Does anyone know what...

by gods vigilante 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  LittleToe

  Ball:
  LOL
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  Englishman

  Beth:

  Appealingly bosomy gal from "Neighbours" who later turned into Natalie Imbruglia.

  Englishman.
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  FMZ

  'el

  Where you get sent to for messing around with Beth.

  FMZ
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  peacefulpete

  I thought I'd just toss this piece posted by Leolaia from Mark Smith. It discusses the name Bethel as a Pagan deity. The word "Beth" "bet" did of course come to mean house or temple, but it seems it had a more broad meaning at an early time so as to understand how a deity (as a subordinant of EL) would have been named Bethel.

  The treaty of Esarhaddon of Baal II of Tyre lists in order the deities of Tyre as Bethel, Anat-Bethel, Baal Shamem, Baal-Malaga, Baal-Saphon, Melqart, Eshmun, and Astarte. The initial position of Bethel would point to his status as the primary god of the Tyrian pantheon. That Bethel is a secondary hypostasis of El has been argued by M. Barre. The depiction of the Tyrian El in Ezekiel 28 would comport with this conclusion. [p. 63].....Bethel (Ba-a-a-ti-ili[mesh]) and Anat-Bethel (d A-na-ti-Ba-[a]-[a-ti-il]i[mesh]) found in the treaty of Baal of Tyre with Esarhaddon are marked as plural forms; BH 'elohim may be understood as a plural of majesty or the like. [pp. 77-78]....The name Bethel in Jer. 48:13 may point to a Phoenician source lying behind the evience for Bethel as a divine name in both biblical and Jewish Egyptian sources. Such an explanation might account for the element * 'nt in the names from Elephantine [p. 102]....In the case of other deities identified in biblical sources, devotion appears to be restricted to a particular area or period. Deities in this category would include Bethel (Jer. 48:13), perhaps Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7; 2 Kings 23:17), and mlk, the name of a sacrifice except in Isaiah 8:21 and 57:9. It may be argued that some, if not all, of these deities appeared in Israelite religion during the last century of the Judean monarchy. In some cases, they may have been borrowed from another culture. Chemosh belongs to this category. The late appearance of Astarte and Bethel may indicate Phoenician influence. In Tyrian religion Bethel perhaps developed as an aspect of El into a god. This deity is attested in the treaty of Esarhaddon with Baal of Tyre, in double names (AP 7:7; 22:124, 125) and proper names (AP 2:6-10; 12:9; 18:4, 5) in the Jewish Aramaic papyri from Elephantine, the Aramaic version of Psalm 20 written in Demotic, and Jeremiah 48:13. From these pieces of evidence, Bethel, like Astarte, may have been a specifically Phoenician import into Judean religion, an influence reflected in both Jeremiah 48:13 and the Jewish Egyptian evidence. [p. 183]....This late development may have laid the basis for further polemic against other deities, such as Baal, who belonged authentically to Israel's Canaanite heritage (in distinction to the Phoenician Baal of Jezebel). Chemosh, Bethel, and Astarte were known as religious imports, and Baal may have been understood along similar lines. [p. 190]
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  zen nudist

  there is NO meaning OF life, there is only meaning found by the living....

  it comes from awareness that your actions have consequences.
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  got my forty homey?

  The meaning of life is its a meaningless nightmare of suffering, save string