Many believe and teach that the Bible is a collection of made-up stories (“many” include Christian leaders who do not believe in the divine authorship of the Word). Believing that the Word is a man-made construct ignores the many proofs the Torah contains that argue for its authenticity (The Bible: You Can Believe It! – John Schoenheit). Click on the link to read it online or on the book to purchase it at Amazon.
The God of the Bible is so revolutionary when compared to the gods of the pagans (and even the gods worshiped today – e.g., Allah is a contradiction of the God of the Torah, not another name for Him), that human progress could not have happened without His identification and adherence to the Word He gave to His people.
Here are over a dozen reasons why the God of the Torah is the most important “idea” in the history of the world:
1. The God introduced by the Torah is the first god in history to have been entirely above and beyond nature. One of the first things God tells humans is to exercise dominion over nature.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26-28
This liberated humanity from believing it was controlled by nature, a revolution that made moral and scientific progress possible. Man was able to understand that he could study and ‘control’ nature, not worship and be vulnerable to its extremes.
A second consequence of God being above nature is humans are not part of nature – meaning that just as we are to control the natural world outside us, we are to control our own human nature within us as well. We are to govern our lives by moral law, not by human nature. Animals and nature have no concept of morality, only of existence. We are to do more than just exist.
2. The God of the Bible is not identified as a sexual being. Though identified as, “He”, this is a neutral term in the same way that “man” or “mankind” may refer to men and women. Neither sex is more closely identified as “Godlike” as it is in pagan religions.
If God were referred to as “she”, this would instantly assign God a gender, where the term, “He”, does not. Pagans regularly assign their gods a gender and also introduce a whole bevvy of sexual entanglements and intrigues between gods and goddesses, and even between gods and humans.
Genesis 6 introduces the narrative of renegade angels cohabitating with human woman, but God puts a stop to it, destroys the off-spring (the Flood), and severely punishes the angels responsible.
3. The God introduced by the Torah brought universal morality into the world. Pagan religions depict gods that are restricted to a people (tribe) or to a territory.
Only if a moral God is universal (encompassing all of humanity and the entire world), is morality universal. Morality was no longer local or individual. Cultures do not need to be universal. The world can be enriched by multiple cultures, but morality must be universal. Morality that is not universal is a local custom.
4. The moral God introduced by the Torah means morality is real. “Good” and “evil” are not merely individual or societal opinions, but objectively real.
5. The God introduced by the Torah morally judges every human being. There had never been a concept like this. And it became a major reason for Jew-hatred. People do not like to be judged, and the people who introduced the idea of a God who morally judges people have paid a terrible price for bringing the idea into the world. The social psychologist Ernest van den Haag wrote:
Fundamental to [anti-Semitism] though seldom explicit and conscious is hostility to the Jewish belief in one God. . . . [The Jews’] invisible God not only insisted on being the one and only and allpowerful God-Creator and Lord of everything, and the only rightful claimant to worship – He also developed into a moral God. . . . No wonder [the Jews] are the target of all those who resent His domination.
The Jewish Mystique, 1977
No doubt, some of the current aggressive atheism is due to an animosity toward the idea there is a God Who will judge all of us by a code they find too restrictive. The Satanic church advocates “Do what thou wilst.” It is a better fit for those who abhor moral conduct . . . and consequently seek destruction.
6. The just and good God introduced by the Torah gives humanity hope. One of those hopes is there is ultimate justice. We witness scores of instances of injustice on a daily basis (especially if you watch the news) and few ever face just consequences for their immoral behavior.
The belief that God judges humans means both the good and the evil will get what they ultimately deserve is the basis for belief in life after death. Even though justice is rarely served in this world, there is a good God who will ultimately set things right, though maybe not in our lifetime.
7. The God introduced by the Torah introduced holiness – the elevation of human beings from animals to creatures created in the divine image.
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.
Leviticus 19:1-2
See my blog, Ye Shall be Holy.
8. The God introduced by the Torah gives every individual unprecedented self-worth. Since all humans are created in God’s image and the Earth was created for man, each of us is infinitely valuable. Every person has the right to say, “For my sake was the world created.”
Remind yourself of this when you are feeling despair. There is some special mission and task only you can accomplish.
9. The God introduced by the Torah is necessary for human brotherhood. Since we all have the same Father, we are all brothers and sisters. As the Prophet Malachi asked:
Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Malachi 2:10
10. The God introduced by the Torah began the long journey to belief in human equality – solely as a result of the Torah statement that each of us is created in God’s image. The thinking that some humans are inferior to others is what makes slavery possible.
