Loomis

I remember asking a similar question a few years ago. But now I think I see what’s going on. Both stories (Deut 32:8-9 and Psalm 82) use the same paradigm where the Most High god delegates control of the nations to his sons. In Deut 32 Yahweh is one of the sons; but in Psalm 82 Elohim #1 (presumably Yahweh) is an outside god who is dissing (putting and end to) the old paradigm.

Nero's Boot

In the Bronze Age, people did not imagine their gods as being unkillable. Yes, by mortal standards, gods were forever and eternal....but plenty of ancient polytheistic faiths depict gods murdering and/or dethroning each other. Zeus drove out Chronus, and Chronus in turn deposed Uranus. Marduk killed Tiamat and Apsu. Odin, Vili and Ve destroyed the rule of the ancient god-like giants.

--really, the idea of god-dynasties overthrowing each other was overwhelmingly common NB

Lucis

the castration is a metaphor for something. almost everything in myths is allegory.

Loomis

I don’t care.

Joan of Bark

They were polytheistic because they believed in more than one god. Polytheism is a more general word -- and better known -- than henotheism, so that's the word I prefer to use.

Henotheism is simply a term that combines polytheism with monolatry.

polytheism

henotheism

The Hebrews were polytheistic. They were also monolatrous (at least, after king Josiah got through with them).

Uncle Menno

In Mark Smith's The Early History of God (or via: amazon.co.uk), he argues that no text before the Exile gives unambiguous expression of Israelite monotheism.
Smith argues that biblical scholars have to date supposed that (a) Israel's ethnic identity was separate from the other peoples of the land; (b) Israel was not originally among the peoples in the land; (c) specific cultic objects were alien to Israel; and (d) Yahweh was the only deity of Israel.

Smith takes issue with each of these presumptions. Relevant to the question at hand, Smith argues that El was not a "foreign" deity who needed in some sense to be deposed; rather El was the original god of Israel, viz., the name "Isra-el" is an El name, not a Yahwistic one. Smith further adduces that El and Yahweh were identified early on by the absence of biblical polemics against El and by the kind of assimilation/identification expressed in Joshua 22:22, "el elohim yhwh" which Smith translates as "God of gods is Yahweh". The tradition also captured this assimilation as being one of assimilation/unification rather than displacement in Exodus 6:2-3, where the El god who appeared to the patriarchs was identified as being the same as the Yahweh who was now appearing to Moses. While these verses pretty clearly represent priestly editorial commentary (not to say propaganda), the point is that the priestly tradition accepted some kind of foundational continuity between El and Yahweh.

spin

(Perhaps not... I mean, the "after king Josiah" bit... if Josiah has been tarted up as a substitute for the Maccabean king John Hyrcanus, who had political reasons for doing away with the high places and Samaria in particular. Remember how post-Josian Jeremiah and Ezekiel mention naughty events under every green tree? This is reference to people worshiping Asherah, the queen of heaven. Kings might try to convince you otherwise, but Jews were probably not monolatrous before the Persian period.)


spin

Newfie

Yes, but you need to go further. When many people read the bible nowadays they have the belief that God's people were monotheists going all the way back to Adam, which is definitly not the case as many here will gladly illustrate. In fact, it is even possible that Abraham, Issaic and Jacob may not have even experienced the same diety. Jewish monotheism evolved slowly and there isn't any indication that the ancient Hebrews gave up the worship of Baal and the other popular dieties in the region until relatively late.

If anything, Yahweh/El was what my people called a "hard ticket" and his worship spiked when the Hebrews needed to ethnic clense some people, whereas Baal was more of a "fair weather" god, and popular during good times. This kinda parallels the Jesus as God's terminator vs. Jesus as the mild and meek lamb dicodimy of today. When the US is at peace then Jesus is the kind shepard and gathers little children around him, but when America goes to war Jesus sharpens up his sword.

Minimalist

You rang?

Newfie

Doesn't that soldier needs a shave and a haircut before He can wear that uniform? And is that a purple heart I see pinned on His right side? How, exactly, did He earn it? At the Crucifixion, or did one of Satan's soldiers get a lucky shot in?

Begs the question however: Does the re-imagined Jesus as a war god indicate that the USA is a war-like nation, at least in the eyes of those who see Jesus as such?