Doctor X

No, they are not.

"Elohim" is plural--gods.

"El"--"god"--is a deity in his own right.

"YHWH"--a verb--was attached to "El" as a larger deity name--"God that creates the heavenly hosts," for example. At some point he became "detatched" to become a figure in and of himself.

--J.D.

Reference:

Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel

ex-xian

El - a generic term used to refer a deity, similiar to the way english speakers use the "god." Alos El is often compounded with other name to describe gods. El Elyon, El Shadii, etc

Elohim - The plural of El. Elohim refers to a pantheon of gods and godlike being that sat in the court of YHWH.

YHWY himself went to battle at creation and slew the leviathon, then he formed earth from her body.

So in addidition to the sexual aspects of genesis 1, holy spirit covering over deep, borrowing form Babalonian tradition has YHWH going to battle at creation and subduing the waters/sea creature. And using her body to make the land.

I don't have my sources handy, but I'd be glad to give the scrip references, as well as the author that I read this from.

SLD

Well, Morpheus, I'm jumping in late here and hope you're still reading. These two points are not exactly a contradiction, but I've actually stumped a fundy or two with them:

1) The fact that Jesus uses almost the exact same phrase as Dionysis does in Euripides Play the Bacchae written 400 years BC: "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." - said to Paul while on the Road to Damascus to persecute followers of the crucified Jesus (Acts Chapter 9 V. 5) and said by Dionysis to King Pentheus while he also is travelling on a road to persecute Dionysean followers in another city (Euripides Line 790). If Christianity is not a mystery cult, why in the world would God use a line from a play about a mystery cult under almost exactly similar circumstances? For good measure point out that in both Acts and the Bacchae there is a jail break scene where the chains were loosed from the prisoners feet automatically and the doors were opened automatically without human intervention.


2) In response to a question by a fundy about what an atheist had against God, I once saw this reply and have used it since: "Because he had children mauled to death by a bear for daring to tease an old man about being bald." 2nd Kings Chapter 2, vs. 23 and 24.


Hope these two points help. Let us know how it goes Morpheus.

SLD

Doctor X

ex-xian:

Not to nit-pick but:

El was a specific deity--had his own iconography.

He became "generic" later--and I think--much much later as a way to harmonize him with other gods, much like Magnus attempted above.

Also, "smash and squish" gods tended to become more "generic" or "universal" as "younger gods" became more prominent.

--J.D.

Soul Invictus

thanks for the link...been looking for something just like this. can you pm me your personal reference booklist?

Soul Invictus

please do. i should like to peruse over this myself. pm me if you can

Peter Kirby

Kindly post the book list here so that we can consider books for inclusion in the scholar's canon.

best,
Peter Kirby

Doctor X

You would know my secrets?

The Cross book is a must--a bit hard at points because he gets into the linguistics.

Friedman's Who Wrote the Old Testament is also mandatory. This provides some good links to references. In fact, stop what you are doing and start reading it . . . NOW!

Another hard book to find, but a good one, is:

Edelman DV, ed. The Triumph of Elohim: from Yahwisms to Judaisms. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eardmans Publishing Co., 1995.

--J.D.

SLD

Morpheus, you there buddy? Tell us how it went.

SLD

Morpheus

due to some time limitations, i haven't yet been able to put together a list for my parents of what i think are some of the most devastating contradictions/problems with the bible. however, during our conversation a couple have happened to come up that i have discussed with them.

1) i brought up genesis 2:17, where god promises that adam will "surely die" the same day that he eats of the fruit. i explained that the hebrew word for "die" in the verse is used elsewhere in the old testament and refers to physical death, as opposed to spiritual death (as some apologists claim). my parents' response was that he actually did die on that day, in the sense that he began to undergo the processes that eventually leads to physical death on that day. i pretty much argued that this was a ridiculous rationalization and complete mangling of the language and words used in the verse (since when does "surely die" ever mean "begin the undergoing the processes that eventually lead to physical death"), but they held to their position and maintained that i was incorrect.

