Growing up in a half Jewish home I can tell you we were taught to view God according to the Torah as singular. Much I what I learned than escapes me now but here is something for you about some of the actual literal translations of the hebrew words from genesis. http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/literal.htm

Now I have a question for you, if you feel like answering (or anybody else for that matter).

Why was man created with favour over that of the angels? What was Gods purpose in doing this, what was he trying to prove?

In the hebrew it says Make thee a Seraph. So what is a seraph? I have already given you the best source, the Jewish Encyclopedia. We know it had wings, we know it had arms and we know it had legs, and we know it was serpent like. This is probably why the ancient rabbis translated Seraphim to Drakon. Jor-el could give you the study of a Christian hebrew expert Dr Heisser, who says the same thing as the Jewish experts.

Wit ahll of those digital bibles type in King Hezekiah and brazen serpent, and it will confirm what i said about the Israelites worshipping the same brazen serpent of Moses hundreds of years afterwards, and at the time Israel was most prosperous ( reign of David and Solomon) indicating Yahweh's obvious pleasure that his dragon idol was being worshipped. And guess what happens AFTER Hezekiah destroyed the Seraph. Disaster, Destruction. Captivity.

I suspect I know by Bible far better than you, by your comple unfamiliarity with major events as the one just described. You want me removed because I can use the same Bible and make a better case? For shame.....

Not at all. But a large percentage of them seem to have preconcieved notions based on faith that seem to cloud their judgement.

You know my sources are rock solid even if you do not like what they say. They are based on scripture PLUS the fact the Canannite recogized El and Yam/Yaw as to distinctly different entities, and if we accept this , so much about the Old Testament makes more sense, begining with Genesis with TWO distinctly different creation stories with two distinctly different dieties. It's not like I am trying to disparage the authentictiy of the bible, quite the contrary. I am actually trying to make more sense of it, and explain WHY there are these contradictions (and why Isralites worshipped dragon idols, and why there are dragons, for that matter.).

There's no point in arguing with him, you know.... DC is convinced the Bible is about dragons and nothing is going to convince him otherwise.... Your sources are not rock solid DC, and you've even said that yourself. NO WHERE IN THE BIBLE does it describe Yaweh or the seraphim as dragons, therefore, you ARE trying to disparage the Bible whether you want to acknowledge it or not. All of that information is from outside, debatable sources. The ONLINE Jewish Dictionary is just about as reliable as wikipedia, which isn't reliable AT ALL because no one edits it. Anyone can post anything on that website. The reason there are contradictions in the Bible is because it was written by MAN and MAN isn't perfect. The Bible can hardly be verified historically or scientifically, so we cannot use it as proof that dragons exist. Period.

You apparently misundertood me. The Hebrew experts state that the seraphim are winged reptilian creatures with arms and legs and the ancient Jews themselves translated their name in Hebrew (seraphim) to Drakons and Serpents. I think even Jore-El will confirm this.

And people cannot edit the Jewish encyclopedia like Wikepedia. And it was written by esteemed scholars in the field and modern american Christian experts such as Dr. Heisser state the same thing..... the seraphim are flying reptiles. The Hebrews called them seraphim if heavenly flying reptiles and tannyn if generic flying reptiles. They would call the seraphim drakons once they began using the greek language after Alexander conquered western asia.

Finally a GREAT question! It's refreshing to read a question that is not your typical nonsense. What your referring to has been covered by many theologians and is one of my favorite topics. The reason some early translations refer to god in the plural, "us and we", is to magnify God's greatness. This practice is still used today in royalty. You can use the term "us and we" to describe royalty. The King James version uses it. Despite some people trying tie in the trinity doctrine this, which you should not buy in to. I'm not denying the trinity doctrine, only this translation.

As for why God would favor us over angels, this is debatable. I dont really think God favors us over angels. Although I can certainly see how our forefathers may have believed that or wondered that! Actually a more accurate paraphrase for this is some thing like,

"what is man that God is so mindful of him? Is he not less then the angels?"

Indeed, this is a very deep question! One of my favorites! But only scratches the surface of how deep this really is! I believe that God is equally mindful of every one of his creations including all the animals and even insects! How incredible and remarkable that truly is! BUT WHY???

Because we are in the flesh, living beings! Angels were never living beings and it is also said that angels envy us! Imagine that But that is how precious life is! The more you think about this the more it can blow your mind. You realize just how special Earth is!

Finally In Our Image!

We are made in God's image! Beyond understanding! But try to understand.

We are ourselves a deity! Mind, Soul and Spirit!

We are AWARE and can think like no other animal, yet, we are also animal!

We touch it all!

Is it any wonder angels envy us?

This is why life is so precious and special.

Whether your aware of it or not, you just stumbled on a few of the deepest questions in the universe!

Again, DC, SOURCES!!! Don't just make claims.

Or "with". This preposition can mean either "with" or 'in".

This denotes movement. That usually uses the preposition "L'" . "B'" would be more on the sense of "The dishes are in the sink." The Beth is almost never used for movement.

Rather, "Written with a pencil" would be more appropriate.

I disagree.

The Beth essentiae is common in Arabic, but not in Hebrew. And I would disagree that "our image" could be used as one's ooccupation. The usage here does not seem to be denoting that in which the subject consists or in which it shows itself. In this sentance, the subject is "I" (or us), is the noun. The predicate is "image". Whereas "mankind" is an indirect object (like a dative). One cannot use the Beth essentiae on an indirect object, but only on the noun of the sentance.

