posted on Oct, 18 2004 @ 07:39 AM
hey "Saint4God" and others on this thread:
Actually, your "definition" of "god" refers to a more "monotheistic" (one god) approach--which is fairly late in coming---in fact not in
existence until Pharaoh Ankhenaten, and even then he had other Egyptian gods to put under ATEN his sun-god.
Judaiesm did not come into recogniseable form until after the time of EZRA (cf: the Shema'q of Deut chapter 6: "hear o Israel, YHWH is your
clan-god, YHWH alone !" was the mantra after BC 480 when the harder lined post Exilic YHWH priests FINALLY came back from exile---and they didn't
brook any opposition).
Most translations blur this translation of the Hebrew over to cover up the fact that other gods were being referred to (see my previous posts) :
(KJV: "Hear o Israel, THE LORD our god, THE LORD is one" which makes no grammatical sense in English and covers up the original meaning of the
words..since ECHAD means ALONE as well as "singular")
Most of the ancient world when the various competing texts of the so-called "Bible" (i.e. the OT) was being re-written by Ezra in the 5th century BC
was POLYTHEISTIC and NOT monotheistic, although several city-states throughout Greece, Anatolia and Canaan had a rough kind of MONOLATRY in place with
one particular god and goddess at the top and a bunch under neath, generally seen as relatives in the divine family....
("Let us make ADAM in OUR LIKENESS, and after OUR Image...so MALE AND FEMALE ELOHIM (lit. the gods but governing a SINGULAR VERB bara, to create as
one group) CREATED HE THEM...AND HE CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM (Gen 5:1)---no Hayyah (or EVE) in the Hezekielite Priestly Myth (Gen 1:1 to 2:4a + 5:1 to
5:6 etc.) of Creation, with all those BABYLONIAN SEVENS...!
Several languages express "invisible powers" in terms of the "gods" in the plural.
"Neter" in ancient Egyptian means "power" and it's symbol is the AX or HATCHET (power of the King to cut off a head for example). The plural
NETERU would be "gods".
In Canaan EL seems to also have been something equivalent to "mighty" or "powerful" ("benei Elim" can be roughly translated into English as
"sons of the Powerful" or variously, "sons of the EL..." or "sons of the gods" which during the PERSIAN period when the idea of Intermediary
Angels and Daemons was introduced into Palestine by the invaders, "sons of God" i.e. "angels"etc.
Typically in most pantheons ("all the gods") there are sets of 3 gods (Isis-Osiris-Horus or Amun-Khonsu-Ra, Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu etc) or other sets
(like the PAUT of 9 gods in Egypt).
The Canaanites (from which the Israelites stole, or more politely, adapted their own religious systems before the Exile, seem to have had several
PAUTs of their gods, generally with EL at the top of the list: eventually settling on 7 gods representing the moving "planets" from
Babylonian-Assyrian astrology which were visible to the naked eye:
(SUN + MOON + MERCURY + VENUS + MARS +JUPITER + SATURN = 7 Eyes of EL, which became the 7-EYES OF ELOHIM in Zechariah and the Book of Revelation:
cf: the SEVEN FOLD PEAL OF BAAL, read Psalms 29 for an echo of a Canaanite-Baalite Psalm in which some clumsy priest of YHWH at a lter date decided
to adapt for the praise of his own local god, and went and changed the name of the Cannanite god BAAL to the Syrian desert god YHWH :
PSALM 29:1 HaBU BA'al BEnei Elim : Give Praise to Baal, o ye SONS of EL ! which was changed, rather unpoetically since it ruins the BBB
alliteration:
to:
HaBU LeYHWH BENEI ELIM... (Praise YHWH ye sons of the gods) or "sons of the mighty" since later Jews disliked the idea of being reminded where they
got their religioin from...i.e. the Canaanites at first, and later mixed in with Egyptian (primitive laws of Moses taken from the 47 Negative
Confessions, or the cult objects e.g. the Ark, the Urim ve Thummim dice and High Priests Vestments in general including the brestplate etc. ), Assyro-
Babylonian (more developed Laws of Moses, Creation myths, Astrology) Persian (Angles, Resurrectin, Last Day Judgement) and Greek ideas (book of
Ecclesiastes, or the post Greek tradition of reclining at Passover on a couch)etc.
Of course Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome were the INVADERS into Palestine between 721 BC and AD 70, so Israel was OCCUPIED by
gentiles throughout most of its history, who brought the religious-societal ideals and values with them...
And don't forget what our word HIERARCHY means: Greek: Hieros = shrine + ArchE =order, or Beginning) = i.e. the Order of the Gods in the pantheon on
the Tableau on the wall (who's on top, who's in the middle, who's at the bottom)
No wonder we use that term to describe "the chart of all the Bosses at our jobs"...they certainly act like little "gods" sometimes !!
plus ca change...
[edit on 18-10-2004 by Amadeus]