Yahweh was a pagan cannanite God 2000 years before Abraham??? Shocker!

by Witness 007 7 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  Witness 007

  Years ago I used Wikipedia to study "Yahweh" ..I was shocked to find out Yahweh was one of many Gods in the Cannanite religion. There I see a Cannanite coin with pagan Yahweh on his WINGED CHARIOT??? This was faith destroying. The divine name Jehovah is a throw back to a pagan "Storm God" called Yahweh. The storm God would explain why in Exodus when he identified himself to Moses as Yahweh he appeared to them as a huge storm cloud. This was an introducion of the "new" God of israel.

  Scholars agree that there was no Exodus and israelites came from the existing Cannanites...now the bible makes more sense to me.
  
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  Finkelstein

  Jehovah was a pagan god, well that explains everything .

  It certainly explains the genocidal murder of innocent people.
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  Crazyguy

  Sorry but your mistaken. The original God of the Israelites was El, the storm God was one of his offspring named baal Hadad. The idea that yahweh was also one of El's offspring was never proved and many of the mentioning of this God was just found to be that of the god Yam another one of El's creations and the god of the sea. Most scholars believe that the Israelites worshipped El as thier primary God then in time switched to Hadad. Hadad took on the attributes of El and even Asherah. Some believe, yahweh was introduced from the eastern desert to the Jews and took on or absorbed the attributes of all the God's mentioned above. I believe that the tetrogramiton YHW may have in fact been a symbol meaning the family of God's El, Baal Hadad, Asherah etc. Most of the references to God in the Hebrew Bible was the word elohim which means God's and not God. There are of course times when the Jews would call on just one God out of this pantheon. Oldest found Bible artifact was a silver silinder quoting verses found in the book of numbers saying to the effect 'may the Lord be with us', which translates 'may baal be with us'.
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  umbertoecho

  I always wondered at Moses asking god at the burning bush, what his name was. I thought back then as a young teen that god's response was so open ended....I am whosoever I want to be......and other such renderings according to what bible you are reading. When I learned of the actual meaning of Elohim and understood that it was plural. It made sense that there could be more than one god or many aspects of the same entity. And for each god or entity, there were different attributes. Of course, I am just as confused as I have ever been, but I still enjoy learning as opposed to being force fed doctrine.

  All the good to everyone here by the way. I have come to rely upon this site quite a lot of late. It has been uplifting and interesting, funny and sad.......
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  Witness 007

  Elohim {God} in the bible can be translated "God of gods" which makes sense. The jews believed in many gods till babilonian captivity when Yahweh alone became God. This would explain why Aaron made a gold calf right after witnessing Yahwehs power....Solomon build Yahweh a luxury Temple only to later install other gods.
  
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  smiddy

  Pardon my ignorance here , contrary to Christendoms view of Satan as an opponent of God , and a different spiritual being , didn`t the Jewish religion have the idea that Satan was just another attribute of their God ? The dark side of him , if you will ?

  Humans have the potential for good or bad , being righteous or evil , we have the option of being one or the other.

  We were made in Gods image , according to the Bible ,does that not mean GOD is capable of good and evil ?

  Doesn`t that make more sense of God , by whatever name you call him ,and his actions ? in the Bible ?

  Just asking,

  smiddy
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  Half banana

  Witness 007, it would be a mistake to study Wikipedia, it is not authoritative and not used as a scholarly source. Better to go directly to those who have researched from the translations of the texts available who have a sound knowledge of the historical environment and the supporting archaeology. One such commentator on the subject whose impartiality is apparent, is the former Catholic researcher Thomas L Thompson. His first PhD dissertation was rejected by his adjudicator because it exposed error in Catholic doctrine...the adjudicator being Joseph Ratzinger who later became the Pope.(A story in itself on how the RC church defends its own doctrinal myths).

  TL Thompson in his book The Early History of the Israelite People, Brill, 1992, discusses at length the scholarly arguments including the framework for understanding the gods which the palestinian tribes worshipped.On a site like this it is only possible to give oversimplified information on such remote matters. Most important consideration is who is doing what where and when. To be accurate it is not possible to say the Greeks did this or the Egyptians taught that or the Jews worshipped this god. Time, place, people and evidence must be determined first. (must go now will continue tomorrow)
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  Crazyguy

  Umbertoecho, the words' I am' sound phonetically in Hebrew or Aramaic just like 'ayah or Ea'. It's worth mentioning that the babylonians and Sumerians, one of thier top God's was named Ea also known as Enki. So was God telling moses his name was 'I am' or Ea? This God Enki is also the god that saved Noah from the flood in the original stories, confused the language of one of the Sumerian cities and kept Adamu from gaining immortality.

  Witness007, using a plural word to describe God maybe what the Hebrews were doing with the word elohim but it's the only case in all thier language were they ever did such a thing. As for Solomons temple which has never been found or any evidence of him. It was built facing east and just like the temple of Arina Dara having 33 similarities to this temple. So why would the true God have Solomon copy a temple to a goddess and have it face east like the temples of the son God's?

  Smiddy, you are correct as to what the Jews believe, this idea of a Satan didn't really come to be in the Hebrew beliefs until after the Persian conquered babylonian and took over rule of the Jews. The original Bible translations of the Bible don't call Satan Satan just adversary. This is because the adversary of a god named Enlil was his half brother Enki. Several of the stories we find in the old testament, Adam, Noah's flood, tower of babel, garden of eden, we're all introduced to the Jews while they were in captivity at Babylon.