LogFAQs > #936611402

IMO the good thing about Gnosticism is that it basically tells people to think for themselves and form a personal spiritual relationship with God. But the bad thing about Gnosticism is that it ignores historical context.

The books of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) are in fact split into three sections: the Torah (law), the Nevi'im (prophets), and the Ketuvim (writings). The character of God isn't the same in any of them. God in Genesis is different from the God in Isaiah who is different from the God in Job. And in fact, basically all of the books of the Hebrew Bible are presented as either legends or poems. You can see that pretty clearly just from reading them.

The New Testament, on the other hand (with the exception of Revelation) just reads differently from the Hebrew Bible. The real influence the Hebrew Bible had on Jewish society back then was that they would have followed the laws of the Torah (including the oral Torah), which is a major part of Jesus' preaching. I guess what I mean by "reads differently" is that it talks more about modern (at the time) society rather than legendary people and events, and it is not poetry. And Jesus would be especially appealing to Gnostic ideology because he was a religious reformer of his time.

So in that sense comparing the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New Testament doesn't really make sense.
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