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Originally Posted by Quzor
Much thanks for the history lesson. I swear I've learned more about religion in this thread than I ever did in either of my religion classes at college. Just out of curiosity, would you contend that the other examples I provided are fair in pointing out that, in a sense, the God of the OT was relatively vengeful, if not downright against us?
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It's hard to tell. See, I grew up in a family that prided itself on being Jewish, but never really got into the religious aspect of it. There is a divide between being a Jew culturally and being one religiously that I won't get into here, but there is a connection between the two. The God that I learned about was someone who had the backs of my ancestors. God wasn't something we all had to bow down to; God was a force that we essentially signed an agreement with. We'd follow His directives, and in return He would ensure that our people would prosper and be free from oppression (oppression is another big thing in the history of the Jewish people).
So when you say that God was against us, I don't really feel that way. I could see how people from the Christian groups might, though. I did attend a number of church services and I also attended a Christian group at my university (long story short, I had a ton of friends in it and got roped into it, and figured it'd be a good opportunity to learn how Christians think anyway). From my understanding of Christianity, God is a benevolent entity who wants us all to live as good people. We know that God loves us dearly because He sent His own son, Jesus Christ, to be sacrificed as atonement for our sins. So God loves us dearly in the Christian Bible, yet when you go to the "Old Testament" you have a God who was sending plagues to the Egyptians, forcing Jewish leaders to sacrifice their children and only stopping them at the last second to test their loyalty, and standing behind Jewish armies. That doesn't sound like a God who loves all of humanity, does it?
It works for the Jews but not for the Christians. The Jews were persecuted and developed their own identity that was not tied to nationality. Land origins were recognized, because you have the following terms: Sephardic Jews (Spanish Jews), the Ashkenazim (Eastern European Jews), and the Mizrahim (Middle Eastern Jews). But most Jews don't divide themselves up according to that; rather, they see themselves as one people - God's chosen people. So God wasn't against us, but it was more or less that we made an agreement with Him. People still revere God, but it isn't in the same sense that the Christians do. But for Christianity to work, it couldn't have a chosen people. Those were not the teachings of Jesus, either. And if history is to believed, Jesus Himself was Jewish.
I'm straying a bit from your question (which was answered somewhere betwen the above two paragraphs), but I wanted to mention one final thing that I found interesting on the topic of Jewish vs. Christian thought. As I mentioned, I was involved with a Christian student organization at my university. In my second and last year with them I participated in Bible study, where the group would basically splinter into four to five-person groups (sexually homogeneous). The smaller groups would meet once every certain period of time, but not more than once a week, and would go over passages from the Bible. (They would also do group prayer, which I found to be really unnerving.) One of our exercises involved reading over two or three paragraphs that had been printed for us, and we were supposed to highlight what parts of it stood out to us. Afterward, we shared what we'd highlighted.
I was chosen to share my highlights first. What had stood out to me were statements about growth, light, and empowerment. Being raised to feel that you are one of God's chosen and that it is your duty to make the most of the unoppressed life that was given with the helping hand of God, this made perfect sense to me. So I was amazed (and felt a bit out of place) when every other person in my group spoke of sin, suffering, and sacrifice. I don't want to say that there is the defining difference between Jewish thought and Christian thought (as I've met plenty of pessimistic/negative Jewish people) but it certainly gave me a lot to ponder over that night, and even now.