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The Judeo-Christian God Was Founded On A Lie


Jeanne dArc

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Secretary Šapan presents King Yoši-Yahu of Yahudah with the Book of the Instruction

shaphan-read-the-book-of-law-to-king-josiah.jpg

Among the greatest turning points in the history of ancient Hebrew culture, and indeed in the history of religion itself, is recorded in Chapter 22 of the second Book of Kings.

In the mid-7th Century BCE, circa 641/640, King ’Amown (’mwn) of the Kingdom of Yahudah (jhwdh) was assassinated by his slaves; their motive—his failure to overturn the religion of his father, King Menašeh (mnšh). Indeed ’Amown openly accepted his father’s various gods and rituals, as had the majority of kings who had come before him (including the kings of the northern kingdom of Yišra’El (jšr’l)). At the heart of the internal Hebrew religious conflicts were warring factions of the traditional polytheists against the increasingly popular factions of the monolatrists: in particular, the monolatristic cult of the Yahwists, who wished to establish the war god Yahweh as the exclusive national deity of the Hebrew people.

The origins of Yahweh (jhwh) are somewhat ambiguous, but evidently he originated as a father god and a warrior god of the nomadic Midyani (mdjnj) and Qini (qjnj) clans of the deserts south of Canaan, where he was known as Yahu (jhw). Once these nomads were intermingled with the earlier proto-Hebrew tribes of the highlands of Canaan, they brought their god Yahu with them: he became the early Hebrew war god, Yahweh TSeba’owt (jhwh-tsb’wt), "Yahweh of Armies/Soldiers", one of the seventy sons of the Canaanite father god ’El (’l). Given the violent warring nature of early Hebrew tribes and the importance of militia, it is quite understandable why Yahweh would come to be a prominent deity in nationalist sects; also noteworthy is that he would presumably have been the only non-standard Canaanite god present in their assortment of divinities, therefore perhaps singling him out for special interest (much like the ’Edumi (’dwmj) to the south likely elevated their national god Qowš (qwš) into a position of prominence for his uniqueness as their patron).

In the religious climate of 7th Century BCE in Yahudah and Yišra’El, Yahwism was becoming increasingly popular as many inhabitants of both kingdoms desired to conquer their enemies through military might, and establish a wider empire. Of course the uniquely Hebrew war god, Yahweh, was an excellent candidate for monolatristic preference by the Hebrews: and in addition to that platform, they could also argue that it was Yahweh who was the patron god of Mošeh (mšh). It was in the 7th Century BCE in Yahudah that the character of Mošeh evidently arose in folklore: a legendary figure who was regarded by the Yahudi clans as the central figure during the formation of the Hebrew peoples during the late Bronze Age—a time in which Canaan was Egyptian territory. Mošeh was believed to have had divine aid, specifically by Yahweh, in victory over and liberation from the sovereignty of Egypt—surely a war god of such power that he was believed by the Yahudi to have freed their ancestors from the mighty nation of Egypt was worthy of special importance in the pantheon. Certainly more deserving, they asserted, than was the traditional chief god ’El—who would later be somewhat slandered (together with the northern kingdom that bore his name, Yišra’El) in Yahudi-biased folktales involving the forefather Ya‘aqob (j‘qb) (also called Yišra’El) besting the mighty ’El in a contest of physical grappling.

[Aside #1: Yahweh and ’El would later be merged and syncretized into a single father god—together with the other gods associated with ’El, the ’Elohim (’lhjm), including the revered storm god Ba‘al (b‘l).]

[Aside #2: There is no evidence whatsoever that Mošeh was an actual historical person, but rather an etiological folkloric/mythic character—possibly inspired by the nomadic Midyani/Qini clans which provided their god Yahweh to the proto-Hebraic tribes of the 12th Century BCE when they intermingled freely; or possibly inspired partly by lingering Egypto-Canaanite traditions, Moabite heroes, and other well-known stories and motifs; the name mšh is understood to mean “remover” in Semitic languages—appropriate for his legendary/mythical archetypal nature as he who “removed” the Hebrews from Egyptian oppression.]

Yahwism was first widely defined as a nationalist religious movement during the reign of King KHizeki-Yahu (χzqjhw)—the king was a devout Yahwist, and thus enacted a dramatic statewide religious reform that demanded the exclusive worship of Yahweh: including the destruction of many shrines and temples, and the alteration of the great temple at the capital, Yerušalim (jrwšljm) to remove all its statues representative of gods other than Yahweh. The reign of KHizeki-Yahu, circa 715-686BCE, coincided with an attack on Yerušalim in 701 that presumably solidified his staunch Yahwist leanings (which in all likelihood may have partly stemmed from his presence during the destruction of the northern kingdom of Yišra’El by the Assyrians circa 720BCE). The last ten years of KHizeki-Yahu’s reign were evidently co-regent with his son, Menašeh—thus it is unclear as to whether King KHizeki-Yahu late in life became tolerant of the traditional polytheist religion, as Menašeh successfully reversed all of the religious reforms of his father (though the dates of these are unclear, and thus was possibly enacted after the death of KHizeki-Yahu).

King Menašeh’s reign would come to be despised and slandered in later generations, not only for his restoration of polytheist shrines throughout Yahudah and in the temple at Yerušalim, but also for his acquiescence to the powerful Assyrian Empire which had conquered the kingdom’s northern counterpart a half-century before. He also proved hostile to the Yahwistic oracle guilds, and executed many of them in demonstration of his anti-Yahwist views. Nonetheless, Menašeh was a politically successful ruler in his time, and reigned fifty-five years—unlike all prior kings of Yahudah, Menašeh was buried in the garden of his private estate, rather than in the royal necropolis of Yerušalim.

Menašeh was succeeded on the throne of Yahudah by his son, Amown: another staunchly anti-Yahwist king—assassinated after a reign of only two years by a faction of his own slaves who were Yahwist oracle-supporters. The son of Amown would become perhaps the single most influential figure in the history of Abrahamic religion.

Born circa 648BCE, Yoši-Yahu (jšjhw) succeeded his father Amown as king of Yahudah—crowned king at the age of eight, following the assassination of his father. In the eighteenth year of his reign (approx. 623/622BCE), Yoši-Yahu decreed that the high priest of the temple in Yerušalim, KHilqi-Yahu, should use pooled tax funds held in the royal treasury to renovate and expand the temple. KHilqi-Yahu, a devout Yahwist and supporter of the oracle guilds and folklore of Mošeh, perhaps saw opportunity in the arrival of a king on the throne of Yahudah who had not been heavily influenced by the religion of his polytheist father.

During the early stages of the temple repairs, KHilqi-Yahu alerted the palatial secretary, Šapan (špn), to the “discovery” of a supposed “lost book” inside the temple—a “Book of the Instruction” (spr-htwrh), alleged to have been authored by the legendary Mošeh himself. Šapan was given the manuscript by the high priest, and as royal secretary he read it to King Yoši-Yahu. Understood to have been the Deuteronomic Code (Deutr. 5-26), the document was an extensive list of pro-Yahwistic ordinances, blessings, curses, and even a claimed prehistoric legal contract between the Hebrew people and the deity Yahweh.

Yoši-Yahu was alarmed by the book: coerced into a belief that if exclusive, monotheistic Yahwism was not instituted throughout Yahudah, that surely it would fall to Assyria just as Yišra’El had a century prior—as per the curses threatened in the text.

[Aside #3: In reality, the Assyrian Empire was in a state of rapid decline during Yoši-Yahu’s reign, and indeed during his father and grandfather’s reigns also. In fact there was an essential power vacuum throughout the Near East during the 7th Century BCE (as Assyria was dwindling, Egypt had not recovered from Assyrian suppression, and Babylonia had not yet risen into prominence), allowing Yahudah to enjoy its period of greatest security for centuries—and among the greatest it would ever enjoy, as it was among the only periods during which the kingdom suffered relatively little threat from outside forces, and thus could govern itself and consolidate its attention on internal affairs (such as its own warring religious sects).]

