"Gospel Quest" (or The Jesus Timeline)

[Jenny A]

DeistPaladin and Minimalist, you both have been around here long enough to have received apologists' answers to your arguments. But your arguments seem to me to boil down to two claims: the God of the Bible is evil, and he was authored by deceptive people.

This thread is devoted to one simple questions, are the Gospels reliable? Changing the subject won't make them reliable.

What if God is good, though? What if he is love itself, as 1 John 4:8 describes? DeistPaladin, every judgment in the Bible is preceded by years, sometimes hundreds of years, of God's pleading for the people to repent.

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It is good that you've quoted Numbers 16. But I am going to take some time now and quote the rest of the Bible, starting with the old testament book by book, all infused with God's message of love. This is to provide a broader picture, rather than cherry-picking. If you will read with me:

To begin God's relationship with Israel, he makes a covenant with Abraham. This covenant is one sided: God will bless Israel.

Genesis 22:17-18
“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Exodus 6:7
“I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.”

Repeatedly God promises to take the Jews to the “promised land”. However, when they arrive they forget God's power and return to the desert afraid. They spend 40 years in the desert, long enough so that only the two people who trusted God (Joshua and Caleb) are still alive to see the promised land. God leads Israel to victory time and time again, fulfilling his promises: “So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands. Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.” (Joshua 21:43-45)

But the Israelites, against God's commands, treat many of the Canaanites as neighbors and begin worshipping their idols. God punishes the Jews by sending raiders. The Jews call on God for help, and he sends heroes, or “judges”, to organize the people and defeat the enemy—men like Samson and Gideon. The cycle of sin, punishment, repentance, and deliverance repeats at least a dozen times through the book of Judges.

Next, a woman from Moab called Ruth marries her “kinsman-redeemer” (a picture of Christ) and goes on to become grandmother to king David and non-Jewish ancestor in the lineage of Jesus.

In those days Israel had no king except the Lord. They rebel against God, asking Samuel the prophet, “Appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” God tells Samuel: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” (1 Samuel 8:4-9)

King Saul did indeed “claim as his rights” much of the Jews' possessions. And he failed to defeat the Philistines, who continually harassed Israel. Ultimately, he breaks God's law by placing himself above the priests and offering a sacrifice only a priest is allowed to offer. Samuel tells him, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22) Soon after, Saul dies at the hands of the Philistines. David, a former shepherd boy, becomes king. He is rewarded for not killing Saul, who hunted him. He even told his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” (1 Samuel 24:6) David wrote most of the Psalms and is called “a man after God's own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14) He understands God's love. He pens, “You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you” (Psalm 86:5) and “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17). David committed adultery and murder, but he knew that if he repented, God would forgive him. And God blessed David, saying “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house [i.e. dynasty] for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” This looked forward to David's son Solomon, but also to Jesus Christ, the son of David, who would rule forever.

When Solomon dedicates the temple he built for the Lord he says, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27) and then “Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for Your name's sake (for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this temple, hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name. (41-43)

Solomon prayed for wisdom and received blessings tenfold. Israel was so prosperous that the temple contained more than 100k talents of gold and 1m talents of silver (1 Ch 22:14) and so much cedar that Solomon paid King Hiram with 20 towns in Galilee.

What follows is a line of kings who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (a common phrase). 1 and 2 Kings describe how the kingdom split into a northern and southern kingdom. Only a few kings were loyal to God and kept his commands, most notably Josiah, who found the book of the Law and read it before all Israel. God sends a number of prophets to warn Israel of coming doom if they do not repent.

Isaiah echoes what Solomon predicted—that God loves everyone, not just Israel.

“And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Is 56:7)

Jeremiah 7:2-3
"Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place.'"

Jeremiah 7:22-26
For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’

Zechariah 8:2 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.'”

This is a theme throughout the OT. The Israelites chase after false idols, and God tries to get their attention back. He sends prophets, who they reject. He sends the Assyrians and Babylonians to take them captive. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and Joel warn of the coming judgment. Amos warns other nations that they will be punished for their sins. Hosea is told by God to marry a practicing prostitute to illustrate Israel's adultery with other gods. Lamentations describes Israel's grief when they are finally borne away to Babylon, after hundreds of years of warnings. Ezekiel, a captive, predicts that the Jewish nation will, in fact, rebel (in spite of warnings that they will not succeed) and will then be destroyed. Yet he adds that in time God will “bring them home from the lands of their enemies” (Ez 39:27). Zephaniah also predicts this, saying, “I will gather you together and bring you home again. I will give you a good name, a name of distinction, among all the nations of the earth” (Zeph 3:20). Daniel, a hostage, receives protection from the lions and a place in the king's court, because he relied on the Lord. Esther and Mordecai received similar rewards for their loyalty. After 70 years, Haggai convinces the Jews to start rebuilding Jerusalem's temple. Zechariah assures them that God will not only help them rebuild the temple, but the entire nation. Ezra returns with an early wave of Jews. He discovers that the people are breaking some of God's most important laws. Knowing that this kind of sin led to God's judgment earlier, he teaches them. This time, they repent. Nehemiah leads hundreds to rebuild the wall. Fast forward four hundred years, and Jesus comes. He is the fulfillment of all the OT prophecies, the “lamb without blemish or defect” (Ex 12:5, 1 Pet 1:19), “led like a sheep to the slaughter” (Is 53:7, Acts 8:32), “Son of Man” (Daniel 7:13, Mark 14:62), “they will call him Immanuel, which means 'God with us” (Is 7:14, Matt 1:23), and many more http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellan...hecies.htm

Through all this, it becomes clear that God loves his people and blesses those who seek him. Israel was the rescue boat for the world, through which God would reveal his true nature, seen in Jesus—that he is self-sacrificial, others-deferring, worth-ascribing love. Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” (Hebrews 1:3). At times the rescue boat itself needed rescue, but God is faithful. He remembered his promises. The temple in Jerusalem, the intersection of heaven and earth—was a foreshadowing of Jesus who would “destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days” (Mark 14:58). Jesus body itself was the temple, and it rose after three days in the tomb. There is no temple in Jerusalem today, and no sacrifices, because Jesus fulfilled it all on the cross.

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The whole OT is about god favoring one people of all others for reasons unknown. He does awful things to some of his people, accepts human sacrifice, and does much worse to non Hebrews. But none of these things are history. Would you like a whole new thread explaining why most of Genesis is impossible, the story of Exodus didn't happen, and Israel wasn't concurred by the Hebrews as described. There's nothing historical to speak of in the Bible until Kings and Chronicles and they aren't all that reliable. I'll do it, but only if you promise to actually refute what I say by engaging with the arguments and not by just citing huge apologetic documents---quote the relevant portions instead. Then try to defend them from counter arguments. Hint, you are doing nothing remotely like that here.

All of this history. One overarching message. Ask yourself what's more likely: a combination of coincidence and collaboration... or God caring?

What is most likely is that it is story written during the Babylonian captivity for the purpose of uniting the Hebrews using traditional and conflicting sources.