comparative religion rant

[breadandroses]

Can I just say that I'm really sick of references to the "Old Testament God" as some kind of vindictive asshole who likes to smite people? Especially as contrasted to the "New Testament God" who is just a hippie peacenik. It's facile and annoying, and totally misses the point.

I can't claim the same degree of familiarity with or attachment to the New Testament as to the Tanach, but I have spent a fair bit of time in hotel rooms, so I know something whereof I speak. There's a lot of "blessed are the peacemakers" but there's also Jesus having hissy fits and throwing people out of the Temple. There's "leave your father and mother and follow me." There's Paul, who had quite the stick up his butt. Not all peaches and light. While in Tanach you have Psalms, you have Shir Ha-Shirim (song of songs), you have Abraham, you have lots of rules about justice and mercy and compassion in all of those chapters in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers that people are so fond of bashing.

And that last is the real point, which I am backing into as is my wont. The two books have very different purposes, so of course the philosophies will be different. Jesus and his disciples, my understanding is, were acting as though the world was going to end very, very soon. Under those circumstances you don't need rules or long-term structures or anything except "love each other." None of that matters. The Torah is focused on building a just,humane society of people who can be or la-goyim, a light to the rest of the nations. To do this, especially with a group of people who have spent centuries as slaves, who have no concept of how to live as free people, you need rules. Lots of them. Rules that they can understand from where they are, like "if thou at all take thy neighbour's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him by that the sun goeth down." Or, "thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind."* Small, concrete examples from which you can draw larger lessons about justice and compassion.

My point being, religious texts are complex and multilayered and all have parts that are disturbing to us enlightened 21st century types. God knows I have trouble with plenty of what I find in Tanach. But dismissing the whole thing is obnoxious and short-sighted.



*apologies for the thous; it's from the Machon Mamre translation.