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Author Topic:   Religion or Science - How do they compare?
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 475 of 882 (833774)
05-26-2018 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 472 by Phat
05-26-2018 11:45 AM


Re: On "Original Sin" and "The Fall"
The early Bible stories show evidence of Polytheism; there are lots of Gods; lots of Gods as real as the Hebrew God.
Why don't most Bible teachers mention this?
It depends what you mean by 'bible teachers'. If you mean people who preach to the laiety - it would confuse their narrative which is why they don't mention it (or they themselves don't understand the subject they are teaching).
Go to a seminary or university class on the Bible and they often will.
quote:
There are striking resemblances between the biblical gods of the Patriarchs and the Canaanite god El. El is the head of a council of gods. He is said to have a long white beard. He dwells on a mountaintop in a tent. His epithets include Father of all creatures, Bull, King. He’s also described as the protector of patriarchs, patriarchal figures, a God of the father of the clan, it says in the text. He guides them. He protects them. He promises them descendants. Many biblical passages depict God exactly this way, as the head of a council of divine beings. He’s occasionally described with some of the epithets that are associated with El. He’s referred to as the father of all creatures.
quote:
So let’s consider Smith’s convergence first. The Canaanite roots of Israel’s ancestors are clear. The Hebrew language itself is essentially Canaanite, a Canaanite dialect. The Canaanite god El was, from the biblical text, the God of Israel’s earliest ancestors. Through a process of convergence, he argues: the God Yahweh was the god that we think originally came from a region further south, Sinai, Edom, somewhere further south but this god, through a process of convergence and cultural mixing, began to take on the characteristics of other deities, first El, and then Baal, or sort of simultaneously El and Baal. Later, certain aspects of this convergence would be polemicized against, and rejected as a Yahweh-only party sought to differentiate itself from those that it would now label as other, and call Canaanites, as distinct from Israelites. Smith’s model of convergence and then differentiation, has great explanatory power. It explains the deep similarity of Israel’s deity and the deities of her neighbors, but it also explains the vehement biblical polemic against Canaanite religion, and Baal worship in particular, which we will come to see.
quote:
But to sum up, it’s clear that the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs are not strict Yahwists, as we will come to understand that term. The P and the E sources preserve this insight; and they preserve it in their insistence that the Patriarchs worshiped God as El, but at the time of the Exodus, God revealed himself as Yahweh. There’s an interesting passage in the book of Joshua, Joshua 24:14-15. Joshua was the successor to Moses. He presents the Israelites with the following choice: Now therefore revere the Lord, using the word Yahweh, revere Yahweh, and serve him with undivided loyalty. Put away the gods that your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt put away the gods your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve Yahweh. / Choose this day which ones you are going to serve, but I in my household will serve Yahweh, serve the Lord. Only later would a Yahweh-only party polemicize against and seek to suppress certain what came to be seen as undesirable elements of Israelite-Judean religion, and these elements would be labeled Canaanite, as a part of a process of Israelite differentiation. But what appears in the Bible as a battle between Israelites, pure Yahwists, and Canaanites, pure polytheists, is indeed better understood as a civil war between Yahweh-only Israelites, and Israelites who are participating in the cult of their ancestors.
RLST 145 - Lecture 7 - Israel in Egypt: Moses and the Beginning of Yahwism (Genesis 37- Exodus 4) | Open Yale Courses

This message is a reply to:
 Message 472 by Phat, posted 05-26-2018 11:45 AM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 480 by Faith, posted 05-26-2018 12:44 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 484 of 882 (833784)
05-26-2018 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 480 by Faith
05-26-2018 12:44 PM


Re: On "Original Sin" and "The Fall"
You'll never get the truth about the work of God in this world if you follow the modern revisionist scholars, Mod.
And you'll never get to the truth about the work of man if you ignore them.
He planned to send a Savior from the tyranny of the demons starting all the way back in Eden.
He just kept it quiet.
In Jesus' time the demons were possessing many people who had either inherited or fallen into enough sin to allow them to possess them, and Jesus demonstrated His purpose and His power by setting them free.
Either way - Bible teachers do discuss the fact that the other gods might be treated as real as Yahweh in some parts of the Bible.
Your revisionist scholars have no clue about God's true plan either, and are continuing to seduce people away from His merciful salvation, joining with the demon gods themselves who are working tirelessly to keep as many as they can in their power and blind them to the promise of salvation.
Or maybe you've been seduced and the scholars are trying to explain the true nature of his merciful salvation.
That's kind of the problem with religion vs science. There's no way to tell the difference between these kinds of hypotheses.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 480 by Faith, posted 05-26-2018 12:44 PM Faith has not replied

  
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