[Paleopsych] God the Liberal

[Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.]

Frank is in rare form here, thoroughly enjoyable essay. Thanks, and a 
humble bow to his scholarship.
Lynn

Premise Checker wrote:

> 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
> _______________________________________________
> paleopsych mailing list
> paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>