by EndofMysteries 28 Replies latest watchtower bible
The Jewish idea of "God" evolved greatly over the centuries.
At first "Jehovah" was just one of many gods, as the earliest writings from Genesis indicate. Later, the idea that there is only one god took root.
I.e., to answer your question, it depends on where you are reading in "the scriptures".
Karen Armstrong's book, "A History of God," offers an explanation for this. It seems that some historians believe that the deity cited in the Bible, which we believed to be the Christian God, was actually several different deities who were later reinterpretated as a single being. Yahweh may have originally been viewed as the son of the patriarch god, called "El." In other words, Yahweh was one member of a pantheon of gods. He was sort of like their version of Ares, a god of war.
I do not know how many historians subscribe to this view, but it does make sense. I have not heard any scholarly attempts to refute it as of yet.
There are also issues with the ancient manuscripts that add to this. Some of them were edited, and combined different portions of other, older manuscripts, to form something new.
If you're interested, this video might help explain it some more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg
Yahweh may have originally been viewed as the son of the patriarch god, called "El." In other words, Yahweh was one member of a pantheon of gods. He was sort of like their version of Ares, a god of war.
As stated above, remember that one of the goals of the authors of the Torah was to eliminate worship of other Gods (polytheism to montheism).
Interestingly, Akhenaten was the Egyptian Pharoah who tried to do the same thing for the Egyptian pantheon in 1370 BC, but he failed for many reasons, and was promptly castigated, and his predecessors tried to eliminate his name from Egyptian records and monuments.
Actually, much of Genesis makes a bit more sense if one thinks of a deistic chief of the pantheon (El) creating in Genesis 1, but assigning the caretaking task of Earth to the demiurge trickster-figure YHWH in Genesis 2. eg YHWH says, "man is made in OUR image" or "man has become like one of US". This concept is reflected in the parallel timelines of man's creation in Gen 1 vs 2.
Fact is, Christianity demoted the Gods of the original pantheon to a cast of characters called 'angels', so pantheism is in fact still with us in a form that has simply evolved. The characters mutated, and underwent a change of names.
Interestingly Elijah had problems with Baal during his challenge against their priests but was okay with Asherah and her accompanyment. Why jeahovah only destroyed the baalists and not the other pagan Asherahs is never explained.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah#Challenge_to_Baal
At this point Elijah proposes a direct test of the powers of Baal and Yahweh. The people of Israel, 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah are summoned to Mount Carmel. Two altars are built, one for Baal and one for Yahweh. Wood is laid on the altars. Two oxen are slaughtered and cut into pieces; the pieces are laid on the wood. Elijah then invites the priests of Baal to pray for fire to light the sacrifice. They pray from morning to noon without success. Elijah ridicules their efforts. They respond by cutting themselves and adding their own blood to the sacrifice (such mutilation of the body was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law). They continue praying until evening without success.
Elijah now orders that the altar of Yahweh be drenched with water from "four large jars" poured three times ( 1 Kings 18:33–34 ). He asks God to accept the sacrifice. Fire falls from the sky, consuming the water, the sacrifice and the stones of the altar itself as well. Elijah seizes the moment and orders the death of the prophets of Baal. Elijah prays earnestly for rain to fall again on the land. Then the rains begin, signaling the end of the famine.
Asherah was a female diety associated with YHWH, described as his consort, his Wife. She was as old as El, found in Ugaritic form, and accepted as part of mainstream Hebrew worship for many centuries. Literally hundreds of thousands of small hand-held figurines have been unearthed in ancient Hebrew settlements, where she likely served as a fertility symbol, or a concession to female YHWH worshipers, a diety that they can relate to and appeal to who will transmit their hopes to YHWH. In fact, one might even conceive of Asherah as the proto-Jesus ("In Jesus' name we pray"), a channel of communication to YHWH, except for the women of ancient Israel, esp for fertility matters.
Archaelogist Bill Devers (amongst many others) wrote on Asherah in his book, "Did God have a Wife?".
Long story short, though, is she was a casuality of monotheism, written out of the script eventually along with serpent worship, idolatry, etc.
King:
Asherah was a female diety associated with YHWH, described as his consort, his Wife.
Bill Devers wrote on this (amongst others) in his book, "Did God have a Wife?". Long story short, though, is she was a casuality of monotheism, written out of the script, along with serpent worship, idolatry, etc.
MP:
No quite, the menorah is an Asherah grove. Forgotten perhaps but she is still around.
mP said:
No quite, the menorah is an Asherah grove. Forgotten perhaps but she is still around.
From your statement it seemed like you were asking a question:
Why jeahovah only destroyed the baalists and not the other pagan Asherahs is never explained.
My point is, you seem to fall for the lie that Asherah was "pagan". Nope, that attempt to categorize her origins is a late development of Judaism, hundreds of years after the fact, an attempted re-write of Hebrew history....
Thanks for all the info, I'll check them all out.
About Asherah, what is interesting is in Jeremiah 7:18-22, it says how they the cakes and sacrifices they are making are for the "queen of the heavens" and how God did not command any of that.
What do I think?
I think I will believe in Jesus, that keeps it simple for me.
But if you want to root around in these complex matters of the old testament, which I did in the past.
Zechariah Sitchin and his series the 12 th planet based on his interpretations of the Sumerian]
text deals extensively with your topic.
Jehovah, yahwah would be a son of God.
And the world is divided into factions of the nephilim demigods who have their kingdoms
and sort of entertain themselves by playing human chest matches. They use religion,
politics and culture to stir up the masses.
JB said:
I think I will believe in Jesus, that keeps it simple for me.
But if you want to root around in these complex matters of the old testament, which I did in the past.
Maybe you missed the part where Jesus taught the Torah, where his disciples called him 'rabbi'? Jesus didn't shy away from "rooting around" it, and explained concepts from the Torah to all questions; he also expected all of his followers to know and study it's principles, too....
