Does God Hate The Gentiles? A Response To @MindShiftSkeptic

(This is a response to the @MindShiftSkeptic channel, since Brandon, the owner of the channel, will make a follow-up video in the future. As allways, please take into account that this post is not for the purpose of trashing the author of the video at all. Even when I fundamentally disagree with many of his arguments (as I’m about to explain why), I don’t think at all that he is arguing in bad faith and I respect his approach, so if you are going to object to his claims in his channel in any subject, please do so in a respectful manner)

The original video is here, please watch it first before reading this response.

Establishing the argument

In this video, the speaker (Brandon, discusses the topic of Gentiles and their separation from the Jewish people and the Jewish God. The central argument presented here is that it is absurd to believe that the God in question is all-loving and inclusive, especially towards Gentiles. Brandon suggests that there is ample evidence in the Bible, particularly in the teachings of Yahweh and Jesus, that Gentiles are not granted the same status or protection as the chosen people.

Brandon expresses the view that even though some argue that Gentiles could be grafted into God’s favor through faith alone after Jesus’s death (referencing Paul’s writings), this is, he argues, a concept that is inconsistent with what Jesus taught. He suggests that Paul’s version of Christianity differs from the original teachings of Jesus and conflicts with them.

Now that we have clear what is the argument and purpose of this video, lets focus now on the arguments presented to why this is the case.

The Old Testament and Jewish propaganda

I dont have much of a problem with this section.

As I wrote in my last response to Brandon, I’m not committed to the idea that the bible as a whole presents a unified description of what “God” is, or that all these descriptions of God are authoritative (a breakdown of why I dont think this is problematic is there). I’m not going to hop on the genocide apologetics spewed by people like Paul Copan.

I’m in agreement that the Old testament represents a very nationalistic picture of who God is, especially consiering the seeting on which these books were written.

However, I have some comments to make.

I take issue particularly with what Brandon says from minute 6:31, to minute 7:05 about the oppression of the jewish people in ancient times:

“Within this same group of stories when the Jewish people talk about how oppressed they are, one would be forgiven for thinking maybe it’s because you went around telling everyone that they were worthless, that they weren’t holy, that they didn’t belong to your God and that whatever was theirs would be yours by force.

Just a thought.

I feel the need for the caveat that none of this is true, this is a man-made myth by a group of people that at one time whether they believed this or not wrote it down. I mentioned in my last secular Bible study series on Esther that most of the Old Testament up to this point is just Jewish propaganda.”

I want to make something very clear first, and that is that Brandon is not an anti-semite, that is poisoning the well.

But this statement, in and of itself, is extremelly problematic, firstly beacuse it places the blame on the oppression of the jews to the jews themselves, not the oppresors, and the fact that ancient anti-semitism originates as a result from jewish diaspora, where they ridiculed in the nations they were.

In the ancient world, Jews were distinct in their monotheistic religious beliefs, praying to only one god in contrast to the polytheistic beliefs of their neighbors. This religious difference set them apart and led some to question whether they could be trusted. As Jews dispersed across the ancient world due to events like the Roman conquest of Israel, they had to adapt to new environments as newcomers, further emphasizing their differences.

One recurring theme in the ancient world was the Jews’ refusal to conform to other social norms. Their distinct religious practices and customs marked them as different, leading to prejudice. Hecataeus of Abdera, for example, described Moses as instituting a “misanthropic and inhospitable way of life” for the Jews. Manetho depicted the Jews as Egyptian lepers who rejected the worship of gods under Moses’ influence. These themes were echoed by various other Greek and Roman writers.

Antiochus Epiphanes, an Ancient Greek ruler, is known for desecrating the Temple in Jerusalem and imposing bans on Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision and Sabbath observance, during a period when Ancient Greece held sway in the eastern Mediterranean. This shows how political leaders could enact policies that targeted the Jewish community and their religious practices.

Moreover, inacurate talking points like this can be specially dangerous beacuse they can fall right into the hands of people like Nick Fuentes, who are the symtom of the larger problem that is the current rise of anti-semitism.

Now what follows here is quite a long comment (8:05 to 9:24) by brandon that I wanted to touch, but I feel like I should put it on its entirety to grasp the overall point:

“Does this sound like a god of inclusivity? Does this sound like a god who cares about anyone other than the Israelites? No, no.

