Introductory Notes

Omniscient- all knowing Omnipotent- all powerful God creates order Disorder, both physical and moral, is not God’s fault but the fault of mankind. Disorder is the consequence of mankind’s disobedience (Adam and Eve). The Hebrew story in the O.T. reconciles the undeniable existence of evil and disorder with the conception of God’s infinite justice.

 The Hebrew God is not limited in his power by other deities.  In all of creation, only one being is able to resist Him- mankind.  Even mankind’s resistance is part of God’s plan, a manifestation of His will.

 Their story ends with their freewill having earned them and their descendents short lives of sorrow relieved only by death.

 Cain is the first person to shed human blood.  God drives him out of His presence.  He sets a mark on his forehead to protect Cain from being killed.

 God destroys the Earth with a flood, but sends a rainbow as a promise that he will never again destroy mankind with water.  The next time God must interfere with mankind’s arrogance and sin, he frustrates their languages and scatters them throughout the globe.

 Human guilt must be wiped out by sacrifice- an idea eventually manifested in Christ’s death in the N.T.  The idea of one who suffers for all starts in the early O.T.

The suffering servant is rejected by his people, but his suffering is necessary to save his people. Joseph- his brothers sell him in to slavery, but he eventually saves them and all of Egypt and is rewarded by God for his faithfulness. Job- He is tested by the devil but remains faithful to the idea of his own innocence. He must suffer to prove a point. Eventually he is compensated for his suffering. In the end, Job must accept the inexplicable fact that their own undeserved suffering is the working of God’s justice. The prophets- they were constantly rejected by the people for telling the truth.

Isaiah eventually writes The Song of the Suffering Servant to show that there is no recompense in life: the suffering ends in death (a prediction of the death of Christ.) In the figure of the hated and suffering scapegoat, the Hebrew prophet sees the savior of humankind- an innocent sufferer who comes not in pomp and power but in suffering and meekness, who dies rejected and despised, and who atones for human sin and makes “intercession for the transgressors.”