> a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people Yhwh is indeed the God of his own people, and fights alongside his people, against ot

> a God who reveals and redeems, who elects and cares for a chosen people Yhwh is indeed the God of his own people, and fights alongside his people, against other peoples and their god(s). Sometimes he gets upset with his people and punishes them, usually very harshly (mass drowning, mass fires, getting them lost in the desert for generations, etc.) The role of prophets is mainly to try to talk God into being a little more lenient and maybe not kill everyone this time. The idea of a benevolent God is fairly recent. (Conversely, the argument that God doesn't exist because there is so much evil in the world is fairly weak. The God of the Old Testament doesn't have a problem with evil, he just wants his team to win.)