The Many Gods of the Bible

[gadam123]

Hi Danny, I am bringing the arguments on how the Abrahamic deity or the Biblical deity was formed and evolved from Polytheistic background to Monotheism.

The Formation of Abrahamic Deity

Recent years have seen substantial changes in the study of ancient Israelite religion. These changes have created ample work for scholars of religious studies and related fields as virtually all disciplines have something to say about recent archaeological and scholarly developments concerning Yahwism and its early development. Though the historicity of these texts is highly suspect, they nevertheless provide valuable historical information that, if engaged with carefully, can aid in understanding the origin and evolution of one Yahweh of Canaan.

Archaeology and a careful reading of the biblical texts confirm what we in some sense already know intuitively: that monotheism in the Near East did not emerge in a vacuum. Though Beersheba, Sinai, Golgotha, and Mecca are now considered important milestones in an evolution from polytheism to monotheism, none occurred in isolation. Rather, they are associated with developments that rested on the shoulders of contemporary philosophical, theological, and sociological circumstances. Monotheism, like any influential idea, developed over centuries and entered history gradually.

The Israelite tradition finds its origins in the polytheism of the ancient Levant. The pantheon there—and the decentralized political structures that reinforced it— provided the context in which Israelite religion developed. The Hebrew Bible maintains glimmers of a more pluralistic conception of divinity; critical moments in its text suggest that Yahweh is one deity among several. Although he is the deity of the Israelites and ostensibly the creator of the world, the neighboring peoples always—and the Israelites often—acknowledge the existence of other deities. And yet it seems clear that an important ideological shift occurred between the events the biblical writings relate and the composition of those texts. Somehow, the Israelites—who were, like any other Near Eastern people, polytheistic and decentralized—had become a centralized political structure championing a form of monotheism. Therefore a change had occurred in two realms—the political and the religious. Both began as decentralized and pluralistic, but with the Davidic monarchy each had become singular—one king and one deity.

In composing the biblical texts, writers sought to bring cultural memories and a civil self-understanding to the narratives they told. They painted these narratives as more monotheistic than the periods actually were, thereby masking the moments in which Israelite monotheism gained ground. For the biblical writers, the Israelites’ transition from polytheism to monotheism did not happen because they believed their ancestors had always been the chosen people of one deity named Yahweh. Yet this does not preclude the biblical texts’ utility in extracting historical developments the texts mask.

It is worth noting that even after the Christian conversion of Europe many once dominant deities shrunk to insignificant sprites; this exposes that even centuries after the dominance of Yahweh in the Israelite pantheon there remained a tendency to centralize worship of Yahweh without negating the existence of other deities. Even in the most modern manifestations of monotheism, we still encounter the peculiar position of saints and angels in a monotheistic cosmology.

Throughout his book ‘History of God’, Mark Smith argues that the Canaanites and the Israelites are closely  related in their traditions. When, according to the biblical account, the Israelites acquired the practices of Canaanite religions it was not—as the Bible suggests—the adoption of foreign polytheistic habits, but rather a reversion to an older form of Israelite religion. Smith also deftly outlines the phenomenon of convergence in which various deities melded into one—ultimately Yahweh. Beginning around the time of the judges until well into the monarchy, the mythological personages of El and Yahweh gradually melded into one deity. The idea can be substantiated in part because the later prophets (such as Isaiah) seem to speak of an era before the monarchy in which Israel was polytheistic, but suggest that after the monarchy it became more monotheistic.

I think that the final redaction of the Biblical text spanning from Genesis to 2 Kings was done by writers who were monotheistic, if not entirely in our modern sense. Such a model would work well with Van Seters, who argues that the Bible began with the initial J-text and was subsequently augmented with new writings by new writers. Each of these writers would have carefully removed most polytheistic fingerprints left by the preceding writers, although the text maintains vestiges of polytheism. Since even the earliest of these texts was written after the formation of the Davidic monarchy, it seems that even these writers lived during a period of emerging monotheism. The final edit to this portion of the biblical text—by the Deuteronomist around 440 BCE—was written when most of the kings of the monarchy were little more than a mythological memory.

Therefore the epic spanning from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings is more solidly monotheistic than other books of the Torah that occasionally bear the footprint of polytheistic traditions; these later texts were composed after the monarchy had better solidified its legitimacy based on the relationship between David and Yahweh.

Polytheism is well-suited for a decentralized people in which local clans could worship individual gods without negating the existence or the legitimacy of the other clans’ gods. There existed a powerful connection between a particular clan, its deity, and the priest that theoretically negotiated between the two. Familiar relationships between deities often paralleled what were believed to be shared origins between various clans. In few other traditions is this clan structure as clear as for the Israelites, for whom the Joseph epic proposes that the twelve tribes of Israel derived from twelve powerful sons of Jacob—the final patriarch of the Israelites.

The analysis turns to the pivotal Ugaritic scriptures that represented a watershed moment in the study of Canaanite religion. Until their discovery, details about Canaanite religion was derived from a paucity of archeological findings and the highly adulterated information presented in the Hebrew Bible. These scriptures contained, instead, three more or less complete epics that showed pivotal information about the pantheon, and—to some extent—the practices of the Canaanite religion, and by extension Israelite religion. The principal deity of this pantheon is El, who had—much like Kronos in Greek mythology—began to decay in prominence. Discussion of him is important because he is one of the principal deities that would later meld into Yahweh. Moreover, “EL” is the generic Hebrew word for “god”. El is also of note as he is the only deity—apart from Yahweh—to receive no polemic in the Hebrew Bible.

Asherah, too, probably played a more prominent role in Israelite religion than the Hebrew Bible maintained. Her role in the Bible is generally associated with certain poles that bore her name. Baal, too, who—according to the biblical narrative—was Yahweh’s chief rival for Israelite affection. The Ugaritic texts portray him as the dominant god in the Canaanite pantheon who opposed Yahweh, a chief deity of the south.

Relying on archaeological data, when we discuss the historical circumstances that led up to the foundation of the monarchy, and  how the Saul story was likely constructed to give further legitimacy to David. Unlike Saul, David was believed to have the blessing of Yahweh. This would provide a critical link between the monarchy and the relatively obscure southern deity of Yahweh, and would be appropriated by David’s successors to cement their own legitimacy. Monotheism grew out of the monarchy because some kings—namely David and Josiah—understood that more powerful than the blessing of a deity was the blessing of the only deity.

Among the most influential kings to jettison polytheistic practices was Josiah, who in Amonhotep-like fashion attempted to rid all non-Yahwistic elements from Israelite religion. Josiah was ostensibly inspired by a book found in the Temple, probably Deuteronomy whose composition he himself had overseen and the subsequent narrative of the monarchy spun by the biblical writers—could monotheism truly emerge. Clearly this evolution spanned millennia and countless generations. Though it matured with the Davidic  monarchy, it was a slow process that grew in small steps. Importantly, inklings of the polytheistic origins of Israelite religion still linger in a close reading of the biblical text; indeed, the Bible is an invaluable source in reconstructing the early history of Canaan.

The ten commandments, for instance, command that “you shall have no other god before me” (Exodus 20:2). The commandment hardly negates that there are other deities, but only reinforces that Israelites may worship only Yahweh, their clan god. Additionally, the commandment is explicitly given in the singular form—to Israel. It is not intended to be a general commandment but rather to solidify a specific connection between Israel and Yahweh.

There is no doubt that the religion described in the epic of Baal and other Ugaritic texts was polytheistic. Nor is there much doubt that the head of the pantheon was—or once had been—El. Although modern descendants of Proto-Semitic languages use variations of the term “el” to refer to any deity generally (Hebrew “el” and Arabic “ilah”), it seems “el” was originally not merely a noun but also an identity. Yet El’s position in the pantheon at the time of the Ugaritic scriptures was insecure. Perhaps among some local pantheons he figured more prominently into worship habits, but—generally in Canaan—he had become merely a de jure chief deity. Like the Greek Kronos, with whom he was later identified, El had retreated into an ethereal realm that seldom intersected the mythological drama of the other gods, or—especially—of people. In a cosmology closely paralleling his obscure position in contemporary religious practice, El was said to reside far away at the “source of the two rivers”—likely a reference to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates (though now-extinct rivers are possible too). Regardless, other gods would have to travel long distances to encounter him. Yet apart from this distant abode, El was said to contact other gods and occasionally people—through rare apparitions.

The physical description of El found in the Ugaritic scriptures mirrors his frail role in the Canaanite pantheon. The goddess Anat describes him as having a long beard, and in various clay renderings he and his beard appear before the pantheon of other gods. Described as the “father of the years” in Ugaritic texts, he is the prototype for the modern Western conception of an aged and bearded deity. While such a divine conception owes much to the ancient renderings of El, the Western tradition likely inherited this image through Yahweh who himself assumed these aged associations. Yahweh—originally a southern warrior deity about whom considerably more will be said later—would in the monarchic period become
indistinguishable from El. Yahweh’s description as the “Lord of hosts” or as the head of a divine pantheon seems to have been lifted directly from the tradition of El, as similar titles are applied to El in the Ugaritic scriptures. Although by the time of the Bible’s composition the heavenly hosts would be understood not as other deities, but angels, it seems clear whence this tradition derives.

El is the only deity—apart from Yahweh—not maligned in the biblical text. The Bible directs no polemic against him, but he is instead consistently praised; his name—like Yahweh’s—appears in names of prominent prophets (Daniel, Ezekiel, Samuel, Israel, etc.). The inclusion of the name seems to assume that for the Israelites “El” was merely another word for “Yahweh” or else biblical writers would not have included the name in some of their most beloved prophets. Certainly a prophet deriving his name from
“Baal” would have been unthinkable. The debate surrounding these names has caused some controversy among scholars; some—like Tigay—suggest that the inclusion of Yahwistic names (Jeremiah, Zachariah, etc.) implies that Yahweh was the exclusive deity for these people. Smith counters to say that although no examples exist of the Canaanites adopting their own deities into their names, they clearly worshiped these deities. Moreover, the lack of such evidence is unsurprising as we have very few names of Canaanite prophets independent of the Biblical text. Nor,  does the inclusion of a deity into one’s name suggest that the deity is exclusive.

