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Regular Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Utah
Posts: 167
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Originally Posted by praxeus
Hi 3DJay,
Exactly what is this "only evidence" ?
The quote above from the Mormon scholar ?
An ancient grammar from an ancestor of Kimchi ?
Some exacting analysis of the usage of Elohim in ancient times ?
Or something else ?
And does the Bible itself count as an evidence ?
Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic
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I looked at your citation ( http://www.karaites-usa.org/Studies_...singular_1.htm) from above. The information presented is grammatical but not very historical in nature. Perhaps the most representative citation from it is this:
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The common characteristic of majestic plurals is that they have the plural suffix while denoting singular objects and as a result they receive singular adjectives and singular verbs. Elohim is quite simply an example of the majestic plural and means "great God".
It is worth noting that the word Elohim is not always a majestic plural. When referring to the pagan gods, the term Elohim is usually a numerical plural. For example, the second commandment forbids us to worship אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים "other (pl) gods". In this phrase, not only does Elohim have the plural suffix, but it receives a plural adjective אֲחֵרִים other (pl). This tells us that in the second commandment Elohim is used not as an majestic plural but as a numerical plural denoting multiplicity. The prohibition is not against a specific "other (sg) god" but against any "other (pl) gods". Elohim is used numerous times throughout the Tanach to refer to pagan gods and in most of these instances it is a numerical plural denoting multiple (false) gods. So we see that when the Tanach speaks about YHWH it uses Elohim as the majestic plural meaning "great God" but when it speaks about pagan gods it uses Elohim as a numerical plural meaning "gods". In both instances the accompanying verbs and adjectives reveal to us which meaning is intended.
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The sentiments of the author are quite apparent, even if not to himself. See "multiple (false) gods."
As for the "mormon scholar" as you put it, you might look at his vita here ( http://cc.usu.edu/%7Efath6/vita.htm) and note that his work appears to be critical of mormon theology and he did not attend BYU. At any rate, his work appears to follow scientific principles and be neutral in tone.
I will quote momentarily further from his website, but first I will say that the bible itself does count as evidence, and there is plenty evidence in it that shows its polytheistic heritage. I find it quite disingenuous for christianity to try to separate itself from any and all other theology from which it sprung. It is apparent to me at least that christianity is nothing more than a refinement of religions borrowed from sumer, babylon, canaan, egypt, and greece, among others. Christianity presents its prophets and their comunications with god as unique and singular events, but if we look at what these other religions are saying we will see that they claim the same events. What is the point of this? The point is that grammatical analysis of biblical uses of Elohim is pointless if not taken in context. The Hebrew bible started polytheistic and has certainly been edited over time to minimize that heritage. The other thing I see from comparative analysis of these religions is that it was common thought that the gods interacted with humans, moved in and out of the heavens, occupied physical forms at will, and suffered physical tragedy and pain. Though gods, they were not necessarily immortal.
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The concept of the assembly of the gods or the divine council that occupied the station below the creator deities goes all the way back to the pantheon of Sumer, the world's most ancient civilization and was universally shared by the Semitic civilizations of the Ancient Near East that followed. The Sumerian god An and his wife Ninhursag were the progenitors of the other gods. Although this divine couple generally remained aloof from human affairs, residing beyond the sky, their children were the creators of humankind and were the patrons of the various city-states of Sumer. These gods of the second generation formed an Assembly of the Gods, known as the Anannuki in the language of Sumer presided over by Enlil, their king. Each of these gods of the Assembly represented or controlled major forces that affected the lives of their human servants. Enlil's wife, Ninlil, called The Maiden, ruled over human fertility. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven, was both the goddess of passion and of warfare. It was Enki, god of wisdom, who crafted the world-platter that floats on the great Abyss of primeval waters.