I fail to see how the verse can work this way. Also, ruling over fish is not the limitations of God. Mankind was to do that. But God has just a little more power than that. Or, at least I hope a god that claims to create all would.

I'm no god. I'm actually a pretty wretched fellow.


Those references mention no "Divine Council". Nor is there a word "our" being used. It is a grammatical suffix affected by the word "God", in like conjugation.

You wrote "God" here. You translated "אדם" way off. "אדם" means "mankind". Or, possibly, depending on the context, you could say "Adam". But as names have meanings, it should always mean "mankind". Never "God".

"God stands in the mighty assembly"- Says nothing of "The Divine Council". "In the midst of the judges, he judges."-Also, not here. This passage is simply saying that it doesn't matter where you are, or who you are. Or how powerful people are-God has the final say in things.


???.....

Well, the Jews do not deny there are other gods. But that they are not real. Where does it state that the other gods serve the One God? (I mean, it may. Not often, but may.)

"God of gods, and Lord of lords"(Deu 10:17)

"Lord of Lords and King of Kings" is only used in the New Testament for Jesus. Which, of course, is not relavant to the Jews, or Semites in general.

Try reading the translations of the Sumerian Tablets....after all the book of Genesis mirrors the Ancient Sumerians and also one must consider that Abraham came from Ur and took the knowledge of the Sumerians, including Astrology....after all Abraham was an Astrologer!

In the Old Testament, 'the angels' are indeed living beings and look identical to humans and many Bible stories confirm. The best proof that they are living beings is the fact that manna is specifically said to be the food angels must consume in heaven, though they are recorded eating normal food when dwelling among normal men.

Christianity turned the flesh and blood, food eating angels into spirit creatures because its early aherents were largely pagan greeks and romans who had invisible spirit creatures both good and bad in their pagan theology called 'daemons'.

And angels do not have wings. These belong to the seraphim, reptilian winged creatures according to both ancient Hebrews and Christians, that in later types would evolve into the modern "Christmas card" humanoid angels with their swan wings and halos. The ancient Rabbis even translated Seraphim to Drakons, and illuminated Bibles portrayed God riding on Cherubim dragons and sending seraphim dragons to punish disobedient israelites, and almost every chruch had a scene above the entrance of a heavenly dragon swallowing up sinners on judgement day.
What we must ask is, was the Bible lying about the existence of heavenly angels, or is this the reason every human culture believed dragons were real for thousands of years, and some still do today.

Gradually the "dragon angels" disappeared from Christian theology as fewer and fewer people believed dragons were real. Now most Christians believe there is just on 'evil' dragon angel, though even he is often thought to be just symbolic.

But back to your post, I can understand if this particular class of 'angel', mighty creatures by all accounts, might be resentful to see mankind inherit the earth while they seem to have retreated to Heaven, or are the sea serpents and lake monsters which we still see fleeting glimses of now hiding from man. For at one time they were worshipped as Gods and offered fatted calves, lambs, liqour and even humans, as chronicled in the Bible and in many other ancinet accounts.

teh dragons r in ur holy book pwning ur prophetz

I think before everyone jumps on DC and simply says he is wrong and demand sources we should attempt to understand his viewpoint better. When those Annunaki return who knows what form they might have and they very well might bring dragons with them. I am sure DC would not agree with that but I always try to take what someone else believes and sees how it might play a part in my very own beliefs.

We can be sure some of the wisest people in the world have not written any books or have learned from them. Consider the medicine man and all he might have to say for example.

No, many scholars believe Judaism was first polytheistic and then henotheistic. We even know that in the time of Solomon, the femal cannanite deity Asheroth was worshipped as the consort of Yahweh, and Yahweh was worshipped as the Canannite Yaw or Yam, a serpent-dragon deity, with serpent dragon assistants callled th Seraphim. This God was the enemy of Ba'al Haddad in Cannanite theology and this is mirrored in the Bible. Some scholars believe this is where the name Yahweh originated, from the dragon god of storms and flood, Yaw. The worship of the brazen serpent "idol" continued for centuries until Hezekiah finally broke it, which was followed by the destruction of the two kingdoms and the Babylonian captivity. (could Yahweh have been displeased with the destruction of his image that he ordered Moses to make centuries earlier?)

Here is a well reserched source on this subject.
HEBREW HENOTHEISM

Nicholas F. Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho (ngier@uidaho.edu)

For the most update resources on this question, see Mark Smith's The Early History of God (Harper & Row, 1990) and The Triumph of Elohim, ed. Diana V. Edelman (Eerdmans, 1995). Even more recent is David Penchansky's Twilight of the Gods: Polytheism in the Hebrew Bible (Westminster John Knox, 2005).

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

– Ps. 82:1

It seems clear enough...that Moses was not a monotheist. Yet, to call him a polytheist seems inaccurate too. We can conclude that Moses stood somewhere between totemism and monotheism. A term to describe this position is henotheism. – H. Keith Beebe1

The Israelite tribes were heirs to a religious tradition which can only have been polytheistic.

– Yehezkel Kaufmann2

The Principle of Theistic Evolution is derived from the fact that some of the world's religions have developed through stages from polytheism to a monotheism. We can see this most clearly in the Vedic tradition were the many gods of the Vedas eventually reduce to the triune deity of Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva with sectarian trinities found in the worship of Krishna, Shiva, and the Hindu Goddess. (Click here for more.) It is clear, however, that our principle is not a law, for scholars have now noted a theistic devolution in the return to polytheism in the originally monotheistic Zoroastrianism. One of the transitional stages from polytheism to monotheism has been called "henotheism, a situation in which there are many gods but one God prevails as the king of gods or the God of gods. The Vedas contain a form in henotheism with Varuna standing out as the ultimate ruler and judge – the one who infuses grace, forgives and punishes sin.