You cannot read the Old Testament and believe that God cares about you unless you are of Jewish descent, you cannot, it is false to do so. ‘Well good thing we have the New Testament then!’ yeah but shouldn’t you see if it matches up? Shouldn’t we consider the immutability of God? Again go back to my video where I list the 20 things that are so clearly objectively wrong according to the Bible, that Yahweh himself does.

Doesn’t the character of this God matter?, shouldn’t what he speaks matters? I always think it is so funny we are told that these Christians love their God, desire to draw close and know the desires of his heart, that his will be done. He’s screaming his will verse, after verse, after verse and you don’t care! Then Paul claims he has a vision this wild trip on the road to Damascus, say says some pretty things about how you too can now be special to God and you fall all over it.

That’s what gets preached every Sunday, why? Because it’s nicer, because it’s better and it is also the antithesis, the exact opposite of what Yahweh himself is saying. You either believe this Bible as the inspired word of God and accurate, or you don’t, if you can’t believe what God says he says, what can you believe?”

This argument is tied directly to what he argued in his previous video about objective morality and God, and my reaction here is the same as I expressed in my previous response.

The character of God does matter, and Brandon rightfully points out that there a clear inconsistensy in what the bible portrays of what God is or wants, an observation that I entirely agree.

But to repeat the argument I made in my last response, while it is true that Christians hold that God is unchanging, but this argument relies in that all Christians hold the view that all portrayals of god in the bible a 100% accurate or authoritative on who God is, an arguement that relies in seeing fundamentalism and christianity’s default, which it is not. It assumes a doctrinal position that the christian is not bound by, as examples include Christians like Randal Rauser, David Bentley Hart and Thom Stark.

You can belief that the text is inspired and, for example, take the position of a proviential errantist, as argued by people like Randal Rauser. According to this view, to understand the Old Testament it is necessary to to critique morally troubling passages it contains, and upon such an evaluation, it becomes apparent that the Old Testament portrays a flawed image of God, even though this portrayal was still inspired by God. The ultimate purpose behind this inspiration is to unveil a more improved depiction of God through its self-revelation in Christ.” (What I’m saying here is a very small summary of what authors like Randal Rauser have argued more extensively in other places. So check that out for a better picture)

(EDIT: Or you could simply hold the position that “the word of God” as referring to Jesus Christ and not a book, as described in the Gospel of John)

I present a more lengthy argument about this topic in my last post, but I no longer have anything to say about this section, so with that lets focus now on…

Jesus and the Canaanite woman

(In this section I’ll be using some of the points presented in CBE’s article on the story. You might want to check out the article in case you want more context)

This is the most problematic section of the video, primeraly beacuse of its treatment of the story of Jesus and the canaanite woman (and later the parable of the good samaritan)

This section starts with Brandon narrating and commenting the story Jesus’s encounter with a canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21–28:

“A Canaanite woman from that region came to Jesus, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”.

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs”.

“Yes Lord,” she said. “But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Then Jesus said to her:

“Woman, you have great faith! Your daughter is healed.”

And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”

Bradons argument that in the story there is a clear indication that Jesus didn’t care about Gentiles. It points out that Jesus and his Jewish followers initially ignore and are annoyed by the Canaanite woman, who is a Gentile, and her plea for her demon-possessed daughter. He emphasizes that Jesus explicitly states that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, underscoring that his mission was not directed toward Gentiles. The use of the term “dog” to describe the woman signifies a degrading attitude toward Gentiles. He suggests that the story illustrates a lack of compassion for non-Israelites and argues that the portrayal of Gentiles as lower than dogs in this context is indicative of a dismissive attitude towards them.

(Many of the counter-arguments made in this post come from CBE’s essay on this same story. Checkout the essay if you are interested in further exploration on this topic)

Brandon argues that this passage makes clear that Jesus was only ever concerned with the jewish people.

However this is not the case when we read more of the story. One can argue that Jesus’s main focus is fulfilling promises to the patriarchs and their descendants (Rom. 15:8), as in the near future the doors will open to all nations (Matt. 28:19).

For now, it’s about the Jews. Mark’s account underscores the temporary nature of this restriction: ‘Let the children be fed first’ (7:27 NRSV). According to W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jesus’ concern for Israel becomes prominent later in Matthew’s gospel storyline, despite opposition from Jewish leaders. The mission must secure its root before branching out.