Frightened by the implications of this newly “discovered” divine contract and its myriad stipulations—which were unprecedented, and had literally never been mentioned before, in any prior generation—Yoši-Yahu consulted with a prominent Yahwist oracle, KHaldah (χldh), asking whether she could authenticate the new Book of the Instruction. She confirmed that it was in accordance with Yahwist principles, and advised the king that if he did not accept exclusive Yahwism, Yahudah would surely fall. Coerced into a Yahwist position, Yoši-Yahu mandated an effectual ban on worship of any god but Yahweh, the demolishing of all shrines and temples in Yahudah outside of Yerušalim, and the execution of non-Yahwist priests, oracles, and mages throughout the kingdom (even going so far in his zealous crusade as attacking several towns and sacred sites outside his jurisdiction).

It was here that Abrahamic monotheism was born. Though monotheism had been attempted in Egypt by the pharaoh Akhenaten almost a thousand years prior, here it took root strongly, for as many political reasons as religious ones. Having been allowed to ferment and develop, growing in popularity over time, rather than being suddenly thrust upon its people as in Egypt, here it was a perfect storm of religio-political maneuvering and evolution—progressing from polytheism, to monolatrism via nationalism, and finally to monotheism via politics.

The Deuteronomic Code is written quite plainly in the same style and dialect as was used in 7th Century BCE Yahudah, and thus it cannot reasonably be asserted to have been composed by any hypothetical Bronze Age character called Mošeh (let alone a character raised in Egypt, and never set foot in Canaan)—moreover it is appropriate that the 7th Century text was a seper (spr), a document written in ink on parchment, rather than inscribed on a clay or stone tablet or stele (as would have been more probable had the text’s supposed provenance been genuine; this discrepancy was corrected later, with the invention of the tablets of the commandments). The story of Mošeh was in fact at that time quite underdeveloped, and would undergo its own evolution before the composition of the Exodus narrative centuries later. KHilqi-Yahu’s claim that the document was written “in the hand of Mošeh” must be laughably absurd to any modern textual critic or analyst—however under the limited knowledge and logic at the disposal of Yoši-Yahu and his people, KHilqi-Yahu’s fraud was never brought to light. The Torah was hardly a glimmer in the eye of even the Yahwists during the 7th and 8th centuries BCE—and the inaugural document of monotheism in the Hebrew culture was decidedly KHilqi-Yahu’s “Book of the Instruction”, a fragment of what would later be called Deuteronomy. Moreover, that document was almost certainly a contemporaneous forgery, likely concocted by High Priest KHilqi-Yahu and his Yahwist priests in Yerušalim, to further their own religio-political agenda—instituting Yahwism as the state religion of Yahudah, and cementing their own monopoly on the religion as the only remaining priests after the reformation.

The conveniently “found” manuscript of the Book of the Instruction not only seemed to confirm the at-that-time controversial notion that Mošeh was a predynastic founder of the Hebrew civilization (as the character’s tradition was quite new, and had been completely unknown during earlier dynasties), but also it seemed to confirm that Yahwism was the true nationalist cult of the Hebrews, and Yahweh the true national god. The new book also endorsed the adoption of Yahwistic rituals and traditions into the state religion, and especially it demanded the exclusion of all other cults and gods. It does seem convenient that such an invaluable “lost” text would just so happen to fall into the hands of none other than the high priest of Yerušalim, a loyal Yahwist—and that the occasion of his “discovery” would happen to coincide with the arrival of a king who was very easily influenced by him (as high priest he practically would have been his father, given the death of Amown when Yoši-Yahu was still a child), and that the text should also happen to make grand threats that would have been particularly effective in an era following the annihilation of Yišra’El.

That inaugural document, and the radical religious upheaval it caused, began the Deuteronomistic Reformation: an era in which a grand mythic history would be constructed for the Hebrews—incorporating elements from earlier traditions and mythologies, but twisting them to conform to the Yahwist agenda. Even the annals of the royal archives and the histories kept by old oracles and scribes were reworked into revisionist histories, slanted towards a Yahwistic/Deuteronomistic establishment. That first “Book of the Instruction” would in later centuries be eventually repurposed as the final pages of a huge primeval epic—cobbling together creation myths of the Canaanite-Hebrew forefathers, folkloric tales of cultural heroes such as Mošeh, ’Abraham, and Šemšown, and additional codes, contracts, and rituals established by the Luwi (lwj) priest cult of the 6th-5th centuries BCE (who additionally included their own mythic history in the finalized work—claiming descent from the brother of the legendary Mošeh). The eventual corpus would come to be called the Torah (twrh), the “Instruction”—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This would be the essential prologue to the extended revised history of the Hebrew nation—a preamble meant to create the illusion that Yahweh and his “instructions” and contracts with the Hebrews had been a constant fixture throughout their history: when in fact objective scholarship and archaeology uncover a much more complex history, in which polytheism was the norm, and Yahwism one of many competing cults. The Torah and its law did not exist in any substantial written form until the reign of Yoši-Yahu, and not in any greater than a mere fragment of the present form until at least a century afterward. More importantly—not only did no significant portion of the Torah exist in writing prior to roughly 622BCE, but the beloved myths of Mošeh (Moses) and the other heroes evidently did not exist in any form resembling their present forms either prior to the 7th Century BCE, and Yahweh the war god was likely not a particularly significant deity in the pantheon of the average Hebrew—having had an equal standing to ‘Anat (‘nt), the goddess of war, and companion of Yahweh in Yišra’El (as confirmed by the Elephantine papyri of Egypt): both the protectors of soldiers, but all but irrelevant to the common people.

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Well, according to ancient texts and various archeological artefacts Yahweh had a wife called Asherah that apparently didn't make it to new versions of the Bible.

It seems clear that the ancient Hebrews were polytheists in the beginning, and became Henotheists by worshipping Yahweh first with other Gods surrounding Him and then finally settled on Yahweh as the One Monotheist God.

For more on this: http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.htm

Edited by samus
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Well, according to ancient texts and various archeological artefacts Yahweh had a wife called Asherah that apparently didn't make it to new versions of the Bible.

It seems clear that the ancient Hebrews were polytheists in the beginning, and became Henotheists by worshipping Yahweh first with other Gods surrounding Him and then finally settled on Yahweh as the One Monotheist God.

For more on this: http://news.discover...erah-110318.htm

Asherah actually only seems to have been Yahweh's consort in one of the two kingdoms, in the other he was usually paired with Anat (although probably not as a wife, simply as a female companion) ^_^ The henotheistic step was actually the Yahwist party that I was talking about: in other words, monolatrists, who worshipped a single god even though they acknowledged the existence of others.

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Interesting, thought provoking theory.. some citations to underwrite certain statements / conclusions would be nice though, especially given the unambiguous title of the thread.

Edited by Phaeton80
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Interesting, thought provoking theory.. some citations to underwrite certain statements / conclusions would be nice though, especially given the unambiguous title of the thread.

Fair enough. I don't have time right now, but I'll get around to it.

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Excellent! I know for sure you do your homework.

Now only if the "Faithful" can see the fallacy of Faith and do their homework, but that's exactly like trying to talk a Gambler out of Gambling.