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The pantheon of ancient Sumer was borrowed by Sumer's northern neighbors, the Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia. Generally, they substituted Semitic names for the Sumerian gods, but the structure of the pantheon, including the distinction between the Divine Progenitors and the Assembly of Gods was maintained in the Semitic religions--although each Semitic people typically substituted the name of their local chief god for that of the king among the gods of the Assembly. Among the Babylonians, the children of El, collectively known as the Elohim were subordinate to their Father El. They presided individually over the various stars and planets as well as over their individual earthly estates. In Babylonian times, the Elohim were ruled by a son of El called Marduk, who could be seen in the heavens as the "wandering star" we call Jupiter today. Among the Canaanites, neighbors and political competitors of the Hebrews, he was called simply "Lord" or Ba'al, while his true name (Hadu or, in some dialects Hadad) was known only to his priests. Ba'al's chief rival for kingship among the gods was Yamm, meaning "Sea", who also sometimes took the guise of a storm-god. His personal name was Yaw or, in some texts, Yawu. For instance, in the Epic of Ba'al, El, speaking to Athirat about their son Yamm says, "The name of my son is Yaw, Oh Goddess. . ." The name of Yamm is intriguingly similar to the name of the Hebrew deity, Yahweh, the short form of which was Yah. The similarity of names is parallelled by a similarity of roles, since Ba'al was considered to be the chief rival of Yahweh by the Hebrews. Although this identification not a certain one, the two are thought to have been the same deity by some scholars.
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Like the Canaanites, the Hebrews regarded the true name of their tribal god, Yahweh, as too sacred for common use, and they too usually called him simply "Lord" (Hebrew adonai or, sometimes, baal). As the original occupants of the lands which were taken by the Hebrews to form their own kingdom, the Canaanites were the traditional enemies of Israel, but the deity that each held to be the king of the gods should probably be understood as having been been the same deity. The parallels between Ba'al and Yahweh are quite detailed. For instance, both peoples referred to him, in his role as the god of storms and war by the euphemism, "the rider on the clouds (KTU 1.3 II 40 and Psalm 68:5). Both are portrayed as overcoming their enemies Yamm (Psalm 74:13; Job 7:12; 26:12; 38:8) and his henchman Litan called the Fleeing Serpent,.the Twisty Serpent, Potentate with Seven Heads and, in Hebrew, Leviathan (Isaiah 27:1 and Psalm 74:13-14; Job 3:8;40:25). So it is more likely that, whatever the origin of his name, Yahweh took over the history of Ba'al in Hebrew folklore and is best understood as the Hebrew equivalent of that Canaanite god.That Yahweh was originally a son of El is attested by a document (KTU 1.1 IV 14) from Ugarit, a Palestinian site occupied by neighbors of Israel. It reads sm . bny . yw . ilt, which translates as "The name of the son of god, Yahweh." This status as the foremost of the sons of El is remembered in the Song of Moses, one of the oldest of the Hebrew scriptures, in Deuteronomy 32:8-9: "When the Elyon [another name of El] apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods [i.e., each god controlled one nation of people]; Yahweh's own portion was his people, Jacob [i.e., the nation of Israel] his alloted share." (1.)
Yahweh ruled as the king of the other children of El. In this role, he presided whenever the Assembly of the Gods whenever they met in council. The preeminance of Yahweh over the other gods is repeatedly asserted in Psalms. For instance, in Psalm 86, we are told that "There is none like you among the gods, O Yahweh" (Psalm 86:8), and Psalm 89 is even more specific in explaining that the "gods" in question are the sons of El who met as the Assembly of the Gods:
The heavens praise your wonders, 0 Yahweh,
your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.
For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh?
Who among the sons of gods is like Yahweh?
a God feared in the council of the holy ones,
great and awesome above all that are around him?
(Psalms 89:5-7)
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Lester Ness has documented, each of the elohim could be seen in the skies as celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, and the stars and planets. While Venus bore the name of Helel (2.), Yahweh himself was manifest as the "wandering star" Jupiter, the planet of kingship. Yahweh's more prominent astral companions included Shamash (Hebrew Shemesh), the sun god who rode his chariot across the sky each day, Yarik (Hebrew Yareah), the moon god, Shahar, god of the dawn who was called the Torchbearer of El, Shahar's son Helel, the "Day Star" or Venus, who was called the Torch Bearer of the Sun in other Semitic religions. Helel suffered the special fate of being banished from heaven for trying to usurp the throne of the king of the Assembly. It is Helal who is referred to by the first Isaiah as a metaphor for king Nebachudnezzar whom Isaiah said would fall for seeking to rise above his station and become king of all the earth: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn [i.e., Helal, son of the god Shahar]! How you [Nebachudnezzar] are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, `I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of El; I will sit on the Mount of Assembly on the heights of Zaphon [the sacred mountain of El where the Assembly of the Gods met in council]. But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit" (Isaiah 14:12-15). In his fallen state, Helal was known as Azazel, the earth-bound demon to whom the Israelites gave as a yearly sacrifice on the Day of Atonement a "scapegoat" that was sent into the wilderness for Azazel after another goat had been sacrificed before the mercy seat of Yahweh: "[Aaron] shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering . . . and Aaron shall cast lots on the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for Azazel. Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh, and offer it as a sin offering; but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before Yahweh to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel" (Leviticus 16:5,7-10).
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Babylon's Marduk, for instance, was mated to Ishtar, the goddess of love, passion, and war. Canaan's Ba'al, their equivalent of Marduk, also had a consort, Anat, a youthful goddess of warfar who was also called the Maiden. Israel's Yahweh was no exception to this pattern, as attested by both non-Israelite documents from Palestine and by Hebrew writings as well. His consort was referred to by the phrase "his asherah". Among the speakers of the western Semitic languages of Palestine, the term "asherah", derived from the name of Asherah the wife of El himself, has became a generic term for "Divine Wife". Olyan (1988) has made a persuasive case that the personal name of Yahweh's wife was Ashtoret, the daughter of Asherah the wife of El. This is the same name given by the Canaanites as the consort of their Baal. Examples of texts that refer to Yahweh and his consort include inscriptions found at Kuntillet `Ajrud, dated between 850 and 750 BCE that read, "I bless you through Yahweh of Samaria, and through his asherah!" From the same period at `El Qom we find the following text: "Uriyahu, the king, has written this. Blessed be Uriyahu through Yahwe, and his enemies have been conquered through Yahweh's asherah." Followers of Yahweh continued to worship Ashtoret until the third century BCE, as attested by the Elephantine Papyri. The post-exilic Elaphantine Papyri also refer to "Anath-Yahu" as a consort of Yahweh. This is intriguing, since both Anat and Athtoret [the Ugaritic spelling of Ashtoret] were companions of Baal in Ugarit. In fact, the two goddesses are so frequently associated with one another that the names may simply be alternative ways of designating the same individual, Anat (possibly meaning "The Violent One" or "The Lover") being the title of the goddess in her youthful, wargoddess guise. In the Baal Cycle, Tablet II, Column II, when Baal seizes Yamm to slay him, it is Anat/Athtart who stop him: "His right hand Anat seizes, His left hand Athtart seizes" (where the usual pattern of poetic repitition implies that the same event is simply being reitterated using different terms for Athtart. The identification of Anat and Athtart is further supported by the fusion of these two names as the goddess Antit at Beth-Shan, as `Antart in Egypt, Anatanta at Tanis in Egypt during the period of Ramses II, as `Anat-`Ashtart in later Syria, and as `Attar`atta (Greek, Atargatis) in Aramaic language.
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From earlier times until the third century, devotion to Asherah waxed and waned. Her popularity was often widespread among the people, but sometimes opposed by the prophets of Israel. For instance, her worship by the women of Judah was condemned by Jeremiah, although those to whom he preached responded "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of Yahweh, we are not going to listen to you. Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no misfortune. But from the time we stopped making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine" (Jeremiah 44:16-18). From the ensuing verses (20-21) we learn that the practice was widespread and had official sanction by both "kings" and "officials". From other sources, we know that the image of Asherah was, at various times, worshipped in the Temple at Jerusalem along with Yahweh as well as at various shrines around the countryside. Her worship, especially by women, involved offering her both drink and food, the latter being cakes that were "marked with her image" (Jeremiah 44:19). But by the third century BCE, the Hebrews had come to view Yahweh as the only god and he eclipsed the other gods until they disappeared from view. In this process, the various names of El came to be thought of as referring to Yahweh, not his father, the other sons of El that survived were reduced to the stature of mere Angels, and Asherah disappeared from view.
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The Bible records some of the ritual practices among the Hebrews for worshipping the various baals (gods) and asherahs (goddesses) of the elohim pantheon. We know that as late as the seventh century BCE, that the people built "high places" [elevated altars] where children were sacrificed as burnt offerings to Baal (Jer 19:5;32:35), erected standing stones as sacred icons of Baal (2 Kgs 17:11), and also worshipped him on the roofs of houses, where they made offerings and poured out libations to Baal and other gods (Jer 32:29). They also bowed down before the baals and served them (Jer 16:13); burned incense to the baals [the Hebrew generic form for any foreign god] on rooftops and on altars (Jer 11:12-13; Ezek 16:16-21); made sacrifices (Jer 11:17); swore oaths in the name of the baals (Jer 5:7); and preached, interpreted dreams and prophesied in the name of the various baals (Jer 23:27;23:13). In places where Asherah was worshipped, they erected wooden poles or planted trees (especially palm trees) as icons to her (eg., 2 Chr 34:4), and "[t]he children gathered firewood, while the fathers kindled the fire and the women kneaded the dough to make "cookies" and "cakes" shaped in the form of Asherah and poured out libations to her and to other gods (Jer 7:18).
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Although the roots of Hebrew religion were deeply imbued with the polytheistic traditions of the ancient Semitic world, these roots were superceded by a firmly monotheistic view of God by the Hellenistic period. The shift away from polytheism seems to have begun around 1000 BCE in Jerusalem with the establishment of the state cult of Yahweh, but for centuries it contented itself with simply subordinating all other gods to Yahweh by making them over as members of his heavenly court, the Host of Heaven (eg., 1 Kings: 22:19). An oblique reference to the divine council is found Amos 3:7, written around 750 BCE: "Surely the Lord El does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets." Here, the term "secret" is a poor translation of the Hebrew word sod, which literally means "council" and, by extension, a "decree" of the divine council which the prophet has observed in vision. Such visionary visits to the throne of Yahweh while he presides over the divine council are referred to in Isaiah 5 , Jeremiah 23:18 ("For who has stood in the council of Yahweh so as to see and to hear his word?"), and Ezekial 1.
At least in the rural areas away from Jerusalem It took many centuries for the restriction of supplication of Yahweh alone to supplant the older polytheistic traditions. In fact, opposition to making offerings to the asherahs and the baals began only with Hosea in the middle of the eighth century BCE and escalates during the time of the seventh century prophets, Jeremiah, Ezekial, Josiah, the Priestly author, and the author of the Deuteronomic history at the time of Hezekiah's reforms. For instance, much of the Book of Jeremiah is devoted to the author's opposition to the worship of "the asherahs" and the "baals", the goddesses and gods of the Gentile nations surrounding Judah and Israel which was still widespread in the seventh century BCE.