Writing for a primarily Jewish readership, Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ faithfulness to the the jewish people, as late scholar Larry Hurtado explains:

Finally, we also have to ask ourselves how likely it is that the authors of Mark (writing for a Christian readership at least largely made up of converted gentiles) would have inserted a scene in which supposedly Jesus insults a gentile woman in the harsh terms imputed by some modern readers. She is “put in her place” as a gentile, but it’s a temporal place. The scene functions to explain that, although Jesus’ own ministry was confined to his Jewish people (apparently, a tradition that Mark couldn’t deny/ignore), the subsequent mission to gentiles was (Mark wants to imply) on the agenda, only it had to wait its time, and Jesus is pictured as anticipating that gentile-mission in responding positively to the woman’s respectful but clever response.

Why then, was Jesus reluctant to help the woman the first few times? beacuse this story falls into the context on the latter parts of Matthew’s gospel, when will begin to have parables about the inclusion of outsiders and disenfranchised individuals, examples including the workers who receive unexpected generosity in pay (20:1–16) and a motley crew invited to a wedding banquet after the invited guests fail to respond (22:1–14). The story of Canaanite woman’s reward serves as a foreshadowing the forthcoming expansion of God’s family to encompass “all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

Now then, in the section of the passage where Jesus says “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs”, Brandon is correct in pointing out that this is meant as to present here not as one of the children (a concept that its later turned on its head not only in this same story but in other parts of the gospel).

Bradon asserts the term “dog” here is not metaphorical, but this is incorrect since the term “dog” (“kynariois”, a diminutive form of “kyōn”), though initially carrying negative connotations as dogs were seen as unclean scavengers, was the diminutive form of “dog”, suggesting domesticated, working dogs or household pets.

As Hurtado notes:

“One further observation about the little scene between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:24–30 is that the initial response ascribed to Jesus is not a derogatory reference to the woman, or a simple misogynist or racial put-down, but is instead a parable-like saying specifically appropriate to the woman.

In the ancient setting, a woman with a child at home has, as a prominent responsibility, seeing that food is prepared and provided for her family. And in such a setting, with both children and household dogs, every such woman would practice exactly what Jesus is portrayed as saying: You first feed the children, then the household dogs. In short, Mark has Jesus using here a proverbial-like saying with which she could specifically relate. (I don’t think commentators have noticed this.)

The woman’s response is entirely in entering into the scene projected in the domestic picture given in this proverbial saying, cleverly noting what mothers in such situations also know–that household dogs do get morsels from the table while awaiting their turn to be fed, dropped from the children’s portions. It’s almost an amusing response, and I am inclined to think that Mark intended readers to smile knowingly. (But you have to have been privileged, as I was, to have grown up in households where the dogs were fed leftovers from the family food. There are some advantages to being an old fart brought up in simple circumstances!)”

So then, how does the passage ends? Brandons case would be strong if Jesus just helped the woman out of annoyance, or just not helping her at all, but story ends with Jesus by upholding her in contrast to his disciples. As CBE’s article notes:

Jesus responds by complimenting the woman’s “great faith” in contrast to the “little faith” he often points out among his disciples. Addressing her as “woman” (gynai) may sound cold in a contemporary Western cultural context, but this is not the case here. Others whom he addressed in this manner include his mother (at Cana, John 2:4; at the cross, John 19:26), Mary Magdalene (at the tomb after the resurrection, John 20:13, 15), a crippled woman who was healed (Luke 13:12), the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:21), and the adulteress saved from stoning (John 8:10). None of these interactions has overtones of coldness. Jesus’ use of the vocative Ō (Oh) in addressing the woman puts to rest any concern about coldness; ō is generally “used in contexts where deep emotion is to be found.” In the Greek text, emphasis is put on “great” (megalē) by placing it at the beginning of the sentence. Similarly, in the final clause, “healed” (iathē) is moved to the front to emphasize the accomplishment of her request.

In the latter part of Matthew’s gospel, we will begin to hear parables about workers who receive unexpected generosity in pay (20:1–16) and a motley crew invited to a wedding banquet after the invited guests fail to respond (22:1–14). All along, Jesus has been welcoming outsiders and disenfranchised people such as tax collectors, prostitutes, and “unclean” people. The Canaanite woman’s reward foreshadows the fact that God’s family is about to expand beyond Israel to include “all nations” (Matt. 28:19).”