A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:

http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563

Well-sourced Wikipedia articles describing the evolution of Jewish monotheism from polytheism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah#Religion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism#Origin_and_development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#Early_history_of_Yahweh-worship

Enuma Elish:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En%C3%BBma_Eli%C5%A1

Library of Ashurbanipal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Ashurbanipal

Canaanite Religion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_religion

Did Jewish Slaves Build the Pyramids?:

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

Taanach Cult Stand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#Development

Israel Enters Recorded History in Egypt at 1200 BCE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah#Iron_Age_I

Jeremiah's Monolatrist Polytheism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_heaven_(Antiquity)#Hebrew_Bible_references

Exodus Renaming by P verified in The Bible with Sources Revealed:

http://www.amazon.com/Sources-Revealed-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060530693

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684869136/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1431452119&sr=8-1π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=bible+unearthed&dpPl=1&dpID=51%2BpMf3FK6L&ref=plSrch

The Bible UnEarthed

The Bible's Buried Secrets

Jesus is as mythical as Moses.

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0557709911/ref=mp_s_a_1_3_twi_2_pap?qid=1431024009&sr=8-3&keywords=nailed

On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1909697494/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1431024119&sr=8-1π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=richard+carrier&dpPl=1&dpID=41LEbzwO3FL&ref=plSrch

Ten beautiful lies about Jesus: David Fitzgerald (Note: D Fitzgerald is mentored by R Carrier a Phd in ancient history)

Why the Gospels are Myth: Dr. Richard Carrier

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MclBbZUFSag

Dr. Richard Carrier on the Mythical Jesus 

*Bonus videos:

Alleged Evidence for Jesus with Dr.Robert Price.

Acts as Historical Fiction

Dr.. Richard Carrier surveys the literary evidence that Acts is not an attempt at recording what actually happened at the origin of Christianity, but is a mostly fabricated story invented as internal propaganda. He also surveys the clues that remain indicating the original story Acts reinvents did not have a real historical Jesus behind it.

Miracles and Historical Method: Dr. Richard Carrier

Why I Think Jesus Didn't Exist: Dr. Richard Carrier

Dr. Richard Carrier: Did Jesus Even Exist? A Historian Questions the Evidence (starts @ 24 minute mark and be sure to check time frame 1:08-1:13 in this lecture.)

David Fitzgerald Skepticon 3 "Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus" 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting, thought provoking theory.. some citations to underwrite certain statements / conclusions would be nice though, especially given the unambiguous title of the thread.

Finally getting back to this: any particular citations you'd like? ^_^ References like 2 Kings 22 I assumed were largely self-contained.

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On brief perusal I have to take issue with the thread title. The Jewish God of the OT is under siege here. I see little to argue that the Christian God of the NT is affected. Christians have always striven to use pre-existing beliefs, stories etc to graft their word onto.

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In my opinion the OP is taking too much liberty with the history we know of and trying to paint something that isn't there. It is well-known that the Hebrews were often in the worship of many gods. They happily worshipped other gods. But I would say that the history of the Hebrew people is based strongly on primarily viewing Yahweh as the one true God. They trace their lineage to Abraham (whether you believe he existed or not). Their society was based on the view of twelve tribes descended from Israel. How did the Northern and Southern Kingdoms split based on their tribal affiliation if they didn't claim to be affiliate with those tribes (the tribes had split and the Northern Kingdom decimated by the Assyrians long before the OP's claimed turn to monotheism)?

That the Torah was not written by Moses is well known. It traditionally was ascribed to him but only fundamentalists really continue to take that view these days, so the entire indictment on the authorship is not really an issue to me at all, that it was written to support a monotheistic view of Yahweh is not surprising at all, and if it is shocking to anyone else I'd be surprised. The claim that the Jews appropriated creation myths from around them is not quite accurate. It is more correct to say they intentionally subverted the myths of those around them to make it clear that Yahweh was not in any way like any of the other deities. Instead of having deities battle and create the earth out of the spilled guts of Tiamat it was simply the power of God's voice "God said.... and it was so".

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On brief perusal I have to take issue with the thread title. The Jewish God of the OT is under siege here. I see little to argue that the Christian God of the NT is affected. Christians have always striven to use pre-existing beliefs, stories etc to graft their word onto.

Well, but Yahweh (the "Jewish God") was to be the monotheistic deity of later eras in Judaic-derived culture. Christianity's god is certainly El-Yahweh, and even the Muslim Allah (al-Elah) is a form of this same deity.

Granted, that's a whole different can of worms, with different forged documents and revisionist histories (i.e., the New Testament and the Quran, etc.).

Edited by Jeanne dArc
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In my opinion the OP is taking too much liberty with the history we know of and trying to paint something that isn't there. It is well-known that the Hebrews were often in the worship of many gods. They happily worshipped other gods. But I would say that the history of the Hebrew people is based strongly on primarily viewing Yahweh as the one true God.

Glad you can acknowledge Hebrew polytheism. But that you'd in the next line suggest that they "primarily viewed Yahweh as the one true god"; where exactly would you get this? As I illustrated quite comprehensively in the original post, Yahweh was a prominent god, certainly (especially among the royal household and warriors), but he was never viewed as the only one during the First Temple period; nor were the other gods seen as lesser to Yahweh (unless they were also lesser to similar powerful deities; e.g., Baal, El, Shalim, Shachar, Tzedeq, Yam, Asherah, etc.).

They trace their lineage to Abraham (whether you believe he existed or not). Their society was based on the view of twelve tribes descended from Israel. How did the Northern and Southern Kingdoms split based on their tribal affiliation if they didn't claim to be affiliate with those tribes (the tribes had split and the Northern Kingdom decimated by the Assyrians long before the OP's claimed turn to monotheism)?

Interesting point. Besides the fact I don't believe Abraham existed, neither do I think he was a character of Hebrew folklore during the First Temple period. He appears to be an invention of the Priestly tradition, during either the Babylonian or Persian era, meant as not only a figure representative of the return of the exiles to the Levant, but of the same primordial quasi-historical mythology that Genesis is so thoroughly steeped in. Evidently Abraham is meant to refer to the extinct tribe of Raham (recorded by the Egyptians as having existed among the pre-monarchical proto-Hebraic highland clans), which may have played a significant role in the early days of the Israelites (the specifics of which may have been forgotten, as with many predynastic tribes).

My view is that the Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom arose somewhat independently (at least on an administrative level), with the original twelve tribes (possibly between ten and fourteen originally, accounting for Jacob, Raham, Joseph, Ishmael, etc.) initially having formed a coalition based on some accord resembling an amphictyony: that is to say, a loose federation of tribes organized for largely religious purposes, with the goal of maintaining the sacred sites of a common deity. As the name IsraEL demonstrates quite clearly, El was the original Hebraic "common god", with the tribes presumably having either distinct roles in the coalition, or possibly taking turns to maintain the temples and shrines of El (much as was done in many neighboring cultures). Yahweh was clearly first introduced from outside, non-Canaanite influence (almost certainly from the south or southeast), probably Midianite/Kenite. As the tribal name Yahudah (lit. worshippers of Yahu) indicates plainly, the southernmost tribe was clearly the first tribe to receive Yahweh, and was the most receptive and devout. As centralized governments arose, it is eminently logical that they would endeavor to adopt equally all of the gods of their affiliated tribes, Yahweh included. As a war god (as is not only evident in his own nature and epithets, but in his pairing with Anat), it is unsurprising that Yahweh would gain considerable popularity among a group of tribes attempting to assert themselves as new and not-to-be-messed-with kingdom(s); this is moreover likely in the consensus view that many of the early Hebrews were likely derived from violent Canaanite misfits and marauders (as is also suggested by the names of several tribes; e.g., Reubel (lit. wolves, "roving bandits") and Iššakar (lit. men of the shekel, "mercenaries")).

