[Paleopsych] God the Liberal

[Premise Checker]

God the Liberal

God, at least the one in the Bible, is a liberal. He had too high
expectations of human nature.

Timeline (all from the Scofield Reference Bible, which uses the King James 
Version, but using, not the original 1611 spelling, but that of 1769, which 
continues to this day):

4004 BC: On the sixth day, God makes the first, or Edenic, Covenant (Gen. 
1:26-3:13)

4004 BC: On the eighth day, God kicks Adam and Eve out of Paradise.

4004 BC: Later that day, God makes the Second, or Adamic, Covenant (Gen. 
3:14-19).

2353 BC: God floods the earth (Gen. 6).

2348 BC: God makes the Third, or Noahic, Covenant (Gen. 8:20-11:9).

2247 BC: Tower of Babel: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their 
language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord 
scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth" (Gen. 11:7-8).

1913 BC: God makes the Fourth, or Abrahamic, Covenant (Gen. 15:18).

1491 BC: God makes the Fifth, or Mosaic, Covenant (Ex. 20, which includes the 
Ten Commandments).

1451 BC: God makes the Sixth, or Palestinian, Covenant (Deu. 30).

1042 BC: God makes the Seventh, or David, Covenant (II Sam. 7). I am not sure 
what crashed expectations of the Lord necessitated all the additional 
covenants, but God got so fed up with man that he decided to end his entire 
creation.

4 BC: God, just but nevertheless merciful, sends his son to forgive individuals 
(all of them) that fail to live up to his various commandments, provided they 
will accept the offer. This constitutes the Eighth, or New, Covenant (Heb. 
8:8).

26 AD: John the Baptist is fed up with the whole lot of the Jews, not just 
those in the religious establishment: "Then said he to the multitude that came 
forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to 
flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7).

31 AD: Jesus repeats the charge: "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being 
evil, speak good things? for out of the of abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." (Mat. 12:34), though later he restricts the charges to "scribes and 
Pharisees" (Mat. 23:29-33).

33 AD: In a familiar act of rent-seeking, the Jewish religious establishment 
induces the government (the Romans) to get rid of the competition (all four 
Gospels). This is, of course, highly controversial, but as a Public Choice 
economist, I know rent-seeking when I see it.

You would think that by this time, God would have offered a covenant more in 
keeping with human nature as it is, not what a liberal would like it to be. 
before 70 AD (I accept John A.T. Robinson's _Redating the New Testament_ here, 
while Scofield assigns 96 AD), God reveals to St. John the Divine that, 
nevertheless, "And I saw a new heaven an a new earth: for the first heaven and 
the first earth were passed away: and there was no more sea (Rev. 21:1).

Fri Sep 24, 2004  12:18 pm