Read up on it. "Jealous" is an inaccurate description. The wording
is more like "demanding" as in expecting correct behavior such
as we expect our friends to be loyal or expect our spouses to
be faithful or expect our kids to do their best in school. We
are disappointed if they fail in their efforts and this is
described in your translation as "jealous" but it does not really
capture the essence of what is being described. It is another
instance of using a human emotion word to describe God when God
clearly cannot experience human emotions. It is the same thing
as talking about the Hand of God when God is known not to have
hands.

Obviously God can be jealous of no one and nothing. It is a another
wrong interpretation of the bible, in part due to language. So
there is an error in your bible in that respect, yes.

The context originally had to do with an explanation of monotheism.
Since there is only one God it would be inappropriate to worship
multiple Gods with varying powers. It would be wrong to view
different human standards of moral behavior as equivalent as well.
So the OT and later the NT say that a single ethic is operative for
everyone and a single God.

This view which rejects moral equivalence is described using the
same jealousy terminology in many translations but it is not
jealousy in the way of envy which is always identified to be wrong.
It is again an expression of the need to reject moral equivalence
and hold everyone to a divine standard. That is - Pol Pot's view of
what was ethical was not equivalent to what Jesus' view of what
was ethical. The english term jealousy was applied but it is not
an accurate description of these expectations as I have learned
it.

Jealousy is described as wrong in the bible and God is obviously
not experiencing a human emotion which is wrong any more than God
has a hand.



God does not have any human attributes or emotions. Except in the
view of Christians concerning Christ. But that's only the Christians
and arguably Jesus did not experience emotions the same as other
people since Jesus was God in human form on earth.

He had hands though.

God does not have any human attributes or emotions. Except in the
view of Christians concerning Christ. But that's only the Christians
and arguably Jesus did not experience emotions the same as other
people since Jesus was God in human form on earth.

Some of the Hebrew descriptive Names of God:


The God of Israel

The God of Compassion

All Merciful God

The God of my Salvation

The Jealous God

The Gracious God

The Holy God


please note:

The Jealous God Suggests that God watches us lovingly and closely,

like a faithful and passionate bridegroom watches over his

betrothed.

THAT is what "jealous" means here !!


http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/El/el.html

Jeanniebean wrote:

That is what you interpret it to mean.

Why would "jealous" mean something different for God than it does for humans?

Why do people change the meaning of words in the Bible to suit themselves and what they want to believe?

Changing the meaning of the words to suit you, is tantamount to changing the written word to suit you.

(Which is something I seen being done constantly!)

They have violated their own idealism.

Not really. They have individualized it and done exactly what they wanted to do..... interpret it themselves.

Eventually every single person on earth will be a church unto themselves.

I know I am.

Well, if they stop there, then they are indeed respecting Protestantism. And many Protestants do stop there. I know my family did.

However, those who try to hold out their personal interpretations as the interpretations that should be "clear" to everyone else, are the one's who are in violation of the ideals of Protestantism.

If you could not translate it then yes you would be correct.
However, if you translate that into basic English you might get something like

For you are to be worshipers of no other god: For the Lord is a god who will not give his honor to another

I've already posted this once. For future reference to all your repeat questions you can look back in the thread. When translated to basic english you will notice the word "jealous" isn't used because english is not the same now as it was than.

being jealous and being zealous are essentially the same thing in the Bible

Wow, really? No wonder nobody can interpret the Bible correctly or agree on anything.

Jealousy is mostly the fear of losing the love and or attention of someone.

Not necessarily. Say a guy see's his woman being extra nice to another man. He would quite possibly get jealous. Not out of fear, she's going to leave him not out of fear she's found "better", not out of fear of anything. Just is envy of the attention she is giving him, think he should be the only one to get that attention like that.

Not denying your example of jealousy in anyway either, there are many reasons for jealousy and many different responses to that emotion.

Whatever you imagine "jealousy" to be, it is my opinion that it is a very negative attribute even for a human. I would not want a God that suffers from it.

It smacks of an insecure and possessive person whose underlying bottom line is fear of losing what they have.

It's not an attribute I have and not one I will tolerate in my friends or lover.

That is why it is obvious that "jealous" is a mistranslation.

Then add that to ten thousand other mistranlsations. Looks like the whole Bible is pretty much a mistranslation.