Reading Bible is causing me to lose my faith

[Joe Citizen]

I've read the bible (old and new testaments) cover to cover twice in my life. I use the Student Bible of the International version. I'm now on my third time around, however I find myself really struggling with acceptance of the old testament and it is causing me lose my faith (which previously was very strong). The old testament is full of overt violence, aggression and atrocities..... all supposedly committed at the behest of God. For example, God telling the Israelites the slaughter very man, woman and child (numbering in the tens of thousands) in neighboring tribes many times, and actually punishing the Israelites for showing mercy (and therefore disobeying his orders). That does not sound like a kind, loving God. And, why didn't an omnipotent God just do this himself? So, it makes you doubt ALL of the old testament (and by extension the new testament too). I'm not sure how people are supposed to get moral lessons and directions for proper living from that. It seems to vary wildly from the more loving messages in the new testament, but even Jesus himself frequently refers back to the old testament, it's prophets and teachings.

There also are numerous laws/directives (Leviticus, Deuteronomy etc) , aside from the 10 commandments, that seem to have no point/purpose and don't seem to have anything to do with a loving message (ex: Don't cook a young goat in the milk of it's mother). Again, applying a logical mind, this leaves me with more and more doubts.

I rationalize the time period, the potential translational errors, the potential political interference etc., but logical analysis still leaves me shaken.

[Brucknerian]

[Replying to Eddie Ramos in post #2]

Well explained.
This was also an issue for me; until I read the Bible more thoroughly and pieced together that Satan's seed began with Cain, a son of Satan as he's referred to in the book of Acts; and it lends more sense (literally) to Christ's admonishment of the Sadducees out to destroy him, calling them sons of Satan, literally offsprings. It may be difficult for most to accept a literal, not just allegorical reading of such texts; they are both, as for instance where Satan is depicted as the Leviathan mentioned in the book of Job; and in Isaiah where it is said God will slay the serpent, the leviathan who lives in the sea--both allegorical, yet also literal. Ezekiel's lamentation taken up for the King of Tyre ends with "and I will bring a fire forth from your midst, this will turn you to ashes before all those who behold you, and never will you be anymore." A reference to Satan's end following the millennium mentioned in the book of Revelation.

When scriptures are put together they paint a picture of two worlds in conflict. It's estranged from the thinking of most people. The tendency is to read the Bible as though it were just another book, something not estranged from the practical, ordinary, humdrum world that most people live in. It's therefore a serious challenge to understand what's really being portrayed in the bible. There's the natural tendency from this inability to divorce our thinking from this ordinary world of our experience to see the Amalekites as anything but ordinary peoples like ourselves; whereas they are something else altogether. This comes across in Jesus's rebuke of the Sadducees. One must ask oneself why such evil in the world? Why does it appear that there are those who walk among us that have no normal human conscience? Example--the Nazis who remorselessly murdered and tortured Jewish mothers and their children in Nazi concentration camps. That too has its answer in the Bible. One has to search out the answer however. It has something to do with the fact that this is not God's world--he is not in charge yet; it belongs to the Leviathan. Evil exists by reason of God's absence, not God's presence. That was the lesson God taught Job, alowing the ruler of this world to have his way with Job. A righteous man. The precautionary message to Job was that he gird himself in God's armour to protect himself against the attacks of the Leviathan. Christ also rejected Satan's offer to have all the kingdoms and the glory of this world in return for worshipping him as the ruler of this kingdom. It's not time yet for Christ to take over and offer us his kingdom. Evil will not be abolished until Christ's return, as made clear in the book of Isaiah that speaks of what the world is like before, and what it will be like after Christ's return--as King of kings, and Lord of lords, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counsellor.

[Brucknerian]

I've read the bible (old and new testaments) cover to cover twice in my life. I use the Student Bible of the International version. I'm now on my third time around, however I find myself really struggling with acceptance of the old testament and it is causing me lose my faith (which previously was very strong). The old testament is full of overt violence, aggression and atrocities.

I rationalize the time period, the potential translational errors, the potential political interference etc., but logical analysis still leaves me shaken.

