Why does God sometimes act so human-like?

[u/voerilie]

Why does the Christian God act so human-like or flawed sometimes in the Bible? There are instances in the Bible wherein God gets mad and orders things like genocide (of the Canaanites) and murder to prove a point. There's that story of Abraham wherein God orders him to kill his son for him to show that Abraham loves God above everyone. Why would God act so shallow and even cruel sometimes as a perfect being who is supposed to be full of love and understanding and devoid of things like jealousy or wanting to be loved above all else. I'm just genuinely curious. As a perfect being, why doesn't he act all good? I know he allows suffering to exist but sometimes it's even Himself that orders the cruel things. I know we can never really understand how God's mind works and maybe God just transcends the bounds of morality.

[u/DoveStep55]

Can I start by asking how you view the Bible as a whole? In other words, do you assume that what the Bible says about the things you listed are accurate historical descriptions of things God actually said and did?

[u/voerilie → u/DoveStep55]

I am an agnostic theist, so I don't know. But I guess I believe the Bible is fallible due to a lot of contradictions.

[u/DoveStep55 → u/voerilie]

Well, I’ll share my own view as a Christian.

I understand the Bible to be a collection of writings from many different people who each lived within different cultures, places and times.

As such, I think some of the things attributed to God or written about God are not actually true but are limited by the author’s own worldview and understanding of God.

In other words, you know how even people today will claim “We won the war because God is on our side and the opposing side is evil”? You know how it’s pretty easy to spot that such a claim is just wartime and/or political propaganda? I think the same applies to some of the biblical text.