Old Testament is a Jewish text adopted by Christians
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Re: "Roots of ISIS lie in Washington, not Islam", Letters, November 27.
Eric Bahrt is to be applauded for standing up and insisting that people condemn extremists in their own religion, starting with the Jews setting an example for the rest of the world.
But once again, I point out that the violence and commands to murder and mayhem in the Christian Bible are almost exclusively contained in the Old Testament, which is a Jewish text adopted by Christians.
God ordering a man to sacrifice his son, God ordering the victorious Jews to kill all the vanquished, including women and children, God ordering men to stone their wives to death if they are not virgins, God taking sides and bringing down plagues on Israel’s enemies – all of these and more are Jewish in their origins.
Most of the Christians I know (and remember, I am not one of them) regard the Old Testament as, in part, a history of the Jewish people, part fable and fantasy, and part the demented ravings of old men who have been out in the desert sun for too long.
It is the supreme irony that Islam also recognises many of these Jewish Old Testament identities as prophets, or messengers from God. These include Adam, Noah, Moses, Solomon, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, and more.
So where there are messages of hate and violence in the Christian Bible and the Islamic holy writings, many of them can be traced back to the their same Jewish origins.
But I do not disagree with Mr Bahrt that Christians have been responsible for more than their fair share of violence and mayhem over the centuries.
David Brown
Rayong