Regardless, the inclusion of both deities into the names of prominent Israelite prophets suggests that both deities were important in the religion. And it is also clear in Canaan’s early history that the two were distinct. After Jacob’s prophecy about his sons, for instance, he praises El (Genesis 49:25) who is ostensibly separate from Yahweh, whose praise is awkwardly inserted (perhaps as a redaction by the later P source) between the prophecies of Dan and Gad (49:18).

Joshua 22:22—“God [el] of gods [elohim] is Yahweh”—may propose a relationship between El and Yahweh. And yet, we must be cautious in accepting this as a concession by biblical writers of the distinct persons of El and Yahweh. “El” here is in its constructive form, therefore implying it means not the proper noun, but rather the generic term “god”, therefore echoing similar superlatives elsewhere in the Hebrew text (i.e.,“king of kings”, “song of songs”, “holiest of holies”). And yet, the verse is still important because it—like the earlier verse of Exodus 15 above—seems to apply that Yahweh is not a singular element in the pantheon, but rather the head of a pantheon.

In the later P text, such monolatrous strands seemed to have gradually faded into a more monotheistic cosmology. In particular, the two deities seem to have melded into one. Yahweh discusses the history of his name in Exodus 6, revealing that he and El are one. “And God says to Moses, ‘I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, [and] to Jacob as El Shadday, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known unto them.” It is highly likely that this is a late redaction by the P source (done in the Exilic period or
later). Regardless, it is an imaginative way of solving the problem of having two chief gods—that they are in fact the same. Its inclusion all but concedes that the two deities were long imagined as separate deities, otherwise such a dramatic revelation—that Yahweh and El represent the same deity—would not have been necessary. The melding of these two deities into one was probably significantly aided by El’s undeveloped
character; as an aged and distant deity, his personality posed no real clashes with the younger southern god called Yahweh.

Asherah was the Canaanite mother goddess and El’s consort. Common epithets for Asherah included “Qudshu” (Holiness), and the goddess was closely associated with childbirth. Yet her roles extended far beyond realms generally associated with birth; occasionally she was portrayed as a warrior goddess, defiant—even bellicose. In the earliest Canaanite myths, for instance, she is credited with destroying the Sea Dragon, precipitating El’s creation of the earth. The etymology of her name supports this critical—if ultimately forgotten—role in creation. “Asherah” is merely the middle word in a much longer name—Rabbatu ‘athiratu yammi ( “the woman who walks on the sea”)—in which Yam means both “sea” and a dragon-like being.

The biblical writers (perhaps unconsciously) drew upon this ancient myth when composing its second verse, namely “the darkness upon the face of the deep.” This darkness is never explicitly returned to
again, and it reads like exposition before Elohim creates the world. It is quite possible that this “darkness” represents the dragon that Asherah vanquished before creation, but—after Asherah’s omission from the Yahwistic pantheon—the showdown between Asherah and the dragon was also omitted. All that remains of this cosmologically pivotal feat is the mere exposition of a force lingering over the water. However, it seems clear that the writers of Genesis emerge from a tradition in which this particular myth had once been a standard element in the creation story.

Perhaps because of her association with fertility and childbirth, Asherah was often seen as a sort of temptress. In addition to her perpetual—if distant—consort El, myths speak about her attempted seduction of Baal and other deities; a set of statues, for instance, depicts two men warring over Asherah. At least part of the reason for Asherah’s fall from favor in Yahwism may have been an embrace of female sexuality and promiscuity of the sort that Mosaic law was unwilling to allow.

However, relatively little information exists in Canaan itself from which to reconstruct Asherah’s role. And yet the sparse evidence discovered in Canaan is important; quite possibly many of the region’s uncovered teraphim depict her—as they seem to do in the wider region. These figurines—generally carved out of clay or ivory—were presumably prominent in worship, as is confirmed by Rachel’s stealing of Laban’s teraphim in Genesis 31. Archaeological evidence suggests Israelite worship of Asherah in pottery as well; a jar found in Kuntillat ‘Arjud (in the Sinai) dates to the ninth century BCE and includes an interesting inscription: “I bless thee by Yahweh and his Asherah.” That Asherah was Yahweh’s consort instead of El’s probably derives from the collapsing of El and Yahweh into one deity. For many, it must have made sense that Yahweh (now indistinguishable from El) would associate with Asherah as well.

The passages in Jeremiah composed much later than the Deuteronimist, likely in the exilic period. The first concerns practices surrounding an enigmatic “queen of heaven”: “The women knead dough to make cakes unto the queen of heaven, and to pour drink offerings unto others gods that they may provoke me [Yahweh] to anger” (7:18). The second verse—particularly illuminating—is a quote from the Israelites’ exile in Babylon: “We shall certainly do all we said we would…burn incense for the queen of heaven, to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we did, and our fathers, and our kings, our princes, in cities in Judah, in Jerusalem streets” (44:17). The Israelites continue to say: “Ever since we ceased burning incense unto the queen of heaven…we have had nothing and have been dying by sword and famine” (44:18).

These verses suggest that worship of the queen of heaven (whom I argue is Asherah) is an ancient practice, and that at least some Israelites associated her worship with better fortune than monolatrous worship of Yahweh. The verse is therefore pivotal because it does not necessarily imply that the Israelites ceased worshiping Asherah and began worshiping Yahweh. Instead, it seems to imply that the worship of many gods at once was acceptable for the Israelites; what was unfavorable was the worship of a single deity. This is clear in the text itself which argues “we ceased burning unto the queen” not “we began worshiping Yahweh”. Therefore—literally a millennia after the imagined revelation in Sinai—the Israelite masses were still struggling to jettison their polytheistic practices that had ostensibly been central to their religion for so long. In addition to the goddess Asherah, two other goddesses figured prominently in the Canaanite pantheon—Anat (or Anath), Baal’s virgin sister, and Astarte.

A reading of the history books of the Hebrew Bible supposes not only that the deities of the Israelites and the Canaanites, but also their practices, were radically different. Independent of other archaeological evidence, often the biblical text is its own sharpest critic. Animal sacrifices characteristic of Canaanite religion in the bible, for instance, would remain a central element of Yahwism until Roman times. In turning to the Ugaritic texts, many of the specific types of sacrifices in Ugarit appear identical to the
acknowledged practices of the Israelites themselves. Sometimes these practices bear no ostensible etymological relation, such as the Biblical Hebrew ‘olah and the Ugartic “sh-rp” both of which are offerings consumed by fire.

As early as 1200 BCE, the two people are already differentiated in an Egyptian text celebrating the control of Egypt over the area (echoing the Tel-al-amarna document). Here “Israel” is mentioned as a people and “Canaan” as a country. Other cities such as Gezer and Ashkelon are mentioned in the text as well, so there is little doubt about the area in question. Though the text does not mention that these people are at war with one another, it does imply that they were distinct.

Apart from this text there are prominent elements in Israelite religion that do not appear to derive from Canaanite origin. Most notably is Yahweh’s southern sanctuary in Sinai and the exodus story in which that region is prominent. It would appear that these two elements are related. Although it is true that the biblical writers’ designed narrative sought to overwrite the shared mutual origins of the Canaanites and the Israelite peoples, it is true also that the branching of the religious traditions of the Israelites and the Canaanites was in some sense organic. The role of the biblical writers, therefore, was merely to erase the root from which these two branches mutually sprung, and to treat the two trajectories as having been always radically opposed. As is so often true in the history of religion, it is argued that the religious differentiation between Canaan and Israel was initially political. With the rise of the Davidic monarchy, Israel received its hero and its political structure. Accordingly, its religion shifted, for a time, to the Judaic deity—Yahweh. Although the ascendancy under David would be short-lived, intense nostalgia for David by his successors and the biblical writers would ensure the eventual victory of Yahweh over the whole of the Canaanite pantheon.

The writers of these particular biblical texts were more monotheistic than the ancient characters they wrote about, and accordingly their task was not an easy one. In turning back to this mythological period in their history, biblical writers were penetrating a historical moment in which polytheism was the norm of the land. Their task was to present a later theological development (monotheism) as though it had always been characteristic of the Israelite people. Although likely these writers did not doubt the veracity of a single deity, this reasonably new ideological development percolated their rendering of the ancient events they recounted, adulterating history with legend.

Non-biblical evidence suggests that the Israelites had differentiated themselves from other Canaanites around 1200 BCE, a date not unrelated to David’s supposed rise to power about two centuries later. Such organic differentiation was, after all, probably necessary for a portion of the inhabitants of Canaan to mobilize into a monarchy. As mentioned, before the time associated with David’s rise (and—as the biblical
portrayal of Solomon’s reign shows—after his death) some form of polytheism was dominant among Israelites and Canaanites. And yet somehow David’s ascension under the banner of Judah and the purported blessing of Yahweh would have profound effects on Israelite religion; ultimately, it would be instrumental in the formation of monotheism.

Yet this relationship was not as simple as cause and effect; though the monarchy would help to solidify Israel’s trend toward monotheism, it was ultimately the biblical writers working in the Exilic period and beyond that cemented this connection. Although David himself may have invoked his relationship with Yahweh to solidify his own legitimacy, the biblical writers worked to draw attention to it and to expand on its implications.

Martin Noth’s influential thesis on source theory led most scholars to conclude that the bulk of this text spanning Deuteronomy to 2 Kings is the work of a single redactor. This author of this epic work connecting Sinai with the Babylonian captivity is often dubbed “The Deuteronomist”—associated with the D writing in the traditional Documentary Hypothesis. Clearly there are continuities in this text, and read straight through the text crescendos to the formation of the Davidic monarchy and David himself.
The Book of Ruth, for instance, seems irrelevant in the larger biblical drama unless to offer details about David’s ancestors. Because of David’s importance both politically and religiously, the redactor of these bible texts embraced and reinforced the centrality of David in the biblical narrative. For the Deuteronomist, David is the central human character in his narrative—a narrative that glorifies and legitimizes David’s assent to power and laments that most—if not all—of his successors were but mere shadows of his splendor.