The narrative depicting the encounter with the Canaanite woman resembles other healing stories found within the Gospels, following a similar overarching structure. It typically commences with a plea for healing, which then leads into a dialogue where Jesus often poses thought-provoking questions, such as “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” “Who touched me?” or “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” This dialogue serves to heighten the tension and expectation before culminating in the miraculous healing, thus marking a recurring pattern in these accounts.

The representation Brandon gave, on which Jesus helps the woman out of being petty, and implying that Jesus sees her as less than human is 100% incorrect, considering not only how the passage plays out at the end, but with how other stories in the gospels play out and how the later focus on the inclusion of the gentiles.

The parable of the Good samaritan

While narrating the story of the canaanite woman, brandon briefly interrups this section by adressing the parable of the good samaritan, since this is not only one of the most iconic parables said by Jesus, but also serves as a direct objection to his arguement that Jesus only cared about the jews or that he saw the gentiles as less than human.

In this part Brandon argues that the Samaritans, who are typically seen as outsiders, were in fact lost Jews, and that the parable emphasizes the importance of fellow Jews helping one another, pointing out that the parable highlights the moral actions of a Samaritan in contrast to a Levite, who, despite his position, failed to do what was right. Brandon concludes that this story is not about loving your neighbor regardless of their origin but rather underscores the obligation of Jews to assist their fellow Jews in need.

On the first point, Brandon is technically correct beacuse there is evidence that connects the samaritans and the jews both genetically and historically:

…researchers argue that during the Babylonian Captivity, not all Jews were rounded up by the Assyrians. Some stayed behind, possibly marrying other Assyrian exiles who themselves had been relocated. This would make sense given that, even though Samaritans are not considered Jews, they share many of the same ancient Hebrew rituals. While these rituals have evolved for hundreds of years among most Jewish sects, they remain unchanged among the isolated Samaritans, even to this day.

However this point is not as relevant as it is presented to be, beacuse even when the the samaritans were technically descendants of jewish people, the were also intermingled with non-jewish tribes. For all intends and purposes, the samaritans were considered outsiders and enemies to the jews, which is tantamount to the status of a gentile if not worse, as professor of New Testament and jewish studies Amy-Jill Levine explains:

“For Jesus’ audience, and for any synagogue congregation today, the third of the group is obvious. Mention a priest and a Levite, and anyone who knows anything about Judaism will know that the third person is an Israelite. The audience, surprised at this lack of compassion, would have presumed both that the third person would be an Israelite and that he would help. However, Jesus is telling a parable, and parables never go the way one expects. Instead of the anticipated Israelite, the person who stops to help is a Samaritan. In modern terms, this would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.”

Now, to get the full context of the passage, it’s important to understand that Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to a lawyer’s question: “And who is my neighbor?” This question revolves around the legal framework of determining whom one must love under the Law and who can be excluded. However, in the context of love, this question becomes irrelevant. According to Leviticus, love should extend beyond one’s own group, even to strangers. So, the lawyer’s inquiry about his neighbor can be rephrased as a way of asking, “Who doesn’t deserve my love, whose suffering I can ignore, or whom I can hate?” Jesus’ response is unequivocal: no one should be excluded from love, whether they are local or foreign, Jew or gentile.

The parable involves a traveler who is robbed, beaten, and left half dead in a ditch. This person is not only stripped of possessions but also of dignity, health, and almost life itself. The parable emphasizes the significance of helping those in need, even when they are on the brink of death. The question that resonates with the listeners, and us, is, “Who will help me?”

The parable contrasts the actions of a priest and a Levite with that of a Samaritan. It is commonly argued that the priest and Levite did not assist the wounded man due to concerns about impurity or purity laws. However, the text clarifies that there is no impurity in helping someone “half dead.” Jesus and Luke do not provide an excuse for their inaction; their failure to help is inexcusable. Jewish Law mandates that saving a life takes precedence over everything else, including keeping the Sabbath. So, their responsibility was to save a life, or if the person had died, to bury the corpse. They failed on both counts.

The parable takes an unexpected turn by making the compassionate figure a Samaritan (As it was pointed out above), which would have been surprising for Jesus’ audience given that Samaritans seen as enemies, not helpers.

