Re: Article about Hebrew Henotheism --and follow-up review. This is not new even if the article is especially clear and makes telling points which are easy to understand. For scholars this is basic stuff and extends back to Theodore Reik's Pagan Rites in Judaism of 1964 and Raphael Patai's 1967 opus, The Hebrew Goddess. . Since then there has been a flood of scholarship on related issues, with William Dever's 2005 book, Did God Have a Wife ? being most important for recent years.. . For me this is where any new theology must begin. AND with the strictly fundamentalist view that the Bible --as it existed in the original text which archaeology is now giving us-- must be allowed to speak to us as intended when written.. . This means a very radical text, with the Holy Spirit effectively a Goddess even if you choose not to use that terminology, and with a unique kind of ecumenist outlook that selectively judges other faiths such that some are good and some not. This also means absolute rejection of so-called "liberal" interpretations of the Bible which seek to make it conform to the views of the Left-wing of the Democratic Party. Simultaneously it means rejection of "traditional" ( essentially 18th and 19th century ) interpretations since they are culture-bound and sacralize Europe and America "as if" the Bible should conform to Western cultural norms that grew out of the Middle Ages rather than the Bible as understood when it was written. . Needless to say, this task extends to the New Testament. . Billy . . . ________________________________________________ Patheos Polytheism in the Bible February 13, 2013 By _Bob Seidensticker_ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/author/bseidensticker/) (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2013/02/polytheism-in-the-bible/#comments)
The first of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). (There are _two very different sets_ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/03/the-irrelevant-wisdom-of-the-ten-commandment s/) of Ten Commandments in Exodus, but let’s ignore that for now.) Have you ever thought much about the wording of this commandment? Why doesn’ t it say that Jehovah is the only god? It’s because _this section_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis) of the Bible was written in the early days of the Israelite religion (roughly 10th century BCE) when it was still polytheistic. The next commandment notes, “I, Jehovah, your God, am a jealous God”—jealous because there were indeed other viable options, and Jehovah insisted on a commitment. Jewish Henotheism Let’s use the proper term for this, henotheism. Polytheists acknowledge many gods and worship many gods; henotheists acknowledge many gods but worship only one. In this view, different gods ruled different territories just as kings did, and tribes owed allegiance to whichever god protected them. I’ve gotten a lot of insight into Old Testament henotheism from Thom Stark’ s The Human Faces of God. Some of what follows comes from chapter 4 of that book. The Song of Moses (Deut. 32) is considered to be some of the oldest material in the Bible—dating to the mid-13th c. BCE. We have several somewhat-inconsistent copies, the oldest being from the Dead Sea Scrolls: When Elyon divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he established the borders of the nations according to the number of the sons of the gods. Yahweh’s portion was his people, [Israel] his allotted inheritance. (Deut. 32:8–9) Here we see Elyon, the head of the divine pantheon, dividing humankind among his children, giving each his inheritance. The idea of a divine pantheon with a chief deity, his consort, and their children (the council of the gods) was widespread through the Ancient Near East. Elyon (short for El Elyon) is the chief god, not just in Jewish writings but in Canaanite literature. The passage concludes with Yahweh getting Israel as his inheritance. We learn more about terms like “_sons of the gods_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_God) ” by widening our focus to consider Ugaritic (Canaanite) texts. _Ugarit_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugaritic) was a Canaanite city destroyed along with much of the Ancient Near East during the _Bronze Age Collapse_ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/03/word-of-the-day-bronze-age-collapse/) in roughly 1200 BCE, a period of widespread chaos from which Israelite civilization seems to have grown. The Ugaritic texts state that El and his consort Asherah had 70 sons, which may be the origin of the 70 nations (or 72) that came from Noah’s descendants listed in Genesis 10. The Old Testament is full of clues to the existence of multiple gods. Genesis is a good place to start. Then [Elohim] said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). We also see plural gods when Jehovah warns them that man mustn’t eat the tree of life (Gen. 3:22) and that they must confuse mankind’s languages lest their projects, like the Tower of Babel, succeed (Gen. 11:7). A common Christian spin is either to say that the “us” is the Trinity or that it is a heavenly assembly of angels. But can we imagine that the original audience for Genesis would understand the Trinity? And why imagine an angelic assembly when the polytheistic interpretation of Genesis simply growing out of preceding Canaanite culture is available and plausible? Psalms is another old book that has fossilized the earliest forms of Judaism. We see the assembly of the gods mentioned several times. [Elohim] stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he renders judgment (Ps. 82:1). For who