contentious

Exodus 20: 1-5 KJV
Just conjecture here. First off, lets look at his track record throughout the old testament; from crippling the serpent, cursing his "children," Job, the merciless destruction of whole cities, infanticide, and even the deluge. This is my basis for him being a quote unquote God of War.

My theory is that he was, or perhaps still is, a part of a Pantheon. In his anger at his King, he turned his back on the Pantheon and chose to rise above them. This is also why he's so overprotective of those who worship him, an insecurity leading to jealousy. He describes himself several times as a jealous god, at one point going so far to say his name is Jealous(Exodus 34:14).

He never decries the existence of other gods, only that his followers are not to worship any other gods, or make anything in the likeness of other gods.

He is Henotheistic because other gods exist, but he jealously guards his following and refuses to allow them to even acknowledge those gods. A God of War based on his destructive nature. Perhaps instead a God of Chaos or Death? He does rule over the afterlife, as well.

Discuss

PhilosopherJay

Hi Contentious,

It occurs to me that we might be misinterpreting the second commandment in line 4: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth

We ordinarily are taught that this means that we should not make idols of other Gods. However, notice that the next line assumes these idols: "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them." This assumes that there are idols of other Gods that you might bow down to.

The first commandment is a direction to "you" about "me". Let us assume that the second commandment is also a direction to "you" about "me". Let us assume that the command is not to make a graven image or likeness of "me" of something in the heaven above, in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

Yaweh, I believe, was often portrayed as a cow. Perhaps this commandment was simply a demand that Yaweh not be portrayed as anything but a cow, not a bird (something in the heaven) not a snake (something under the earth) and not a fish (something in the sea). If we assume that Yaweh was normally portrayed as a cow, this is simply a demand that he not be portrayed in any other fashion.

We may also interpret the Third commandment as a reference to the first commandment and the actions of "You" about "Me". Bowing down to other Gods would have the qualifier "before me" from that command. Thus the commandment meant that you would not bow down or serve other Gods before "Me". Here we may take the word "before" in its signification as a time marker and in opposition to the concept of "after".

Imagine a worship place with an image of a cow, a bird, a snake and a fish. People bow and offer sacrifices to these images willy-nilly. In order to bring some order, the high priest demands that you bow and offer sacrifice to the cow first before you bow and sacrifice to the other idols. Perhaps, each idol/image had his own priest. The priest of Yahweh, the cow, wanted his cut of the sacrifice first before the other priests.

These three commandments may be derived from the demand that there be a strict order of worship at a site with four idols (or types of idols). We can assume that in the original text, the next commandment would be that we bowed down and sacrificed to the bird/s and then the snake/s and then the fish/es.

We may assume that this original demand for the ordering of the worship of these four deities or deity types underwent multiple misinterpretations over the next 2500-3000 years until we reach the general misinterpretation we have today.

To sum up the original meaning of these commandments was something along these lines:
1. Bow and sacrifice to the cow called Yaweh before the other deities.
2. Do not portray the cow as anything but a cow. (This reaffirms the first demand for tricksters who would sacrifice to the another idol/image like the fish and then call it "Yahweh" and pretend he had obeyed the first rule).
3. Don't serve the other deities/images first, because the cow will get jealous for a long time and take revenge on your grandchildren or great grandchildren.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

contentious

A very helpful response Jay.

I'm just sort of exploring this idea. Is there already a school of thought on this, something I can look up where I might find more information to back the concept?

Timetospend

Given all the discussion of other gods in Exodus and the early part of the Bible, I think that the term god is a little more elastic than you are suggesting that it is. The whole point of the book of Exodus is to show that the gods of Egypt are not really gods in any way that compares with Yahweh. Yahweh appears to make this point in a way that all the gods of Egypt are defeated (ex. 12:12). As such, it does not appear to me that henotheistism is being suggested in any fashion in Exodus.

In other places, we see that it is suggested that "gods" are not really gods, are only made of stone, are demons, are men, etc.

Anyway, this is my opinion.

Thanks,

beforHim

What's the justification for this? I've never had this cross my mind at all, and I'm no historian, archaeologist, anthropologist, etc. so I'm curious.