Don't let your faith be shaken easily.
There is immense evil in the world presently.
Why is this?
It's because this is not God's world, it belongs to Lucifer. This is made clear throughout the Bible.
There is something missing in your reading of the scriptures. If you take in the whole picture it will begin to make more sense to you, I'm sure.
Beginning with Genesis.
Satan is depicted as the serpent in the garden.
Eve is depicted as giving birth to both Cain and Able.
Able was slain by Cain, and Cain went on to have offspring of his own.
Cain is depicted in the book of Acts as a son of Satan--this is not allegorical, it's literal.
Genesis speaks of both God's seed, leading to Jesus, and Satan's seed, leading to the Nephilim, also called the sons of God--referring to the fallen angels who through their own free wills decided to follow after Satan.
These have the power to transform themselves into physical form--regardless of however strange this may seem to us, this is nevertheless the world depicted in the Bible, whether one chooses to believe in such or not.
The world depicted in the Bible is divorced from the ordinary thinking depicted in so many other books we might choose to read; however, giants are mentioned in Greek sources as though they were a literal reality, known to the Greeks. The giants or 'men of renown' as they are called, such as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, is of the descendents of the sons of God--fallen angels. They stem not from the bloodline of Seth, Adam's third son, but from Cain--Satan's seed.
God is a God of perfection. It was and still is Satan's mission to pollute the bloodline that previously led to Christ and the bloodlines that now, spiritually, are connected to Christ through God's Holy Spirit.
Another question to ask is, why do we see the extent of evil that we do in the world today?
Human history I heard say, is a history stained in bloodshed. This is true since the earliest traces of human civilzation reaching back to the Summerians, then the Assyrians, and Babylonians. Greek and Roman history likewise; and what about the present? Wars and more wars.
What about the Nazis who murdered Jews in the second world war?
What about those who presently walk among us who show no signs of having a normal human conscience?
Serial killers, rapists and the like?
Answer?
It's found in the very book you're losing your faith in.
This world belongs to Satan and his offspring--whether literally, or metaphorically.
Evil will not be abolished until Christ returns, as he says he will in the 24th chapter of Matthew.
Read the book of Isaiah to find out what the world will be like then.
It will be far different from the world we live in now.
One of my favourite lines from that book is "and the rulers of this world will be gathered up and put in prisons, and after a long time they will be judged."
There are an abundance of prisons and penetenturies in the world, are there not?
And judged for what?
They will be judged by Christ (the Supreme Judge whose judgment is severe and final) for all their crimes against humanity, their corruption, their ties to the global elite (Satan's cabal) who profit from the propagation of endless wars, and using their authority to enrich themselves and all their friends at the expense of the citizens whose interests they claim with all their idle and hollow words to represent.
Stick to the Bible, search it out more thoroughly. You won't find solace or the answers that happen to make sense of everything anywhere else.

[Angi]

When I first read the Old Testament, I also found it hard to reconcile the violent parts with the idea of a loving God, especially compared to the New Testament’s focus on compassion and mercy. What helped me a bit was thinking about it as a historical context thing—like, maybe these stories reflect the raw, often brutal times people were living through and their attempts to make sense of God in that environment. I also try to focus on the larger themes, like justice or mercy, instead of getting stuck on every specific command or event. It doesn’t make it all easy to swallow, but it has made it a little less jarring for me personally.

[JehovahsWitness]

When I first read the Old Testament, I also found it hard to reconcile the violent parts with the idea of a loving God, especially compared to the New Testament’s focus on compassion and mercy. What helped me a bit was thinking about it as a historical context thing—like, maybe these stories reflect the raw, often brutal times people were living through and their attempts to make sense of God in that environment. I also try to focus on the larger themes, like justice or mercy, instead of getting stuck on every specific command or event. It doesn’t make it all easy to swallow, but it has made it a little less jarring for me personally.

While there is no denying the brutality of ancient times , there is nothing brutal or unloving about Jehovah, the God of the bible. His actions are always depicted as being in perfectly balanced with his four cardinal qualities of love, justice power and wisdom.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

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[Athetotheist]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #34

While there is no denying the brutality of ancient times , there is nothing brutal or unloving about Jehovah, the God of the bible. His actions are always depicted as being in perfectly balanced with his four cardinal qualities of love, justice power and wisdom.

Even when he's the one commanding the brutality?

Reading the Bible need not cause anyone to lose faith in anything other than the Bible itself. There are countless ways to conceive of a loving creator without trying to use that creator to justify any human atrocity.