2) we discussed the contradiction regarding the place of king josiah's death. one account is given in kings, and one in chronicles; the former says he died at megiddo, while the latter says he died in jerusalem. here's the relevant verse from chronicles:

"His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah."

my parents, using an internet source they'd found, tried to argue that this sequence of events isn't necessarily chronological. they cited a biblical scholar (e.m. zerr, i believe) who supposedly said that the phrase "and he died" is often used in the o.t. non-chronologically. i think they were attempting to say that josiah did die in megiddo, before he was "brought to jerusalem," despite the fact that the verse records the latter prior to recording his death. i said that i would need to see the zerr quote in context, and that i would need to see other specific and relevant examples in other passages where the phrase "and he died" was used non-chronologically. after all, the verse seems to clearly and plainly record the fact that megiddo died in jerusalem; any other reading of the text is extremely forced. again, what they put forth seemed like an erroneous rationalization.

3) there is a contradiction between 1 chronicles 2:15 and 1 samuel 16:10-11 regarding whether david was the seventh or eighth son of jesse. i poined this out to my parents, and the next day my dad had a rebuttal. he (and my mom) argued that in the chronicles passage one of jesse's other siblings had died, so that david was now the seventh son of jesse. i argued that the chronicles passage is clearly recording the order of jesse's sons according to their birth and it would make no sense and be incorrect to simply leave out one of the sons who had already died and say that david was jesse's seventh son. just because one of his siblings died, the fact remains that david was jesse's eighth son (if the samuel passage is correct), not his seventh. again, my parents seemed to put forth an ad hoc, forced, and rather fanciful rationalization in order to avoid a biblical contradiction.

this all came about because after i gave my dad an article by theodore drange that refutes the fine-tuning argument, he went and found another article by drange, his "argument from the bible" which is in the infidel library, in an attempt to somehow bring down or disparage drange's reputation. he tried to point out a strawman argument in the latter article, but he was incorrect in his understanding of what drange wrote. anyway, this led to us looking a little bit at the "argument from the bible" article, and these aforementioned contradictions were a few of the ones that were in that article.

i do have a general idea of the main contradictions/inconsistencies/atrocities i'm going to present to my parents, hopefully within a couple days. see what you guys think:

1) matthew 2:1 vs. luke 2:2 – when was jesus born? (i'm going to supplement this with the carrier article from the infidel library, http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...quirinius.html)

2) jeconiah – childless or not? is jesus a descendant of him, and does this contradict the o.t. passage where god says that none of his line will inherit the throne of david? - matthew 1:12, jer 22:28-30, 1 chr. 3:17-18 (with thanks to ex-xian)

3) did god commend or condemn jehu for the killings at jezreel? - 2 kings 10:30 v. hosea 1:4 (supplemented by simmons article, http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=108)

4) are children punished for sins of their parents, or not? (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...iniquity.html, with thanks to jack the bodiless)

5) who kills goliath? 1 sam. 17 v. 2 sam. 21:19; words added in translation to avoid contradiction (with thanks to mageth, winace, et al)

6) biblical injustices/atrocities –

a) original sin

b) god killing children for teasing an old man (2 king 2:23,24, with thanks to sld)

c) the global flood (gen. 6: 11-17)

d) god bringing about the killing of the firstborn in egypt (exodus 12:29)

e) joshua killing all breathing creatures with god's approval, including women and children (throughout joshua 10, summary 10:40)

7) omnipotence vs. omnibenevolence vs. omniscience - this is more of a philosophical/logical argument, and one that i'll probably make without any direct reference to scripture (unless they demand evidence that god actually possesses these characteristics). i see many problems with the reconciliation of these attributes, despite numerous apologetic attempts to get around the problems.

8) ecclesiastes 3:18-22 and the many concepts there that seem to fly in the face of traditional christian teachings, specifically the author's skepticism in v. 21 which directly contradicts my parents' "certainty" regarding their eternal fate (with thanks to jobar).

regards.