Did You Ever Wonder...
Why there was a mean God at the front of the Bible (Old Testament) and a loving God at the latter part of the Bible (New Testament)?
When I was little, forced Bible reading was a daily practice. I'm glad. It gave me discipline and fortitude. The idea was to read the entire Bible in 1 year, every year, by completing 2 chapters a day. It works. I've never made it straight through a reading of the entire Bible, though I've read it in its entirety over the years in my own haphazard way.
Either way, the God of the Bible is either 2 different beings, or suffers from bipolar disorder and outright schizophrenia.
He's super mean in the Old Testament, ordering wars, pestilence, fire from heaven, mass genocides (including women and children), and is a 'jealous' god. He also demands that there be no other gods before him (which means that there were definitely many gods) and thinks he's pretty much the one-and-only.
Over the years, I've researched this matter (partly because I wanted to have a satisfying answer and partly because I love the ancient mysteries).
There are 2 ways of looking at this issue, both of which I outline in this message from Christian Witches Church (we call it Sunday Inspiration) held on Clubhouse on Sunday, 10/10 @10. (Yes, that's 3 10's...)
Though I'll briefly outline the 2 possibilities here in this blog post, you can listen to the message in full detail on the Christian Witches Podcast (Episode 6) HERE:
Possibility #1: The Gnostic Paradigm
Though the term 'Gnostic' is one that scholars tell us was not used by the people of antiquity (they didn't call themselves Gnostic). We call them Gnostic, in hindsight. There are different strands and views in the overall Gnostic paradigm, so it's not entirely accurate to think of this group as one big religion.
With that said, there's a creation story that intrigues me from this strand of spirituality. It asserts that the physical world was not created by Almighty God, as our Benefactor.
Instead, the physical world came into being by a negation of cosmic order by a divine being (in some of the legends it's Sophia who takes this action) who takes it upon herself to create a being without pairing with her divine mate. The offspring is a monstrous being, though still part divine. This monstrous being was hidden in a part of the universe where it couldn't be seen (or have any contact with) the other gods, thus, it thought it was the only one.
According to this mythos, this is the one who created the physical world, including humans (even though we retain a spark of divinity within since our uber origins are still divine).
This monstrous being is the god of the Old Testament (notice this god is not capitalized since it is not considered Almighty God in this context).
That would explain a lot. I'm not saying it's exactly what happened. I'm playing with it in my consciousness and have found multiple points of resonance in the Gnostic teachings for myself.
Do the Gnostic teachings resonate with you? Let us know in the comments... (Listen to the podcast for the background details on this, since I'm only summarizing the high points in this blog post.)
Possibility #2: The Anunnaki Paradigm
Though I've studied a LOT about the Anunnaki, there seem to be 2 camps about the issue: either they created humanity to enslave us or they held humanity in good regard and would like to see our ascension.
Or maybe it's a little of both. I'm not saying it's either/or. I'm saying that it's yet another way of looking at the creation story and why there seem to be 2 gods in the Bible, one who's a mean-ass, and another who's all love all the time.
In the Anunnaki paradigm, these ancient star travelers created humanity. They also participated in wars in heaven. This is also mentioned in the Bible, so I don't think it's outside the realm of possibilities. Actually, there's not much outside the realm of possibilities for me, considering this is an infinite universe.
If the Anunnaki were indeed the progenitors of the human race, it would make sense that the Old Testament (if it was referring to them) would present to us a god who's angry, jealous and demands to be the only game in town, especially considering that the Anunnaki were a race of many superbeings. We can surmise that there may have been competition among them.
Either way, they too are not the Almighty God, the pure undifferientiated Great Spirit or Source.
What has your research led you to know and understand? We'd love to hear in the comments...
Blessed Be,
Rev. Valerie Love (aka KAISI)
Rev. Valerie Love is the author of 24 books on practical spirituality, magick, the occult and Christian Witchcraft and is the Founder of the Covenant of Christian Witches Mystery School in the Solomonic Tradition (CCW for short). Explore the Christian Witchcraft series of books intentionally designed for you... the practicing Christian Witch.
(Oh and if you've read any of the books, would you be kind and leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads? Thanks beyond the moon!)