Clivedurdle

Browsing the new Waterstones in Oxford Street, I came across a copy of the Bible Unearthed, and spent some time looking at it! Might go back and buy it!

Clear argument that most of Hebrew Bible probably written around time of Josiah.

I wonder if some very bright and sophisticated people around that time also achieved something else then - did they invent the idea of Almighty God?

As with all new concepts, it would have been an original synthesis of pre existing concepts, brought together in a different pattern.

So much of the myth we have today about biblical origins is about a concept of a chosen people, but this chosen people are alleged to be not that sophisticated pastoralists.

Is this all propaganda and story telling?

What if we actually have some highly educated civilised literate and experienced people, and maybe only one or two people in this group, who, like someone inventing the wheel, or a hindu mathematician inventing zero, invent the concept of YHWH, el shaddai, etc.

Just as the invention of imaginary numbers and calculus enables all sorts of innovations, is the invention of God a similarly significant invention?

This hypothesis should be reasonably easy to test - what is the history of this concept of a unitary God, creator of everything? Can it be traced to anyone in particular? Isaiah?

kctan

Of course you can't trace such a concept to anyone in particular. The "only god" concept evolving is just a matter of time as humans migrated from a myriad of gods governing over all the millions of events to the "patron god" of the tribe.

Of course there won't be any conflict between the myriads of gods & the patron god as both functions differently. Slowly the role of the patron god would of course take over the functions of the myriads of gods such that what is left is an "only god" concept.

The invention of god can be said to be significant in that it serves as a purpose in calming the populace of the unknown, an unifying force for the tribe, an excuse for festivities, an excuse for atrocites etc... which would enhance the survivality of the tribe as a whole.

The evolution of the wild unknowable gods to the domesticated humanized one is a clear sign of how the role of god changes over time. This evolution can be seen in the bible as well from the wild & personal OT badass to the invisible behind the scene sissy of the NT.

Clivedurdle

I don't know that it was a steady evolution from gods to one God.

The Romans were utterly perplexed by the empty Temple and the Judaic ( and later xian) insistence on exclusivity.

That sounds like a major and very significant change in thinking that can be pinned down historically.

It is most definitely a new idea - Zeus and all the other key gods are the top god amongst others - I AM THAT I AM is a very different way of thinking.

spin

Naaa, the Greeks were going towards the one god notion. That was a movement noted by Plutarch. It started with the Pre-socratics and the logos which permeated everything. There was a single principle behind everything and the gods represented facets of the one. You don't find Plato interested in gods.

The Persians who were a strong influence in Palestine before the Greeks had a single god Ahura Mazda who mustered his forces against the forces of evil Ahriman (Angra mainyu). Yahweh, the lord of hosts, musters his forces against evil as well.

The desert god who molded man out of the dust and becomes the god of a particular people is strictly analogous to the many other gods of the world. Often in politics though, such peoples are subjugated and their gods become subjugated as well, and the powerful people's god not strangely becomes the head of a pantheon. It doesn't mean that the individual people who had their desert god is going to abandon him for the pantheon, just as the powerful are not going to abandon their powerful god. You find the notion that a people have their own god in the bible.

But then during the Persian period there is certainly a lot of syncretism. The god of heaven, Ahura Mazda, is seen as equivalent to the Hebrew god, who is also called "the god of heaven". This doesn't stop other people within communities following their own gods or goddesses. The queen of heaven, who I take was Yahweh's consort Asherah in the inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajud and Khirbet el-Qom, had many faces and a lot of syncretism was involved in her progress in time with the mixing of attributes of Asherah, Ashtaroth, Anat, Isis, Ishtar, etc.

Is it strange that when Antiochus IV took control of the Jerusalem temple into his own hands that he rededicated it to the god Zeus, which he took Yahweh for?

While the Jewish population continued to worship this and that, and the various books of the prophets complain about it, there was a temple in Jerusalem centralized around a one god and the priests of that temple during the Persian period had a certain political control over Yehud and obviously their goal was to strengthen their position and force Yahweh's ascendency at the cost of all else, thus strengthening their own power base. Temples tended to do that sort of thing. You thus had a dichotomy between the temple centred faith and the `am ha-aretz, the lumpen ignorant peasant population of Judah who couldn't understand or appreciate the one god.


spin

spin

One could also add the famous episode of the one god Aton during the reign of Akhenaton, a few generations before Ramses II. This god had a history which involved a clandestine attempt by pharaohs from Tuthmosis IV onwards to stop the creeping power of the Amen priesthood that progress ended with Akhenaton thinking that he could do away with Amen and concentrate the religion strictly in his power. He failed of course, because he didn't have an infrastructure to disseminate the religion through his kingdom, thinking that it was enough that he led his country in the matter.


spin

Rick Sumner

I was under the impression (a la Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Jesus and Judaism, Paul the Law and the Jewish People and so on, I can get more specific references if need be), that 'am ha-aretz referred to those who forsook the covenant--people who sinned heinously and did not repent. Did it perhaps take on a different connotation in Rabbinics (which Sanders is discussing)?

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spin

`am ha-aretz

Literally, the "people of the land" and that should tell you who they were. They are the bulk of the population, the ones who were too poor to be able to afford to pay for temple sacrifices, who were unable to fulfill temple obligations and who therefore could find no solace in the temple. They were therefore ritually unclean and therefore to be avoided by all who maintain temple purity, which included the Pharisees although they were not temple centred.


spin

Rick Sumner

Gotcha, it seems I've confused my terms trying to work from memory. Resha 'im would appear to be the term I'm thinking of, and thus I'm unintentionally doing exactly what Sanders is arguing against--equating the 'am ha-aretz with the resha 'im, as though both terms referred to people cut off from the covenant.

Regards,
Rick Sumner