in the skies can compare to [Jehovah]? Who is like [Jehovah] among the [sons of God], a God who is honored [in the great assembly of the holy ones], and more awesome than all who surround him? (Ps. 89:6–7) And many more verses celebrate Jehovah while acknowledging the existence of others. For [Jehovah] is the great God, and the great King above all gods (Ps. 95:3). All the gods bow down before [Jehovah] (Ps. 97:7). I know [Jehovah] is great, and our Lord is superior to all gods. (Ps. 135:5) In a _recent post_ (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2013/01/gods-kryptonite/) , we’ve recently seen where Yahweh loses a fight with the Moabite god Chemosh (2 Kings 3:27). Migration to Monotheism We find one indication of the move from henotheism to monotheism in later versions of the Song of Moses (above). The phrase “sons of the gods” becomes “angels” in the Septuagint (3rd century BCE) and “sons of Israel” in the Masoretic text (7th through 10th centuries CE). Let’s consider books composed later than Genesis or Psalms. Deuteronomy was written after the conquest of Israel and before the conquest of Judah, in the _7th century BCE_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuteronomy#Composition_history) . The philosophy has moved from henotheism to monolatry. Like henotheism, many gods are accepted and only one is worshipped, but now worship of other gods is forbidden. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you (Deut. 6:14) But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship them (Deut. 28:14–15). Second Isaiah was written later, near the end of the Babylonian exile. Here we read that the move is complete. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me (Isa. 43:10) The very idea of an idol is lampooned in Isa. 44:9–20. Can a man cook his meal over a fire made from half of the tree he used to carve his idol and imagine that an idol from so unrefined an origin is really a god? What explains this migration to monotheism? A major factor was the Babylonian exile. How could Yahweh, clearly defined as the most powerful of the assembly of gods, have been defeated by the puny Babylonian god Marduk? Maybe Yahweh let it happen to teach Israel and Judah a lesson. Yeah, that’ s the ticket! Babylon didn’t defeat Yahweh’s people; they were merely a pawn in his grand plan all along. _____________________________________________________ Did God Have a Wife? >From Wikipedia Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, (Eerdmans, _ISBN 0-8028-2852-3_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0802828523) , 2005),_[1]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_God_Have_a_Wife?#cite_note-1) is a book by _Syro-Palestinian archaeologist_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syro-Palestinian_archaeology) _William G. Dever_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Dever) , Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona. “Did God Have a Wife?” was intended as a popular work making available to the general public the evidence long known to _archaeologists_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_archaeology) regarding ancient _Israelite_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelite) religion: namely that the Israelite god of antiquity (before 600 BC), _Yahweh_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh_(Canaanite_deity)) , had a consort, that her name was _Asherah_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah) , and that she was part of the _Canaanite pantheon_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaanite_pantheon) . The book has nine chapters, plus "afterword" and a list of sources. Chapters 1 to 3 define the topic and describe the different scholarly approaches to Israelite religion, biblical and non-biblical sources and texts, and the role of archaeology. Chapter 4 (“The Hebrew Bible: Religious Reality or Theological Ideal?”) examines cultic terminology and activities in the _Hebrew Bible_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible) . The core of the book lies in chapters 5 (“Archaeological Evidence for Folk Religions in Ancient Israel”), 6 (“The Goddess Asherah and Her Cult”), and 7 (“Asherah, Women’ s Cults, and ‘Official _Yahwism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahwism) ’” ). These chapters describe polytheistic religion in ancient Israel, which, Dever points out, was the reality in the religious lives of most people. The last two chapters (ch. 8: “From Polytheism to Monotheism”; ch. 9: “What Does the Goddess Do to Help”) sum up the book, concluding that biblical _monotheism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism) is an artificial phenomenon, the product of the elite, nationalist parties who wrote and edited the Hebrew Bible during the _Babylonian exile_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_exile) as a response to the trauma of the conquest, and subsequently enforced it in their homeland during the early _Persian_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people) period. Dever also notes that _folk religion_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_religion) and the role of the _goddess_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess) did not disappear under official monotheistic Yahwism, but instead went underground, to find a home in the magic and _mysticism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism) of later _Judaism_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism) ._[2]_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_God_Have_a_Wife?#cite_note-2) -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