That the Torah was not written by Moses is well known. It traditionally was ascribed to him but only fundamentalists really continue to take that view these days, so the entire indictment on the authorship is not really an issue to me at all, that it was written to support a monotheistic view of Yahweh is not surprising at all, and if it is shocking to anyone else I'd be surprised. The claim that the Jews appropriated creation myths from around them is not quite accurate. It is more correct to say they intentionally subverted the myths of those around them to make it clear that Yahweh was not in any way like any of the other deities. Instead of having deities battle and create the earth out of the spilled guts of Tiamat it was simply the power of God's voice "God said.... and it was so".

Interesting: you seem not to have noticed bits like Isaiah 51 then, or numerous references in Psalms and Job to Yahweh doing battle with a sea monster. Even Genesis 1 does not escape Babylonian imagery, though it tries to "correct" it with a Hebraized/Hellenized vaguely natural-philosophy-esque rewording: Tehom serving plainly as Tiamat, complete with a "divine wind" blowing in her face (as per Babylonian myth), but with the substances of creation (formerly Tiamat and Abzu: saltwater and freshwater) reworked to be Tohu and Bohu (primordial water or chaos, and primordial aether or heavenly air). True, the use of speech as a means of creation deviates from Babylonian imagery, but it acquires Egyptian-style imagery, quite evocative of Ptah or Amun's creation stories and their activation of the latent cosmos through spoken incantations.

In any case, Genesis 1 is a Priestly construction incorporating motifs from several of the cultures they would have been exposed to post-First Temple (i.e., Babylonian, Ionian Greek, Assyrianized Egyptian, Persian, etc.), and wrapped up together in a neat little Jewish bow attempting to shoehorn a grand creation poem into a kitschy little Passover etiology. Genesis 2 doesn't address primordial creation, instead beginning with the creation of Eden and humanity: though again we find the motif of a serpent representing chaos (quite similar to the untamed serpent of the Huluppu Tree in the Epic of Gilgamesh). True, no true Hebraic form of Yahweh's battle with the sea dragon survives in elaborated text: but there are enough fragments scattered throughout the biblical corpus that it is quite clear that it existed, and was apparently assumed to be common knowledge by the authors. And of course the monotheistic Levite priests of the Exile encapsulated all that polytheistic goodness into the ambiguous "Elohim", so as to package all of the old gods into a quasi-singular/quasi-plural ambiguity that could be forcibly interpreted as their monotheistic deity (though they may have been monolatristic to some extent still, given the use of plural pronouns; or perhaps there were redactions as late as the Hellenistic era, by which time angels and demons would be fair game as demoted pseudo-gods).

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Secretary Šapan presents King Yoši-Yahu of Yahudah with the Book of the Instruction

shaphan-read-the-book-of-law-to-king-josiah.jpg

Among the greatest turning points in the history of ancient Hebrew culture, and indeed in the history of religion itself, is recorded in Chapter 22 of the second Book of Kings.

In the mid-7th Century BCE, circa 641/640, King ’Amown (’mwn) of the Kingdom of Yahudah (jhwdh) was assassinated by his slaves; their motive—his failure to overturn the religion of his father, King Menašeh (mnšh). Indeed ’Amown openly accepted his father’s various gods and rituals, as had the majority of kings who had come before him (including the kings of the northern kingdom of Yišra’El (jšr’l)). At the heart of the internal Hebrew religious conflicts were warring factions of the traditional polytheists against the increasingly popular factions of the monolatrists: in particular, the monolatristic cult of the Yahwists, who wished to establish the war god Yahweh as the exclusive national deity of the Hebrew people.

The origins of Yahweh (jhwh) are somewhat ambiguous, but evidently he originated as a father god and a warrior god of the nomadic Midyani (mdjnj) and Qini (qjnj) clans of the deserts south of Canaan, where he was known as Yahu (jhw). Once these nomads were intermingled with the earlier proto-Hebrew tribes of the highlands of Canaan, they brought their god Yahu with them: he became the early Hebrew war god, Yahweh TSeba’owt (jhwh-tsb’wt), "Yahweh of Armies/Soldiers", one of the seventy sons of the Canaanite father god ’El (’l). Given the violent warring nature of early Hebrew tribes and the importance of militia, it is quite understandable why Yahweh would come to be a prominent deity in nationalist sects; also noteworthy is that he would presumably have been the only non-standard Canaanite god present in their assortment of divinities, therefore perhaps singling him out for special interest (much like the ’Edumi (’dwmj) to the south likely elevated their national god Qowš (qwš) into a position of prominence for his uniqueness as their patron).

In the religious climate of 7th Century BCE in Yahudah and Yišra’El, Yahwism was becoming increasingly popular as many inhabitants of both kingdoms desired to conquer their enemies through military might, and establish a wider empire. Of course the uniquely Hebrew war god, Yahweh, was an excellent candidate for monolatristic preference by the Hebrews: and in addition to that platform, they could also argue that it was Yahweh who was the patron god of Mošeh (mšh). It was in the 7th Century BCE in Yahudah that the character of Mošeh evidently arose in folklore: a legendary figure who was regarded by the Yahudi clans as the central figure during the formation of the Hebrew peoples during the late Bronze Age—a time in which Canaan was Egyptian territory. Mošeh was believed to have had divine aid, specifically by Yahweh, in victory over and liberation from the sovereignty of Egypt—surely a war god of such power that he was believed by the Yahudi to have freed their ancestors from the mighty nation of Egypt was worthy of special importance in the pantheon. Certainly more deserving, they asserted, than was the traditional chief god ’El—who would later be somewhat slandered (together with the northern kingdom that bore his name, Yišra’El) in Yahudi-biased folktales involving the forefather Ya‘aqob (j‘qb) (also called Yišra’El) besting the mighty ’El in a contest of physical grappling.

[Aside #1: Yahweh and ’El would later be merged and syncretized into a single father god—together with the other gods associated with ’El, the ’Elohim (’lhjm), including the revered storm god Ba‘al (b‘l).]

[Aside #2: There is no evidence whatsoever that Mošeh was an actual historical person, but rather an etiological folkloric/mythic character—possibly inspired by the nomadic Midyani/Qini clans which provided their god Yahweh to the proto-Hebraic tribes of the 12th Century BCE when they intermingled freely; or possibly inspired partly by lingering Egypto-Canaanite traditions, Moabite heroes, and other well-known stories and motifs; the name mšh is understood to mean “remover” in Semitic languages—appropriate for his legendary/mythical archetypal nature as he who “removed” the Hebrews from Egyptian oppression.]

Yahwism was first widely defined as a nationalist religious movement during the reign of King KHizeki-Yahu (χzqjhw)—the king was a devout Yahwist, and thus enacted a dramatic statewide religious reform that demanded the exclusive worship of Yahweh: including the destruction of many shrines and temples, and the alteration of the great temple at the capital, Yerušalim (jrwšljm) to remove all its statues representative of gods other than Yahweh. The reign of KHizeki-Yahu, circa 715-686BCE, coincided with an attack on Yerušalim in 701 that presumably solidified his staunch Yahwist leanings (which in all likelihood may have partly stemmed from his presence during the destruction of the northern kingdom of Yišra’El by the Assyrians circa 720BCE). The last ten years of KHizeki-Yahu’s reign were evidently co-regent with his son, Menašeh—thus it is unclear as to whether King KHizeki-Yahu late in life became tolerant of the traditional polytheist religion, as Menašeh successfully reversed all of the religious reforms of his father (though the dates of these are unclear, and thus was possibly enacted after the death of KHizeki-Yahu).

King Menašeh’s reign would come to be despised and slandered in later generations, not only for his restoration of polytheist shrines throughout Yahudah and in the temple at Yerušalim, but also for his acquiescence to the powerful Assyrian Empire which had conquered the kingdom’s northern counterpart a half-century before. He also proved hostile to the Yahwistic oracle guilds, and executed many of them in demonstration of his anti-Yahwist views. Nonetheless, Menašeh was a politically successful ruler in his time, and reigned fifty-five years—unlike all prior kings of Yahudah, Menašeh was buried in the garden of his private estate, rather than in the royal necropolis of Yerušalim.