As a descriptive study in the history of religion, this article makes no judgment about whether monotheism is better than polytheism. Observers of the practice of Hindu polytheism could say that the recognition of many gods leads to greater religious tolerance. Monotheistic gods also tend to be more remote and less accessible to the life of faith. One might also argue that the exclusive worship of one God leads to intolerance of other religions. Just as biological evolution has not necessarily led to the best species, theistic evolution has not necessarily led to the best theology.


The final editors of the Hebrew canon were fervent monotheists, but a remnant of the polytheistic basis of the pre-Mosaic religion can still be detected. Albrecht Alt has shown that divine titles such as 'El Bet' el (Gen. 31:13; 35:7); 'El 'Olam (Gen. 21:33); and 'El Ro'i (Gen. 16:13); 'El 'Elyon (Gen. 14:18); and 'El Saddai (Gen. 17:1); all later taken to be one God (Yahweh) after Moses, were all originally separate gods worshipped by the early Hebrews.3 The Catholic scholar Bruce Vawter concurs with Alt. According to Vawter, none of the available English translations does justice to the original Hebrew of Genesis 31:13, which quite simply reads "I am the god Bethel" ('El Bet'el), who was a member of the Canaanite pantheon along with the rest of the above.4 The original meaning is therefore quite different from the traditional understanding: this god at Bethel is not the universal Lord who appeared at Bethel but just one god among many – a local deity of a specific place.

In the mutual swearing of Jacob and Laban (Gen. 31:51f) it is clear that two distinct gods are referred to.5 The work of later editors is clearly evident in this passage. As Alt states: "Was it not plain paganism for the ancestor of Israel and one of his relations to swear by two different gods? This dangerous sentence had to be rendered harmless by an addition or alternation."6 In Judges 11:24 Jepthah recognizes the authority of the god Chemosh, at least for the Ammonites in their own land.

The popular notion that Moses was the original monotheist is a thesis that has very little support. As we shall soon see, Moses probably was not even a monotheist, but even if he was, there was monotheism in Egypt a generation before Moses, most likely under the heretic king Akhenaten of the 14th century B.C.E. In his insistence on the worship of Yahweh alone, Moses was a henotheist, i.e., he believed that Yahweh was the greatest among the gods, the king of gods.

The traditional belief that Yahweh revealed himself solely to Moses, and that no people except the Hebrews worshipped Yahweh, is also becoming more tenuous. Several scholars have pointed out evidence of Yahweh worship among several pre-Mosaic eastern cultures.7 For example, the controversial tablets at Ebla, dating back into the 3rd millennium B.C.E., speak of a god by the name of "Ya," who is linked to the Yahweh of Moses by some Ebla scholars.8

Contrary to popular understanding, the First Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me," does not deny the existence of other deities. In his commentary on Deuteronomy Anthony Phillips maintains that "there is here no thought of monotheism. The commandment does not seek to repudiate the existence of other gods, but to prevent Israel from having anything to do with them."9 The ontological status of other gods besides Yahweh can be explicitly seen in Deut. 32:8, where we find Yahweh setting the boundaries of nations according to the "number of the sons of God." The RSV follows the Septuagint text, which has been reinforced by the copy of Deuteronomy found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in Cave 4 at Qumran.

The ninth century Masoretic text replaces "sons of God" with "sons of Israel," which some modern English versions follow. It does look like the Masoretes changed the text so as to avoid dangerous polytheistic implications. Furthermore, "Son of Israel" makes absolutely no sense in Deut. 32:8. The people of Israel were Yahweh's "portion" while the sons of God "were divine beings or angels to whom God had delegated authority over the nations. Their existence is not denied but rather accommodated to the overall authority of Yahweh to whom they are subservient."10 As Anthony Phillips states: "The poet, drawing on Canaanite mythology, identifies Yahweh with the pre-Davidic god 'Elyon."11 As Deut. 32:8 has been taken by some to be a very old passage, Gerald Cooke and others speculate that in the earliest times Yahweh was not the head of the gods, but simply one of the "sons of God" in the sense of b‘n‘ 'Elyon. In Deut. 32:8 Yahweh appears to be different from 'Elyon, because of the definite third person reference, which "easily gives the impression that Yahweh like the sons of God received his portion, allotment from 'Elyon."12

Theodore C. Vriezen explains the advantage of henotheism: "This idea of beings surrounding God by no means detracts from the uniqueness of God; on the contrary, these divine beings rather emphasize his uniqueness; he is the God of gods, their God, too; and they praise his holiness. Far from clashing with monotheism, this conception lays the greatest stress on the majesty of Yahweh. Yahweh is a unique God, but he is not alone."13 Complementing Vriezen's point is the fact that the other deities are never named, except for perhaps the case of Satan in Job.


