Book Report - Exodus

This has been a good while coming. I've been sort of putting this book report off because I'm slightly afraid of what my mind may deduce after looking at the book as a whole, nonetheless, here we go.

So first, a factual summary. Exodus picks up a few generations after Genesis ends. The Isrealites that were in Egypt were still there because of Joseph's adventures in slavery and government. But now the Israeli name was no longer respected and they were soon slaves to the Egyptians. They were treated harshly and lived that way for quite some time. Moses, in the mean time rises to great power in Egypt but eventually sees the plight of the Israelites and wants to set them free. God appears to Moses in several forms throughout this process, the most famous being the burning bush. God instructs Moses with the things to say and do to prove to the Egyptians that God isn't messing around.

Moses follows God's orders and performs miracles with the help of God. The Egyptians are indeed impressed and several times it seems that the Egyptian King, Pharaoh has a change of heart and decides to let the Israelites go. God, in the meantime, was hardening Pharaoh's heart so the Egyptians and Israelites could see his full power. Moses and God infected Egypt with plague after plague until the final plague which killed every first born male in Egypt. The Israelites were spared their children if they followed God's instructions of slaughtering a lamb and smearing the blood over the door of their house, which I imagine most did. This was the first passover.

This final plague does the trick and the Israelites are free to leave Egypt. However, on their trek out of the land, Pharaoh once again has a God-induced change of heart and decides to pursue them with the intent of killing them all. The Israelites escape through the Red Sea, walking on dry land as Moses/God parted the sea for them to cross safely. The Egyptian pursuers were swallowed up by the sea and everyone was saved. Yay.

Now they are wandering around in the desert and are struggling to survive with limited resources. God provides them with water and manna to eat and drink, but the people become restless. Moses eventually goes and meets with God on Mt. Sinai and God hands down the ten commandments among other rules and regulations. And that's kind of where Exodus ends.

As I said several times through the course of reading this book, the God in Exodus is not a God I would be proud to worship. He does things seemingly only to glorify himself (such as keeping the plague  process going when it could have ended so easily), he strikes people down, or threatens them with death for seemingly arbitrary offenses, the owning of slaves is condoned by God in this book, and all in all, it looks like he cares about nothing but himself and his rules.

Now, with that said, I still believe that he is the creator of the earth, universe and all things within. And that being true, I suppose its kind of a "my house, my rules" kind of situation, which is fine - but that doesn't mean I have to like it. In fact I don't like it. If I were given just the book of Exodus when deciding whether or not I wanted to be a Christian, I would have handed it back and said, "no thanks, that God sounds like a total jerk."

One of my main, kind of running questions, however is what should still be considered valid today, and what can be dismissed as cultural norms and or 'the way things used to be'? Specifically in this case, 'should this text be read as how to accurately perceive God, or more as a compare-and-contrast text that shows how it used to be, but how beautiful and different it is now that Jesus' sacrifice has taken place?'

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about what God actually is, and I came to a conclusion that he is a living breathing idea. An inconceivable thought-being that is completely inflexible in it's motives, ideals and norms. My reasoning behind this comes from a scene in Exodus where God says that if he comes into face-to-face contact with his people, he will freak out and kill them all, and its implied that this is because of their sin-nature, and that God cannot physically exist in the presence of sin. This could explain the bi-polar God we see from Old Testament to New Testament. The New Testament God is based around the fact that Jesus' sacrifice made it possible for God to be with and love and care for the people he created, just as was always intended from the beginning of creation.

So, for now I suppose I am accepting the 'compare-and-contrast' thing. I think it makes sense and seems to rectify some serious problems I was having with the portrayal of God in this book. At the same time, I do have several unanswered questions. Hopefully I will see everything clearly once this project is complete...