Menašeh was succeeded on the throne of Yahudah by his son, Amown: another staunchly anti-Yahwist king—assassinated after a reign of only two years by a faction of his own slaves who were Yahwist oracle-supporters. The son of Amown would become perhaps the single most influential figure in the history of Abrahamic religion.

Born circa 648BCE, Yoši-Yahu (jšjhw) succeeded his father Amown as king of Yahudah—crowned king at the age of eight, following the assassination of his father. In the eighteenth year of his reign (approx. 623/622BCE), Yoši-Yahu decreed that the high priest of the temple in Yerušalim, KHilqi-Yahu, should use pooled tax funds held in the royal treasury to renovate and expand the temple. KHilqi-Yahu, a devout Yahwist and supporter of the oracle guilds and folklore of Mošeh, perhaps saw opportunity in the arrival of a king on the throne of Yahudah who had not been heavily influenced by the religion of his polytheist father.

During the early stages of the temple repairs, KHilqi-Yahu alerted the palatial secretary, Šapan (špn), to the “discovery” of a supposed “lost book” inside the temple—a “Book of the Instruction” (spr-htwrh), alleged to have been authored by the legendary Mošeh himself. Šapan was given the manuscript by the high priest, and as royal secretary he read it to King Yoši-Yahu. Understood to have been the Deuteronomic Code (Deutr. 5-26), the document was an extensive list of pro-Yahwistic ordinances, blessings, curses, and even a claimed prehistoric legal contract between the Hebrew people and the deity Yahweh.

Yoši-Yahu was alarmed by the book: coerced into a belief that if exclusive, monotheistic Yahwism was not instituted throughout Yahudah, that surely it would fall to Assyria just as Yišra’El had a century prior—as per the curses threatened in the text.

[Aside #3: In reality, the Assyrian Empire was in a state of rapid decline during Yoši-Yahu’s reign, and indeed during his father and grandfather’s reigns also. In fact there was an essential power vacuum throughout the Near East during the 7th Century BCE (as Assyria was dwindling, Egypt had not recovered from Assyrian suppression, and Babylonia had not yet risen into prominence), allowing Yahudah to enjoy its period of greatest security for centuries—and among the greatest it would ever enjoy, as it was among the only periods during which the kingdom suffered relatively little threat from outside forces, and thus could govern itself and consolidate its attention on internal affairs (such as its own warring religious sects).]

Frightened by the implications of this newly “discovered” divine contract and its myriad stipulations—which were unprecedented, and had literally never been mentioned before, in any prior generation—Yoši-Yahu consulted with a prominent Yahwist oracle, KHaldah (χldh), asking whether she could authenticate the new Book of the Instruction. She confirmed that it was in accordance with Yahwist principles, and advised the king that if he did not accept exclusive Yahwism, Yahudah would surely fall. Coerced into a Yahwist position, Yoši-Yahu mandated an effectual ban on worship of any god but Yahweh, the demolishing of all shrines and temples in Yahudah outside of Yerušalim, and the execution of non-Yahwist priests, oracles, and mages throughout the kingdom (even going so far in his zealous crusade as attacking several towns and sacred sites outside his jurisdiction).

It was here that Abrahamic monotheism was born. Though monotheism had been attempted in Egypt by the pharaoh Akhenaten almost a thousand years prior, here it took root strongly, for as many political reasons as religious ones. Having been allowed to ferment and develop, growing in popularity over time, rather than being suddenly thrust upon its people as in Egypt, here it was a perfect storm of religio-political maneuvering and evolution—progressing from polytheism, to monolatrism via nationalism, and finally to monotheism via politics.

The Deuteronomic Code is written quite plainly in the same style and dialect as was used in 7th Century BCE Yahudah, and thus it cannot reasonably be asserted to have been composed by any hypothetical Bronze Age character called Mošeh (let alone a character raised in Egypt, and never set foot in Canaan)—moreover it is appropriate that the 7th Century text was a seper (spr), a document written in ink on parchment, rather than inscribed on a clay or stone tablet or stele (as would have been more probable had the text’s supposed provenance been genuine; this discrepancy was corrected later, with the invention of the tablets of the commandments). The story of Mošeh was in fact at that time quite underdeveloped, and would undergo its own evolution before the composition of the Exodus narrative centuries later. KHilqi-Yahu’s claim that the document was written “in the hand of Mošeh” must be laughably absurd to any modern textual critic or analyst—however under the limited knowledge and logic at the disposal of Yoši-Yahu and his people, KHilqi-Yahu’s fraud was never brought to light. The Torah was hardly a glimmer in the eye of even the Yahwists during the 7th and 8th centuries BCE—and the inaugural document of monotheism in the Hebrew culture was decidedly KHilqi-Yahu’s “Book of the Instruction”, a fragment of what would later be called Deuteronomy. Moreover, that document was almost certainly a contemporaneous forgery, likely concocted by High Priest KHilqi-Yahu and his Yahwist priests in Yerušalim, to further their own religio-political agenda—instituting Yahwism as the state religion of Yahudah, and cementing their own monopoly on the religion as the only remaining priests after the reformation.

The conveniently “found” manuscript of the Book of the Instruction not only seemed to confirm the at-that-time controversial notion that Mošeh was a predynastic founder of the Hebrew civilization (as the character’s tradition was quite new, and had been completely unknown during earlier dynasties), but also it seemed to confirm that Yahwism was the true nationalist cult of the Hebrews, and Yahweh the true national god. The new book also endorsed the adoption of Yahwistic rituals and traditions into the state religion, and especially it demanded the exclusion of all other cults and gods. It does seem convenient that such an invaluable “lost” text would just so happen to fall into the hands of none other than the high priest of Yerušalim, a loyal Yahwist—and that the occasion of his “discovery” would happen to coincide with the arrival of a king who was very easily influenced by him (as high priest he practically would have been his father, given the death of Amown when Yoši-Yahu was still a child), and that the text should also happen to make grand threats that would have been particularly effective in an era following the annihilation of Yišra’El.

That inaugural document, and the radical religious upheaval it caused, began the Deuteronomistic Reformation: an era in which a grand mythic history would be constructed for the Hebrews—incorporating elements from earlier traditions and mythologies, but twisting them to conform to the Yahwist agenda. Even the annals of the royal archives and the histories kept by old oracles and scribes were reworked into revisionist histories, slanted towards a Yahwistic/Deuteronomistic establishment. That first “Book of the Instruction” would in later centuries be eventually repurposed as the final pages of a huge primeval epic—cobbling together creation myths of the Canaanite-Hebrew forefathers, folkloric tales of cultural heroes such as Mošeh, ’Abraham, and Šemšown, and additional codes, contracts, and rituals established by the Luwi (lwj) priest cult of the 6th-5th centuries BCE (who additionally included their own mythic history in the finalized work—claiming descent from the brother of the legendary Mošeh). The eventual corpus would come to be called the Torah (twrh), the “Instruction”—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This would be the essential prologue to the extended revised history of the Hebrew nation—a preamble meant to create the illusion that Yahweh and his “instructions” and contracts with the Hebrews had been a constant fixture throughout their history: when in fact objective scholarship and archaeology uncover a much more complex history, in which polytheism was the norm, and Yahwism one of many competing cults. The Torah and its law did not exist in any substantial written form until the reign of Yoši-Yahu, and not in any greater than a mere fragment of the present form until at least a century afterward. More importantly—not only did no significant portion of the Torah exist in writing prior to roughly 622BCE, but the beloved myths of Mošeh (Moses) and the other heroes evidently did not exist in any form resembling their present forms either prior to the 7th Century BCE, and Yahweh the war god was likely not a particularly significant deity in the pantheon of the average Hebrew—having had an equal standing to ‘Anat (‘nt), the goddess of war, and companion of Yahweh in Yišra’El (as confirmed by the Elephantine papyri of Egypt): both the protectors of soldiers, but all but irrelevant to the common people.

gee just more ignorant

intellectual bs from academia. the Fools don't have a clue who El is isn't and will never. that was a waist of about 10 minutes of my time.

there is no need for Atheist or anti theist if there really is no God.

those have got to be the most useless and hopeless individuals on the planet if their life is really all about being anti - nothing..

