Does Lord = Yahweh and God = Elohim?

Nick the Pilot said:
The story of Adam and Eve then describes our first entry into physical bodies (with its sexual story of snakes chasing fruit, an obvious reference to what we started doing, just as soon as we found ourselves living in physical bodies).
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Old scriptures were excluded from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Hebrew Scriptures banned indicated that there were two creations. In the first, God created man and woman. Genesis 1 does not give the woman a name. The hidden texts indicate that the first couple were Adam and his first wife Lilith. Lilith refused to let Adam perform on top or doggy intercourse with her. Lilith believed that man and woman were equal (contrary to modern Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.) Lilith was condemned and transformed into a demon. She has been doing mischief ever since. God then needed to find an helpmeet (Genesis 2) so instead of direct creation; he made the woman inferior by cloning her from one of Adam's rib. That led to the subjugation of woman for the next several millennia.

This also explains the discrepancy that Genesis ("mistakenly") says humanity was created twice, first on Day Six and then again in the story of Adam and Eve. Humanity WAS created twice, or rather, two different aspects of humanity were created, first our astral aspect and then our physical aspect, as Genesis correctly reports.
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Genesis does not describe two creations. It describes the first and only creation, that of Adam and Lilith. The so-called second creation was not another creation. It was God's correcting his mistake of creating a strong assertive woman. Then God did not create Eve. He removed a rib and magically cloned a second woman, supposedly submissive and inferior, Eve.

The story of Genesis makes sense once we understand the symbology that is being used (and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by confusing 24-hour-day-symbology with what is actually being referred to: periods of time of billions of years). Prehistoric humanity could not comprehend periods of time of billions of years, but they could comprehend periods of time of 24-hours, and so this misleading symbology was used (and is certainly not necessary any more).
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There is no evidence for that wild hypothesis. Humankind knew a day was 24 hours because that is what a day has been since modern man evolved 200,000 years ago. At the time of earliest Earth, the planet spun faster, and a day was only FOUR hours. So, rather than days being billions of years, today's 24 hour day is the longest a day has ever been. The day is continuing to slow down and will in future eons, get slower and slower until it might stop rotating entirely with one side permanently many thousands of degrees hot and bright with the other side permanently frozen to near zero degrees Kelvin.

My personal belief is that the stories of Lilith and the cloning of Eve were invented to warn women to be submissive, accept inferior status, and cruel discrimination. I do not believe in any creation myth. They are clearly Stone Age stories, re-edited during the Bronze Age. The degradation of Eve paralleled the degradation of Mary Magdalene as a sad and cruel excuse for treating women as chattel. Judaism and modern Paganised Christianity were invented as tools of oppression of the people through intimidation, fear, debasement of the female half of humanity.

Question Everything,

Amergin
 
Radarmark said:
To add a little fuel, much of the problem in Christian interpretation is that we are primarily a Greek derived culture. The basic Cosmology (philosophical, not physical) of the Greek was soooooooooo different from the Jewish culture.
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To understand Huckleberry Finn, you must understand the culture of the South. Don't impute conspiracies to everything and you have a fair chance of understanding what Twain wrote. Otherwise you'll think Mark Twain hated blacks, when in fact what he hated was racism. That he wrote about racism does not make him racist.
 
DREAM TO THE RESCUE!!! And defending my favorite English author. See, if you ignore the words within quotes, there is not one syntactical or grammarical error is Twain's corpus. Master of English (along with Conrad and a little known pulp fiction early scifi writer Doc Smith). And I have read that if you read the words in quotes (the speech of his characters), you could identify race, economic status, age, and even the specific town (say Hannibal versus Cairo). "Puddinhead Wilson" on its own is enough to show the misuse of "racist".
 
Thomas said:
Hi Exile —

How about here

You can go to any text, and click on the 'c' icon to see the original Hebrew or Greek, with concordance, and with a list of occurrences.

God bless,

Thomas
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I can't read Hebrew square script so that doesn't help me very much. Even the literal interpretations of the bible are not as literal as they claim to be. It gets very confusing trying to explain how in the earlier books of the Hebrew Bible (OT) the god of the Jews was just one of many gods when every bible out there replaces Lord for Yahweh and God for elohim. I keep on wanting to compare the OT withe the NT to show this fact, but it's tricky when the OT translations are back-projected and try to make it seem like the authors of the OT are describing just one god.

