The difficulty of escaping a past bias

There is a commonplace in the theological world from the last 2000 years that God punishes. It is not true.

Can I be any more clear. It - is - not - true.

To attribute the role of punisher to God (whether by direct mistranslation or by inference in the mind of the reader) is a false understanding of the Scriptures in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The understanding is false.

God does not punish. We punish.

There are more ways to get 'God punishes' wrong as policy than there are to get 'we punish' wrong as policy.

Perhaps you didn't know that theology - what we think about God - can lead us to do things that we think God would do. Since by definition - God is the ultimate good. (If indeed we dare to define God.)

Don't get me wrong in these ways. There are consequences to what we do. And plenty of them are painful and deadly. If we rape the creation, we will suffer. If we fail to prepare for a pandemic, we will suffer. If we lie to each other, we will suffer. If we are lucky, we can attribute such suffering to a visitation from God. Perhaps we will revive. 

We know the difference between what is good and what is evil. Punishment and its motivation is evil. It cannot be attributed to God. It has no role in understanding either the First Testament and its theories of atonement nor has it any role in the Newer Testament and theories of how the work of Jesus works for those who believe. 

Prove me wrong. But I tell you. Punishment as theology is evil news, not good news.

I am a Christian and I value the teaching that I have derived from the New Testament. The apostle Paul in particular invites us by faith into suffering with God rather than suffering for our own ignorance and error. Jesus was and remains faithful in the message of the NT - but it is not an easy path to follow nor is it a slam dunk to understand. 

The first potential for our stumbling is our desire to control what we know and to control our relationships. We must have both self-control and cooperation amongst the elements of the created order. But we cannot achieve this with cheap answers to hard questions. We have to work it out and we have to correct the errors that are evident in our body politic.

You will know them by their fruits - says Jesus. Just look around: world wars, holocaust, famine, arms races, fear, oligarchies, inequities, and on and on. There is no lack of sin. 

Look around again, hard working farmers, health workers, hospitals, schools, scientists restoring and understanding life, from species restoration to waste management systems, and on and on, good human endeavors. There is no lack of care. 

Look around again: Consider the lilies - there is an immensity of words in the Tanakh (the Old Testament) about creation, and animals, and plant life, and beauty. It is not punishment. It is a prodigality of astonishing wealth. There is no lack of resources. 

How is it that there is inequity among us?

It has come to my attention that a blog I follow is writing about the character of God. The first two parts avoid the commonplace failures in translation. But parts 3 and 4 do not. Example in part 4 that God 'relents from punishing'. The Hebrew says No Such Thing. 

The translation of a word that signifies 'evil' as 'punishment' is sheer irresponsibility. God sighs over the evil that is evident to God in the human endeavors. It says nothing about God as the subject of 'punishment'. It will be misread if it is translated this way and the resulting idea about God in the mind of the reader will be distorted. This is the verse cited:

Rip your heart and not your garments and turn to Yahweh your God, for gracious and compassionate is he, slow to anger and abundant in kindness, and sighs over evil. (Joel 2:13).

I am grateful that the blog I noted (link here) is considering the character of God, but it is nearly impossible to consider it accurately without a concordant translation. I have pointed out on this blog that punish as a gloss is badly used in traditional translations at least as far back as the Vulgate and certainly in the mind of the 16th century in English tradition. Punishment was in vogue in the 16th century.

I have left a critical comment on Claude's blog. The teaching in the churches has to change. My comment is under moderation. Well, in my immoderate fashion, here it is:

Hi – thanks for your work on this formative verse. I want to object, however, to the use of the gloss punish for any root in the Hebrew language. The 16th century translators had punishment on their minds a lot. The evidence is for the number of different Hebrew words (יסר נכה ענשׁ פקד רעע עוה) that are glossed as punish. A review of these words will show that not one of them has punish as its dominant gloss. Sometimes the KJV translators even put in punishment as a word when there is no corresponding word at all in the Hebrew. (See Lev 26:41.)

I have written on this extensively having completed in the last 15 years a full translation of the Hebrew. Important though discipline and discipleship is, punishment is not part of it, rather it is governance. I do not deny pain or suffering or consequences but punishment is the imposition of a distorted human violent action that is not in the mind of God.

Just that one root pqd – primarily it has the sense of visit. Would we not want to be visited by God? Even if it required us to be corrected, chastened, struck, or even bewildered. Personally, I have been struck and I know the presence because of it. It is this way that I have suffered with God who grieves concerning our decisions that draw us away from such presence.

When I meditate on the character of God I am struck by the Psalms – 146 is among the best. 145 also includes Exodus 34:6 – I have prepared a short lecture and performance on the music of Psalm 145 that you can find here if you are interested. https://meafar.blogspot.com/2021/01/psalms-1458-14.html