Inconsistencies in the Bible: Encyclopedia II - Inconsistencies in the Bible - Between the New Testament and the Old

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Between the New Testament and the Old

According to many commentators, several of them Christian, God in the Old Testament is often vengeful, taking abrupt and often merciless action upon his enemies. In contrast, the New Testament appears to present a much lighter deity, declaring that God is love. In the early days of Christianity, this apparent contradiction lead to, or was a result of, the gnostics.

The most prominent of these, Marcion, claimed that the God of the Old Testament is not the same god as that of the New, and in fact, that the God of the Hebrew Bible was the personification of evil, the demiurge. This essentially was the orthodox position turned on its head, making the serpent in the garden of Eden the hero rather than the villain, trying to save the couple from the evil deity denying them wisdom.

Marcion gave significant financial support to the early church, and so his views on this and on other matters, such as that Jesus was not exactly human (docetism), could not be ignored, and quickly they grew into an exceptionally large following known as the Marcionites. Justin Martyr declared that his views were spread throughout every race of men. Eventually, Marcion was excommunicated, but he afterwards continued to develop his sect independently of the remainder of Christianity, and was for a time evidently highly successful.

The influence of Marcion on Christianity cannot be underestimated. The threat Marcion represented to the other views in the 2nd-century church was perceived as so significant that those opposed to him collected together, even though they agreed on little else, and individuals wrote vast series of books on him, effectively creating an orthodoxy. The result of anti-Marcion action was that the church formally defined its teaching, produced a creed to explicitly exclude Marcionism (known as the Roman Symbol — later evolving into the Apostles' Creed) and listed the Biblical Canon (something he had done first, but missing out the whole Old Testament and much of the new). In the 20th century, Marcionism was still regarded as the most heretical of all heresies by the Roman Catholic church, and the most dangerous foe they had ever faced.

Gnosticism continued to appear throughout the centuries, until it was brutally suppressed in the Albigensian crusade, widely viewed as one of the most horrific acts of barbarity ever committed by the church, even by mediaeval standards. Although gnostic theology was not supported by the orthodoxy, the discrepancy between the apparent behaviour of God between the Old and New testaments nevertheless remained an issue that was seen to exist amongst Christians, even into modern times.

Some Christians proclaim that because of the stain of an original sin, mankind was prey to passion and instinct, angering God, until mankind learned control — at which point God's mercy shone through resulting in Jesus, thus explaining the behaviour discrepancy. The vast majority of Christians nevertheless do not see a complete rupture between the two parts of the Christian Bible, though many advocate some form of supersessionism.

Nonetheless, some aspects of God's attitude are the reverse of this apparent general trend. It is in the New Testament that Jesus talked about hell and how God gets angry regarding men's moral failings. Whereas it is in the Old Testament that God is described as kind and merciful, slow to anger. This Old Testament claim about God's attitude is one that appears to conflict with the demonstrated behaviour, an apparent inconsistency that Jews have claimed to address by stating that God is angered by sin and evil, even though he loves humanity and desires good for them.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Between the New Testament and the Old", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki