funinspace

In reference to LP675's assertions that these pantheon of gods doesn't/shouldn't bother Xians (i.e.literalists), specifically:

You are correct, after you have sucsessfully twisting the more obvious meanings of the words (that Dr. X and spin have so well redacted) you can claim that there is no problem. The question is, are your spins on the meaning believable? Why not a Q intelligence, just playing with this little marble for fun? Could you disprove that theory?

However, the words seen without special filters, fall far more in line with localized "real" gods. You can split hairs till the cows come home, but it don't make it real.

The assembly of god is also one the more interesting refrains in my book as well.

DK

Doctor X

Craigart14:

Dang! KNEW there was "twelve" involved in it somewhere. . . .

Asha'man:

I do not think it was at all the Egyptian gods who did it. The text is writting about a mythic past long ago--a made up story. YHWH is setting up the Pharoah and Egyptians for a good righteous smitting. An editor could have done a better job and replaced "Egyptian gods" with "Egyptian Priests/Advisors/Conservative Talk-Radio Hosts."

UV2003:

Refer also to Spin's examples.

gentho:

Was it? Did the Hellenistic movements care a toss about Jewish texts?

As they considered themselves monotheistic they recast the texts as such. The English translations of the Deuteronomy passage above is a good example. They try to make El and YHWH equivalent--of course that means YHWH divided the nations amongst his sons and gave himself Israel. What about his sons?! To which you are told "do not worry about that" and if you keep asking questions, we will just burn at the stake.

Nowadays, the vast majority do not study the bible and do not know about these details.

--J.D.

LP675

Spin and DR.X I will try to address your posts together.

I have never argued that the OT does not affirm the existence of others “gods�. Of course it does. It even seems to say these “gods� have supernatural power. My point is that this is not any sort of challenge to Christian theology. Christian theology also asserts other “gods� are worshipped, and these “gods� not only sometimes actually exist, but do have supernatural power.
My point was that according to Christian theology all these other “gods� are created beings, demons. These “gods� are spiritual beings created by the Christian God. I showed passages in the OT that shows some sort of distinction between them. i.e. “They sacrificed to demons, which are not God-- gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear�. This verse seems to affirm that these “gods� are “demons�, and hints there is some difference between God and these “gods�. I fully understand your not wanting to acknowledge any real distinction being made, other than the Israelite God was to be worshipped and the others were not to be. I think the OT is probably ambiguous as to the origins of these “gods�. The NT is explicit however, and clearly says these spiritual beings have been created by the only true God, despite the fact these demons are called “gods� or worshipped as such. This is Paul’s point in the passages below, that despite the pagans believing in many “gods�, Christians actually know there is only one true God, and pagans actually worship demons:

“We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God�

1 Cor 10:19-20 “Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.�
I am not in any confusion. Even if I was to acknowledge the OT was polytheistic, and Yahweh was depicted as just one of many “gods�, and was ambiguous as to the origins of these “gods�, my point is this is no challenge to Christian theology.

The NT is absolutely not irrelevant to understanding the OT texts for the purposes of Christian theology, which is what I have been discussing (I even originally italicized ‘Christian’ originally so the point wouldn’t be missed). A Christian believes both the OT and NT provide true information regarding spiritual realities, and so for the purposes of Christian theology the NT helps one understand the OT. That should be obvious.
Again from the perspective of Christian theology it is not. A Christian Systematic Theologian for example takes all the theological statements of the bible, groups them in subjects and tries to make sense of them. I don’t care if you think they actually do make sense of them, my point is that the NT from the perspective of Christian theology does help one understand the OT (as Revelation does the gospels).

The passages that personally gave me the idea Christianity is monotheistic is Jesus’ affirmation of “'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.�, combined with John chaps 14-17.
Wrong, but lets stay on the topic (i.e. how does the acknowledgement of the existence of other supernatural beings in the OT present any sort of challenge to Christian theology?)
For the purposes of this discussion yes I would.

Doctor X

You really should not do that . . . we never agreed on the color of the drapes . . . how can anyone respect green. . . .

The use of the "" and in previous posts trying to cast them as something other than gods:

you seemed to argue it indeed. You continued use of "" suggests you are uncomfortable with the realization that other gods existed in the religion.

Then Christian theology would be wrong. This is not how the people who started these myths saw them. This theology you cite does not even do a very good job. The texts contradict these claims:

Paul does not solve the problem either. Now you return to the denial:

That is not what the text Spin quote states. Period. Sorry.

It is fine you wanting to say you believe that, but it does not change what the text and its writers believed.

As above, it is a challenge if Christian theology tries to adhere to a fundamentalist view or base any of its theology on the OT.

What should be obvious is that the OT does not say what "Christian theology" tries to make it say.


This is irrelevant to what I responded to. A later text is not relevant to understanding the intent of an earlier text unless you can show some connection--later text written to rebut the earlier, it is a later text from the same author because he has changed his mind, et cetera. This is not the case in the point I responded to.

You may believe a "Christian theologian" can through together the texts and says and find justification for whatever he wants. It does not work objectively any more than it does for those who claim the Elohim are space aliens and we need to buy a huge book on Utrantia.

As above, Jn comes after Mk. Also, Jn's Junior is talking about Dad.

Right.

I will recognize that as an inability to back up your ispse dixit.

Then it is not relevant to the thread. Kindly start one that will ignore textual evidence.

--J.D.

spin

As I said, one man's god is another man's demon. But then, where these “gods� came from is a problem in itself now, isn't it?

The only creator you admit to -- I gather -- is el-shaddai (the god of demons), Abraham's god. As this “god� of yours is supposed to have created everything, naturally he created the demons as well, but whoa, you say, they weren't demons when he created them (or some such blather), they chose to be demons. This omniscient “god� sure makes things hard for himself, botching his own creation and putting impediments in the way of his own plans for his initially perfect creation. Things fall apart, the centre doesn't hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. It's all part of the masterplan.

Let me define "theology": the art of solving religious problems by creating new ones.

Your “god� evolves to the stage where he has to have created the universe to maintain his superiority in the changing world. Hey, but that means all those other being must have been created by your “god�, as there is no other culprit. Hey, but your “god� doesn't create evil, so they must have been created good and they had to have become bad somehow, but how? Hey, I know, like naughty children, they rebelled. They chose to be bad. (Don't blame the parent, of course.) Hey, but your “god� is omniscient and knows everything even before it happens, from the creation of the world, so he knew that they would choose to be bad, and still he created them. That was his choice, But hey, he knew that these guys would turn bad and still he set them onto the world?

This system works because the next problem gets deferred: the ways of your “god� are arcane to humans.

You seem to be assuming single-mindedness in the creation of the texts you are citing from, and, in doing so, ignoring what doesn't please you. Who are those other gods in the divine assembly of Ps 82? Who is this accuser chap in Job? Who are the entities that Michael is striving with in Dan 10?

What we have to deal with is what appears between the cracks of a text that has been maintained and edited over a long period, which shows different theologies at different times. What I see you doing is attempting to glue up the cracks.

Wot, me?

What would you expect??

We are in a different age with different theological ideas floating about the Mediterranean, where monotheism is starting to become the norm and even people like Plutarch feel the necessity for him to defend his apparent polytheistic position. The stoic idea of the logos known throughout the Mediterranean came along with the idea of the one god.

It makes no sense to cite nt as being meaningful in explaining the Hebrew Bible. He who controls the present controls the past, remember? Our job is to uncover the past.

xianity is of course not based on the Hebrew Bible. It only used Judaism as a starting point (you remember all that mining for prophecies: eg Jesus came from Nazareth because Samson was to be born a Nazirite, and he was born in Bethlehem because that's where David was born -- & see Mic 5:2), so, if Judaism proves to acknowledge polytheism in the cracks, you can happily discard it, saying that it is not xianity anyway and you think the cracks are covered up.

It's convenient to forget about the polytheism of the Hebrew Bible and at the same time say that you are "not interested in debating Trinitarian theology, which is probably one of the only topics you could name on which I wouldn't consider my own stance as orthodox." It is directly this trinitarian theology that hides the latent polytheism in xianity. How many fingers do you see?


spin

LP675

Please try again. Concisely tell me why this line of reasoning is wrong:

1) The OT accepts the existence of “gods� other than Yahweh.
2) The NT gives further information that these “gods� are created by Yahweh
3) Yahweh is uncreated, therefore in a different category than these other “gods�, who are in fact his creatures.
4) Therefore the existence of “gods� in the OT is not a challenge for Christian Monotheistic theology.

Doctor X

As stated, if a Christian theologian adheres to fundamentalism with "every word true" inerrancy, the polytheism of the OT . . . and even the NT . . . will remain a problem.

If one takes the argument you take then they cannot claim to be reading the intent of the OT authors.

--J.D.

CX

Is it so amazing? Human belief is extremely malleable. Additionally we're talking about thousands of years of human cultural development, much of it pre- or peri-literate. Obviously there was some kind of major socio-cultural upheaval that occurred to allow the Yahweh Only party to achieve dominance. Nonetheless once that happened, political power took over and did the rest. Consider the analogous later situation with the Graeco-Roman world. It goes from highly polytheistic and pagan to entirely monotheistic and Xian in a handful of centuries. And this is to say nothing of Jesus' transformation from a human temple reformer to the atoning son of god and perhaps as little as a century. The fact is human belief can change practically over night. There are myriad examples of this throughout history.

spin

Why not read what has already been said to you?

Or at least look at Ps 82 and contemplate its implications.

It's fine for the nt to explain away other “gods�. You've been doing for several posts. All you are doing is participating in the cover up. And all very understandable. The presence of other “gods� is obviously embarrassing for the later writers of the Hebrew bible, as it is to you.

You say that your “god� is uncreated (where did you get that idea from?), but what does that change?

You have failed to give an explanation of the significance of God standing in the divine assembly in the midst of the gods, if your “god� is of a different ilk from the others. What goes, he creates them then participates in their lowly assemblies? What does he mean when he says, "You are gods, children of the most high"? The text suggests that the speaker is not the most high. Is Elohim the most high or not? Are they his sons?? How are they his sons? Is that how he created them? Doesn't that make them of the same stuff as your “god�? But you claim that they are not of the same stuff. Why not admit that you haven't got a clue, rather than falling back on apparently unweighed belief statements?

Incidentally, your reference to 1 Cor 8:5-6 also provides a very nice anti-trinitarian comment, making the nett separation between gods and lords, adds, "for there is one god, the father, ... and one lord, Jesus Christ". As you can see, Paul obviously doesn't support the dogma here. Is that just one of the many reasons why you won't make any tangible comments on trinitarian doublethink?


spin

Doctor X

gentho:

Let me add something to CX's response--more eloquent and stuff, of course. . . .

This happened. You can trace the development with rise of gods in a few religions, including the Canaanite El and Baal, and the Sumerian-Babylonian deities.

Thompson's, The Mythic Past--great book--details such examples, particularly when a country conquered another.

--J.D.