Slavery was abolished on a wide scale first in the Western world by Christians who were rooted in the Torah and the rest of the Bible and who specifically cited the Torah doctrine that all humans are created in God’s image.
11. The God introduced by the Torah is incorporeal (no body; not physical). This opened the human mind to abstract thought by enabling humans to think in terms of a reality beyond that which is accessible to our senses.
It also negates the image at the beginning of this blog – God as depicted on the Sistine Chapel by Michaelangelo.
12. The God introduced by the Torah teaches us the physical is not the only reality. Consequently, there can be non-physical realities such as a soul, an afterlife, and morality.
13. The God introduced by the Torah means there is ultimate meaning to existence and to each of our lives. Without this Creator, existence is random and purposeless.
People making up meanings for their lives can be a good thing (at least, when that meaning is moral). Many things – evil ideologies are the most obvious example – that give people meaning are not moral. Still, these made-up meanings are nothing more than artificial constructs if they are not tied to a universal morality (like the one of the God of the Torah).
An atheist professor once summarized the work of another atheist philosopher:
Ultimately, our lives are meaningless. Evolution is blind and serves no intrinsic purpose; in a cosmic sense, we each live for an insignificant amount of time. . . .
[David] Benatar, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, argues that humans can enjoy “terrestrial” [earthly] meanings – nurturing children, fighting for the rights of refugees, composing a symphony or making a delicious breakfast, for example. . . . Nevertheless, we are each but a “blip in cosmic time and space.” Mr. Benatar insists that most of us are terminally anxious about this lack of cosmic meaning. . . .
I [Joanna Bourke] did a very unscientific poll of my friends. None of them believe that there is some wider purpose to human existence.
Joanna Bourke, “Staring at the Void: Joanna Bourke reviews The Human Predicament by David Benatar, Oxford 2017,” Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2017
sad.
14. The God introduced by the Torah gives human beings free will. If we are only material beings (like the dust of which we are composed), everything we do is determined by our genes and by our environment. Only if we have a non-material soul can we rise above our genes and our environment and act autonomously.
The secular denial of anything beyond the physical deprives human beings of free will. That is why Clarence Darrow, one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers in American history (as well as America’s most famous religious skeptic), opposed all punishment of criminals:
All people are products of two things, and two things only – their heredity and environment. And they act in exact accord with the heredity which they took from all the past and for which they are in no wise responsible, and the environment.
Clarence Darrow, “Remarks from a Debate on Capital Punishment with Judge Alfred J. Talley,” New York City October 27, 1924
The just and good God introduced by the Torah gave humanity hope that we are not subjects, locked in a chaste system, and that there is ultimate justice.
15. The God introduced by the Torah teaches might is not right. It is God Who determines what is right, not displays of strength and force.
“Survival of the Fittest” has been the unofficial motto of every tyrannical regime. Since they wield great might, they have the ‘right’ to rule in any way that they see fit. Your survival is of little consequence to them, but it is to the God of the Torah.
16. Finally, the God introduced by the Torah made human moral progress possible. Indeed, the Torah invented human moral progress.
In the words of New York University historian Henry Bamford Parkes,
Judaism [starting with the Torah] repudiated the cyclic view of history held by all other ancient peoples and affirmed that it was a meaningful process leading to the gradual regeneration of humanity. This was the origin of the Western belief in progress . . . .
Henry Bamford Parkes, The Divine Order: Western Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (New York: Knopf, 1969
What was “the cyclic view of history” referred to by Professor Parkes? In ancient civilizations, life was a cycle, meaning nothing changed from generation to generation. Every generation essentially repeated what came before it. There was therefore no such thing as moral progress – indeed, the word “progress” would have been meaningless. Then came the Torah and its God and life was no longer to be a cycle, but a line – a line moving forward toward a moral goal.
Man’s attempts to create a system of moral laws, with the Torah as their basis (like the early American legal system), to rule himself rather than the whims of monarchs or dictators more closely resembles the moral progress envisioned by Yahweh in the book of Judges.
Man’s recognition of, and identification with, the God of the Torah is the most essential idea in World history and especially in our lives today. As the world continues to plunge headlong into tyranny and hedonism, we must personally know and embrace the God of creation (the God of the Torah) and His son.
Ignoring His identity has dreadful consequences today, and in the world to come.
NOTE: I borrowed heavily from Dennis Prager’s Rational Bible: Exodus and added my own analysis. Click the link to read online or the book to purchase from the Prager Store.