That Deuteronomy through 2 Kings is the work of a single author or redactor is substantiated even by portions of its text that do not mention David. In Deuteronomy and Judges, for instance, we have clear whispers of the coming of kings, implying a postmonarchic composition. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells his people in one of his farewell speeches, “When you enter the land Yahweh your God is giving you…and say ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us, be sure to appoint over you the king whom Yahweh your god chooses.’ ” (Deuteronomy 17:14-15) This prophecy so closely follows the events of 1 Samuel that we can safely conclude that it postdates either the events themselves or the composition of the stories that relate them. Judges, similarly, ends with a passage that overtly suggests a monarchic influence on its composition: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” That these texts anticipate and centralize David is unsurprising as most scholars agree with Noth that the epic history from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings was the work of a single hand written after David. Despite the Therefore the rise of monotheism is connected both to the rise of the Israelite monarchy and the biblical writers’ rendering of that narrative.

In searching for the origins of Israelite monotheism and the development of this tradition, it is followed the development of a deity and an idea from the early religious practices through to the reign of Josiah and the codification of that history in the Exilic period. Clearly this is not a full history of Abrahamic monotheism.  In following Yahweh and the emergence of monotheism, it was aided and hindered by the Bible itself, that—despite its dubious historicity—offered more details on the period that any other single source. Yet it did not intend to use the history of the Bible unchecked, but rather to enter it into conversation with archaeological findings. The result is therefore a narrative that is constructed from several different sources, yet that attempts to follow a central question: how did the polytheistic Israelites come to worship a single deity named Yahweh? In particular, it is sought to understand the relationship this transition had with political power and the codification of the biblical text.

Though the biblical narrative argues that the Israelites were captive in Egypt and had conquered Canaan, historical realities do not mesh with this narrative. What is more likely is that the Israelites and the Canaanites were, for a time, the same people. The later biblical polemic against the Canaanites emerged after these two groups of peoples had parted ways—particularly in religious matters.

The deity associated with David’s clan had been Yahweh, and although he fell short of demanding the singular worship of this deity for his subjects, his centralization of religious and political power in Jerusalem set the stage. David understood that there was a connection between political and theological centralization, and that he would best be able to invoke divine support if he had the blessing of the only god. David would enter the realm of legend in subsequent years, and when the biblical writers looked back on him they sought to exploit his popularity to cement the supremacy of Yahweh…..(taken from an article ‘The Ascension of Yahweh’)

[mikeboll64]

Adam:  …you are using non-kind words towards others which is not permitted in any public Forum.

Says who?  Have you never heard of Twitter or Facebook?  I try to imitate my Lord, not you.  And my Lord openly called out hypocrites and those spreading falsehoods.  I will continue to do the same, thanks.

Mike:  Now… you have claimed that Deut 32:8-9 portrays Yahweh as an inferior tribal god who was given Israel by the Canaanite god El.  That belief is nowhere in that text.  Please acknowledge that you were wrong…

Adam:  I have already replied this query of yours in my reply to Danny.

Actually, you simply made the same baseless claims to Danny that you made to me.  I will call out many of those claims in time, but I have started by asking you to show me from the text of Deut 32:8-9 that Yahweh is a local tribal god subservient to the Canaanite god El.

Are you able to do that?  If so, do it.  If not, then be man enough to admit that the text doesn’t actually say the things you claim it does.  Thanks.

[mikeboll64]

Adam:  Monotheism, like any influential idea, developed over centuries and entered history gradually.

Here’s another example of the nonsense that you copy and paste – but won’t stand and defend.

And here’s my answer to it:

Monotheism is the belief that there literally exists only one deity.  The Bible – all the way from the earliest OT to the latest NT – is NEVER monotheistic.

Now will you use your own words to try to show me wrong?  Or will you ignore this challenge like you did the Deut 32 challenge – opting instead to just keep copying and pasting even more nonsense that you can’t personally stand and defend?

[mikeboll64]

Adam:  In later developments, of course, El and Yahweh were merged into one god…

Another example of baseless nonsense.  SHOW ME, Adam.  Where is your PROOF of your claim?  (Well, not actually YOUR claim, but the claim of somebody else that you copied and pasted. 🙄)

Adam: Deuteronomy 4:19

And when you see the sun or moon or stars, don’t be tempted to bow down and worship them. The LORD put them there for all the other nations to worship.

The verse is so funny which states that this Tribal God Yahweh allotted sun, moon and stars to other nations for their worship.

Even more baseless nonsense.  Show me in the Hebrew texts the latter word “worship”.  What the Hebrew says is that Yahweh told His people not to worship the sun, moon or stars – things that He has allotted to all peoples under the whole heaven.  It doesn’t say that Yahweh provided these things for other nations to worship.

Will you stand and defend, Adam?  Or run away to post more copy and pastes about things you clearly don’t understand?

[gadam123]

And here’s my answer to it:

Monotheism is the belief that there literally exists only one deity. The Bible – all the way from the earliest OT to the latest NT – is NEVER monotheistic.

Now will you use your own words to try to show me wrong? Or will you ignore this challenge like you did the Deut 32 challenge – opting instead to just keep copying and pasting even more nonsense that you can’t personally stand and defend?

Hi Mike, Yes Hebrew religion which is based on their Bible had evolved and developed from Polytheism to Monotheism as per the historians. If you don’t accept it’s your problem. I don’t accept the Christianity as it is secondary religion originated from the Hebrew religion.

Your challenge of Deut 32:8-9 has already been replied number of times in my posts. If you don’t accept it’s again your problem. Please don’t bring it again to me.

The Hebrew Bible was an end result of redaction and high editing by the religious fundamentalists similar to NT writers and early Christian scribes. This is being investigated by the historians and archeologists for the past two Centuries.

[gadam123]

Even more baseless nonsense. Show me in the Hebrew texts the latter word “worship”. What the Hebrew says is that Yahweh told His people not to worship the sun, moon or stars – things that He has allotted to all peoples under the whole heaven. It doesn’t say that Yahweh provided these things for other nations to worship.

Again your comment on my post mentioning Deut 4:19 is also ignorance of my arguments.

The text of Deut 4:19 (GNT) reads…

19 Do not be tempted to worship and serve what you see in the sky—the sun, the moon, and the stars. The Lord your God has given these to all other peoples for them to worship.

But the later scribes might had edited it as it might have looked awkward for a Monotheistic religion.

Another example;

Regardless, the inclusion of both deities (EL and Yahweh) into the names of prominent Israelite prophets, Samuel, Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah etc., I suggests that both deities were important in the religion. And it is also clear in Canaan’s early history that the two were distinct. After Jacob’s prophecy about his sons, for instance, he praises El (Genesis 49:25) who is ostensibly separate from Yahweh, whose praise is awkwardly inserted (perhaps as a redaction by the later P source) between the prophecies of Dan and Gad (49:18).

It is very difficult find out the redaction and editions in these ancient texts except by the detective type investigation by the historians and archeologists.

 

[gadam123]

EL and Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew form (אל) appears in Latin letters in Standard Hebrew transcription as El and in Tiberian Hebrew transcription as ʾĒl. El is a generic word for god that could be used for any god, including Hadad, Moloch, or Yahweh.

In the Tanakh, ‘elōhîm is the normal word for a god or the great God (or gods, given that the ‘im’ suffix makes a word plural in Hebrew). But the form ‘El’ also appears, mostly in poetic passages and in the patriarchal narratives attributed to the Priestly source of the documentary hypothesis. It occurs 217 times in the Masoretic Text: seventy-three times in the Psalms and fifty-five times in the Book of Job, and otherwise mostly in poetic passages or passages written in elevated prose. It occasionally appears with the definite article as hā’Ēl ‘the god’ (for example in 2 Samuel 22:31,33–48).

The theological position of the Tanakh is that the names Ēl and ‘Ĕlōhîm, when used in the singular to mean the supreme god, refer to Yahweh, beside whom other gods are supposed to be either nonexistent or insignificant. Whether this was a long-standing belief or a relatively new one has long been the subject of inconclusive scholarly debate about the prehistory of the sources of the Tanakh and about the prehistory of Israelite religion. In the P strand, Exodus 6:3 may be translated:

I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as Ēl Shaddāi, but was not known to them by my name, YHVH.

However, it is said in Genesis 14:18–20 that Abraham accepted the blessing of El, when Melchizedek, the king of Salem and high priest of its deity El Elyon blessed him. One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with Ēl is late, that Yahweh was earlier thought of as only one of many gods, and not normally identified with Ēl. Another is that in much of the Hebrew Bible the name El is an alternative name for Yahweh, but in the Elohist and Priestly traditions it is considered an earlier name than Yahweh. Mark Smith has argued that Yahweh and El were originally separate, but were considered synonymous from very early on. The name Yahweh is used in the Bible Tanakh in the first book of Genesis 2:4; and Genesis 4:26 says that at that time, people began to “call upon the name of the LORD”.

In some places, especially in Psalm 29, Yahweh is clearly envisioned as a storm god, something not true of Ēl so far as we know (although true of his son, Ba’al Haddad). It is Yahweh who is prophesied to one day battle Leviathan the serpent, and slay the dragon in the sea in Isaiah 27:1. The slaying of the serpent in myth is a deed attributed to both Ba’al Hadad and ‘Anat in the Ugaritic texts, but not to Ēl.