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The origins of monotheism are very interesting to me! In a Bible Literature class we learned how the early chapter of the Bible are much more pagan than the later ones (since they were written so much earlier), and you can watch The Lord evolve from a more pagan-esque tangible God that interacts with people to a more mysterious power that communicates in miracles. Reading the first few chapters of the Bible knowing this is interesting, because it pops up everywhere. Like when God took a human form to wrestle Jacob.

There's even a section of the Bible, that when translated how it should be (modern versions tweak it and just use 'El' to refer to God) says explicitly that Yahweh is a son of El, and it was his father who gifted him the Israelites to govern.

Edited by Erowin
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gee just more ignorant

intellectual bs from academia. the Fools don't have a clue who El is isn't and will never. that was a waist of about 10 minutes of my time.

there is no need for Atheist or anti theist if there really is no God.

those have got to be the most useless and hopeless individuals on the planet if their life is really all about being anti - nothing..

As best I can decipher of this, you're saying that academia is just "ignorant intellectual bs"? Is that close? Because the words "intellectual" and "ignorant" are very nearly opposite... ergo, linking them in a single phrase is effectively an oxymoron.

Atheists and antitheists exist because theists exist claiming god exists; I don't believe there's a god, but there are most definitely people who say there is; and I will argue with them if it's appropriate.

I don't think you know who El is either: tell me, who was El's favored son? What was his primary cult object? Which groups of people worshipped him? Forgive my incredulity, but I doubt you know very much about El at all.

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The origins of monotheism are very interesting to me! In a Bible Literature class we learned how the early chapter of the Bible are much more pagan than the later ones (since they were written so much earlier), and you can watch The Lord evolve from a more pagan-esque tangible God that interacts with people to a more mysterious power that communicates in miracles. Reading the first few chapters of the Bible knowing this is interesting, because it pops up everywhere. Like when God took a human form to wrestle Jacob.

I would actually be a bit more specific: the early chapters of the Bible are actually younger than many of the later parts, although they may be based partly on older traditions. Genesis in particular was written after the events I described in my original post, while some of the writings of the prophets like Isaiah and Amos already existed, and ancient legends like the flood, creation, Tower of Babel, and other stories existed in oral tradition, but had no substantive written form. Stories like Abraham and Moses probably didn't exist at all until the Exile, or at best may have existed in very different form (as I discussed a little bit for Moses already). But yes, First Temple period gods were very humanlike: they were more like superheroes than what we think of as "spirits" today. Only after the Exile did the monotheistic Hebrew god start to become an invisible, all-powerful, transcendent being.

There's even a section of the Bible, that when translated how it should be (modern versions tweak it and just use 'El' to refer to God) says explicitly that Yahweh is a son of El, and it was his father who gifted him the Israelites to govern.

Quite right ^_^ Yahweh was certainly a son of El at first, though he was eventually fused with El and took his place as the father god.

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this is so goofy , just don't believe it . it can't get any more pittiful.

El were Noah and His sons and grandson who still were in their original created form, 6 fingers 6 toes on the 6th day two rows of REPLACEABLE TEETH because we were created to chew forever. we were not created to Die.. we chose to die and do still do everyday chose death in order to not surrending . Noahs God was El elion , El's were the Great Kings/ Baals or sometimes confused as "the sons of God" ( which is not what Enoch was calling' the sons of God' those were locked in hell)

SO you all spend all your time tilting at windmills you claim aren't even there. and worse when they find there is a God , how awful is it going to be that you spent your lives lying and promoting lies and making up lies about Him . It just never gets any more insane than that.

I mean really if there is not a God what am I out ? 35 years of great marriage and good kids and I learned so much from Him and his book , that I never could have learned for anyone else because no one else I know knows even what love is. even if I don't go to heaven, it has been worth every moment I spent learning about Him .. and even the great moments were especially those few moments I learned from Him directly in those kind of serendipity kinds of moments no one can explain to anyone else .

Edited by Allesehir
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this is so goofy , just don't believe it .

El were Noahs and sons and grandson who still were in their original created form 6 fingers 6 toes on the 6th day two rows of REPLACEABLE TEETH because we were created to chew forever. we were not created to Die.. we chose to die and do still everyday chose death to surrending . Noahs God was El elion , El's were the Great Kings or sometimes confused as the sons of God( which is not what Enoch was calling the sons of God those were locked in hell)

SO you all spend all their time tilting at windmills you claim aren't even there. and worse when they find there is a God , how awful is it going to be that you spent your lives lying and promoting lies and making up lies about Him, you say doesn't exist . It just never gets any more insane than that.

I mean really if there is not a God what am i out ? 35 years of great marriage and good kids and I learned so much from Him and his book , that I never could have learned for anyone else because no one else I knows what love is. even if I don't go to heaven, it has been worth every moment I spent learning about Him .. and even the great moments were especially those few moments I learned from him directly in those kind of serendipity moments no one can explain to anyone else .

I'm sorry, you're very diffcult to understand, but I'll try my best.

No, El was a god, not a "son of god": quite the contrary, he was the father of all the other gods. All this 6 fingers and 6 toes nonsense is a wild exaggeration based loosely on 2 Samuel 21, and I'd be very interested to know why you belief that we were "created to chew forever" :lol: hahaha

If there is a god, or gods, and science discovers it/them, I will accept that (once it is adequately demonstrated of course). Until that happens, I am perfectly justified in disbelieving theists' claims of gods, since they have thus far failed to prove any of them.

El Elyon was a separate god completely, analogous to the Greek Uranos (El was comparable to Kronos/Cronus).

If there isn't a god, what are you out? Well, a lot of wasted time believing in something that isn't real: presumably a lot of time wasted performing rituals and sacraments that are worthless, etc., etc. What if it turns out there is a god, but it's a different one than you believe in? What if it turns out the Mayan gods are real? Or the Etruscan gods? Or the Japanese gods? Or the Hindu gods? Or the Pygmy gods? They probably won't be very pleased that you've wasted so much time believing in the wrong god. Luckily there isn't any evidence for any gods existing, so a waste of time and effort is about all I'd say you've lost as a theist: although spreading lies and mistruths trying to convince people of theism counts as wasting other people's time, and that's crossing another line altogether. So those are my two-cents on that.

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http://www.grahamhan...i=13385&t=13361

here is an OWNER/ a Baal / a Baahlum ( aka were later to be known as " a sun God" in the old world but not here ) but his name means " the Sun is his shield"/ his protector . but people read into it what they wish it to be. if he was Eqyptian he would be called a God. the owner / El patron.

he is maybe 7- 8 ft if we believe eyewitness... and his head is shaped his mothers head also shaped . he has 6 fingers and 6 toes . His mother and grandmother is from Elisiah/ Alysiah clan( OLlie/ Ale/ ULI / yoli etc ( aka RED paint Clan ) and it seems his father's male clan appears to be Kana? Kan or KINI clan.. probably Canaanite or whatever Jaanab / so maybe Tana(ac) and they just spelled/ translated it wrong.

he is a EL BA"EL = owner.

