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6425810 No.6425810 [Reply] [Original]

Does Bible explicitly state that there are no other Gods, or only that you can't worship them in any way?

>> No.6425819
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6425819

>>6425810
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
- Exodus 20:3

>> No.6425824

>>6425819
That doesn't deny their potential existence.

>> No.6425841

>>6425824
Learn the difference between 'God' and 'god' first.

>> No.6425844

>>6425824
No, it doesn't.

I think the Bible largely accepts the fact that there are supernatural entities which have called themselves 'gods' and which, at least in the past, drew in people who worshipped them. It of course denies that they are truly gods, though. Only God is truly a god.

So I think the argument would be made that you hypothetically COULD worship other 'gods,' but they're unworthy of it because they're not really gods.

>> No.6425870

>>6425841
My mistake. Yeah, I meant "gods" then, following this idea >>6425844

>> No.6426081

>>6425844
I'll never understand the people who try to metaphoricize passages like the verse in Exodus that says "For on this same night I will go through Egypt, striking down every firstborn in the land, human being and beast alike, and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!" That's not about humbling the proud Egyptian nobles, it's about Yahweh giving Horus and Anubis a taste of his pimp hand. That is the sense it which it's meant.

>> No.6426098

>>6425810
Don't forget Paul and that speech in Athens about Yahweh being "the Unknown god".
Acts 17 verses 18 and onward I think

>> No.6426108

>>6426081
Well, Yahweh was only a tribal god to the jews before babylon so

>> No.6426118

I recall that there's a verse in Leviticus which is considered to be the first "explicit monotheism" in the Bible. I'm looking through one of my books now to try and find it.

>>6425819

Others are quite correct in arguing that this is not explicit monotheism. In fact, it's implicit polytheism. This is the current scholarly consensus.

>> No.6426139

>>6426108
And he remained 'their' god until they killed him, then he was like, "Fuck this shit, I'm going to go find a new people to be the God of."

And that's how Christianity got started!

>> No.6426166

>>6426139

>Getting your ancient history from Freud

>> No.6426228

>>6425810

I'm this guy

>>6426118


I'm skimming through "The Memoirs of God" by Mark Smith. I think I was mistaken about there being a verse in Leviticus.

Smith says that the authors of the Bible were probably not monotheists until the later Prophets (Jeremiah etc.). Monotheism was foreshadowed in the writings of the so-called "Deuteronomist" who intepreted the sacking of Jerusalem in 586 and the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 as divine retribution for worshiping Gods other than Yahweh.

Monotheism was probably born and ossified in the post-exilic community.

As far as explicit formulations in the Bible I can't say, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading such verses somewhere in maybe Psalms or even the Pentateuch.

>> No.6426253

>>6426228
Isaiah 45:5 was one of the first explicit declarations of monotheism.

I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.

Rather than polytheism before that the jews were henotheists. They believed in one god but acknowledged others of the surrounding peoples. They just regarded their god as top god.

>> No.6426276
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6426276

I'm God. I don't want any worship though because that would only be seeking some big Other.

>> No.6426286

>>6426253

Thank you that's the verse I was looking for!

You can call them henotheists if you want, there was a development from outright polytheism to monotheism that took place over 500-1000 years. I'd say the Deuteronomist was a henotheist proper, but there's definitely some overt polytheism in the monarchic period and pre-monarchic period.

The textual evidence for Asherah cults, Baal/Molech worship and Yahweh and El being two distinct gods, as well as tons of divine creatures like Cherubim is pretty strong.

The archaeology supports this as well.

>> No.6426418

>>6426286
I don't know if the divine creatures can be interpreted as separate gods. It's made very clear in Jewish theology that God created these creatures, including Satan, including the Angel of Death, including Sheidim, and including what happens at the beginning of Ezekiel.

Besides, Cherubim are the names of the figures on top of the holy arch. There are not divine creatures.

>> No.6426423

>>6426286
Can you give me some source about the difference between Yahweh and El?

>> No.6426446

>>6426276
>rei
Shit taste God.

>> No.6426459

>>6426418

What a stupid point, you stupid head.

>>6426423

Anything by Mark Smith. Couldn't find any of his articles online. The book I read is "The Memoirs of God" which is readable enough for a layperson but scholarly enough for an academic.

I'm gonna try and do you a solid and see if I can dig up an article on JSTOR (w/ university login) and pastebin it for you.

>> No.6426484

>>6426423
(Not that guy)

El is the highest god in the Canaanite pantheon. There are two main hypotheses for the origin of Yahweh:

-as an epithet for El to name him as the creator god
-as a god of the Midianites who was adopted by the early Israelites

>> No.6426508

Look up The Religion of Israel by Kaufmann

>> No.6426513

>>6426484

sources? Midianites aren't Canaanites, and Yahweh is usually associated with Midianites via Jethro and moses.

I've always understood El as being a particular Canaanite form of an "El" common to several Ancient Near Eastern pantheons (the etymologies of El, Eloi (as in "Eloi Lema sabachtani" or whatever) and Allah are apparently the same).

El comes from the North, from a wider culture in Syria and the Levant. Yahweh is particular to the Israelites.

>> No.6426518

>>6426423
>>6426459

For whatever reason my EBSCO searches keep crashing. Sorry!

(Also what the FUCK is with academic articles being so fucking inaccessible and kabalistic? This is ridiculous. Someone needs to make a PirateBay that undermines JSTOR and all these other fuckers).