YE KNOW NOT WHAT MANNER OF SPIRIT YE ARE OF
Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
John and James (Luke 9: 54)
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of for the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
Jesus (Luke 9: 55-56)
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time (…) Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies.
Jesus (Matthew 5: 21-44)
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Jesus (Luke 24: 27)
And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
II Samuel 24: 1
And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
1 Chronicles 21: 1
I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me (…) I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Isaiah 45: 6-7
When will we let go of these archaic Old Testament attributions of everything, good or bad, to a unique and therefore, taking monotheism to its logical extremes, all-powerful divinity ? And as the disciples on the way to Emmaus finally let Jesus explain the Scriptures to us from His point of view ? The same Jesus who, for instance, rebuked his disciples for asking for the incineration, Elijah-style, of a Samaritan town that rejected them ? And therefore when will we stop taking as historical facts these constant rewritings of history, so obvious in David’s case with the substitution of a demonic adversary to God’s supposed evil census suggestion, or in Jehoshaphat’s case, the attribution to God of the internal dissension of the enemies which led Judean king Jehoshaphat and Israel’s king Jehoram to victory, or in king Hezekiah’s case, Isaiah’s attribution to the Angel of the Lord of the probable cholera outbreak that forced Sennecharib to drop his siege of Jerusalem ?