Much of the Bible is human speculation and congecture. It’s not God that evolves in the scripture, it’s mans understanding of God. The Old Testament is the Hebrews writing about themselves and for an Israelite audiences. That’s why they are so heavily favored in the story while everyone else (their cousins) are dogs. In doing so they appropriated Mesopotamian lore and sort of made it their own heritage.
You are correct......
in stating the Old Covenant consists of Hebrews writing about their experience with being led of God.
Similarly, many do not realize that the New Covenant is likewise written
by Jews,
about the Jewish encounter with Yeshuah ha-mashiach (Jesus Christ as He is called by the Greeks) and
for Jews. It's estimated that between 25% and 30% of Jews who initially heard the gospel accepted Yeshuah as the Anointed One, their messiah.
As for the big picture, Colter got the horse before the cart.
The Biblical account, both Old Covenant and New Covenant, came first. It's a simple and straight forward account of Hebraic encounters with God in the Old Covenant as well as the experiences Jews and goyim had of God in the New Covenant.
Interpretations, miles and miles of them, came after these encounters.
The first of these began after the Chaldean sacking of Jerusalem in 597 BC. Jewish survivors were taken captive to Babylon where the interpretations Colter referred to got ugly......really ugly.....
During the Babylonian captivity ..... Jewish rabbis concocted an exhaustive set of rules and regulations (NOT inspired by God) which in total are called the Talmud. Even Jesus had issues with it. Colter isn't alone in sharing his opinion. (1)
During the Babylonian captivity......Jewish leaders absorbed or adopted a LOT of Babylonian pagan ideology into the Talmud just as Christians would later adopt many pagan myths into their religion. Was Jesus really born under an evergreen tree festooned with lights and glitter surrounded with cheesy imported presents? Did Jesus rise from the dead so that He could celebrate the day with multi-colored bunnies who danced in fields of chocolate, colored eggs and marshmallow peeps?
During the Babylonian captivity......Jews adopted pagan spirituality and deliberately ignored those truths previously revealed to them by God - such as prophetic clues and indicators that messiah would come to earth twice. Almost all of the prophecies God gave to Jewish prophets were ignored by Talmudic interpretive scholars.
Fast forward a few centuries.......
Jesus may have founded the church of the New Covenant, but the Roman Emperor Constantine made it legitimate and established the legal precedent of Christian priesthood and of allowing the church to own real estate, operate banks and to collect religious taxes/tithes. The new official church immediately got down to business creating its own rules, regulations, traditions and interpretations just like the Jews before them. Also just like the Jews before them, few of these new rules and interpretations were from God. (2)
Unlike other nationalities or racial groups, Jews never got the opportunity to believe they were superior to other people - that everybody else was a dog.
How could they?
Christians effectively put them down. C
hristians forced them to become members of the church, closeted them in ghettos or just killed them outright. For most of history Jews struggled just to stay alive. They never had the luxury of elitism. That attitude was and is suggestive of those who falsely accuse a race and a people that have always been under the heel or threat of someone - usually the church,
usually Christians.
Of all the persecutions Jews suffered through history, they suffered most at the hand of
Christians or from
Christian inspired governments.(3) Most of the lies about Jews, about the Bible and about God have been concocted by
Christians or by those closely associated with
Christian nations and governments.
Even Islam hasn't been as hard on Jews as
Christians have......
Interpretations and conjectures came after encounters with God were recorded in the Bible. Jews were and are quite busy with spinning God's Word to their advantage, but Christians perverted scripture to an even greater degree.
Which brings us to today.....
In our present post modernist climate, interpretive ideology rules the essays, books, sermons and official statements of
Christian leadership. Christian tabloid literature and movies are full of it. Most
Christians have no idea what the Bible is talking about as they are addicted to quoting buzz words and repetitive illogical convoluted religious slogans.
They will tell you, for example, that salvation is free - then charge you a religious tax (tithe) for the rest of your natural life. Is it free or is it not?
Colter is right about the evils of Jewish and Christian interpretations. Its a sad story for sure.
What Colter left out (he doesn't vomit words like I do) is the real and truthful story of what happened when God revealed Himself to a tiny group of nomads wandering in the fields of the middle east......and the meaning of God's decision to die upon a cross four thousand years later.
The truth is out there as someone once said. Unfortunately God's truth must be searched for - like an old prospector in the Canadian Yukon panning for gold. It's worth the effort, though. It really is.
that's me, hollering from the choir loft.....
(1) Jesus always used the Tanakh, Law (Torah) and the Prophets, as a source for His teaching. He abhorred Talmudic ceremonies and traditions. The Talmud exceeds 15,000 pages in length.
For example, the Talmud asserts that if two or more rabbis agree on a point, their interpretation supersedes the Will of Almighty God.
Thus it is said - the children rule the father.
(2) The concept of eternal punishment does not exist in scripture. Employing pagan myths of the underworld as well as the poetry of Dante Aglieri's DIVINE COMEDY, the church discovered that fear mongering was an effective goad to acquire and keep members - from the thrones of kings to the squalid huts of poor farmers.
(3) Joseph Stalin, ruthless leader of the Soviet Union, had been a
Christian Russian Orthodox seminary student in his youth. Adolph Hitler, leader of German National Socialism, was a Lutheran
Christian in his youth and made official contracts with the German church to support his rise to power as well as his policy to exterminate six million Jews. Good German
Christians stood by and did nothing while their government slaughtered men women and children whose only crime was being born Jewish.
Although the government of the United States, which espoused itself a
Christian nation, never had an official anti-semitic policy it DID have an official policy of genocide to exterminate Native Americans.
"
The only good Indian is a dead Indian." - US General Phillip Sheridan
Hitler thought American genocide of Indians was a good idea and advocated the American solution be applied to European Jews. American ingenuity, right or wrong, seems to inspire everybody.