Paul - I’m simply trying to summarise what Rob Bell was saying, and maybe to suggest one or two logical conclusions. Actually there is a great deal that Bell does not say. For instance, he doesn’t suggest, as you do, that the Mosaic covenant was an attempt to manipulate God - to obtain his good favour, or ‘human goods’ as you put it. Actually the opposite - he suggests that the purpose of the covenant was not to placate or assuage God, but to use the forms of contemporary religious practice to convey something quite different about himself to his people. (Actually even this is my interpretation - it seems to be assumed by Bell - but he doesn’t quite say it. But he does say that the covenant was doing something quite different from other religions).

As far as what I personally might say about penal substitution - I think it comes in different forms, and can be given very nuanced interpretation, so that it need not mean the assuagement of God’s anger. (I don’t think God was pouring out his anger on Jesus, instead of Israel, or us, for instance. I do think God was bearing the consequences of sin in himself). In the non-violent atonement view, as outlined by Bell, God is not inflicting punishment on anybody, but a human system based on violence is being inflicted on Jesus - who is also bringing a definitive end to that kind of system as a way of approaching God. But again, Bell doesn’t spell things out quite so explicitly - you are left to deduce that. What he is moving away from is the need to think of the death of Jesus as part of some mechanism of punishment and propitiation. (I think!).