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Glad you can acknowledge Hebrew polytheism. But that you'd in the next line suggest that they "primarily viewed Yahweh as the one true god"; where exactly would you get this? As I illustrated quite comprehensively in the original post, Yahweh was a prominent god, certainly (especially among the royal household and warriors), but he was never viewed as the only one during the First Temple period; nor were the other gods seen as lesser to Yahweh (unless they were also lesser to similar powerful deities; e.g., Baal, El, Shalim, Shachar, Tzedeq, Yam, Asherah, etc.).

What I was trying to point out is that their actions show them to have often worshipped many gods but being dedicated solely to Yahweh is the state they SHOULD have been in, and were often led astray (one of the more famous examples by sceptics is that of Numbers 25, when the Midianites led Israel astray and into the worship of other gods, leading to God declaring the Midianites shall be wiped out, and this happening in Numbers 31).

Interesting point. Besides the fact I don't believe Abraham existed, neither do I think he was a character of Hebrew folklore during the First Temple period. He appears to be an invention of the Priestly tradition, during either the Babylonian or Persian era, meant as not only a figure representative of the return of the exiles to the Levant, but of the same primordial quasi-historical mythology that Genesis is so thoroughly steeped in. Evidently Abraham is meant to refer to the extinct tribe of Raham (recorded by the Egyptians as having existed among the pre-monarchical proto-Hebraic highland clans), which may have played a significant role in the early days of the Israelites (the specifics of which may have been forgotten, as with many predynastic tribes).

My view is that the Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom arose somewhat independently (at least on an administrative level), with the original twelve tribes (possibly between ten and fourteen originally, accounting for Jacob, Raham, Joseph, Ishmael, etc.) initially having formed a coalition based on some accord resembling an amphictyony: that is to say, a loose federation of tribes organized for largely religious purposes, with the goal of maintaining the sacred sites of a common deity. As the name IsraEL demonstrates quite clearly, El was the original Hebraic "common god", with the tribes presumably having either distinct roles in the coalition, or possibly taking turns to maintain the temples and shrines of El (much as was done in many neighboring cultures). Yahweh was clearly first introduced from outside, non-Canaanite influence (almost certainly from the south or southeast), probably Midianite/Kenite. As the tribal name Yahudah (lit. worshippers of Yahu) indicates plainly, the southernmost tribe was clearly the first tribe to receive Yahweh, and was the most receptive and devout. As centralized governments arose, it is eminently logical that they would endeavor to adopt equally all of the gods of their affiliated tribes, Yahweh included. As a war god (as is not only evident in his own nature and epithets, but in his pairing with Anat), it is unsurprising that Yahweh would gain considerable popularity among a group of tribes attempting to assert themselves as new and not-to-be-messed-with kingdom(s); this is moreover likely in the consensus view that many of the early Hebrews were likely derived from violent Canaanite misfits and marauders (as is also suggested by the names of several tribes; e.g., Reubel (lit. wolves, "roving bandits") and Iššakar (lit. men of the shekel, "mercenaries")).

I can't agree with your reasoning. Hosea wrote in the 8th Century BC, while the Northern Kingdom was still around, and he was writing of the Lord only.

Interesting: you seem not to have noticed bits like Isaiah 51 then, or numerous references in Psalms and Job to Yahweh doing battle with a sea monster. Even Genesis 1 does not escape Babylonian imagery, though it tries to "correct" it with a Hebraized/Hellenized vaguely natural-philosophy-esque rewording: Tehom serving plainly as Tiamat, complete with a "divine wind" blowing in her face (as per Babylonian myth), but with the substances of creation (formerly Tiamat and Abzu: saltwater and freshwater) reworked to be Tohu and Bohu (primordial water or chaos, and primordial aether or heavenly air). True, the use of speech as a means of creation deviates from Babylonian imagery, but it acquires Egyptian-style imagery, quite evocative of Ptah or Amun's creation stories and their activation of the latent cosmos through spoken incantations.

In any case, Genesis 1 is a Priestly construction incorporating motifs from several of the cultures they would have been exposed to post-First Temple (i.e., Babylonian, Ionian Greek, Assyrianized Egyptian, Persian, etc.), and wrapped up together in a neat little Jewish bow attempting to shoehorn a grand creation poem into a kitschy little Passover etiology. Genesis 2 doesn't address primordial creation, instead beginning with the creation of Eden and humanity: though again we find the motif of a serpent representing chaos (quite similar to the untamed serpent of the Huluppu Tree in the Epic of Gilgamesh). True, no true Hebraic form of Yahweh's battle with the sea dragon survives in elaborated text: but there are enough fragments scattered throughout the biblical corpus that it is quite clear that it existed, and was apparently assumed to be common knowledge by the authors. And of course the monotheistic Levite priests of the Exile encapsulated all that polytheistic goodness into the ambiguous "Elohim", so as to package all of the old gods into a quasi-singular/quasi-plural ambiguity that could be forcibly interpreted as their monotheistic deity (though they may have been monolatristic to some extent still, given the use of plural pronouns; or perhaps there were redactions as late as the Hellenistic era, by which time angels and demons would be fair game as demoted pseudo-gods).

Isaiah 51 referencing battles with sea monsters? I only see one sentence in the entire passage that refers to this, and it could easily be metaphorical. That said, if you'll note the context of what I said, I said that the creation story of Genesis was written specifically to subvert the creation myths of the surrounding nations, I made no mention of Isaiah or Psalms or Job or any such (presumably you are referencing things like the Leviathan, but since both the Psalms and Job exist in the section of the Tanakh we view as "Writings", we're not necessarily talking literal language here..... we don't interpret the psalms as literal, do we, we don't interpret Job to be literal [well, some do, but there's more to it than that, I think]). In any case, I wrote about the creation account in Genesis, not the broader approach in the Bible. To put it in another person's words:

"Genesis is implicitly rejecting other views of the gods and their relationship with the world. Here we have no story of how gods fought, married and bore children; there is but one God, beyond time and sex, who was there in the beginning. He created all things, even the sun, moon and stars, which other people often held to be gods in their own right. He required no magic to do this; his word was sufficient by itself."

~ New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition. p59

Edited by Paranoid Android
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That inaugural document, and the radical religious upheaval it caused, began the Deuteronomistic Reformation: an era in which a grand mythic history would be constructed for the Hebrews—incorporating elements from earlier traditions and mythologies, but twisting them to conform to the Yahwist agenda. Even the annals of the royal archives and the histories kept by old oracles and scribes were reworked into revisionist histories, slanted towards a Yahwistic/Deuteronomistic establishment. That first “Book of the Instruction” would in later centuries be eventually repurposed as the final pages of a huge primeval epic—cobbling together creation myths of the Canaanite-Hebrew forefathers, folkloric tales of cultural heroes such as Mošeh, ’Abraham, and Šemšown, and additional codes, contracts, and rituals established by the Luwi (lwj) priest cult of the 6th-5th centuries BCE (who additionally included their own mythic history in the finalized work—claiming descent from the brother of the legendary Mošeh). The eventual corpus would come to be called the Torah (twrh), the “Instruction”—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This would be the essential prologue to the extended revised history of the Hebrew nation—a preamble meant to create the illusion that Yahweh and his “instructions” and contracts with the Hebrews had been a constant fixture throughout their history: when in fact objective scholarship and archaeology uncover a much more complex history, in which polytheism was the norm, and Yahwism one of many competing cults. The Torah and its law did not exist in any substantial written form until the reign of Yoši-Yahu, and not in any greater than a mere fragment of the present form until at least a century afterward. More importantly—not only did no significant portion of the Torah exist in writing prior to roughly 622BCE, but the beloved myths of Mošeh (Moses) and the other heroes evidently did not exist in any form resembling their present forms either prior to the 7th Century BCE, and Yahweh the war god was likely not a particularly significant deity in the pantheon of the average Hebrew—having had an equal standing to ‘Anat (‘nt), the goddess of war, and companion of Yahweh in Yišra’El (as confirmed by the Elephantine papyri of Egypt): both the protectors of soldiers, but all but irrelevant to the common people.