A divine pluralism can also be seen in the Hebrew word for deity, 'elohîm, which is a plural form of 'Eloah, which is a form of 'El, the general word for God in the Semitic world. There are some scholars who argue that 'elohîm in reference to Yahweh must be a grammatical plurality only. For them 'elohîm is an abstract plural with a singular meaning. Such a grammatical form would emphasize the majesty of the Almighty. In his study of the "Great Isaiah Scroll" at Qumran, William Brownlee of Claremont has shown the radical extent of the use of this "plural of majesty": even Yahweh's quiver (Is. 49:2) and a single hand are in the plural.14

There is, however, a significant exception, noted long ago by the Hebrew grammarian Gensenius. When 'elohim is referred to pronominally, as in "let us make man in our image" (Gen. 1:26), then the majestic plural is not applicable.15 Furthermore, the priestly writers use singular verbs for the deity in adjacent passages; hence the use of the plural at 1:26 must be for good reason.16 Canaanite parallels show that the head god uses the first person plural in addressing his divine assembly. It is obvious that this passage reveals a henotheistic situation in which Yahweh is consulting with lesser deities around him.

The use of 'elohîm as divine beings definitely separate from Yahweh (e.g., Gen. 6, Ps. 82) proves conclusively that this divine pluralism is not just a grammatical one. Henotheism is seen in the fact that Yahweh is referred to as 'El 'elim (God of gods, Dan. 11:36) or in the use of the definite article ha 'elohîm (the God) for Yahweh, or b‘n‘ 'elohîm (the sons of God) for the other gods (Gen. 6:2; Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7).With regard to these divine "sons," Cooke states: "These are not 'sons' of Yahweh in a filial sense...the 'sons of (the) God(s)' are those who are of the realm of the gods, who partake of divinity."17 Gensenius agrees that b‘n‘ 'elohîm "properly means not sons of god(s), but beings of the class of 'elohîm of 'elim...."18


Some Christian commentators have taken the ontological pluralism of 'elohîm as definite proof of the Trinity. Genesis 18, where three mysterious visitors come to Abraham, has been used to support this view.19 But rather than imposing a Christian view developed two millennia later on the Hebrews, the proper hermeneutic strategy would be to place it in the context of the religions of the ancient Near East.

Theodore Gaster has done just this and discovered that the story has basic similarities with the polytheistic folklore motif of "hospitality rewarded." Gaster explains: "The classic parallel is the tale, told by Ovid and Hyginus of how Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury (i.e., three visitors, as in the biblical narrative), while traveling through Boeotia, came in disguise to Hyrieus, a childless peasant of Tanagra, and in return for his hospitality, granted him the boon of a son.20 This story goes back at least as far as Pindar (518-438 B.C.E.)

Max Weber also contends that the theological basis for Gen. 18 is probably polytheistic: "The grammatical forms in Abraham's address to the divine epiphany of the three men would seem to make it probable that the singular of the address did not preclude the possibility of polytheistic conceptions."21 The trinitarian hypothesis is vitiated by at least four considerations: (1) the triunity of Yahweh is definitely weakened when two of the divine beings depart for Sodom (18:22), and Yahweh and Abraham are left behind negotiating the fate of the Sodomites; (2) it is clear that the divine plurality is more than three, if the other 'elohîm are the deities of the other nations; (3) even if there were only three gods, this is clearly tritheism and not one divine being with three persons; and (4) the persons of the Trinity are definitely not conceived as a divine council with God the Father as the supreme executive.

The 'Elohîm as Angels

The fact that the two divine beings that go to Sodom are called "angels" have led traditional commentators to mitigate the implied polytheism by the qualification that these beings were not true gods, but created angels. This interpretation is discounted by Albright, Weber, Gaster, Speiser, and others.22 The Bible makes a clear distinction between an angel (Heb. malakh; Gk., aggelos) and a god or God ('elohîm; theos). Revelation 19:10 and 22:8,9 are explicit in their injunction that angels are "fellow servants" and not gods that are to be worshipped. The 'elohîm are not created beings because they are with Yahweh from the beginning and are involved in creation itself (Gen. 1:26; Job 38:7). In a letter to me, Brownlee concedes that there is no mention of the creation of angels, but does point out that yahweh saba'ot does mean "Creator of [heavenly] armies." But it is clear, especially in Job, that the Lord's host (=army) is made up of astral deities not angels.23 But the word "creator" here does imply that the beings are created, eliminating an essential divine attribute (at least for philosophical theology). In Vedic hedonism the lesser gods are also many times referred to as created beings. In Job, Satan is one of the subordinate gods, a son of God, and is referred to elsewhere (Is. 14:12) as the "Day Star" (helal) and "son of Dawn" (shahar), both members of the Canaanite pantheon. Scholar Marvin H. Pope states that "these are lesser members of the ancient pagan pantheon who are retained in later monotheistic theology as angels."24

The interchange of God and angels in the Hebrew Scriptures reflect an early conception of the nature of angels before the influx of Persian angelology during and after the Babylonian captivity. For the early Hebrews, an angelic figure was a temporary disguise for Yahweh. "Angels" functioned as mediators across the great difference between Yahweh and mortals.25 Therefore, the "angel" that appears to Hagar (Gen. 16:7); the "angels" at the Oaks of Mamre and Sodom; the "angel" that wrestled with Jacob; and the "angel" that was "commander of the army of the Lord" (Jos. 5:14) are all divine manifestations of either Yahweh or one of the subordinate deities.

This theory of early Hebrew angelology would also preclude a claim that these "men" that appear as Yahweh foreshadow in any way the Incarnation. Outside of Is. 9:6, which has been taken by many as "divinity in might" only, there is no explicit concept of a man-God or a sustained doctrine of the Incarnation in the Hebrew Scriptures. The idea of the man-God most likely inspired by the Greco-Roman state cults and the Hellenistic mystery religions. The idea is not only alien but blasphemous to the Hebrew mind.


