Depends on what Naaman's mental set is. Perhaps you are right and he is still a heathen who hasn't let go of his old religion yet. But as far as the God of Israel goes, in fact Rimmon is not a God. Not in the sense that it is nonexistent but in the sense that it has no powers. Yahweh cancels out all other gods. Message of OT beginning to end.
ok you have no clue about how people thought back then, to everyone even the israelits rimmon was a god, but yehwah was a better god, a stronger one. it has powers just as much as yehwah, but yehwah beat rimmon. i guess that can be your message but don't expect anyone to agree with you on it
Yes, I grasp the way you have the language all tangled up. Nobody says the other "gods" are "nonexistent" -- what would be the point of that? The other nations all have their gods. They are a major part of their life. Deuteronomy 32 somewhere says that to sacrifice to an idol is to sacrifice to a demon, which means they are even real in the sense of having a living being behind them. The point is that they are FALSE gods. YAHWEH is the only true God.
they arn't considered by the people back then false, maybe the authors wanted them to not lose belief in yehwah though, so they made them out to be demons, i would say that the priests wanted people to only worship thier god.
I read that later along the line, yehwah starts taking on attbutes that all the others had, including female ones, so the hebrews wouldn't stray
I'm sure you can point to some circumstantial facts to prove that Yahweh only takes on this character later in the OT, but I see this same character affirmed from the very beginning on.
i read that they really only start considering yehwah the only god after the exile, ie: everything else is false or a demon
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