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Station 4: Does the Old Testament contradict the New Testament?

StationHow 4:to Doesuse thethis Old Testament contradict the New Testament?outline
 

This outline is not a lesson. This outline contains a lot of useful information for the servant, but not necessarily for the targeted age group

  1. Read the below introductory information
  2. Review the provided resources
  3. Ask questions for clarification
  4. Prepare the presentation of the material (i.e. some activity or creative presentation of the material). A power point will be ineffective.
Introduction
  • IsIn God,the first Canticle, we chant "The Lord is a man of war"war; the Lord is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army He has cast into the sea" (Exodus 15:3) or- we oftentimes don't consider the words that we are saying. The Lord is a man of War.
  • At the end of that same Midnight Praise, we chant "O King of Peace grant us Your peace establish for us Your Peace and forgive us our sins" - The Lord is the King of Peace. We read in the New Testament that God is "the Lord of peace"Peace" (2 Thessalonians 3:16)
  • HowAre these two statements at odds with one another? Are they talking about two different Persons? Two different gods? 
  • It is common for Atheists to make similar claims regarding "the God of the Old Testament"
    • Famed atheist Richard Dawkins wrote: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins p31)
    • This is not a new idea - in the 1st Century, Marcion rose up and claimed Jesus is a separate god sent by the god of Israel, who had created the world, and who was vengeful. He made his own biblical canon, wrote his own gospel, and was excommunicated by the Church in 144 AD.
Bad Arguments

I recommend not providing these "bad arguments" when presenting the lesson, but rather knowing how to answer them if they come up. These are wetypically the arguments given by mainline Protestants who want to understanddefend the storiesScripture.

  • None of this stuff ever happened
    • "These are just stories" - "These are for a moral lesson" - etc.
    • This is not an Orthodox Perspective
    • If these things are fiction, and God could have chosen to reveal Himself in any way that takeHe placewanted, then that means God chose to reveal Himself with fictional acts of war and rape, etc. That is way worse than the reality!
    • We are getting God's perspective on these real events that happened
    • Definitely, in Joshuathe time of the Old Testament, there was a lot of war and Judges?a Didlot of evil things... and Israel was a part of that world. So if you remove these specific events from history, you're not removing evil from Israel's history, but you're removing God's perspective on it.

  • It's not God who changed, it's man who changed
    • "The people at that time were really primitive and we find their primitive understanding of God" - "They thought God wanted them to do this, but it wasn't" - "Now we understand what God really command them to kill whole cities?wants"
    • This stemsredefines the Scripture from asomething commongiven attackby nowadaysGod to human speculation about God, which takesopens difficultup passages like thosecriticism in the BookNew Testament as well (e.g. "St Paul didn't understand women" etc.). Now the Scripture is not authoritative, but I am authoritative over the Scripture
    • This is still not a sufficient answer to the question because it doesn't answer "why" but only answers "what now" (i.e. "we have left this behind)
    • Note: This is not to be confused with the concept that God reveals Himself more and more over time (i.e. milk vs solid food)
Old Testament Characters Doing Evil Things

Just because it is in the Scripture does not mean it is approved by God, or a model for good behavior, or encouraged by the Church. The following are some commonly arisen examples that you can research and prepare with.

  • Lot's offering of his daughters to the men of Sodom
  • The whole book of Judges
    • Levite's Concubine
    • Jephthah's Daughter
The Conquest of Canaan

The Conquest of the Israelites into Canaan is probably the most common form of the "God of the Old Testament" argument. See Chapter 31 by George Bassilios in Timeless Truth in Truthless Times, as well as Chapters 5-6-7-8-9 in Floods, Plagues, Wars... and asksa forLoving anGod? explanation,by orFr takesGabriel someWissa.

verses
  • Why did God command the conquering of the Canaanites?
  • Were the Canaanites really annihilated by the Israelites? Were they supposed to be?
  • Why didn't God give them another chance?
  • Why did God single out ofthe contextCanaanites, a single ethnic group?
  • TO DO
Resources
  • Timeless Truth in Truthless Times - George Bassilios
  • Floods, Plagues, Wars... and a distortedLoving imageGod? - Fr Gabriel Wissa
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