The remnants of the original polytheistic base of ancient Judaism are found more often in the nonprophetic works like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Job. Psalm 82 is an important text as evidence for Hebraic henotheism. (The following is the RSV translation with Julian Morgenstern's alternative reading for vv. 6-7):

1. (a) God ('elohîm has taken his place in the divine council ('adat'el). ( In the midst of the gods ('elohîm) he holds judgment:

2. "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

3. Give justice to the weak and fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

5. They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness;

6. I say, "You are gods ('elohîm), sons of the Most High (b‘n‘ 'Elyon), all of you;

7. Nevertheless, you shall die like men, and fall like any prince."

8. "I thought you were gods, Sons of Elyon, all of you;

9. You shall become mortal (temutun) like men, And as one of the sarim shall you fall.]

10. Arise, O God ('elohîm), judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!

Traditional interpretations of this psalm have insisted that the 'elohîm are really judges and not divine beings. But if the 'adat'el is an assembly of rulers, then 'elohîm in 1( would have no meaning. The great Ugaritic scholar Mitchell Dahood has shown that the phrase 'adat'el undoubtedly comes from the Ugaritic 'dt il, which is the "council of El" of Canaanite mythology.26 Ziony Zevit maintains that Ps. 82 is yet another Canaanite hymn that has been Yahwinized and because of that the text, as other Psalms borrowed from Ugarit, manifests corruption and confusion (26a).

Setting the stage in 1939 for the most careful scholarship on this psalm, Julian Morgenstern states that it cannot Abe denied that the fundamental meaning of 'elohîm is "gods," and that only by a long stretch of the imagination and rather devious and uncertain hermeneutics can the meaning "rulers," "kings," or "judges" be ascribed to it".27 The major problem with these latter meanings is that 'elohîm is never used in this way in any other passage. In 1 Sam. 28:13 the "spirit" of the deceased Samuel is called an 'elohîm, but as commentators comment: "The word god here means a being from another [spiritual] world."28 Some take the 'elohîm of Ex. 21:6 and 22:8 as "judges," but reputable Catholic scholars maintain that these messages too reveal an ancient polytheistic residue.29

The most troublesome aspect of Ps. 82 is Yahweh's judgment on the other gods. Following the implications of Deut. 32:8, these 'elohîm must be seen as the gods of the other nations, which obviously in the eyes of Yahweh have not been ruling very well. The Hebrews knew Yahweh as occasionally temperamental, suspicious, and erratic. As Dahood says in regard to Job 4:18, 15:15, "Even his holy ones he distrusts, the heavens are not pure in his sight."30 Yahweh's judgment for the other gods' misadministration is a harsh one: they must die like men. The traditionalists have taken this verse as proof that the 'elohîm cannot possibly be gods. But Morgenstern has shown that the Hebrew verb temutun compares favorably with other passages (e.g., Gen. 2:17; 3:3,4; 2 Sam. 14:14) where the meaning is most clearly "to become mortal." Cooke concurs: "The statement that those who are gods shall nevertheless die like men appears to us to be an undeniable indication of the divine status of those who are so addressed; their (former) immortality is clearly presupposed."31

Other psalms refer to Yahweh's divine council and provide further support for our thesis. The "sons of god" (b‘n‘ 'elim) of Ps. 29:1 are again taken by conservatives as referring to judges or rulers. But Cooke counters that "the reference to divine beings here would seem to be beyond question" and that "it seems highly probable that we are dealing in Ps. 29 with an Israelite adaptation of a Canaanite hymn which has its setting in a polytheistic conception of a divine pantheon."32 Lesser divine beings who are praising the king of gods, are also found in Pss. 68 and 89: "O Kings of the earth, sing, O gods, sing praises to the Lord" (32); and "for who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Whom among the heavenly beings (b‘n‘ 'elim) is like the Lord, a God feared in the council of the holy ones, great and terrible above all that are round about him?" Cooke cites an Ugaritic inscription which has the linguistic prototype of b‘n‘ 'elim as comprising the "assembly of the sons of El."33

On our theory, pure monotheism did not come to the Hebrew scriptures until the writings of Deutero-Isaiah, i.e., during and after the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century B.C.E. Indications of monotheism before Deutero-Isaiah must then be the work of later monotheistic editors. We have seen how later scribes did not hesitate to change passages (Deut. 32:8; Gen. 31:53) which had explicit polytheistic implications. It is significant to note that the monotheistic passages in Isaiah (like 45:21, 22; 46:90) come after Cyrus the Great has been named the Lord's Messiah, "anointed one," in 45:1. Cyrus was a Zoroastrian, one who worshipped the single, supreme God Ahura Mazda. Many scholars believe that Zoroastrianism was the world's first truly monotheistic religion and that Hebrew religion was influenced profoundly by the fact that the new state of Israel was a small province in a great Persian empire.

Let us conclude this chapter on Hebrew henotheism with a quotation from Oesterly: "The final compilation of the Psalter undoubtedly comes from an age when the religion of Israel was fundamentally, and even aggressively, monotheistic. But there survive phrases which imply a polytheistic outlook. While Yahweh is the supreme God, and the only God to receive the highest honors, others are admitted as valid deities, though of lower rank and inferior quality. The position recalls the kathenotheism which appears in many of the hymns of the Rig-Veda."34

ENDNOTES


1. Beebe, The Old Testament, p. 160.


2. The Religion of Israel, p. 7.


3. Albrecht Alt, Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, trans. R. A. Wilson (New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 10-11. The god Yahweh simply does not appear in the oldest parts of the Old Testament except in the dialogues of Job. Yahweh does appear once here but other Mss. have 'eloah instead. See the Anchor Job, p. ***ix.


