Is Christianity Polytheistic?

Monotheistic religion: A religion with only one entity which can be described as a god or godess.Monotheism: The belief that there exists only one god.The descriptive and the proscriptive senses you might say. One of them is 'objective' in that it is not about beliefs. The other relies on the adherents belief about the divine.A person that adheres to monotheism may belong to a religion that another person would describe as polytheistic.A lot of confusion on this post as people have mixed these things around and talked passed each other.

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Well, the polytheistic roots of Judaism are quite straightforward - but what new stuff do we see in Christianity?Well there is some influence from Platonism, but I'll just focus on...hell.The Old Testament simply refers us to the grave as the result of death. But the New Testament refers us to Tartarus and the Lake of Fire. The Greek concept of a dark place under the earth where one goes to be punished for crimes taken place upon it. It was also where spiritual enemies of the ruling power would be cast into - so it was filled with very bitter possibly wicked gods and other creatures.How does someone on Mount Olympus cast someone underneath the earth? Via a pit, a deep Abyss. It has been said that Etna may have led the Greeks to conclude that the underworld had rivers of fire, they didn't have lakes of the stuff. That said, the Egyptians did have lakes of fire in the Book of the Dead (but there's no record the Greeks had access to that).Just a few random notes, really, something to kick start the ideas - looking for Greek concepts that weren't in the OT that are in the NT...

Modesty aside, allow me to to add to your burden.Is it consistent for a Christian to call the Ancient Greeks polytheistic without somehow conceding they are too? Not necessarily. If Christians define a god as a being responsible for the Creation - then the Greeks were polytheistic and Satan is not a god.

It depends on the myth. In the one you mentioned, Nyx created Eros,Gaia and Uranus who created Zeus who (with a little help) created non-animal life and stars. He also created Prometheus and Epimetheus who together created mankindI count at least 7.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Other than abstract things, such as 'lies', no. Satan doesn't create hell, hell is a prison that Satan will be cast into during the judgement along with various other ne'er-do-wells.
I don't think it ever says who created hell, but if you ask Christians they are likely to say 'God'.
Again, the creation of demons is not explicit in the bible - but one assumes they are Yahweh's work. Indeed - they have been arguing from a sort of 'definitional relativism'. No doubt - a consistent Ibrahimist may argue that pagans get a little over excited and call 'djinn', 'demons', and 'cherubim' gods erroneously. But what else do you expect from idolatrous infidel pagans but confusion?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : lies aren't metaphorical

Aye - the fossils in the OT are fun to read through. As you might predict, some of them have been discussed here such as Not Influenced by Surrounding Nations , and my notes on the first few books on the OT as a couple of relatively recent ones. This, however, I've never heard before. Israel was the name Jacob adopted after wrestling with {god/an angel/something else} and he had 12 sons who would form the 12 tribes of Israel. So the Israelites are the descendents of Jacob. It seems 'children of Israel' is the most sensible translation to me - does Wright have something up his sleeve I've not seen before?

When an anthropologist studies a culture and its language, how does he conclude the word Schmal, is the Goloy people's word for god?

Interesting - I've heard of the Jahwist/Elohist conflict and the efforts of the Redacter to harmonise them (and it would have worked too if it wasn't for them meddling Victorian scholars) but this specific instance is interesting because of the Dead Sea scrolls edition showing the change quite starkly.Which reminded me of the start of Job (Job 1:6-7):

quote:

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Now it happened on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, that Hasatan also came among them.
The LORD said to Hasatan, "Where have you come from?" Then Hasatan answered the LORD, and said, "From going back and forth in the eretz, and from walking up and down in it."

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That's from HNV in case you were wondering about why Hasatan and the eretz are preserved that way. The 'sons of God' even makes it into KJV. It has long been thought that 'sons of God' meant 'angels' - but maybe this was from a time that Yahweh had ascended to the top of the pantheon and the lesser gods (is Satan included in this or is he contrasted?) convene for a meeting.I've seen Robert Wright give a talk or two (via video not using live photon reflection into aqueous lens technology) on game theory I think it was - have you seen any of them yourself?