The Concept of God in the Old Testament

Abstract

Old Testament studies have posed a lot of challenges to scholarship. They made people like Marcion read it with a pen-knife frame having in mind to cut off those texts of ‘horror' which present the Old Testament God as a wicked God who lacks compassion and the spirit of benevolence. This monstrous presentation of the Old Testament God has propelled some scholars like Pail Copan to ask, is the God (of the Old Testament) a moral or monster? This view of the Old Testament God is occasioned by the challenges involved in the studying of the Old Testament as an ordinary literary work, historical work, archaeological work, or a theological document. Viewing this canon from a theological perspective leads one to reading it from a religious perspective. This brings to the fore studying the religion of the Old Testament from a phenomenological perspective with an eye specifically on the concept of the Old Testament God. From a phenomenological perspective, it shows that the theistic concept was borne from varied experiences. It shows the nature and character of their God.