Such mythological motifs are variously seen as late survivals from a period when Yahweh held a place in theology comparable to that of Hadad at Ugarit; or as late henotheistic/monotheistic applications to Yahweh of deeds more commonly attributed to Hadad; or simply as examples of eclectic application of the same motifs and imagery to various different gods. Similarly, it is argued inconclusively whether Ēl Shaddāi, Ēl ‘Ôlām, Ēl ‘Elyôn, and so forth, were originally understood as separate divinities. Albrecht Alt presented his theories on the original differences of such gods in Der Gott der Väter in 1929. But others have argued that from patriarchal times, these different names were in fact generally understood to refer to the same single great god, Ēl. This is the position of Frank Moore Cross (1973). What is certain is that the form ‘El does appear in Israelite names from every period including the name Yiśrā’ēl (“Israel”), meaning “El strives”.

According to The Oxford Companion to World Mythology;

It seems almost certain that the God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the “God of Abraham” … If El was the high God of Abraham—Elohim, the prototype of Yahveh—Asherah was his wife, and there are archaeological indications that she was perceived as such before she was in effect “divorced” in the context of emerging Judaism of the 7th century BCE. (See 2 Kings 23:15.)

The apparent plural form ‘Ēlîm or ‘Ēlim “gods” occurs only four times in the Tanakh. Psalm 29, understood as an enthronement psalm, begins:

A Psalm of David.

Ascribe to Yahweh, sons of Gods (bênê ‘Ēlîm),
Ascribe to Yahweh, glory and strength
Psalm 89:6 (verse 7 in Hebrew) has:

For who in the skies compares to Yahweh,
who can be likened to Yahweh among the sons of Gods (bênê ‘Ēlîm).

Traditionally bênê ‘ēlîm has been interpreted as ‘sons of the mighty’, ‘mighty ones’, for ‘El can mean ‘mighty’, though such use may be metaphorical (compare the English expression [by] God awful). It is possible also that the expression ‘ēlîm in both places descends from an archaic stock phrase in which ‘lm was a singular form with the m-enclitic and therefore to be translated as ‘sons of Ēl’. The m-enclitic appears elsewhere in the Tanakh and in other Semitic languages. Its meaning is unknown, possibly simply emphasis. It appears in similar contexts in Ugaritic texts where the expression bn ‘il alternates with bn ‘ilm, but both must mean ‘sons of Ēl’. That phrase with m-enclitic also appears in Phoenician inscriptions as late as the fifth century BCE.

One of the other two occurrences in the Tanakh is in the “Song of Moses”, Exodus 15:11a:

Who is like you among the Gods (‘ēlim), Yahweh?

The final occurrence is in Daniel 11:36:

And the king will do according to his pleasure; and he will exalt himself and magnify himself over every god (‘ēl), and against the God of Gods (‘El ‘Elîm) he will speak outrageous things, and will prosper until the indignation is accomplished: for that which is decided will be done.

There are a few cases in the Tanakh where some think ‘El referring to the great god Ēl is not equated with Yahweh. One is in Ezekiel 28:2, in the taunt against a man who claims to be divine, in this instance, the leader of Tyre:

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: “Thus says the Lord Yahweh: ‘Because your heart is proud and you have said: “I am ‘ēl (god), in the seat of ‘elōhîm (gods), I am enthroned in the middle of the seas.” Yet you are man and not ‘El even though you have made your heart like the heart of ‘elōhîm (‘gods’).'”

Here ‘ēl might refer to a generic god, or to a highest god, Ēl. When viewed as applying to the King of Tyre specifically, the king was probably not thinking of Yahweh. When viewed as a general taunt against anyone making divine claims, it may or may not refer to Yahweh depending on the context.

In Judges 9:46 we find ‘Ēl Bêrît ‘God of the Covenant’, seemingly the same as the Ba’al Bêrît ‘Lord of the Covenant’ whose worship has been condemned a few verses earlier. See Baal for a discussion of this passage.

Psalm 82:1 says:

‘elōhîm (“god”) stands in the council of ‘ēl
he judges among the gods (Elohim).

This could mean that Yahweh judges along with many other gods as one of the council of the high god Ēl. However it can also mean that Yahweh stands in the Divine Council (generally known as the Council of Ēl), as Ēl judging among the other members of the council. The following verses in which the god condemns those whom he says were previously named gods (Elohim) and sons of the Most High suggest the god here is in fact Ēl judging the lesser gods.

An archaic phrase appears in Isaiah 14:13, kôkkêbê ‘ēl ‘stars of God’, referring to the circumpolar stars that never set, possibly especially to the seven stars of Ursa Major. The phrase also occurs in the Pyrgi Inscription as hkkbm ‘l (preceded by the definite article h and followed by the m-enclitic). Two other apparent fossilized expressions are arzê-‘ēl ‘cedars of God’ (generally translated something like ‘mighty cedars’, ‘goodly cedars’) in Psalm 80:10 (in Hebrew verse 11) and kêharrê-‘ēl ‘mountains of God’ (generally translated something like ‘great mountains’, ‘mighty mountains’) in Psalm 36:7 (in Hebrew verse 6).

For the reference in some texts of Deuteronomy 32:8 to seventy sons of God corresponding to the seventy sons of Ēl in the Ugaritic texts;

Elyon (Hebrew: עֶלְיוֹן‎ ʿElyōn) is an epithet of the God of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as “God Most High”, and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος (“God the highest”).

The compound name ʼĒl ʻElyōn ‘God Most High’ occurs in Genesis 14:18–20 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek, king of Salem. The form appears again almost immediately in verse 22, used by Abraham in an oath to the king of Sodom. In this verse the name of God also occurs in apposition to ʼĒl ʻElyōn in the Masoretic Text but is absent in the Samaritan version, in the Septuagint translation, and in Symmachus.

Its occurrence here was one foundation of a theory first espoused by Julius Wellhausen that ʼĒl ʻElyōn was an ancient god of Salem (for other reasons understood here to mean Jerusalem), later equated with God. The only other occurrence of the compound expression is in Psalms 78:35: “And they remembered that God [ʼĒlōhīm] was their rock, and the high God [ʼĒl ʻElyōn] their redeemer.”

The name is repeated later in the chapter, but with a variation: verse fifty-six says ʼElohim ʻElyōn.

It has been suggested that the reference to “ʼĒl ʻElyōn, maker of heaven and earth” in Genesis 14:19 and 22 reflects a Canaanite background. The phrasing in Genesis resembles a retelling of Canaanite religious traditions in Philo of Byblos’s account of Phoenician history, in which ʻElyōn was the progenitor of Ouranos (“Sky”) and Gaia (“Earth”). Genesis 14:18–20.

The name ʽElyōn ‘Most High’ standing alone is found in many poetic passages, especially in the Psalms.

It appears in Balaam’s verse oracle in Numbers 24:16 as a separate name parallel to Ēl.

It appears in Moses’ final song in Deuteronomy 32:8 (a much discussed verse). A translation of the Masoretic text:

When the Most High (ʽElyōn) divided nations,
he separated the sons of man (Ādām);
he set the bounds of the masses
according to the number of the sons of Israel

Many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of “sons of Israel”, angelōn theou ‘angels of God’ and a few have huiōn theou ‘sons of God’. The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4QDeutj reads bny ’lwhm ‘sons of God’ (‘sons of ’Elohim’). The New Revised Standard Version translates this as “he fixed the boundaries … according to the number of the gods”.

This passage appears to identify ʽElyōn with ’Elohim, but not necessarily with Yahweh. It can be read to mean that ʽElyōn separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons (the 70 sons of Ēl being mentioned in the Ugaritic texts), each of these sons to be the tutelary deity over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the God of Israel, Yahweh. Alternatively, it may mean that ʽElyōn, having given the other nations to his sons, now takes Israel for himself under the name of the Tetragrammaton. Both interpretations have supporters.

In Isaiah 14:13–14 ʽElyōn is used in a very mystical context in the passage providing the basis for later speculation on the fall of Satan where the rebellious prince of Babylon is pictured as boasting:

I shall be enthroned in the mount of the council in the farthest north [or farthest Zaphon]
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the Most High.

But ’Elyōn is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22:14:

The Lord [YHWH] thundered from heaven,
and the Most High [ʽElyōn] uttered his voice.

Also Psalm 97:9: “For you, Lord [YHWH], are Most High [ʽelyōn] over all the earth; you are raised high over all the gods.”……..(taken from Wikipedia)

The above information is most neutral form of the argument.

 

[Danny Dabbs]

Hi Adam,

There is an very good article from Michael Heiser.

Its called: Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?

Please read it. Here is the link:

https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1277&context=lts_fac_pubs

 

 

 

[gadam123]

Hi Danny, thanks for your your reply to my post on EL and Yahweh. In fact I am already having this article of Michael Heiser with me. But his arguments are Christian oriented as he is also a Christian. I am searching the truth based on the historians and archaeologist’s arguments through critical analysis.

[gadam123]

Who Was Yahweh Before He Was Yahweh?

From an objective standpoint, then, there is no reason to assume that the advent of Israelite monotheism took place anywhere other than Canaan, after centuries of immersion in Canaanite culture; no reason to doubt that Israelite religion is exactly the kind of organic outgrowth of the local culture that Kaufmann and Albright said it wasn’t. It’s even possible that Yahweh, who spends so much of the Bible fighting against those nasty Canaanite gods for the allegiance of Israelites, actually started life as a Canaanite god, not an import.

The test of this evolutionary hypothesis—or at least the first test of it—is whether it is illuminating. Does it help clear up murky parts of Yahweh’s history? If we examine the Bible’s scattered, cryptic clues about Yahweh’s origins in light of it, do they then appear less jumbled, more coherent? The answer is yes. Consider the “divine council” that seems at odds with the basic theology of the Bible, and yet turns up in the Bible more than once. As we’ve seen, various ancient states, such as Egypt and China, seem to have modeled their pantheons at least partly on governmental structures. And Mesopotamia featured, more specifically, a deliberative assembly of gods—a council. Given that Mesopotamia is in the general vicinity of Canaan, it wouldn’t be shocking to find some such assembly in the early Canaanite tradition.

