I've wondered if this passage really does refer to the Jewish God. In the exact same chapter of John, Jesus refuses to punish an adulterous woman, who according to the Jewish Bible should be executed. Is it a coincidence that Jesus immediately afterward accuses the Jews of having murderous tendencies? If Jesus' father were the Jewish God, why does Jesus refuse to carry out his Father's law? Additionally, the first character in the Bible to lie is God himself, who tells Adam that the "day you eat of it [the tree of knowledge of good and evil] you will surely die." Which does not happen. The snake in Genesis tells Eve this is a lie, and that God simply doesn't want humanity to become like the gods through their knowledge of good and evil. This is immediately confirmed by God as soon as he learns they've eaten from the tree: "The man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” and then he expells them from the garden so that they can't become equal to "one of us."
It's well-known that the Torah uses variants of "El/Elyon/El Shaddai/Elohim" and "YHWH" somewhat interchangably. In Canaanite religion they were originally separate deities, YHWH being the son of El. This distinction is referred to in Deuteronomy 32, where the sons of El receive their inheritance:
When the
Most High[Elyon] gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
But YHWH's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.
Angels are sometimes referred to as "sons of God" in the Bible. If I were more of a believer, I'd wonder if the Jewish God, YHWH, is simply an evil angel, who claimed to be THE God and became conflated with him, which is responsible for the contradictory and seemingly schizophrenic depictions of God and God's will in the Bible. For instance, even though the Torah quite clearly claims Moses received the Law from God himself, Paul says (Galatians 3-4 : "The law was
given through angels and entrusted to a mediator...we were
held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed...we were
in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world...you were slaves to
those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!" So observing the Law is "slavery" to "those who are not gods," and furthermore, he says the Law was only given that Jesus could set us free from it. "
Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe."
The argument would seem to be that good can't be demonstrated without evil, and the Jewish Law/Bible is evil, permitted to exist so that Jesus could free people from it. In other words, Jesus came to save us from Judaism.
Even more speculation:
A lot of people in esoteric circles have noticed that elites seem to venerate the planet Saturn, and its symbol of a black cube, and their agendas don't seem good for the common man.
Saturn has been associated with the Jewish God and Jewish people since antiquity. It's not a coincidence that the holiest day of the week for Jews is Saturday (Saturn's day/
dies Saturni). And I wonder if it's a coincidence that the Jewish Temple was built in the shape of a cube, or that the smiting and vengeful God of Revelation (a far cry from the God of love of John's Gospel) constructs a city "shaped like a cube" for the elect (Revelation 21). A common belief of early Christians, reflected in Jude, was that the stars were angels, and that planets (from a Greek word meaning "wanderering [stars]") and comets, because they didn't stay in place, were rebellious: "...the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day...wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever."
(Incidentally, many early Christians believed astrology was real, but shouldn't be practiced because the planets were fallen angels. Converting to Christianity supposedly freed you from these planetary influences.)
The book of Amos condemns Jews for worshipping Saturn. It's a strange book. On the one hand it condemns Jews for not following "the Law." On the other hand, it condemns them for observing it, when "[you] afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate --" none of which are against the Law, except perhaps the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself." It would seem to be the same kind of criticism Jesus had of the Jews of his own day: "You tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness." And, like Jesus says "These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others" but seems to indicate you shouldn't actually follow the Law through his own example (e.g. in matters of stoning women to death, working on the Sabbath, or washing hands), Amos' God says:
“I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god—your images that you made for yourselves, and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD[YHWH] , whose name is the God of hosts.[El Shaddai]
Not even "These you ought to have done," but simply "don't do them."
Sikkuth and Kiyyun are Mesopotamian names for the planet/god Saturn. It should be noted that Amos never complains that the Israelites are worshipping other gods; his complaint throughout the entire book is that that they
think they are worshipping the true God,
but aren't. The god they actually worship is Saturn.
TL;DR even the Bible recognizes that something is deeply wrong with Judaism as a religion.