Even when Moses is talking to Yahweh there is an implied polytheism when Yahweh is instructing him to worship only him. But I've also realized that if though some interpret the Shema and Deuteronomy 4:35 (which was a redaction as far as I can tell) as a clear monotheistic statement, the rest of the Penteteuch is not consistent with the Shema so the Shema can't really be taken as a clear monotheistic statement. After this the Jews are still worshiping Baal or Ashera, and probably other gods. This is most likely why scholars assert that the clearest monotheistic statements occur in Deutero-Isaiah after the Babylonian exile. And if the Jews worship only one God today that monotheism doesn't stem from the pre-exhilic books of the Penteteuch, because the Penteteuch doesn't consistently show monotheistic worship.
 
exile said:
Even the literal interpretations of the bible are not as literal as they claim to be. It gets very confusing trying to explain how in the earlier books of the Hebrew Bible (OT) the god of the Jews was just one of many gods when every bible out there replaces Lord for Yahweh and God for Elohim. I keep on wanting to compare the OT withe the NT to show this fact, but it's tricky when the OT translations are back-projected and try to make it seem like the authors of the OT are describing just one god.
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One must remember that the Bible is not just a book. It is an anthology of hundreds of essays by hundreds of different shamans who called themselves prophets. Those essays were not compiled into a single book until millennia later. Some were included in the book and others not. Despite trying to make them seem consistent, it was impossible, accounting for the many contradictions, errors, and mistaken prophesies. It was a time of a trend to some form of monotheism in a world of polytheism. The Jews (Amorites) were polytheists like their other cousins on the Arabian Peninsula. The Exodus story gives clues to a persistence of polytheisms among the ethnically mixed workers and slaves who left Egypt with Moses. Elohim was not a mistake. El, JHWY, and Allah were the attempt to monotheise ancient polytheism. It began in Egypt with Aten but was never complete. Old gods were still remembered.

Even when Moses is talking to Yahweh there is an implied polytheism when Yahweh is instructing him to worship only him. But I've also realized that if though some interpret the Shema and Deuteronomy 4:35 (which was a redaction as far as I can tell) as a clear monotheistic statement, the rest of the Penteteuch is not consistent with the Shema so the Shema can't really be taken as a clear monotheistic statement. After this the Jews are still worshiping Baal or Ashera, and probably other gods
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One must remember that prior to Exodus, there were no such people as JEWS. Moses (possibly Egyptian named Mises) led a genetically and ethnic polyglot of peoples out of Egypt which was then in turmoil. These people were a mix of different Semitic sub-groups (Amorites, Hyksos, and various proto-Arabs from Arabia). There were also likely Hamites, Egyptian Hamites, Nubians, Libyans, Garamantes, various Berber groups including Tuareg tribes, various Arabized Berber groups such as the Hassaniya-speaking Maure (Moors, also known as Sahrawis), including Toubou, and Nubians. All were polytheists. Many dwelled in the lush green Sahara as far back as 9000 years ago. Moses led them across the isthmus of Sinai to promising lands in the Jordan Valley. Moses with charisma, treachery, and brutality moulded them into a "Clan" over 40 or more years with a common Amorite language. He fought the multiple polytheisms by combining them into a one god similar to Aten. Moses used violence to stamp out polytheism.

This is most likely why scholars assert that the clearest monotheistic statements occur in Deutero-Isaiah after the Babylonian exile. And if the Jews worship only one God today that monotheism doesn't stem from the pre-exhilic books of the Penteteuch, because the Penteteuch doesn't consistently show monotheistic worship.
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Those who published the prophet's essays into a book, picked and chose what they thought would fit the myths and establish a national identity. Israelites were a conglomerate ethnic group that gradually assumed a national identity.

Amergin
 
Amergin said:
It began in Egypt with Aten but was never complete. Old gods were still remembered.
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He fought the multiple polytheisms by combining them into a one god similar to Aten. Moses used violence to stamp out polytheism.
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Even Akhenaten wore the Uraeus (The Two Ladies,) depicting the godesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, and is even depicted wearing their symbols while he was in the act of worshipping Aten. (Aten worship was only allowed by the royal family--the rest of the populace could worship the royal family. :rolleyes:)
 
seattlegal said:
Even Akhenaten wore the Uraeus (The Two Ladies,) depicting the godesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, and is even depicted wearing their symbols while he was in the act of worshipping Aten. (Aten worship was only allowed by the royal family--the rest of the populace could worship the royal family.
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I do not doubt you. Aten was an attempt, a widely opposed attempt to merge the old polytheism into one based on One God. It has flaws. Remember Christianity claims to be Monotheistic but is far from that. It is an Indo-European Pagan Trinitarian Religion. Weak thinkers like Athanasius and Tertullian tried to combine a Trinity and a One God. They did Voodoo math by having a trinity god of 1=3, 3=1, 3+1=1, 1+3=1. It is mathematical rubbish. However, its appeal was not to the intelligencia of the Roman Empire, not to the educated philosophers like Hypatia, and less so to the army. It appealed to the poor, the sick, the outcasts, and lower intelligent people long abused by the Empire. Naturally, they flocked to a religion that seemed more compassionate and charitable.

Unfortunately after the poor and neglected converted to the teachings of Jesus, the Orthodox and later Catholic Church saw power in their grasp. They abandoned the moral and compassionate teachings of Jesus, settling instead for deifying him like hundreds of Roman Gods. The illegitimate deification of Jesus (which Jesus would have condemned) made the new 4th Century Christianity focus on worship than good deeds. Jesus, a great man, was propagandised as an Idol for worship (and acceptance of poverty for pleasure after death.) Wealth instead of charity to the poor and compassion for the sick and homeless became Church motivation. They were much like Republicans of modern America. They abandoned compassion and justice for a false amoral Christianity that favoured wealth and support of the wealthy.