And, indeed, that’s what we find in Ugarit, the ancient city in northern Canaan whose translated texts have so illuminated the context of Israelite religion. There, at the end of the Bronze Age, on the eve of Israel’s birth, is a divine council. And the god most often depicted as its chief—a god named El (pronounced ‘ale’ or ‘el’)— bears a curious resemblance to Yahweh.  Both gods were strong yet sensitive. El was seen as a “bull,” yet was also called “Kind El, the compassionate.”  Similarly, Yahweh, even in that early appearance as a warrior god, was driven by his compassion for the Israelites—“thy steadfast love” for “the people whom thou hast redeemed.”  Both gods appeared in dreams, became the patrons of the dreamers, and spoke often through prophets.  And both were paternalistic creator gods: El was “creator of creatures” and “father of humanity.”  As Smith has put it, El was “the divine father par excellence.”

The literal meaning of the Ugaritic term for the Canaanite “divine council” is, not surprisingly, “Council of El.” A bit more surprising is that if you peer beneath English versions of the Bible and examine the Hebrew rendering of the “divine council” on which God sits in Psalm 82, you find this phrase: adat El— which can be translated as “Council of El.”  Hmmm.

And that’s just the beginning. It turns out that if you peer beneath the English word “god” in some parts of the Bible, you will find not the Hebrew word for Yahweh, but rather the Hebrew word El. Given that the Canaanite El appears on the historical record before the Israelite god Yahweh, it is tempting to conclude that Yahweh in some way emerged from El, and may even have started life as a renamed version of El.

There is cause for at least preliminary resistance to that temptation: the Hebrew word El is like the English word “god”—it can refer either to deities in general (“Hermes, a god of ancient Greece”) or to a particular deity (God with an uppercase G). The difference is that ancient Hebrew didn’t use the uppercase/lowercase convention to keep things clear. So you can’t infer, every time you see the Hebrew god called El, that his name is El.

Still, there are a few times in the Bible when the “El” applied to the Hebrew god indeed seems to be a proper noun. According to Genesis, Jacob “erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.” This could be translated as “god, the god of Israel,” but if you don’t capitalize the first “god” it doesn’t make much sense; it would be like dedicating an altar to “deity, the deity of Israel.”  In other words, the first “god” has to be a specific god, and the specific god named El that we know of in that part of the world was head of the pantheon in northern Canaan. (Indeed, some English translations of Genesis render “El-Elohe-Israel” unabashedly as “El, God of Israel.”)  If that’s not a close enough link between Israelite religion and El, look at the word “Israel” itself.  In ancient times names were often inspired by gods, and names ending in “el” typically referred to the god El.

An especially intriguing biblical appearance of the word El is in the phrase El Shaddai, famously rendered in English as “God Almighty.” As it turns out, “Almighty” is a mistranslation; though the exact meaning of Shaddai remains cloudy, it seems to refer to mountains, not omnipotence—but that’s another story. For present purposes, what’s interesting is the way this name is used in the sixth chapter of Exodus, during one of Moses’s conversations with God. God says, “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them.” Even Yahweh himself says that he started life with the name El!

Of course, Yahweh doesn’t explicitly say he started life as the Canaanite god El. And at the time he is speaking, the Israelites (in the Bible’s telling of the story) haven’t yet gotten to Canaan. But this story may have entered Israel’s historical narrative much later than it is said to have happened. And if there is one lesson of modern biblical scholarship, it’s that stories often say more about the era of their creation than about the era they claim to describe.

So what does Exodus 6 suggest about the era of its creation? If you were crafting a history of your god, why would you add such an odd twist, saying that he used to go by another name? Theories abound. One is this: you are trying to meld two religious traditions; you are trying to convince two groups of people—one that worships a god called Yahweh and another that worships a god called El—that they actually worship the same god.

Supporters of this theory sometimes invoke a pattern in the Bible that was famously emphasized by the nineteenth-century scholar Julius Wellhausen. According to Wellhausen’s “documentary hypothesis,” the early phases of the biblical narrative—from creation through the time of Moses—come largely from two authors (or two groups of like-minded authors), one known as the J source and one known as the E source. The E source refers to the Hebrew god as either El or Elohim (hence the E). The J source refers to the Hebrew god as Yahweh (and is known as J because of the way Yahweh is spelled in German, the language of much pioneering biblical scholarship, including Wellhausen’s).

The documentary hypothesis suggests that at some point in Israelite history there were indeed two geographically distinct traditions to reconcile, one worshipping a god named El and one worshipping a god named Yahweh.  Adherents of this scenario say the J author(s) lived in the south, in the part of Israel known as Judah, and the E author(s) lived to the north—which, notably, is closer to the heartland of El worship.

Wellhausen’s scheme doesn’t enjoy the near universal esteem it had in the mid-twentieth century,  but there’s no denying that the Bible features different vocabularies for Israel’s god. And if indeed the Hebrew god was the result of a merger—perhaps between a faction whose main deity was a creator god named El and another faction that worshipped a war god named Yahweh —this would be nothing new. As we’ve seen, the ancient world was full of politically expedient theological fusions. A common catalyst was that the two parties had a somewhat non-zero-sum relationship. Specifically: both felt they could get more from cooperation, even consolidation, than from conflict.

Certainly the Bible holds hints of once separate groups having united. It describes Israel at the end of the late second millennium BCE, before it evolved into a state-level society complete with a king, as a confederation of twelve tribes. In the Bible’s earliest list of tribes, however, some of the twelve are nowhere to be found. The missing tribes are southern; apparently the tribes that constituted Israel at this early date were in northern Canaan, where worship of El would be most likely.  Hence, perhaps, the name Israel.

The merging of Israel’s tribes may be dimly reflected in the story of the patriarchs—Abraham who begat Isaac who begat Jacob. Few scholars think this lineage is accurate, but most think it is significant. Many buy some variation on a theory put forth in 1930 by the German scholar Martin Noth: the different patriarchs had once been sacred ancestors, real or mythological, of different tribes; one tribe or group of tribes claimed Abraham as founding father, another claimed Isaac, another Jacob. Politically unifying these peoples meant weaving their founding myths into a single myth, and in the process weaving their forefathers into a single family.  That would explain why some presumably early accounts of the patriarchal lineage seem incomplete. In one verse in Deuteronomy, Abraham, who is identified with such southern towns as Hebron, isn’t mentioned, whereas Jacob, from the north, is.

This basic idea—that Israel coalesced somewhere around the land of El worship, and only adopted Yahweh later, while absorbing alien tribes from the south—gets a bit of support from ancient Egyptian inscriptions. The name “Israel” enters the historical record in 1219 BCE, on an Egyptian slab of stone known as the Merenptah Stele. The word refers to a people, not a place.  But these people seem to have been somewhere in Canaan, probably in the highlands of Ephraim—the northern part of what would ultimately become Israel.

This stele makes no mention of Yahweh. Its only possible allusion to any god is the “el” in Israel. And centuries will pass before a text mentions both Israel and “Yhwh” (the ancient spelling of Yahweh, back before western Semitic languages were written with vowels). Intriguingly, though, there are separate Egyptian references to a “Yhw” even earlier than that first reference to Israel.  Here Yhw seems to be not a god, but a place. Then again, in ancient times, places and gods sometimes had the same name.  Moreover, the place seems to have been somewhere around Edom, in southern Canaan, as would make sense if indeed a Yahweh-worshipping people from the south eventually merged with an El-worshipping people to the north.

This piece fits into the puzzle in another way, too. The full inscription reads “Yhw [in] the land of the Shasu.”  The Shasu were nomads who had a history of antagonism with Egypt—just what you’d expect if antagonism with Egypt was central to their chief god’s biography. One ancient Egyptian relief even shows people labeled Shasu being brought in as captives by Egyptian soldiers.

That earliest reference to Israel, in the Merenptah Stele, is a boast that Egypt has exterminated the Israelites. (Israel’s “seed is not.”)  This would prove a considerable underestimation of Israel’s regenerative powers, and, more to the point, suggests that a merger of the Shasu and the Israelites would have made political sense. A common enemy is a great starter of friendships. (To put it more technically: the common enemy makes the friendship more non-zero-sum, since an external threat raises the mutual benefits of internal cooperation and the mutual costs of internal discord.) And this particular common enemy would of course conduce to the crafting of a shared narrative of divine deliverance from
Egyptian torment……(taken from the book “The Evolution of God”)

[Danny Dabbs]

I am searching the truth based on the historians and archaeologist’s arguments through critical analysis.

Hi Adam,

I’m afraid you will never find the truth based on the historians and
archaeologist’s arguments through critical analysis.

If you want the truth, then read the Bible!
The Bible clearly says that Yahweh is EL!

Read these three verses again: (there are lots more)

It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God.
There is no one else besides him. Deuteronomy 4:35

Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that Yahweh himself is God
in heaven above and on the earth beneath.
There is no one else. Deuteronomy 4:39

I am Yahweh, and there is no one else.
Besides me, there is no God. Isaiah 45:5

God bless

[gadam123]

I’m afraid you will never find the truth based on the historians and
archaeologist’s arguments through critical analysis.

If you want the truth, then read the Bible!
The Bible clearly says that Yahweh is EL!

Hi Danny,

You seem to be reasonable and caring for others. But don’t worry I am seeking the truth from many sources.

[Danny Dabbs]

Hi Adam,

These liberal scholars that speak contrary to the Bible are wrong.
The Bible is our source for all truth even history.
Why are you spreading these false articles, anyway?
I wonder if you do this intentionally or not?
Because think this through.
If you reject Yahweh as El Elyon then there is no hope.
You need Him and His Son Jesus Christ.
This is very important.
The devil and his masons know this.
That’s why they are giving Jesus a different Father.
Because they know that Jesus Christ without His real Father doesn’t work.
That’s the conspiracy all over the world.
Let nobody move us away from our source of salvation.
Yahweh is El Elyon.
Jesus Christ is His Son.
See Acts 4:24-31 and Psalm 2:2

God bless

[gadam123]

Hi Danny nothing is wholly true as everything was man made.

