Subject:
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Re: Does God have a monopoly on gods?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 5 Mar 2000 00:07:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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993 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti writes:
>
> BTW, Judaism is NOT the first monotheistic faith. The Egyptian Pharoah
> Akhenaten, A.K.A. The Heretic King, is probably the first monotheist in
> history -- believing in a single solar diety -- The Aten. When the same idea
> was taken up by Moses and his followers about a hundred years later, you had
> the makings of a real cultural rift between Egyptian slaves and their Egyptian
> masters -- the slaves had taken up the heretical views of the Pharoah whose
> name the Egyptians tried to erase from memory.
You're forgetting Abraham and Noah, they were long before this pharaoh and long
before formal judaism. The hadn't taken up the views of that heretic, they
obeyed the active voice of the God of their fathers. Melchizedek (Gen 14) is
called the priest of the Most High God, meaning that there was already a system
in place worshipping Jehovah.
>
> From an archaeological viewpoint, most of the old testament is either a kind
> of inversion of other "pagan" traditions current with early Judaism (i.e.
> Innana becomes Lilith), or a series of double-tellings of the same stories to
The fact that the written account of Moses is more recent than other "similar"
accounts is not evidence that he copied from them. Many cultures have a story
of a universal deluge, that just gives creedence to the fact that it did
happen. Moses wrote about events that happened up to 2500 years prior to his
writing about them. Considering that the earth was replenished by the sons of
Noah, it stands to reason that the individual societies would recount similar
stories - they ultimately come from the same source.
> satisfy both early Mosaic and Aaronid priesthoods. And these trends run up
> through at least Jeremiah, who was a kind of redactor for the Jewish faith.
That would be Ezra not Jeremiah.
> The rest of the old testament, or Tanakh, is made-up stuff justifying a Judaic
> view of history (i.e. who begat who) and law codes (i.e. "Thou halt not...").
The historical, prophetic, poetic and wisdom books make up the majority of the
old testament and don't fit into your description of them. It has nothing to do
with a judaic view of history, it has everything to do with the miraculous
activity of a God named Jehovah. Though there may be some similarities, by and
large the stories are very different. If you take into account that Satan is a
counterfeiter you know the origin of the non-canonical stories. As someone who
has read the bible and apocryphal books many times, it is clear which ones are
divinely inspired and which are not. The ones that are not usually read like
cheap fiction.
>
> Its probably the case that "early" Judaic peoples were themselves
> practitioners of other current faiths of that time. Abraham, for example, was
> probably a believer in a Cannanite sacrificial fire god, Molech, as well as
> numerous other gods, before he supposedly comes to the belief of a single
> diety.
Wrong again, in Genesis 31:53 the bible calls God the God of Abraham and
Nahor's father. He learned about one God from his dad.
> In fact, its my unoriginal interpretation of the story of the
> sacrifice of Isaac that God was testing to see if Abraham would now do for him
> what he used to do in the name of other gods previously (i.e. sacrifice a
> child in a burnt offering as if for Molech).
I disagree. When he comes to Mount Moriah he tells his servants that he and the
lad will go worship and "we will come back to you". He knew God would provide a
substitute. He had been offering innocent animal substitutes all his life and
knew that God doesn't contradict himself.
>
> Point being: you don't tell people NOT worshipping idols to stop worshipping
> idols. You tell them its prohibited because they ARE worshipping idols.
> Simple as that.
He told them not to worship idols because they had been surrounded by it for
the 400 years they were in Egypt and were going to a place full of idolatry. He
knew that humans had this strange tendency to only believe in what they could
see and touch. Sound familiar?
>
> <<God knew (so the bible tells) that the Jews would find it hard to believe in
> an abstract God, that they cannot see, feel or touch. So he had to remind the
> Jews to forget about these dieties (aka gods), and concentrate on the one true
> god (the others were just fake).>>
>
> I would suggest the view that Moses knew this and was trying to consolidate
> his own political power under these religious views. Its not by accident that
> two priesthoods grew up around the same time, around the same belief system --
> its called politics.
There aren't two, only the Aaronic. Moses only did what he was told by God. He
never sought prominence or name, he was consistently humble and unassuming.
>
> -- Richard (armchair biblical scholar, former - thank the gods - mormon,
> currently crazy pagan engaging in the religious game of "circle jerks" on
> lugnet)
Just plain ol' Bill
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Does God have a monopoly on gods?
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bill Farkas writes: <<a bunch of stuff here and elsewhere...omitted for the sake of brevity>> Bill, its hard for me to respond to your comments because you ACTUALLY believe this stuff and I DO NOT. This is like talking (...) (24 years ago, 5-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Does God have a monopoly on gods?
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| (...) BTW, Judaism is NOT the first monotheistic faith. The Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten, A.K.A. The Heretic King, is probably the first monotheist in history -- believing in a single solar diety -- The Aten. When the same idea was taken up by Moses (...) (24 years ago, 4-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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