I fail to understand, after long studies of modern Christianity, how people can be fooled into believing in such self-contradictory rubbish. It might have been a much better world if Jesus' teachings had prevailed, and the amoral politicians Constantine, Theodosius I, and Theodosius III highjacked the name of a falsely deified Jesus.

Amergin
 
seattlegal said:
Even Akhenaten wore the Uraeus (The Two Ladies,) depicting the godesses Wadjet and Nekhbet, and is even depicted wearing their symbols while he was in the act of worshipping Aten. (Aten worship was only allowed by the royal family--the rest of the populace could worship the royal family. :rolleyes:)
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Scholars appear to be in disagreement as to whether the worship of Aten was monotheistic or henotheistic. Could it be this is because the gods Maat and Ra are also mentioned in the Great Hymn to Aten?
 
exile--depends on how one wants to use the words. If Atenism is considered henotheistic, clearly so was Zoroastrianism (in the beginning) and probably so was the pre-exilic Judaism. Words are fluid.

Like most scholars consider Hinduism polytheistic, but historically there have always been very, very strong monotheistic pockets.

We Westerners just pigeonholes too much based on Aristotelian logic (this therefore not that) and fail to grok the possibilities of combinations within the pigeonholes.
 
radarmark said:
We Westerners just pigeonholes too much based on Aristotelian logic (this therefore not that) and fail to grok the possibilities of combinations within the pigeonholes.
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Back to Eriugena! He was the last man in Europe to say "Greek and Latin side by side' and 'apophatic and cataphatic are equal' and rather than 'either / or' he championed 'this / and / that'.

History records that he was "Too much the theologian for the philosophers, too much the philosopher for the theologians" so there you have it: if you're this, you're condemned by that; if you're that, you're condemned by this. If you transcend the boundaries of both, then God help you, cos you're on your own...

God bless

Thomas
 
'Tis one Irishman I do not mind being compared to... he was "lightly off-center" (philosophy does not really rule theology iff G!D is included in the theology). But his dialectic is brilliant.
 
FYI, after doing some investigation it does appear that in the Hebrew Bible (OT) that LORD is a stand-in for Yahweh and God is a stand-in for Elohim.

Elohim means "gods" at least up until the post-exhilic period and I came across an interesting point: that because Elohim created both man and female according to Genesis that this further supports that Elohim was not just one god, but at least two gods.

Phrases like "
 
Phrases like "So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim created he him, male and female created he them" - Genesis 1:27 presents a discrepancy though. Could "his own image" be translated "their own image"?
 
exile said:
Phrases like "So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim created he him, male and female created he them" - Genesis 1:27 presents a discrepancy though. Could "his own image" be translated "their own image"?
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There is some ambiguity regarding collectives/individuals here, no? I suppose you can compare this collective/individual ambiguity to the incident mentioned in the Gospels where a demon possessed a whole a herd of swine after being exorcised by Jesus.
 
Mark S. Smith, God in translation: deities in cross-cultural discourse in the biblical world, has a pretty good grasp on this, from a scientific point of view.

"Elohim" apppears about 2500 times in the Masoretic text, "YHWH" 6,828 times (with several different sets of vowels). Smith thinks the former is associated with an older level of the text. Actually two, one where it is actually plural and one where is has de facto become a singular. The traditional E/J textual analysis can be read to verify his notion.
 
radarmark said:
Mark S. Smith, God in translation: deities in cross-cultural discourse in the biblical world, has a pretty good grasp on this, from a scientific point of view.

"Elohim" apppears about 2500 times in the Masoretic text, "YHWH" 6,828 times (with several different sets of vowels). Smith thinks the former is associated with an older level of the text. Actually two, one where it is actually plural and one where is has de facto become a singular. The traditional E/J textual analysis can be read to verify his notion.
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Can't find Smith's book anywhere, but Karen Armstrong discusses E, J, D, and P authors. She says that even J was not sure whether there was one sole God. Any idea why?

So was it by the time of Deutero-Isaiah that the use of Elohim had come to be de facto singular?

Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Yahweh he is Elohim; there is none else beside him. – Deuteronomy 4:35

Thus saith the Yahweh the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Yahweh of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no Elohim. – Deutero-Isaiah 44:6

Also what was God a stand-in for in the NT? Theos, Deus, something else?
 
I think she is incorrect. Every use of YHWH (except those which can be considered ater rewrites of E) implies a single entity. One may read it otherwise, but she is way out on the academic limb there. Yep, the D thread is pretty consistent (dating it is very hard). The New Testament is different, I think the Peshetta is the best source. "G!D" one you take it as a definition, has the same meaning in Greek ("theos", I think) or Aramaic ("eloi", or "elaha").
 
There is a long-running disagreement between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Traditions. We argue that God can be known in His essence (Gk ousia), whereas the East says God can only be known by His energies (Gk energeia), not in His essence.

In which case, ousia would be singular, energeia plural, but One God is implicit, and the Fathers never meant to imply polytheism by the use of energeia.

God bless,

Thomas
 
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