The Old Testament of the Bible: A Depressing Paradigm PART II

Thanks for the reply! First I would to like to begin with that I just copied the original threads title and stuck "PART II" at the end. But I do believe it's a clear statement. It claims that the Old Testament is a "depressing paradigm" which I will be refuting in this point. Furthermore, I do suggest that you read the entirety of my Round 1, for I say that I will argue from a Jewish Perspective and not a Christian Perspective. Meaning that Jesus has no authority, except as a Rabbi, in Judaic theological thought. But I would like to say that I am a Christian, and if you want an argument from a CHRISTIAN perspective, please feel free to challenge me. Now in regard to Old Testament morality being "outdated." That is definitely untrue. I will refer as my authority an article called "Progress or Return: Crisis of Modernity" by Leo Strauss, who will be my support throughout this debate. As humanity enters deeper into the new millennium, man is confronted by more and more ideological, social, and ethical struggles. What crisis is Western civilization confronting? Modernity has encrypted us with this notion of progression; that modern man should look towards the future and not towards the past. The past, as modern man is concerned, is inferior and irrelevant to our day and age. Progress proclaims that life is simply good. Progress, as such, is change in the direction of the end for the perfection of the understanding. But the concept of progress is slowly being replaced with the idea of "change." People are no longer certain that they are moving in the right direction; no longer certain that there is a guaranteed goodness in understanding. In a sense, the contemporary crisis of Western civilization is paradigmatic with the climactic crisis of the idea of progress. One can't help but wonder if modern man is really any better and wiser than the ancients, considering the barbarity and evil that has occurred in the twentieth century. The advent of marvelous technological innovations and the propounding of astonishing scientific discoveries don't seem to parallel twentieth century moral or social criterions (e.g. WWII, Hitler, Holocoust). Leo Strauss had anticipated this corrosion of Western civilization. He believes that the only way to salvage the West is by reaffirming and reestablishing our western heritage. We should return back to Western civilization's roots: Greek philosophy and the Bible. The word "return" in Hebrew is translated as teshuva. The word's emphatic meaning is rendered in English as "repentance." Strauss argues that by implication of the word's emphatic meaning, man was once on the right path. But now modernity has strayed man away from that path and is now leading humans in the wrong direction. It is only when we return (repent) to the original course that we start aiming toward perfection once again. Judaic thought links perfection to the beginning. One only has to think of the Garden of Eden to understand why. Before man had sinned and corrupted the world, the Garden in the beginning was the worldly extension of a perfected paradise. Strauss vehemently argues that a crisis exists in Western civilization and that the strict Jewish sense of "return" should be assimilated by modern man to save it. Modern man is consumed by this idea of "progress." Progress mocks the beginning, claiming it to be imperfect. Man should not dwell on the past, for it is inferior, but rather focus strictly on what lies ahead. With the beginning of modern philosophy and Modern Science, their came forth the idea of method which drastically changed the constructs of progress and displaced pre-modern notions. Paralleling the rise of modern thought in the seventieth century, Rationalism (the branch of epistemology that Spinoza and Descartes so famously developed and exploited) viciously rejected Biblical theology and replaced it with such things as deism, atheism, pantheism, etc. But while trying to replace the Bible, it was thought that Biblical morality was saved. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized the notion that such preservation was practical. The attempt to eradicate the biblical religions but keep their moral foundations, according to Nietzsche, is foolish and impossible. Although modern progress still has a firm grasp over the Western world, skepticism over the prosperity of progress is escalating.