But that was the Old Testament

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The Bible
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Gabbin' with God
—Jesus telling people to trash the Old Testament as a whole (Matthew 5:17)

"But that was the Old Testament!" is the claim that God was a mean drunk in the Old Testament but turned over a new leaf in the New Testament (and so Christians need not defend the horrific God of the Old Testament). Similarly, the claim that the law of Jesus superceded the law of Moses is used to absolve Christians of the duty to carry out Mosaic law.

The claim is a favorite tactic of Christian apologists when confronted with the violence and bigotry of the Bible. This claim faces two major problems: first, that the Bible and Jesus themselves disagree; and second that (although the New Testament is much less gruesome than the Old Testament) the New Testament still features violence and bigotry.

Biblical problems with the theory[edit]

[T]he Old Testament is just as inspired as the New Testament and thus an expression of the will of Christ.

Many Christians argue that the law of Jesus "superseded" the law of Moses.[2] However, this seems to contradict a straightforward reading of the Gospels. For example, Jesus frames himself as "fulfilling" rather than "destroying" or "superseding" the law of Moses. He does not clarify this point beyond asserting that the Ten Commandments must still be followed to the letter (Matthew 5:17-19):


Similarly, Jesus berated people for disobeying the mosaic law (John 7:16-19):


And Jesus states that it is easier for the universe to fall apart than any one piece of the Mosaic law (Luke 15:17):


And the New Testament itself affirms that God (who is literally Jesus (John 10:30)) divinely inspired both the Old and New Testaments (2 Timothy 3:16-17):


If the Old Testament were really so irrelevant to the teachings of Jesus, one wonders why Christians bother including it at all in their holy book (especially when it makes up about 75% of said holy book[3]).

The New Testament is still horrible[edit]

Even if we accept that Jesus somehow erased the laws of Moses, both the Old and New Testaments contain violence and bigotry -- so Christians cannot use that as an excuse.

Violence vs pacifism?[edit]

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions[:] all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in the Koran. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized[.]
Philip JenkinsWikipedia's W.svg, professor of history[4]

Jesus had mixed messages on pacifism. Of course, Jesus famously said to "turn the other cheek" after violence (Matthew 5:38-40). However, he also stated (Matthew 10:34):


In fact, Jesus told his followers to sell their clothes in order to purchase swords (Luke 22:35-38):


Random acts of smiting[edit]

Thomas Paine
See the main article on this topic: Examples of God personally killing people

God isn't quite so trigger happy in the New Testament, at least when it comes to killing innocents and people who really didn't deserve it. However, there are still some killings and of course that whole end of the world thing in Revelation. Most notably in Acts 12:23 Herod was killed for his failure to praise God. Also, it's been pointed out that the New Testament brings us Hell, as we know it. In the Old Testament, once God killed you he was done with you—but starting with the New Testament, he punishes you for eternity (which means infinite punishment for finite sins).

Intolerance and misogyny[edit]

Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything[5]

First of all we should note that, in Matthew 5:18, Jesus clearly states, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." This implies that all of the blatantly homophobic, misogynistic or otherwise intolerant laws from the Old Testament are still effective.

Unfortunately The New Testament is also fairly misogynistic. Here are just a few of the more offensive and deeptly unethical passages;

  • Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves,[note 1] obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ."

Second Coming[edit]

Perhaps most importantly, Jesus promises to be extremely violent when he returns in the Second Coming. For example, Jesus is prophesied to personally kill the "kings, captains, mighty men, and their armies" with a sword that comes out of his mouth (Revelations 19:11-21):


See also[edit]

External links[edit]


  1. Note that this is one of the (many) places where many Bible translators have found it convenient to render the Greek "doulos" (pl. "douloi") as "servant", rather than the more accurate "slave". This is the case in the King James version that is used for The RationalWiki Annotated Bible. See also: Slavery in the Bible