I guess the thing to begin with would be this:

Webcomic_xkcd_-_Wikipedian_protester.png

Even indirect citation would be appreciated, definitely much more than mis-rendered transliterations of Biblical names, instead of the accepted standard of their English pronunciations. Like Yahudah for Judah, trying to shoe-horn YHWH into one of the handful of Biblical names He's not involved in.

Then there are the implications specifically refuted by the one reference you did give, like the suggestion that King Josiah allocated public taxes to support his religious agenda, when the Temple was renovated using tithes that it had collected (2Ki 22:4) at its doors. And this says nothing to the inherent contradictions you make with your own statements, like that YHWH was an oligarchical war-god, yet somehow a syncretic twin to the numerous and rather egalitarian Ba'al agro-storm deities.

But all of this aside, what exactly is your point and how are you justifying it? That Josiah's Book of Instruction (hereafter referred to by its traditional identification of Deuteronomy) is somehow the whole Torah, meaning the Torah couldn't have existed in any form before Josiah? That goes right out since Second Kings states that it was a single book of instruction, not the book of the Torah, especially since the Pentateuch wouldn't definitively be called the Torah until material dated around the beginning of the Exile.

So what is the point here? That Jews broke their own rules? How is that a founding lie? Hell, it's a major point of plot advancement within the context of the biblical narrative. If the Israelites weren't hopping into bed with other Canaanite deities every other generation and bringing that strange back home, the Lord would've been that god that saved them from Egypt that one time and not the perennial savior and redeemer of Judaism, whose narrative as such remains to this day.

And finally, how does any of that functionally refute the Jewish founding myths found in the rest of the Torah? That material that has clear indicators that it existed as a tribal oral tradition, before the advent of an alphabetic writing system.

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Well, according to ancient texts and various archeological artefacts Yahweh had a wife called Asherah that apparently didn't make it to new versions of the Bible.

It seems clear that the ancient Hebrews were polytheists in the beginning, and became Henotheists by worshipping Yahweh first with other Gods surrounding Him and then finally settled on Yahweh as the One Monotheist God.

For more on this: http://news.discover...erah-110318.htm

Uh, yeah she did. The Bible's the most widely distributed source we have for information on Asherah, unless they've stumbled on a massive, ancient storehouse of unsold Asherah merch. Hard to say she wasn't included in the "final copy". The Bible only made it clear that Asherah was some Yahwist equivalent of Yoko Ono.

And of course the Hebrews started as polytheists, what else would they be before their conversion/consolidation? Tradition even makes Abraham's father an idol-maker--that's like polytheism with honors. You could even successfully argue that the named angels are deities themselves, meaning the polytheism never ended, just had a clear hierarchy defined that differentiated YHWH from the other deities Hebrews were known to frequent.

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I guess the thing to begin with would be this:

Webcomic_xkcd_-_Wikipedian_protester.png

Even indirect citation would be appreciated, definitely much more than mis-rendered transliterations of Biblical names, instead of the accepted standard of their English pronunciations. Like Yahudah for Judah, trying to shoe-horn YHWH into one of the handful of Biblical names He's not involved in.

Hardly mis-rendered, particularly considering there are no actual definitively known vowels for Biblical Hebrew. Yahudah I think was clearly the original name: I think the Masoretic vowel shift to Yehudah was the product of post-Exilic sensibilities which forbade the utterance of Yahweh aloud except by the high priest during specific ceremonies. That's a quibble either way.

Then there are the implications specifically refuted by the one reference you did give, like the suggestion that King Josiah allocated public taxes to support his religious agenda, when the Temple was renovated using tithes that it had collected (2Ki 22:4) at its doors.

'Tax' is a perfectly adequate way of describing the collected funds; mere semantics.

And this says nothing to the inherent contradictions you make with your own statements, like that YHWH was an oligarchical war-god, yet somehow a syncretic twin to the numerous and rather egalitarian Ba'al agro-storm deities.

Why "somehow"? I would say that Yahweh had features of a storm god, as well as a solar god, as well as a father god, etc., etc., at different times and in different contexts. It is quite apparent that his original incarnation was as a war god (again, Yahweh TSeba'ot), no matter what powers were later given to him by those who wished to elevate him. It's really not unprecedented or unusual: Amun and Ra were quite distinct at one time, as were Apollo and Helios. Those would have been more difficult to syncretize in their early days than Yahweh with Baal, or Yahweh with El, which were comparatively similar already.

But all of this aside, what exactly is your point and how are you justifying it? That Josiah's Book of Instruction (hereafter referred to by its traditional identification of Deuteronomy) is somehow the whole Torah, meaning the Torah couldn't have existed in any form before Josiah? That goes right out since Second Kings states that it was a single book of instruction, not the book of the Torah, especially since the Pentateuch wouldn't definitively be called the Torah until material dated around the beginning of the Exile.

I never claimed that the use of the term 'Torah' was meant to refer to the Pentateuch: I think that the 'Book of the Instruction' described in 2 Kings 22 was the first substantive fragment of the Pentateuch composed and instituted as a formal religious scripture. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were written during the Exile and after, and the material therein was probably largely originated during that same time (with the exception of certain traditions such as the J Source that were probably in largely oral form prior to the Exile).

So what is the point here? That Jews broke their own rules?

Hardly: I don't think the rules existed until 622BCE. At least not in a formal, structured form. Certain things like an aversion to pork was already a cultural practice, but I doubt it was a "law".

How is that a founding lie?

Because the inaugural document was almost certainly forgery by the temple priests, presumably designed to further their own religio-political agenda: not a "rediscovered" relic of a mythical patriarch.

Hell, it's a major point of plot advancement within the context of the biblical narrative. If the Israelites weren't hopping into bed with other Canaanite deities every other generation and bringing that strange back home, the Lord would've been that god that saved them from Egypt that one time and not the perennial savior and redeemer of Judaism, whose narrative as such remains to this day.

Of course it's a major point of plot advancement. It's the complete violent overhaul of centuries of traditional Canaanite-Hebraic religion, in favor of a new sect that was relatively new and untried. Monotheism was unheard of in the First Temple period: Canaanite polytheism was the norm for the Hebrews' entire history and prehistory (with the exception of Hezekiah's brief attempt at monolatrism).

And finally, how does any of that functionally refute the Jewish founding myths found in the rest of the Torah? That material that has clear indicators that it existed as a tribal oral tradition, before the advent of an alphabetic writing system.

And now I believe it is you who requires citation ;) Moses' story was clearly different than the received form prior to the Exile, and the character evidently didn't exist at all as we know him prior to around the 7th or 8th centuries (unless one theorizes that he is meant to be a form of Mesha, which would knock the date back to the mid-9th Century at best; I am not persuaded by this hypothesis). Sure, large chunks of Genesis clearly had considerable oral prehistory, but things like the 'Law' evidently did not, and that is of extreme importance to the understanding of the development of Judaism (and thereby Christianity and Islam also).

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gee just more ignorant intellectual bs from academia. the Fools don't have a clue who El is isn't and will never. that was a waist of about 10 minutes of my time.

there is no need for Atheist or anti theist if there really is no God.

those have got to be the most useless and hopeless individuals on the planet if their life is really all about ....

Well ... silly ... dont read it then .

Intellectula bs is it ? Well, we wouldn't want to waist your time with our narrow views, but from this perspective it has all gone pair shaped .

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Well ... silly ... dont read it then .

Intellectula bs is it ? Well, we wouldn't want to waist your time with our narrow views, but from this perspective it has all gone pair shaped .

OMG :lol:

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