4. Bruce Vawter, On Genesis: A New Reading (New York: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 313-4.


5. See Otto van Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), p. 308. Von Rad believes that two gods are clearly distinguished and that this represents two "over-lapping cultic circles."


6. Alt, op. cit., p. 22. He continues: "The easiest solution appears in the Greek translation which changes the predicate into the singular: `The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor shall be a judge between us,' so that the reader would naturally conclude that the two subjects were identical. The Hebrew Masoretic tradition went about it differently, not daring to alter the original plural of the predicate, but attempting to put a singular sense on the two subjects by the apposition 'God of their fathers'; the weakness is simply that the addition fits clumsily into the sentence, does not agree with the plural predicate, and above all does not fit the idea in the speech of judging 'between.'" Alt is again supported by Vawter, On Genesis, p. 343. E. A. Speiser also agrees that the phrase "God of their fathers" is "an obvious marginal gloss." Significantly, it does not appear in the Septuagint. See Speiser's Genesis: The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1964), p. 243.


7. See F. M. Cross' article in Harvard Theologcal Review 55 (1962), pp. 255-59. Cyrus Gordon observes that "Yahweh" occurs in Amorite names of Mesopotamia; that "yw" may stand for the same divine name in Ugarit; and that Yahweh was known in Syria (The Ancient Near East [New York: Norton, 34d ed. revised, 1965], p. 38f). See also M. J. Field, Angels and Ministers of Grace (New York: Wang & Hill, 1971), p. 29.


8. Giovanni Pettinato, the original epigrapher of the Ebla mission (now deposed), argues that "Ya" or "Yaw" does not appear as a divine name in the Ebla tablets. Pettinato has found the word "Ya-ra-mu" ("Ya is exalted") in the tablets, thereby disproving the claim of Alphonso Archi, the current epigrapher for Ebla, that "ya" appears only as a diminutive ending. Pettinato also notes significant name changes in the very latest period of the Ebla civiliation, e.g., from Mika-il to Mika-ya. This is very similar to later Hebrew practices, and also appears to reveal the rise of Ya worship at Ebla. For a summary of this very exciting debate, see Biblical Archaeology Review 6:6 (1980), pp. 38-43.


9. Anthony Phillips, Deuteronomy: The Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 219.


10. The Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 1952), Vol. 2, p. 529.


11. Phillips, op. cit., p. 216.


12. Gerald Cooke, "The Sons of (the) God(s)," Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (1964), p. 33. D. N. Freedman says that "Deut. 32:8-9 is very archaic, perhaps one of the most archaic pieces of theology in the post-Patriarchal period" (letter to R. C. Boling, author of Judges: The Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1975], p. 27f.). Freedman, F. M. Cross, and Otto Eissfeldt all agree that the original meaning was that Yahweh was one of the subordinate deities with `Elyon as the king of gods. See Cross, op. cit. Another interesting Canaanite parallel is the fact that the sons of 'El numbered seventy and that is about the number mentioned in the table of nations in Gen. 10.


13. Theodore C. Vriezen, An Outline of Old Testament Theology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), p. 180.


14. William H. Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumram Scrolls for the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 170-172.


15. Gensenius' Hebrew Grammar, ed. E. Kautzsch (Oxford, 1909), p. 399. See also Cooke, p. 23.


16. See B. W. Anderson, "God, names of," Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible.


17. Cooke, op. cit., p. 24.


18. Gensenius, op. cit., p. 418.


19. T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), Vol. I, p. 156.


20. Max Weber, Ancient Judaism (Glencove: Free Press, 1952), p. 152.


21. Albright, From the Stone Age..., p. 298; Weber, p. 153; Gaster, Vol. II, p. 785.


22. See Marvin Pope's The Anchor Bible: Job (New York: Doubleday, 34d ed., 1973), pp. 116, 181. It is clear that astral deities are fighting on Yahweh's side during the invasion of Canaan (Jdgs. 5:20). Angels are not mentioned as created beings until late apocalyptic works like II Esdras (6:3), but even then stars are equated with the "fallen" gods of Heaven in I Enoch 86:1-6 and 3 Maccabbees 2:4. See E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), p. 243.


23. Pope, op. cit., p. 9.


24. See Speiser, op. cit., p. 118.


25. As Mitchell Dahood states: "In biblical literature...no claims are made for the king's [Messiah's] divinity" (The Anchor Bible: Psalms [New York: Doubleday, 1966], Vol. 1, p. 12).


26. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 269.

26a. Ziony Zevit, Israelite Religions: A Parallatic Synthesis (New York: Continuum, 2001), Conclusion.


27. Julian Morgenstern, "The Mythological Background of Ps. 82," Hebrew Union College Annual 14 (1939), p. 38. The conservative approach to Ps. 82 based on the alleged authorship of Asaph is quite tenuous. First, most scholars, even some conservatives like the editors of A Commentary on the Old and New Testament, eds. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976) reject this attribution (p. 256). Asaph is supposed to be the author of Pss. 74, 79, and 83, but these have been judged to be some of the latest additions to the Psalter. Just as there were biblical writers and editors who took the name "Isaiah" or "John," so was there probably a guild of singers and hymn writers who took the name Asaph. William Oesterly speculates that the Asaph collection was not completed until about 150 B.C.E. See his The Psalms (New York: Macmillan, 1939), Vol. I, pp. 4, 72.


28. Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. May and Metzger (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 833.


29. Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. Brown, Fitzmeyer, and Murphy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 60.


30. Dahood, Vol. II, p. 313.


31. Cooke, op. cit., p. 31.


32. Ibid., p. 25.


33. Ibid., p. 27.


34. Oesterly, op. cit., p. 2.

Are you kidding me, I give you an impecable source like the Jewish Encyclopedia andyou dismiss it as something people can change like Wiki.

See the post above for another source.

Um, yes, because ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE WEBSITE IT SAYS THAT THE ENCYCLOPEDIA IS UNEDITED. The same thing applies with wiki. ANY person could have written those entries. Just because one person has a theory doesn't mean the theory is right. Try finding some outside sources, and then maybe i'll take you a little more seriously.

Honestly, I don't have time to read all of that large post. However, I agree that the Hebrews were originally polytheistic. And that Solomon worshiped the pagan gods and godesses of his hoes.

What I disagree on is that they recognize these gods as real, and that all these gods and godesses worship the YHWH.

Thank you so much for mentioning wikipedia's fallibility, and the fact that anyone can edit it. You must be one of the smartest people online. May the gods keep you.

Tell me, when God said through his commandments: "You shall have no other God beside me".

What was it, do you think that he was trying to say? That the other Gods weren't real?

No, he was saying, don't worship the divine beings which I made to inhabit the spiritual world. The other elohim (Gods in hebrew) were just as real as the Creator, the only difference was that they were created beings and He wasn't.

I agree fully. As another example, in Genesis 3:22 "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"

Small things like this are through out the bible. God nor any member of the trinity ever state that other beings of the same realm do not exist, he simply states that HE is the only one you should worship.

Yeah, all my friends and aquaintances at school will always go on wiki and edit the articles to make them messed up. Anyone can go on the internet and change what those articles say. ANYONE. And the online Jewish Encyclopedia obviously states the same thing, therefore, people can go post whatever they want.

I though it was "You shall have no other Gods before me".

The original Cannanite concept, and I see nothing in the Bible to refute it, was that El is the high God, and each of his 'sons' was assigned a different human tribe. His favorite son Yam/Yaw was kicked out of Canann by Ba'al hadad, who also took his 'girl' Asheroth. The story in the Bible is Yaw's payback. He recruits a bunch of Egyptian slaves, breeds them for forty years, and had them invade Cannan. He defeats Baal and gets his girl back, by ordering the Israelites to exterminate all of Ba'als worshippers, so with no more fatted calves, and virgins, Ba'al leaves and Yahweh wins. Understand that much of the Old Testament is essentially the story of a "dragon-god love triangle" with human pawns.
Jesus does not acknowledge Yahweh as his 'father', on the contrary he condemns the Pharisees for worshipping him. Jesus calls to El from the cross. All of the ancient dragon gods , including Yahweh, were created assistants of El. Their purpose was to watch over and civilize early man, and once that was achieved, to make themselves scarce and become nothing but legends, (and the occasional 'monster' sighting).

No, m'lady! I remember when you first posted that. You took a poorly phrased line on their welcome page the wrong way.

The online Jewish Encyclopedia is a closed work, an edition published early in the last century. It cannot be altered by law-abiding visitors to the site. Page images of the original publication are available for your inspection.

The page you read said the online work was unedited, when it meant to say unabridged. The editorial board is listed onsite.

The work has limitations. The Dead Sea Scrolls are yet to be found, the State of Israel does not exist, Germany is a reasonable hospitable place for Jews, and Jewish scholars. It is a tertiary work: its articles are reviews interpreting the state of scholarship which interpreted source material. At least the articles are signed, but they are very old.

.... Why would an apparently intelligent dragon-god want to have children with humans? Aside from the fact that their children wouldn't even be able to reproduce, or live for that matter because reptiles + humans = a messed up child. Organisms from two different kingdoms can't even impregnate one another... So that doesn't work either. So unless dragons are partially human, then they wouldn't even be able to have children with women. And if these dragons are so "intelligent" why were they causing so much trouble with the humans with their big plot for revenge against one another? If they were really that intelligent, they would be above petty revenge and fighting.

Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying Eight.

I can answer this one:

Go back to the first Bible ever - which was the Jewish Torah. There is no word 'God' in the Torah at all, whatsoever. You will, however, find the word 'Elohim' which is a hebrew plural word.

So being a plural, it means that there's more than one. The singular is 'Eloha'.

So, a real translation of the text is: "Elohim said let us make man in our image after our likeness."

What does Elohim mean? Some people will tell you 'the family of god' or something like that, but it means 'those who came from the sky' in ancient Hebrew.

So, "Those who came from the sky said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness.".

Who could have come from the sky? Well, it seems that people who look like us came from the sky!

People from other planets perhaps? I believe so, but I'll leave that up to you.

-Josh

I doubt they wanted to have children with humans, and it must be a physcial impossibility. The Nephilim are not offspring of the watcher dragons and human women. They were merely early modern man's attempt to explain the differences between them and the Neanderthals.

