bopot

I understand, but I'm not interested in the Christian spin. Well, I am, because I enjoy watching them wriggle, but right now I'm interested in the apparent acknowledgment of the Egyptian gods by the ancient Israelites (and Yahweh himself).

credoconsolans

Early Christians had to call the pagan gods demons because they knew they were not going to convince the pagans that they didn't have any religious experiences, that they had just imagined them and that only Yahweh/Jesus was real so they had to call them demons to explain the pagans' 'miracles' and experiences.

As for the Hebrew bible. They never doubted there were other gods, they just weren't the SPECIAL god of the Jews.

bopot

That sounds plausible.

I had no idea that the reality of other gods was a given. :huh:

And here I thought I was onto something. :-/

GakuseiDon

The pagan gods were certainly recognised as supernatural entities. If you want to use the word "god", that's fine, but at a certain point it comes down to semantics. Paul recognised Satan as "the god (theos) of this world", for example.

Did the early Israelites believe that Yahweh created the heavens and the earth, and everything in between, including the pagan gods? I think that helps to determine the relationship between them. Genesis 1 is pretty clear on the matter.

Roland

Deutoronomy 32:8-9 seems to suggest that Yahweh is one of the sons of El.

When the Most High ('Elyon) allotted peoples for inheritance,
When He divided up the sons of man,
He fixed the boundaries for peoples,
According to the number of the sons of El
But Yahweh’s portion is his people,
Jacob His own inheritance.

Doesn't this sound like Yahweh was GIVEN the Israelites to be in charge of by the "greater god" El? That actually makes more sense since why would a monotheistic god who created the universe carve out one special group to favor over all others? But if Yahweh was just one god of many, then his being the god of the Israelites only makes perfect sense.

Of course, modern translatons change El to Israel but the oldest known copies (including a fragment in the Dead Sea Scrolls) maintain "El."

http://jewishatheist.blogspot.com/20...ytheistic.html

Joan of Bark

Roland has pointed out the most important passage in the Torah re: other Gods. The Hebrews were clearly polytheistic, in that they believed in other Gods, but monolatrous, in that they only worshipped one.

Here is another good passage from the time of Solomon:

2 Chronicles 2:5 (NIV)

kged

Well, yes - clearly they believed there were other deities out there. Let's go right to the source, the very first of those lovely 10 Commandments:

"I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."

That is, "I am the Lord THY God", rather than "I am the Lord God."

And, you will note, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me", not "There ARE no other Gods".

Seems like there was a free market back then for believers. It's strange that this has fallen away from today's Christianity, I'd have thought the American Right would have liked that idea.

mg01

Remember also that based on the inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Kom, some segments of Hebrew culture believed YHWH had a consort.

Also the events relating to Baal in Kings rings more of "my god is greater than your god". There is no claim that Baal does not exist.

Hebraism morphed from the polytheistic world view inherited from the Canaanites under a single cult dedicated to YHWH to monolatry. It was the priests and leaders that defined the nature of the cult and steered it toward the idea that YHWH was the only god and all others were "false" gods. The first indications of this line of thought is in Deuteronomy (6th-7th century by the DH) where YHWH is repeatedly and passionately proclaimed as "ha-Elohim" (THE Elohim, as in one and only). Genesis-Numbers is pretty clear that "other elohim" exist. Leviticus (and other P material) latches on to the phrase that "YHWH will be your Elohim", again still acknowledging other elohim exist.

Mark Smith in "Origins of Biblical Monotheism (or via: amazon.co.uk)" attempts to reconstruct an early Israelite pantheon with YHWH as the head.

Tom Sawyer

Well, the God of the Old Testament is fundamentally unrelated to the Christian God of today. He wasn't much different than all the other gods of the day - wandering around, interacting with people, smiting enemies for his armies, using mortals as playthings in his games with other gods, the whole works.

The distant, unknowable, monotheistic concept which people have today is loosely based upon this character, but it's not in anyway the same guy.