 

[gadam123]

El and Elohim

The Hebrew common nouns for god – ’eˉl and ’ĕloˉ hîm – and their multivocality. In Hebrew as in Ugaritic, ’eˉl (ı̉l in Ugaritic) is a label for the genus “god,” often functioning in the singular or plural as a common noun or a title (e.g., Exod. 15:2, 11; 34:6, 14). In Ugaritic, El is also the name or title of the  Ugaritic high god, and the deity El is widely attested throughout the West Semitic world. In Hebrew as well, there are instances where El may be a name or title rather than a category marker, especially when it appears in epithets.10 Some scholars even suggest that El was the original god of Israel. For example, the nation is called Isra-El, not Isra-Yah or IsraYahweh. In places, El may be identified as the patriarchal god (Gen. 33:20; 35:1, 3; 46:3) and the god of the Exodus (Num. 23:22; 24:8; cf. 23:8).13 Such an association is reasonable given El’s prominence as the high god at Ugarit, likely regionally, and in nearby Ammon.

’Ĕloˉ hîm, which appears far more often than ’eˉl, refers to the common Hebrew plural “gods” and to a singular god as an abstract plural, roughly translated as “divinity” or “deity.” Like ilānuˉ in western peripheral Akkadian and other Semitic cognate expressions, the morphologically plural ’ĕloˉ hîm often functions grammatically as a singular. Whereas the plural “gods” functions primarily as a common noun, the abstract plural often functions as a title. The title Elohim, like ’eˉl used as a common noun or title, functions generically; it theoretically may be used of any god. In addition to being more often a title, ’ĕloˉ hîm serves as a more respectful, elevated form of address. The preference for the more sophisticated abstract plural ’ĕloˉ hîm over the singular ’eˉl thus is likely more a matter of style than of meaning.

In the Hebrew Bible, ’ĕloˉ hîm as abstract plural either appears followed by a descriptor (often in a construct chain) or in the absolute state. Modified ’ĕloˉ hîm may function as a generic title given greater specificity with a modifier and/or an epithet. For non-Israelites (Gen. 34:15; 1 Kgs 11:33; 2 Kgs 1:2) and Israelites alike, it may be used to indicate a patron deity of an individual, group, or place. In its absolute form, ’ĕloˉ hîm functions as a title for Yahweh or it remains a generic title that need not be specified since the deity in question has been specified earlier in the passage or is patently obvious. In effect, since Yahweh is the only (acceptable) ’ĕloˉ hîm for the Israelites, the unmodified ’ĕloˉ hîm is a sufficient descriptor. Like ’eˉl, ’ĕloˉ hîm in the absolute state may be modified by the definite article h. The presence or absence of the definite article, though, has little bearing on meaning, as calling Yahweh “Deity” or “the Deity” is functionally equivalent.

Using the common noun as a title in Hebrew finds analogs in English, where common noun and title may be distinguished based on capitalization. In English, “dad” is a common noun, functioning as a label for all
(human) male fathers, whereas “Dad” is a common noun turned title. In this case, the common noun becomes a capitalized title because it is used possessively. “Dad” then is a title for an individual’s father, not all fathers generically. “God” and “god” function similarly in English to ’eˉl and ’ĕloˉ hîm. Like singular ’eˉl and the regular plural ’ĕloˉ hîm, “god” is a common noun, referring to all beings who qualify as gods. Like the abstract plural ’ĕloˉ hîm, “God” is a title that likely originally had a possessive quality. An individual who worships the biblical god could simply call him God with no need for qualification, especially when speaking with other Yahweh worshippers. Likewise, the abstract plural ’ĕloˉ hîm refers to a god of someone, somewhere, or something. Only with the prevalence of monotheism did “God” become synonymous with the one true god.

 

[GeneBalthrop]

Adam……, I believe the word God upper or god lower case , simple describe a personel relationship and can only be used to describe a personal relationship with someone or thing.  Anything can be or become a God , if it fits what the word,  God,  means.  I believe scriptures describe it as a (uni-plural) word. Because it can be applied to only one (singular) or many (plural) , but either way the word does not describe the person, but the relationship,  the persons,  or person,  has with it.  Like you example of the word , Dad.  There are many Dad’s but only one fits your realationship with a true Dad. We can say the Dad’s of all the people a (plural form) , or we can say my Dad a (singular form) , hence Dad is  a (UNI-PLURAL) word. A descriptor of a relationship with someone, it does not describe the person him self but onle his relation ship he has with the object.  Same with the word God, it descripes a relationship we, or they  have with whatever object they or we,  (LEAN ON) as their,  or our,  Power in life.   Thats their or our God, simple as that, IMO. 

THAT IS exactly the way,  the original picturoial Hebrew language describes it. 

Peace and love to you and yours Adam…………gene

[gadam123]

The Origin of Yahweh’s worship in Israel……(by PROFESSOR LEWIS BAYLES PATON)

Concerning the origin of the religion of Yahweh the Old Testament contains two widely divergent traditions. The Judean Document of the Hexateuch (J), which is characterized by a constant use of the divine name “Yahweh (Jehovah),” states in Gen. 4: 26 that the cult of this god was introduced by Enosh, the grandson of Adam: ” To Seth also was born a son, and he called his name Enosh; he was the first to call upon the name of Yahweh.” (So LXX and Sam. text.) A later stratum of J (Gen. :3 f.) represents Cain and Abel children of “the man” and Eve, as bringing sacrifices to Yahweh. Gen. 5: 29; 8: 20; 12: 8; 13: 18; 26: 25; 28: 21 depict the patriarchs as worshipers of Yahweh. In the J sections of Exod., chap. 3, when Yahweh appears to Moses, he does not reveal his name as new or explain its meaning, but assumes that it is well known. In 3: 7 he speaks of Israel as already his people. In 3: I6 he instructs Moses to say: “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob hath appeared unto me.” In 5:1 Moses says to Pharaoh: “Thus saith Yahweh, the God of Israel, Let my people go.” In 5:3, and frequently afterward in sections, the people in Egypt speak of “Yahweh our God.” J, accordingly, teaches that the name “Yahweh” was known from the time of Enosh, and that God was worshiped under this name by all the forefathers of Israel.

A different conception is found in other documents of the Old Testament. These teach that the name “Yahweh” was unknown to the patriarchs, that it was first revealed to Moses, and through him was communicated to Israel. The Priestly Code (P) in Exod. 6: 2 f says: “God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am Yahweh: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them.” The traditional harmonistic interpretation of this passage, still followed by Klostermann and by Davidson, as meaning, “My name ‘Yahweh’ was known to the patriarchs, but the full significance of the name was not yet comprehended by them,” is thoroughly artificial. If P had meant to say this, he must have used very different language. That these words are to be given their natural meaning is proved by the following facts: (1) P never uses the name “Yahweh” in his history before Exod. 6: 2, where it is revealed to Moses. His avoidance of the name in patriarchal times is evidently due to the belief that it was not in use. (2) Proper names compounded with “Yahweh” are never given by P before the time of Moses. The absence of such compounds in patriarchal days indicates belief that the name “Yahweh” was not known. (3) In Exod. 6:7 Yahweh says: “I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God”- a form of expression which implies that Yahweh first became the God of Israel in consequence of the revelation to Moses.

This is the view, not only of the late Priestly Document, but also of the early Ephraimitic Document). Through the whole of Genesis E, like P, abstains from using the divine name “Yahweh” and speaks only of “Elohim,” that is, “God.” In his account of the theophany to Moses (Exod. 3: 10-15) Moses is ignorant of the personal name of the deity who appears to him, and regards the people in Egypt as ignorant of his name, for he says: “When they shall say unto me, What is his name ? what shall I say unto them ?” Thereupon God replies: “I will be what I will be: thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Ehyeh [“I will be”= “Yahweh,” He will be”] hath sent me unto you.” In conformity with this idea that Yahweh was a new name first revealed to Moses, E in Josh. 24: 14 states that the Hebrews served other gods beyond the river and in Egypt.

The early prophets Amos and Hosea also regard Yahweh’s relations with Israel as beginning at the time of the exodus. cf. Amos 2: 10, “It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you in the wilderness forty years ;” 2: 9, “It was I who destroyed from before them the Amorite;” 3: 1, “The whole family that I brought up from Egypt;” 9: 7, “Did I not bring Israel up out of the land of Egypt ? ”

Hos. 2: 14 f., “Behold I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness …. and she shall make answer there as in the days when she came up out of the land of Egypt; ” 9: 10 “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness …. but they came to Baal Peor;” 12:13, “By a prophet Yahweh brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt.”

In all these passages Yahweh’s manifestation of himself begins with the exodus, and nowhere is any revelation to the patriarchs mentioned. This proves that the early prophets held the same view as E and P, that “Yahweh” was a new name first given to Israel through Moses. These, then, are the two contradictory traditions in regard to the origin of Yahweh-worship: according to one, Yahweh was known to the forefathers of Israel from primeval times; according to the other he first revealed himself to Moses.

There is no trace in Hebrew tradition of any connection of Yahweh with the Canaanites. The traditions do not agree in regard to the antiquity of Yahweh-worship, but they do agree that it was older than the conquest of Canaan. If it was really derived from the Canaanites, some knowledge of this fact would surely  have lingered in the national memory.

The name “Yehoshua (Joshua)” is well attested as borne by the leader of Israel in the conquest of Canaan, but this name is compounded with “Yahweh,” and therefore proves that this deity was known to the Hebrews at least as early as the time of the exodus. If the name of Moses’ mother, “Jochebed,” be authentic and be compounded with “Yahweh,” this will be another evidence in the same direction. Judg. 18:30 mentions Yehonathan (Jonathan), the grandson of Moses. This is certainly a “Yahweh”-compound, and it seems as though it must have been given before the conquest, or at least so soon after that Canaanitish influence is unthinkable. Joash and Jotham, the father and the son of Gideon, bear names that are probably compounded with ” Yahweh. ” They at least show that the name was in use in Israel before the time of David.