The time during which real monotheism (as opposed to the henotheistic acceptance of the gods of the other nations as subordinate Yahweh) became the dominant motif of Hebrew culture was the reign of king Josiah. In fact, the previous two kings had actually fostered the placating of foreign gods. The theological foundations for the elevation of Yahweh to the status of one and only god was laid by Deuteronomy, which was written during the seventh century. It is in this book that we hear the fundamental declaration of the modern Jewish faith: "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our Elohim, Yahweh alone. You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. . . . Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, because Yahweh your Elohim , who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of Yahweh your Elohim would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth" (Deut. 6:4-6;14-15). Here, the word Elohim seems to have shifted from its role as a proper name of the father of Yahweh to a generic term for "God" and Yahweh is equated with "God." At the end of the seventh century, this command to love Yahweh as the one God took on a new urgency. King Nebupolassar of Babylonia crushed the Assyrians in 606 B.C.E., and his expanding empire represented an even stronger threat to the independence of Judah than had the Assyrians. In the face of this new political threat to the existence of Judah, king Josiah, at the age of only 20, undertook sweeping reforms to implement the Deuteronomic command that Judah worship Yahweh alone as God. He removed the images of the other gods from the Temple, overturned the great statue of Asherah, removed Asherah's sacred prostitutes from the Temple precincts, and had all the shrines to other gods throughout the country destroyed. These sweeping changes were recorded in 2 Chronicles 34:3-7: "For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a boy, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the sacred poles [of Asherah], and the carved and cast images. In his presence they pulled down the altars of the Baals; he demolished the incense altars that stood above them. He broke down the sacred poles and the carved and cast images; he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars, and purged Judah and Jerusalem. In the towns of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruiins all around, he broke down the altars, beat the sacred poles and the images into powder and demolished all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel." This was a time of radical change. Once it had taken place, it was merely a matter of time before the foreign gods lost their very status as real deities among the worshippers of Yahweh.
Eight years after Nebupolassar's defeat of the Assyrians, he captured Jerusalem, and in 597 BCE the first exiles were deported to Jerusalem. The seventy-year exile was like a refiner's fire for Jewish monotheism. There were those who lost faith in Yahweh, who had seemingly failed to protect them, but those who maintained their belief that Yahweh would yet redeem them from Babylonia found it even easier to reject the gods of their oppressors. It was in this time that the Second Isaiah went beyond merely proclaiming the superiority of Yahweh to the gods of the gentile nations but also declared Yahweh to be the only God when Yahweh declares, "[t]here is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is no one besides me" (Isaiah 45:21b). This theme runs throughout the message of the Second Isaiah: not only is Yahweh still active in the affairs of his people, but but he was the only God, and after they had been sufficiently punished for their prior idolatry, he would save them from the domination of the worshippers of false idols. When in 539 BCE the Persian king Cyrus conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to finally return to Jerusalem, Yahweh's promise seemed fulfilled. Those who returned to their homeland did so with a strong motivation to restore the Temple and cleans their worship of all idolatry.
True monotheism was on its way to becoming triumphant. All that remained was for the Priestly writer to transcend the older portrayal of Yahweh as a being of human-like form with his more abstract vision of a God who is beyond all human perception. Sometime after the return to Jerusalem, the Priestly additions were made to the Penteteuch, including his emendation of the words of Yahweh to Moses ". . . you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live" Exodus 33:20b). God is no longer like the gods of the Sumerians or other Semites who has human form and foibles. No longer will he appear as he did to Abraham, as a wayfaring stranger, hot from the desert, with feet to be washed by his host. To the Priestly writer, He transcends human perception, and only his kavod, his glory, can be perceived, not his essential self. The Jews had, at last, in the post Exile writings, achieved what has now become our modern conceptualization of the one, ineffible God.
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Well, it was a long road (and post) to get there, but get there they did. The hebrew god(s) and hence christian god are hand-me-downs from other peoples. The claims of unique visions and messages from god(s) are spurious to say the least. And the final move to montheism is the result of political expediency unless you persist in believing it was divine revelation. We have created a single god who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and un-knowable. How can you improve on that, and indeed, it appears that you cannot.
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03-01-2007, 10:57 PM
. But, substituting "moral" for "legal" as "legal" just refers to a very local set of established rules, I would go by the Nürnberg principle here: you have a duty to oppose illegal (in this case: immoral) orders.
