may have an idea but by the time it has filtered through and to humans it is a miracle that anyone "gets it"

  Problem # 1 God has to use our words to write His thoughts. BIG PROBLEM.

  Problem # 2 Translation depends on folks not being too creative with the original language.

  Problem # 3 Some people have bias when they translate the Bible.

  Problem # 4 " " " " " " read " " .

  Problem # 5 People think that they will never be able to get past the first 4 problems and never try.

  Problem # 6 People just don't care enough to take the time because it isn't so easy to understand God from the OT. Jesus' disciples had these problems pretty much the same in his day.

  So I have only one word to say on this matter. It is not "love" and it is not "hate".

  The word is: TESTICLES

  Why "testicles"? This word in the Hebrew most clearly reveals the prickly problems (no pun intended) of translation and the delightful surprises in trying to understand Bible talk.

  In a WT study years ago the proper fear of God was under discussion: "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom Prov. 9:10" was prominently featured. But something was amiss. The material strained to distinguish between reverence vs. terror of Jehovah. I felt that if there really was a big difference in this fear or that, but it needed to come from several contexts and it must show up in the original language.

  So I pulled out the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance.

  There certainly were more than one kind of "fear" in the Hebrew text. There were plenty of listings for fear, afraid, terror, etc. The Hebrew "fear" in Prov. 9:10 was reverential fear/yirah.

  But what caught my attention was another word that only a pastoral people would have used.The word was pachad pronounced pakh'-ad. It showed up in verses like Job 22:10 "Therefore snares are round about thee, and sudden fear troubleth thee." And pachad/fear was the same word as pachad/testicle.

  I was thrilled. I myself lived on a rough-and-tumble farm. Intact male animals that fought or became agitated responded just as the scriptures implied: When fear struck, the family jewels ascended immediately. It was as though they had been gelded. Reverential fear if you were being a good boy probably didn't have this effect.

  I shared this information at the appropriate moment in the study since the difference between reverential fear and ball-shrinking terror was an important distinction to me as it apparently was to the early Hebrews. Perhaps others didn't find it a necessary bit of information; you could have hear a pin drop as I gave a brief outline of Hebrew's terror-based fear.

  Read and dig. It dug me out of Jehovah's Witnesses and it made me appreciate why Jesus was called the Logos--because words so often fail us.

  You have really good questions, sab
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  not a captive

  P.S.

  Dear sab,

  Were you raised in "the Truth"? You sound really burned by it all. I tell you what I think. I really think that Jesus had a huge problem overcoming the Old Scriptures that were such a rotten way to learn anything about God. Not that you can't get the picture , kinda, sorta,but not very well. It was a mean rough time.

  Jesus was the Logos. He showed us what love is. I don't have to be a Greek scholar to know he was wonderful and if he says that he reflects his father, then I love his Father. And it makes me look at the claims made concerning the role the Hebrew Scriptures have in revealing God to us. I am careful. You seem to be careful but maybe more cynical. I don't think we should jump to conclusions on the Bible--Especially Hebrew.

  anyway, I enjoy the thoughts or questions you throw out for discussion.

  Maeve
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  tec

  He showed us what love is. I don't have to be a Greek scholar to know he was wonderful and if he says that he reflects his father, then I love his Father

  NotaCaptive - This is how I learned to love God. When I was younger, I used to think that I loved God. I used to say that I loved God. But I didn't know God, and it was more of a fear about what would happen if I said I didn't love Him. Then, as I was learning about Jesus, and coming to love Him... it was like a click in my head:

  Jesus loves his Father! I love Jesus; believe him to be a good man, the son of god, the truth and the living word/reflection of God. I respect and believe in Jesus judgment. If He considers his Father worthy of respect and love, then God must be worthy of respect and love.

  I loved God, through Jesus, right at that moment.

  That was when I started paying closer attention to the things that Jesus said were misconstrued about the laws of God in the OT. And I started looking at things with new eyes. Eyes of love and faith in Christ; and not eyes of fear.

  I guess that's the beginning of how I got here.

  Your post struck a chord, and I just thought I'd share.

  Tammy
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  not a captive

  Amen, Tammy.

  I'm seeing it that way. Jesus' remarks at places like Matt. 19: 8 is one of the many times that Jesus affirms a different God than the ones the Pharisees promoted. A God obscured by more than time and language. Just because it "was written" didn't mean that his Father advocated it as his ideal. Jesus said "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so."

  New eyes, new birth.

  Thanks for talking to me.