In the Song of Deborah, a generally admitted genuine composition of the are of Deborah, we read (Judg. 5:4): “Yahweh, when thou wentest forth out of Seir? when thou marchedst out of the region of Edom, the earth trembled. ” Here Yahweh is represented as coming to the help of his people from a land outside of
Canaan. This is inexplicable, if he was originally a god of Canaan; but it is natural, if he was a god whom Israel worshiped in its old dwelling-place in the southern desert.

The connection of Yahweh with Horeb-Sinai by all strands of Hebrew tradition is evidence that the worship of Yahweh was not learned by Israel from the Canaanites. If he had been originally a god of Canaan, Israel could never have come to think of a mountain outside of Canaan as his special dwelling-place. Whether Sinai and Horeb are identical is a moot question. J in Exod. 2:15 locates Sinai in the land of Midian (cf. Hab. 3:7).

Midian, according to the testimony of the Old Testament, the Assyrian records, the Greek and the Arabic geographers, lay on the east side of the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, in the neighbourhood of the modern Makna. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites, according to J, marched three days ‘ journey into the wilderness of Shur (Exod. 15: 22). Here, according to 17:7, they were at Meribah (Kadesh). Thence, according to 19:3ff., they went to Sinai. Kadesh is ‘Ain Qadis, near the southern border of Palestine. It is out of the way for people journeying to the traditional Sinai at the southern end of the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula, but is a natural stopping-place on the road to the land of Midian in western Arabia. The Song of Deborah (Judg. 5:4) says: “Yahweh, when thou wentest forth from Seir, marchedst from the region of Edom. ” Here it is implied
that Yahweh’s abode is either in the land of Edom or in the south beyond it, i. e., in the land of Midian. A gloss on this passage in vs. 5 identifies the abode with Sinai. The ancient poem in Deut. 33:2 reads: “Yahweh came from Sinai, flamed up for his people from Seir; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came to Meribath-Kadesh” (emended text). According to this, Sinai must lie in western Arabia, since Yahweh comes from it to Kadesh by way of the land of Edom. In like manner, in Hab. 3:3 we read:
” God came from Teman, and the holy one from Mount Paran.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.” It appears, accordingly, that all our elder authorities locate Sinai in western Arabia, near the land of Edom. P is commonly supposed to support the traditional location of 12 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Sinai at the southern end of the so-called Sinaitic Peninsula, since in Numb. 33:8 f. he lets the Israelites, after crossing the Red Sea, march three days in the wilderness to Marah, thence to Elim and thence to the Red Sea again. This seems to show that they followed the eastern shore of the Gulf of Suez; but it is quite possible that
Elim is the same as Elath, and that by the “Red Sea” in this connection P means the Gulf of ‘Aqaba. In that case he agrees with J in locating Sinai in the land of Midian.

On the other hand, it is claimed that E locates Horeb at the southern end of the Sinaitic peninsula. This view is based upon Exod. 13: 18, which states that God did not lead the Israelites directly from Egypt to Canaan by way of the land of the Philistines, but round about by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. This is supposed to refer to the desert on the east side of the Gulf of Suez, but it may quite as well refer to the desert on the shore of the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, in which case Horeb is to be sought in Arabia and not in the Sinaitic Peninsula. In Exod. 3:1, E, like J, locates Horeb in Midian, unless the words “the priest of Midian” are deleted as a gloss. The author of the Song of Deborah was a native of the north, and therefore probably followed the same tradition as E in calling the mount of God Horeb,^ but in Judg. 5:4 he clearly locates this mountain in or beyond the mountains of Edom. Deut. 1:2 (cf. 1:9) states that “it is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea. ” In going from the traditional Horeb to Kadesh, one would not journey by way of Mount Seir, and the distance would not be eleven days. This passage points to a location of Horeb east of the Gulf of ‘Aqaba, in the same place where we have found that Sinai was situated. Elijah’s journey of forty days to Horeb (I Kings I9:8) also points to a more remote location than that of the traditional mount of God. There is no good reason} therefore, to doubt that Sinai and Horeb are the same mountain. They are located in the same region, and they play the same part in Hebrew tradition. Their identity, although questioned by von Gall, Wellhausen, and Stade, is admitted by Budde, Giesebrecht, Marti, Cheyne, and most recent critics. Even if it could be proved that Sinai and Horeb were distinct mountains the argument would still hold good that Yahweh cannot have been originally a god of Canaan, since both of these mountains with which he is so intimately associated lie outside of that land. The unanimous testimony of Hebrew tradition, that Sinai-Horeb was in a peculiar sense his dwelling-place is conclusive evidence that Israel learned to know him before its entrance into Canaan.

The conquest of Canaan implies unity of action among the Hebrew tribes. Such unity was possible only on the basis of a common religion. The Song of Deborah assumes that Yahweh is the god of all the tribes of Israel. It unites them under the name “the people of Yahweh; ” and tells how, when they were summoned
to come to the help of Yahweh like brave men, they willingly responded and cheerfully risked their lives in the holy war against the Canaanites. Such an attitude presupposes common experience of the help of Yahweh on the part of the tribes before their entrance into Canaan, and is inconsistent with the idea that he was a God whom they came to know after the conquest.

From early times Israel was conscious of an antagonism between its god and the gods of Canaan. Yahweh was a jealous god who would not tolerate the Baalim, but waged ceaseless warfare against them and ultimately destroyed them. Whence came this antagonism, if Yahweh was originally only one of the Baalim ? It can be explained only by recognizing that he was a foreign god whom Israel had brought into Canaan, and who had nothing in common with the indigenous deities of the land.

All these considerations make it certain that the worship of Yahweh was not learned in Canaan, but was brought into that country by Israel. In that case we cannot reject the two Old Testament traditions in regard to the origin of this worship, but must decide between them. Either the religion of Yahweh originated at the time of the exodus, as E and P think; or it dated from an earlier period, as J thinks.

The traditional view in the Jewish and in the Christian church has been that Yahweh was the God
of Israel long before Moses. This theory ignores, or explains away the testimony of E, P, and the early prophets, and accepts the testimony of J that Yahweh was worshiped from the beginning of the world. On this theory the work of Moses was merely to call Israel back to the worship of a god already well known to the patriarchs.

In a modified form this traditional theory is still widely prevalent. No critics of today believe that J is right in carrying back the worship of Yahweh to the beginning of the world, but many believe that he is right in tracing it to the time of Abraham. Renant says:
The name of “Yahu” or “Yahweh,” the equivalent of “El,” was no doubt much respected, but the sages of these very ancient times seemed to descry a danger in this proper name and preferred the names “El,” “Elyon,’) Shaddai,” and ‘Elohim.”
Kittel says:
Moses could hardly have forced upon his people a foreign, hitherto unknown, god. He could, however, hope for success, if he received a revelation from the God of Abraham, who was still revered by certain portions of the people, and who still lived in the national memory:
Davidson remarks:
The name “Yahweh” can hardly have been altogether new to Israel before their deliverance. A new name would have been in those days a new god. . . .. From prehistoric times it is probable that God was worshiped by this family under this name, or at least that the name was known in Israel.

For the majority of modern critics the patriarchs are not individuals, but personifications of tribes. The stories concerning them are reminiscences of migrations before the entrance into Canaan and of experiences in the land of Canaan. They are largely missed with legends of the Canaanites. That we have an authentic record of a revelation of Yahweh to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to say nothing of Adam, Seth, and Noah, would be denied by these critics;  and yet they still maintain that in some way Yahweh was a pre-Mosaic god of Israel. Ewald, Konig, Nestle, F. W. Schultz, Kuenen, and Robertson hold that Yahweh was the God of the clan or family to which Moses belonged. In support of this new they appeal to Jochebed (a supposed compound of “Yahweh”), the name of Moses ‘ mother. Wellhauzen thinks that Yahweh
was either the god of Moses’ family or of the tribe of Joseph. Smend thinks that he was the god of Joseph, and appeals to the facts, that the sojourn of Joseph in Egypt is well attested; that Joshua, a member of this tribe, is the first person who is known with certainty to have borne a name compounded with ” Yahweh; ” and that the ark was in the possession of this tribe.  Klostermann and Kautzsch hold that Yahweh was originally the god of Levi, and lay emphasis upon the tradition that Moses belonged to this tribe
(Exod. 2:1) the enthusiasm for Yahweh displayed by Levi (Gen., chap. 34; Exod., chap. 32), and the occurrence of names compounded with “Yahweh” in the families of Moses and Eli.

In support of these theories which in one form or another regard Yahweh as a primitive god of the Israelites, the following arguments are used:

1. J is the oldest document of the Hexateuch, and therefore it is reasonable to suppose that its conception is the most trustworthy. But it is universally admitted that J is very naïve in carrying back institutions of its own day to remote antiquity. ” Yahweh ” is a Hebrew, or at least a Semitic, name, and cannot be older than the Hebrew or the Semitic, peoples; J is certainly unhistorical, therefore, when he traces this name back to the beginning of the world; what guarantees that he is any more historical when he ascribes the worship of Yahweh to the patriarchs or to the forefathers of the Israel of the exodus ? In the J narratives of Genesis the patriarchs are represented as thinking of Yahweh in the same way in which Israel thought of him at the time when the J document was written. They worship him at the springs, the standing stones,
the holy trees, the caves, the altars, and the other high-places that Israel reverenced in the period of the kings. They practice the same sort of religion and bring the same sort of offerings that people in the author ‘s own day brought. They consult the oracles of Yahweh at the shrines as Israel was accustomed to consult them (Gen. 25:22). If J could thus carry back the entire Yahweh-cult of his own day to the age of the patriarchs, without reflecting that there must have been progress in the national religion, he could easily have supposed that the name ” Yahweh ” was primeval, even if it had originated at a later date.

