#1 Peter | 2006-05-01 15:57
"Peter, when I say that, I am accused of both heresy and blasphemy."
I don't have any position to lose.
But actually your formula is wrong that God the Father = Jehovah.
The Septuagint (LXX) does not use the word Jehovah. LXX is the version of the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament. The manuscripts currently used in the West are about 1000 years newer (they're Medieval). So any equation of God the Father is tentative and a modern innovation -- at best .
All Christians <i>do</i> make a difference between Old Testament religion and the Christianity. Read Leviticus and find all the laws and commandments that Christians do not follow!
Groups that try to revive Old Testament religion and combine it with Christianity are rightly called "cults," and they are typically controlling and psychologically harmful. Think about the Jehovah's Witnesses. (You won't find any of them in a pro-White site either, so don't worry about offending them.)
Think about St. Paul's virulent attacks against the "Judaizers."
Even Biblical literalists are not literal with the Old Testament. For example, in the numerous passages stating that the enemies of the Israelites must be killed to a man, they say that the enemy must have committed some grave sin. But that is not what the passage says. That is a rationalization. And this rationalization becomes difficult when the Israelites are ordered to slay even the women and children, and sometimes the <i>animals.</i>
The same standard of literalism that can be applied to the New Testament is not applied to the Old. (Besides, even the Old Testament itself says that the Old Testament was lost or destroyed four times, which is why Ezra had to revive it -- so, no one has the original Old Testament Urtext anywhere.)
The upshot is that the nature of deity in the Old Testament is not the same as the loving God in the New.
<b>No one denies this.</b>
Further, strictly speaking, God the Father in the New Testament is equivalent to <i>El</i>. El is cognate to Arabic <i>'allah,</i> meaning "god."
Jesus equated God the Father with El on the Cross: <b>El</b>ohe, <b>El</b>ohe, lama sabachthani. Indeed this means "My God, my God..." In Christian theology, Jesus was speaking to God the Father.
Why did he not say "Jehovah" instead of El?
The answer is this. In the mythology of the Levant, Jehovah was a lesser being than the father god El and is an adopted son. Moreover, in the Old Testament, in the oldest Greek and Qumran Hebrew texts of a passage in Deuteronomy, Jehovah is again of lower status than El. This conclusion has become the consensus among Biblical scholars. There are many articles online on this.
By the way, this does not suggest any Christian polytheism (although it does suggest an ancient polytheism in the OT where there are still more names of other gods). To Christians, Christ was begotten of the Father before all worlds and is himself God.
The most that I have ever heard said is that "Jehovah" is <b>an old Hebrew name for God.</b> But there is more scholarship conflicting with that than what I refer to here.
To assume that all Christians equate God the Father, the first person of the Holy and undivided Trinity, to Jehovah is not right.