The same god we are commanded to worship is the god who "created the heavens and the earth", and if you take this to mean universe (I remember reading somewhere that the Jews meant, in essence, universe by these words), then this would show either a) He is the one and only god, or b) He is the creator god and all those other gods the OT talks about are gods of something else.

I'd say given the fact that the OT often portrays the other gods as mere idols, and that Paul in the NT says they are not really gods (1 Cor. 8), then I'd lean towards the term god being, as Timtospend said, "more elastic".

Also, the OT and NT talks about YHWH being omniscient, omnipotent, omni etc.. This means that if there were other gods they'd be cancelled out by YHWH and not really be gods at all, unless you have degrees of gods, which the Bible certainly doesn't make a case for.

So in the case of the christian Bible, it seems safe to me to say that there is only one god, YHWH.

Roland

Deutoronomy 32:8-9 seems to suggest that Yahweh is one of the sons of El.

When the Most High ('Elyon) allotted peoples for inheritance,
When He divided up the sons of man,
He fixed the boundaries for peoples,
According to the number of the sons of El
But Yahweh’s portion is his people,
Jacob His own inheritance.

Doesn't this sound like Yahweh was GIVEN the Israelites to be in charge of by the "greater god" El? That actually makes more sense since why would a monotheistic god who created the universe carve out one special group to favor over all others? But if Yaheweh was just one god of many, then his being the god of the Israelites only makes perfect sense.

Of course, modern translatons change El to Israel but the oldest known copies (including a fragment in the Dead Sea Scrolls) maintain "El."

http://jewishatheist.blogspot.com/20...ytheistic.html

andrewcriddle

I presume the basis for this claim is the apparent use of golden calves in certain forms of Isrealite worship. I doubt myself whether these calves where meant to be images of Yahweh, they may rather have served a similar function to the Ark in the Jerusalem temple, ie as the throne/footstool of Yahweh.

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi Contentious,

For the idea of Yahweh as Bull or Cow, the most famous article is probably:

Dever, William, G., Asherah, Consort of Yahweh? New Evidence from Kuntillet ʿAjrûd Asherah, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 255 (Summer, 1984), pp. 21-37

However, it has been recognized for more than a century that bull/cow worship was important in early Israel:

from Waterman, Leroy, Bull-Worship in Israel Bull-Worship in Israel,
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Jul., 1915), pp. 229-255

The article cites 1 Kings 12, as Biblical support for Bull worship in Israel during the time of Jeroboam (late 10th century).

Note the key phrase, "Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt." It certainly indicates that this King of Israel did not know that a single God took the Israelites out of Egypt, or rather, in reconstructing the story of this particular King, the writers felt that he would not have known that a single God was responsible for the Exodus.

A recent article, by Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Israelite Ethnicity in Iron I: Archaeology Preserves What Is Remembered and What Is Forgotten in Israel's History, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 122, No. 3 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 401-425 notes:
The original meaning of the commandments depend heavily on when we date the text. In this reconstruction, I assume that the first few commandments are real demands being propagated in the era of Israel's polytheistic period, where Yahweh or perhaps El is merely a cow's image/idol. These early commandments seem to form a single unit that is spliced into the other demands, suggesting that they are independent and from an earlier source.

So Exodus 20:3-7 and Deuteronomy 5:7-11 should be viewed on their own. They form an entirely self-sufficient unit, and probably predate the other commandments.

In the context of a polytheistic society, this would be a Henotheistic series of demands that you give more respect to "Me" (whoever "me" is). Don't get my name wrong, don't bow down and sacrifice to the other idols/Gods until you bow down and sacrifice to me. With this demand for respect and proper name recognition comes a threat to kill your grandchildren and great grandchildren and a promise of a thousand years of friendship/love.

The resort to extreme threats of violence and promises of unlimited love indicates that whoever wrote/said the original text, did not expect it to be willingly carried out. Apparently, the deity/idol that "Me" refers to did not get much respect and was not popular at the time that these demands were made.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

contentious

as a side note, the Golden Calf was an idol to Hathor, one of the Egyptian Gods.

Toto

I just came across this, which I haven't had time to finish reading, but it does have a lot of references to horned Egyptian gods or goddesses and references that support the idea of god as a bull. Joseph Campbell IIRC said a lot about the bovine aspects of gods

Yahwehs Bovine Forms