2. It is claimed that both E and P recognize that Yahweh is the god of the fathers, and that this shows that their conception of Yahweh-worship as originating in the time of Moses rests upon theological speculation rather than historic fact. In Exod. 3:6 (E) Yahweh, when he appears to Moses, says: “I am the God of thy
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (cf. vss. 13 and 15). In Exod. 3:10 (E) Yahweh speaks of Israel in Egypt as “my people.” In like manner P’s account of the theophany to Moses represents Yahweh as saying (Exod. 6:8): “I will bring you in unto the land which I sware to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (cf. Exod. 2:24). It should be observed, however, that, although both of these writers call Yahweh the god of the fathers, they never suggest that the name was known before the revelation to Moses. In Exod. 3: 13 E represents the patriarchs as worshipers of the true God, but as ignorant of his name, and P in Exod 6: 2 says expressly that the name ” Yahweh” was not known to them. In both of these cases we have merely an identification of the new god proclaimed by Moses with the old god of the Hebrews. It was only natural that later writers should think that the god whom Moses called Yahweh was identical with E1, Elohim, and Shaddai that had been worshiped by the forefathers, and that under the influence of this theory they should speak of Yahweh as the E1 or the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but this is something very different from an assertion that the god Yahweh was known to the patriarchs. It should be noted also that the formula “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob ”
is apparently late. In the opinion of many recent critics, its presence in E is due to editorial interpolation.

3. It is claimed that the names “Joshua” and “Jochebed” prove that Yahweh was known before the time of Moses. “Joshua” is a well-attested name of the Mosaic age, and there is no sufficient reason to doubt that this name is compounded with “Yahweh.” If this name was given to the future leader of Israel at birth, then the worship of Yahweh is older than the appearance of Moses as a prophet. But Numb. 13: 8 calls him ” Hoshea, ” and Numb. 13: 16 says that Moses changed his name from ” Hoshea ” to “Joshua.” If this be true, no inference can be drawn as to the antiquity of Yahweh-worship. “Jochebed” is the name given to Moses’ mother by P in Exod. 6: 20. If this was her original name, Yahweh-worship must have been practiced at least in the family of Moses before his call. But “Jochebed” is found only in the late Priestly Code, and statements of this code, when unsupported by older tradition, are always open to suspicion. It is doubtful also whether the name is really a compound of ” Yahweh. ” Nestle, Konig, and Gray incline to the view that this is the case. If so, then the prefixed rather than suffixed “Yah” suggests that it was not invented by P, but was of pre-exilic formation; but whether or not it was derived from a trustworthy ancient source we cannot tell. Even if the name is genuine and is a compound of “Yahweh,” it may, like “Joshua,” have been changed from another name in consequence by the Mosaic revelation. These two names, accordingly, are an insecure foundation on which to build a theory that the name “Yahweh”
was pre-Mosaic.

4. Klostermann (p. 70) and Davidson (p. 49) argue that the form of Moses. ” Yihyeh! ” not ” Yahweh, ” is classical Hebrew for ” He will be. ” ” Yahweh ” belongs to an earlier stage of linguistic development, when Hebrew had not yet separated from the cognates. We do not know, however, the date at which Hebrew assumed its classical form, and therefore have no criterion for determining the antiquity of the form. Moreover, it is probable that the Israelites before they entered Canaan spoke an Aramaean or an Arabic dialect, and first learned “Hebrew” from the Canaanites. “Yahweh” may have been a normal form in the dialect spoken by Israel at the time of the exodus. It is also possible that this name was borrowed from some other Semitic people, and that the peculiarity of the form is evidence only of borrowing and not of antiquity.

5. It is claimed that the early Hebrew religion is so similar to other Semitic religions that it cannot have had a historical beginning different from them. Yahweh cannot have been a new god pro- claimed to Israel by Moses, but must have been originally a natural, tribal deity like Chemosh of Moab and Molech of Ammon. Moses’ work cannot have been the revelation of a new idea of God, but must have been simply the unification of the tribes of Israel in the cult of an ancestral deity. A full consideration of this argument would require a volume, and I must content myself with observing that, in spite of all similarities, there are yet fundamental differences between the religion of Israel and other Semitic religions that imply that there was something exceptional about its origin. The magnificent development of prophetism that appeared only in Israel shows that the god of Moses must have been something more than the tribal gods of the other Semites. Once admit this, and there is no difficulty in believing that Moses may have given Israel a new name for God.

6. All the critics mentioned above argue that, if Moses had preached a new god to Israel, the people would not have received his message. But there are frequent cases in history where tribes have adopted the religions of other peoples. Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism have all been accepted by nations that previously adhered to other systems. It is not impossible, therefore, that Israel was converted to the worship of the god of another race. The historian has no right to decide a priori whether or not events are possible, but is bound to examine the evidence in the case.

[mikeboll64]

Adam: Hi Mike, Yes Hebrew religion which is based on their Bible had evolved and developed from Polytheism to Monotheism as per the historians. If you don’t accept it’s your problem.

What does “as per the historians” actually mean, Adam?  What PROOF do “the historians” offer?  And do all “historians” agree with the conclusions of YOUR historians?

You say you’re taking a “rational” approach, but your actions say you’re just reading a bunch of crap and BLINDLY believing it without question.

Adam:  I don’t accept the Christianity as it is secondary religion originated from the Hebrew religion.

No it’s not.  The OT promised a messiah, and Jesus was that messiah.  Both the OT and the NT reflect the same faith in the same Creator.  I’ve asked you something before, and you ran away from the question.  I will ask you again in a different post…

Adam:  Your challenge of Deut 32:8-9 has already been replied number of times in my posts. If you don’t accept it’s again your problem. Please don’t bring it again to me.

What are you talking about?  In 32:8, there is one referred to as “the Most High”.  It’s obvious to me that this one is none other than Yahweh.  For some reason, you think the passage MUST BE referring to the Canaanite god El as “the Most High”, and to Yahweh as one of his subordinate, local tribal gods.  So here is my question that you have never answered:  Adam, is it possible that “the Most High” in verse 8 IS Yahweh?  If not, WHY not?

Adam:  The Hebrew Bible was an end result of redaction and high editing by the religious fundamentalists similar to NT writers and early Christian scribes. This is being investigated by the historians and archeologists for the past two Centuries.

Again, all we are seeing are CLAIMS from you and your sources, Adam.  Where is the PROOF that what they claim is the truth?

I’ve challenged you on another thread and will do so here as well:  Pick a particular point of information that you think PROVES some claim that you make about redaction and editing and a merging of gods, etc… and show us the PROOF for that claim.

Do you understand what I’m saying?  Don’t just keep posting long copy and pastes – because we can’t debate the claims with your sources… because they aren’t here to stand and defend themselves.  Instead, pick ONE great point from those sources, present that ONE point for us here, and let’s DISCUSS it together to see if it has any merit.

(I suspect you are UNABLE to defend the baseless claims, and so this challenge will go unanswered.  Maybe you’ll prove me wrong.  But if not, you are nothing but the clanging of a symbol… posting nonsense that is all noise and no understanding.)

[mikeboll64]

Adam, how did the “story” of Jesus, the Son of God who was sent down to the earth from heaven, come about?

Let’s start with the most obvious…  Did the man Jesus of Nazareth actually exist on earth?

[mikeboll64]

Mike:  Show me in the Hebrew texts the latter word “worship”. 

 

Adam:  Again your comment on my post mentioning Deut 4:19 is also ignorance of my arguments.

 

The text of Deut 4:19 (GNT) reads…

19 Do not be tempted to worship and serve what you see in the sky—the sun, the moon, and the stars. The Lord your God has given these to all other peoples for them to worship.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that the Good News Translation of the Bible, published in 1976, was one of the ancient Hebrew texts.  🙄

Try again.  Show me that bolded part IN a Hebrew text.

Adam: But the later scribes might had edited it as it might have looked awkward for a Monotheistic religion… 

It is very difficult find out the redaction and editions in these ancient texts except by the detective type investigation by the historians and archeologists.

So it was edited, but it’s hard to find these edits?  Hmm…

Nevertheless, according to you, their “detective type investigation” HAS uncovered these edits and redactions, right?  So let’s see the PROOF of them.  Show us the forensic data that CONCLUSIVELY and UNEQUIVOCALLY proves these edits and redactions, okay?

 

Adam:   Another example;

Regardless, the inclusion of both deities (EL and Yahweh) into the names of prominent Israelite prophets, Samuel, Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah etc., I suggests that both deities were important in the religion. And it is also clear in Canaan’s early history that the two were distinct…

Again, SHOW US!  Show me the particular Bible verses, and how they MAKE CLEAR that “El” and “Yahweh” were INDEED two different gods – instead of “El” and “Yahweh” both being common names used repeatedly throughout scripture for the SAME God.

Answer my Deut 32 question DIRECTLY first, and then present your next “El vs Yahweh” verse for us to discuss.

Adam:  After Jacob’s prophecy about his sons, for instance, he praises El (Genesis 49:25) who is ostensibly separate from Yahweh, whose praise is awkwardly inserted (perhaps as a redaction by the later P source) between the prophecies of Dan and Gad (49:18).

Okay, let’s take a look at Gen 49:25 then…

Gen 49:24-25… Yet he steadied his bow, and his strong arms were tempered by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, in the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, by the God of your father who helps you, and by the Almighty who blesses you, with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the depths below, with blessings of the breasts and womb.

I assert that all of the bolded titles above belong to none other than Yahweh Himself.  Show me the PROOF that my assertion (which is in keeping with scripture as a whole), is incorrect.  And no, a baseless claim that Gen 49:17 (where Jacob identified his God as Yahweh) was “awkwardly inserted” at a later date is not PROOF.

Seems like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Adam.  Or I suppose you could just keep running away from my challenges, opting to just keep posting long copy and pastes of unsubstantiated nonsense.

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