Text: QUESTION: Why is it that people ever got the idea of a God of fear and wrath? The Bible [Old Testament, Talmud] is full of it. Why should it be in the Bible if it is not true? ANSWER: "When man first began to think at the Dawn of Consciousness, he then began to arise from his jungle ages and was slow to throw off the habits and practices of the jungle. Early man was fearing man of wrath. He feared the wrath of all things, tempest and avalanche, torrid heat and icy cold which froze his infants at their mother's breasts. He feared the jungle animals and reptiles which smote him mercilessly, even as he, himself, smote mercilessly. When he suspected the existence of a God, he could not think of Him in any other character than a wrathful God of fear for he knew naught else but wrath and fear and killing mercilessly - for he was still brute man and he could not conceive of any other kind of God than a brute God. He could not possibly conceive a God of Love for he had not yet begun to have the slightest trace of knowing what love meant. All during those early pagan and barbarian days, men appeased God and gave Him pleasure by slaying men by the thousands, sacrificing their own sons, and shedding rivers of blood upon their altars. They filled fountains with the blood of dozens of animals to baptize newborn infants. They cleansed sinners by plunging them beneath those bloody founts which we still sing about in our hymns. That is the primate conception of God which grew out of pagan barbaric customs. So long as we believe that they are right, we will still be pagan and barbaric. The entire Bible is a true record of the history of its day. It tells of the nature of people of that day and that record is invaluable to tell us the nature of past ages of people. Long after the Bible was assembled, gladiators still killed each other for the amusement of women and children of their day. In the time of Jesus, the very altars were daily drenched in blood. Kings thought nothing of ordering all male babies slain, or of killing thousands upon thousands of prisoners taken in war, sparing only the virgins for their own pleasure. During that time, practically every tribe warred against every other tribe. Killing and looting were common and people held great festivals to see prisoners slaughtered and their raiment divided. If the Bible did not truly record its day and age, it would be as valueless as a history of today would be if it left out the atom bomb in order to give posterity a better opinion of us. That does not justify us for the looting, killing and enslaving which the whole world is still doing upon a greater scale than ever, and will still do as long as it believes in a God of fear and wrath." [From Russell Home Study Course, volume II]

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