Jayrok

Jeremiah 32:29 -- The Babylonians who are attacking this city will come in and set it on fire; they will burn it down, along with the houses where the people provoked me to anger by burning incense on the roofs to Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods.

Ezekiel 8:13-14 -- Again, he said, "You will see them doing things that are even more detestable." 14 Then he brought me to the entrance to the north gate of the house of the LORD, and I saw women sitting there, mourning for Tammuz.


Why would Yahweh, the supposed only true God, name other gods by name and be so upset that his people are praying to them if they didn't exist? Why wouldn't he just prove to his people that Baal, Tammuz and the other gods didn't exist?

Instead, he includes as part of his written laws that his people will worship no other gods before him. He isn't talking about money or fame... He's talking about Baal, Tammuz, Zeus, et el.

Does he really believe there are other gods out there?

Of course in reality, it is the authors of the OT that pen this and it is their view that God may believe in them. Yet to the Christian the Bible is divinely inspired.

Lugubert

He's a jealous god (Exodus 20:4-5). That must mean that there is at least one more and more powerful god. What else could he be jealous of?

Nylla

Thou shalt have no other gods before me

Yahweh clearly believed in other gods.

And since biblegod is perfect and all that bit, I guess other gods aren't fiction as some Christians claim.

Spitfire

When describing himself as a jealous God, he means he finds it the height of ingratitude when his people ignore him despite all the things he has done for them and instead worship pagan gods that have never done anything for them and never will because they don't even exist.

xaxxat

Evidently the Hebrews got something out of it. Even the "wisest man in the world" went over to Ashtoreth, Chemosh and Molech...

jeffevnz

He certainly talked to them:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." Genesis 1:26

"And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil..." Genesis 3:22 (The meaning of this is especially clear in light of the earlier verse, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof....ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:5)

"And the LORD said....let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." Genesis 11:6-7


Throughout Genesis and Exodus, God is referred to with the term "elohim" which, curiously, is a plural form. Note, however, that it is generally used with verbs conjugated in the singular. It's a weird little paradox.

And later on (Genesis 18), Abraham has three men over for dinner. He has a conversation with "the Lord", who is treated grammatically as singular. However, there's no language which distinguishes one of the men from the other two or which says anything about their relationship to each other, such as "the Lord and the other two", or "the Lord and his yes-men". Apart from the apparently singular "Lord" having the conversation with Abe, they are always referred to collectively as the three men, and they act in synchronization. There's no interaction between them either. And if "the Lord" does not refer to them collectively, there's curiously no indication of who the other men were.

It's all a little weird. A plain reading of the text says that two unidentified and nondescript guys, who have never been mentioned before, hang out with God and mimic his actions, otherwise not interacting with each other, God, or anyone else.

The traditional explanation is that they're angels, which is only a guess. In light of the problems above, and other evidence for polytheism, I think it's at least equally probable that this was originally a polytheistic story which was sloppily edited into a monotheistic one.

John Kesler

The text has been edited, but as it exists, the identification of Yahweh's companions as angels is made in 19:1:

John Kesler

Yahweh was the patron deity of Israel, and other gods had been alloted their own nations as an inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:8-9 LXX, DSS; Sirach 17:17 et al). It was acceptable for nations to worship their respective deities, but for an Israelite to worship another god was idolatry. The answer to your question is that the other gods were believed to exist until later in Israelite thought when monotheism replaced monolatry.

Harry Bosch

What is your proof that they don't exist?

Joan of Bark

Just as soon as I finish my current 'Biblical Quotations' theses, I'm going to use quotes from the Torah to prove that YHWH and the Israelites definitely believed in other Gods. There are plenty of passages to support this view, but here's one from as late as the reign of the wise king Solomon.

2 Chronicles 2:4 Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the LORD my God and to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on Sabbaths and New Moons and at the appointed feasts of the LORD our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel.

5 "The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.