Pigs might think we are their gods. Like the dragons who supposedly did so much for their human 'flocks', the pigs might think it is great that their human gods fed and sheltered them, not knowing that the humans were doing these things for their own benefit.

The creator entity of course knew the dragons may not have had the best of motives for their human flocks, but this did not prevent them from protecting and civilizing their flocks. This was the objective. Look at the way Yahweh treats his flock. This is why many educated people in "the age of reason" began to wonder how could a creature like Yahweh really be an all wise creator, just and good.

There are a variety of ways to interpret that statement.



If you look up the passage, it says absolutely nothing of the sort. Nor does it say anything about gods and godesses worshiping YHWH.

(One may interpret it this way if they like. Or any way. I'm just saying that it does not say what you are affirming)

Because the early Hebrews were largely assimilating the Cannanite panalopy of Gods with their own 'twists' it is easier to understand the concept of the divine council from thier hymns and theology.

They believed there was a creator called El who created lesser gods that they thought were 70 in number, one for each culture they were familiar with. Their local favorite was Ba'al Haddad, who they believed defeated Yaw, or Yam, another one of the seventy, who was described as a dragon, and a favortie of El.

Yaw (now Yahweh) rescues the Hebrews, breeds them into a powerful army and returns to cannan. After the exposure to the monotheism of the Persian Empire during the Babylonain captivitiy, the Jews meld Yahweh and El into one God and ignore those parts of the Bible that show they are two different Gods as well as Yahweh's Goddess consort. But references to both are still in the Bible, and also in the archaeological finds.

What we now must ask, if the theology is real, is if the original theology correct. Is the real creator El, who had a council of lesser gods, or simply god-like creature, and is Yahweh one of these, a sometimes jealous, prideful, bloodthirsty but intelligent creature that the entire ancient and medieval world universally proclaimed were real, and what we now call 'dragons'. It is not a new idea, for many ancient christians and persians state this in their theolgies and even Jesus seems to confirm this in the gospels.

I could probably spend days on here trying to say differently, but I suppose each person knows what they are prepared to accept under their faith.

If you honestly desire to be an objective participant then I would suggest going to the following website. The website is run by Dr. Michael S. Heiser an authority on these issues and a few more.

There are about a dozen papers in pdf format that you can download and read at your leisure. They will probably help you to see what it is I'm trying to say.

The site is called The Divine Council.com

While I'm at it, I would like to say that I haven't forgotten that post you put up 2 days ago, I just haven't had the time to answer with my full attention. I'll answer you this week though. (I hope)

Dr. Heisers Curriculum, if you're interested:



I would say he is more than qualified to have his opinions stick... read his work it will be an interesting experience to say the least...

And besides all of that, he too correctly identifies the seraphim as reptilian entities (But then, so did all of Judaism and Christianity for many centuries.)

As long as we keep it reptilian and don't progress to dragons...

Why do you have such a problem with that word? The ancient Jewish and Christian scholars certainly did not. They called them Drakons in Greek, and portrayed them as dragons, even on the holiest object in the temple. Since you are a believer in the Bible, I am surprised you would not acknowledge the world wide belief in dragons that the Bible is correct about the existence of these creatures.

When Yahweh (who I believe is the leader of the Elohim, a group of ET creators) gave this commandment, it wasn't talking about other 'gods' or other alien races. This commandment was given, Yahweh told Rael, because the Jewish people had lapsed into a semi-primitive state and had started to adore stupid blocks of wood and idols that they had made up. He wanted them to believe in the authority and reality of their creators instead of dumbly adoring idols.

-josh

Josh, consider, too, that these stupid blocks of wood, molded gold, pillars, and phalli were physical manifestations of other cultures (I argue that the golden calf was a representation of Babylonian, Minoan, or Egyptian culture), phalli (the worship of sexual gratification), and Baal (worship of the culture of Phoenicia) etc. Yahweh is telling the Hebrew people to follow the "way of the Hebrews." Yahweh is telling them, look, your forefathers figured out an excellent lifestyle and culture for this environment - don't muck it up. Don't overindulge. Respect your bodies. Children - respect your parents. Don't worship sex because that leads to illegitimate children and who will take care of them. Yahweh is saying that the other gods will lead to a self-destructive society. Again, we must consider that the other "gods" are the idols like gold/money, drugs, alcohol, irresponsible sexuality, etc.

I think our refers to God and his children, US.

Sorry Josh, but the Bible is very clear that Yahweh's personal idol of a winged serpent-dragon (the Nehehuatan) was worshipped for centuries, ever since Yahweh told Moses to make it, and all through the period of Israel and Judah's greatness. It was only AFTER a foolish King destroyed the idol that disaster befell the Hebrews. These are the facts, no matter how the Hezikiah apologists try to distort the facts.

So all the evidence seems to prove that Yahweh did not mind idols, so long as they were HIS idols, and the Bible clearly states that Yahweh himself ordered this idol to be made.

Sorry but the 10-commandments clearly state no graven images ie no idols.



ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'


http://www.10-commandments.org/

It is pretty clear that the 10 commandments came BEFORE Yahweh ordered Moses to make the brazen serpent idol. Therefore Yahweh's own command to make a personal idol would override any previous commandment. It is clear as well, that Yahweh was referring to idols of other gods, and not him. Yahweh also ordered Moses to make graven images of Cherubim, which also seem to originally be dragons, or at least, winged serpents as we see decorating similar Egypitian arks/throne chairs..

One must also take into consideration the historicity of these stories. Did everything happen exactly how the Bible described it?