As Levine further explains:

“The lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus reframes the question. As Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently revealed in his sermon, asking the right question is of utmost importance. The issue for Jesus is not the “who,” but the “what,” not the identity but the action. The lawyer is unable even to voice the hated name “Samaritan.” He can only say, “The one doing mercy for him.

The parable spoke about compassion, but the lawyer read the action as one of mercy. His rephrasing the issue is apt: compassion can be felt in the gut; mercy needs to be enacted with the body. The term may come from Luke, who uses it extensively, but only in the infancy materials, where mercy is an attribute of the divine: For the lawyer, and for Luke’s readers, the Samaritan does what God does. The divine is manifested only through our actions. Therefore, Jesus responds to the lawyer’s observation not with a question and not with a parable, but with an imperative: “Go,” he says, “and you do likewise.””

Case in point, to say that the parable of the good samaritan is not about loving your neighbour or your enemy (that in this case were the samaritans to the jewish people), those who are outside your people group, is an incredibly bad take. Again this is not to trash on Brandon, but I find his argument here to be very poor.

Romans 11:11 and the Gentiles

Before ending his section on the new testament, Brandon mentions Romans 11:11

“Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.”

His argument here is that what this passage reveal is that, despite being a passage about how God technically embraced the gentiles, it was not beacuse he saw them as humans with worth, but as a chess piece for the real chosen people to return to him. He compares this to how a man sleeps with a woman he despises in order to make his wife jelous.

However, his argument here asumes the presuposition that upon Jesus’s death (who in this arguement was anti-gentile), God changes his mind about the gentiles beacuse other jews were not accepting Jesus, expresing this in the time of Paul.

But this relies on the conception that Jesus was on principle, anti-gentile, and that his ministry was not meant for them in the slightest, which as i’ve argued here , I dont think is the case.

Moreover, this argument beacomes more problematic knowing that, in the general background to the passage, many of the earliest christians had initially anticipated a far higher degree of success in their mission to the jewish community than to the more welcoming reception among the gentiles.

After this section, Brandon briefly talks about the story of Joseph as recounted in Genesis 41 and 47. The point of putting this example as to how, as within the story, Joseph interprets a vision about a coming famine and subsequently tricks the Egyptians into selling their food to him. As the famine deepens, he takes not only their money but also their possessions, livestock, and land. Brandon then compares this to how then Joseph treats the jewish people, as he welcomes his family to Egypt, offering them the best land, officially allowing them to settle in a land that had, as Brandon says, has been acquired through deception.

I’m personally skeptical of this representation, given that 1. Josephs works are, within the story, the entire reason why the egyptians were saved from the famine in the first place, given that Joseph was preparing Egypt for the famine in advance, 2. that the fact that Josephs people prospered in the land of egypt doesnt necessarily mean that the egyptians were living worse, as it could be argued that Joseph moved the egyptians in order to better distribute the food (contraty to the implied claim that this was just an act of deception) and 3. the fact that one can see that the text itself presents a positive view of the egyptians (contrary to Brandons arguement in video on the gentiles), as Proffesor Susan Niditch argues:

The details surveyed above show the storyteller’s positive evaluation of Joseph’s full integration into Egyptian society. He shaves like an Egyptian, dresses like an Egyptian, takes an Egyptian name, and an Egyptian wife. The people he works for are kind and wise, recognizing Joseph’s talent. This is especially true of Pharaoh, who quickly promotes Joseph to the role of the king’s right hand. All this suggests that the author wishes to present Joseph’s Egyptianizing as a positive, or at least not a negative trait.

The one thing that Joseph doesn’t change is his God.

However, the story of Joseph is probably not a hill I would die on, since my belief are primarily focused on the NT, so I’ll move on to…

My conclusion

The argument presented in Brandons video is, in my opinion, not very strong…

My central problem with his argument is, in short, that it depends on certain assumptions regarding how christians should treat the biblical texts, and most importantly, with his treatment of the passages where Jesus treats the gentiles.

It is in the latter parts of his video where I find his argument the most problematic, since it doesnt accurately represent the passages in question, those being the story of the canaanite woman and the parable of the good samaritan. This NOT to say that I think Brandon is arguing in bad faith at all, but to express my disagreement with the arguments presented.

Brandon has more things to say regaring this subject, since he will be publishing a follow-up video in the future with Dr James Tabor, but so far, I think his argument is deeply unconvincing…

Until next time, take care 👋…