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Reddit mentions of The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
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Reddit mentions: 14
We found 14 Reddit mentions of The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. Here are the top ones.
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How about the evolution of Yahweh/Allah as a second-tier God in a large henotheistic polytheism into a straight monotheism where there is only one God, where that God is Yahweh/Allah?
Here are some references on the growth of monotheistic Yahwehism from a historical polytheistic foundation to the development of the henotheism/monolatry, and then monotheism of early Biblical Israelites:
While limited to starting with the Hebrew Bible as a basis, and not addressing much pre-Torah scripture related to Yahweh, the following takes a look at:
While a College Senior Thesis (and the perception therefore of a less credible scholarly/appeal to authority level), the following is a good source of other reference material:
Some of the on-line summaries/arguments which related to the above argument/position are:
A recent discussion in /r/AcademicBiblical, Was Yaweh originally a member of a pre-Judaic pantheon of gods?, by /u/koine_lingua, also addresses the origin of YHWH.
Some potential additional references (which are on my "To Read" list)....
Sure, so apart from a lack of reason to accept those extraordinary claims I listed before, I would also defend the statement that we have firm evidence that Christianity is a human invention, a simple product of human culture.
This should not be too outlandish a claim, as even Christians can probably agree that most of the worlds religions are creations of our changing society (after all, Christians probably would disagree that Hinduism, paganism, Nordic, Hellenistic, aboriginal religions were divinely inspired/authored).
By looking back into the origins of Christianity, and the origins of the Judaic system from which it is derived, we can very clearly see changes in religious deities and stories, as the religion began incorporating myths from surrounding areas and as general patterns of beliefs changed. From what we can currently understand, it appears the the origin of Christianity started as a polytheistic pantheon with at least Yahweh, El, Baal and Asherah. It then moved slowly from polytheism to henotheism to monaltry to monotheism, as was relatively common in the Axial Age.
All of this points to the religion not representative of singular divine inspiration, and instead being representative of being a product of human culture, changing along with society.
This is a rather large topic of course, and if you want further reading, I recommend:
Mark S. Smith The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel and The Origins of Biblical Monotheism.
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts
Thomas L. Thompson The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel
Mark Smith has some good texts on the topic.
This is a book of his written more for the layman
https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481614235&sr=1-1
And this is a book of his written more for the serious student.
https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481614235&sr=1-2
I would highly recommend watching the semester of Yale videos on Intro to the Hebrew Bible with Christine Hayes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdMUujXfyWi
Any standard work on the subject, whether literary or archeological, would point away from the basic framework of your interpretation. (The best evidence, of course, is always the Bible, properly interpreted in its context, itself).
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195167686/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_TbmWBbGQ5HYF1
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (The Biblical Resource Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/080283972X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_9dmWBbD268FCN
Stories from Ancient Canaan, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0664232426/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_BemWBb5ADVYJF
The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures https://www.amazon.com/dp/019060865X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_5fmWBb77Z4SP3
The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford Handbooks) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198783019/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_KgmWBb7AE7EC5
History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226204014/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ahmWBb97P6K64
Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Harvard University Press Reference Library) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674015177/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_.hmWBbFMA52Z7
None of these propose an exact duplicate of this simplistic model, but they triangulate to something very similar.
These are the links I have saved on hand. The book can be downloaded on Kindle
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/God/el-goi.htm
http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/08/the-bibles-yahweh-a-war-god-called-lord-of-armies-over-280-times-in-the-bible-and-lord-of-peace-just-once-i/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LF-Ox3qwKo
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts: http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic/dp/0195167686
There are a number of Sumerian and Babylonian sacred texts here. In particular, the enuma elish has some interesting parallels to Genesis. One in particular - the creation of the world was the work of one god (marduk), but the creation of man was a joint effort between all the gods (the Sumerian creation myth is similar). Have a look at Genesis 1, and note where the text switches from singular to plural. Also - according to Mesopotamian mythology, humans were created to do the work that the gods were tired of doing. Thus they were expected to work the fields and engage in general labor. Have a look at Genesis 2:15 for a parallel.
I recommend these books for a deeper study:
Stories from Ancient Canaan
The Early History of God
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism
The Evolution of God
Here are a few in descending order of value IMHO:
http://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1463508820&sr=1-2&keywords=ancient+deities
http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41ThrdV6rKL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&refRID=08DBMZBSZHGRD219FGQX
http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Ancient-Canaan-Second-Michael/dp/0664232426/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=51JeELOZHzL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&refRID=08DBMZBSZHGRD219FGQX
http://www.amazon.com/Canaanite-Myth-Hebrew-Epic-Religion/dp/0674091760/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=51uDVMx-BrL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&refRID=08DBMZBSZHGRD219FGQX
http://www.amazon.com/Canaanites-Peoples-Past-Jonathan-Tubb/dp/080613108X
http://www.amazon.com/Egypt-Canaan-Israel-Ancient-Times/dp/0691036063/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=51HiKb10S9L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&refRID=1WCNH0AH37K7N7GK735T
I'm very sorry to hear this, but it is natural for people to waver & wobble a bit.
When one looks at the behavior of natural systems, it's never a straight line from being (say) a desert to a green plain - or vice versa. There are always upticks and down-dips in the graph.
>He asked me again if I was going to stop going to meetings. I said "I wish I could tbh, but I'm gonna have to......................" (I paused just to make sure how he would react). He replied with "Good. As long you keep going", and he also says "if we don't have this then what do we have? Being out there in the world??"
If there was a tactful way to ask him whether your attendance made him look or feel better, I would have asked him about that.
I'm NOT tactful.
I would suggest several avenues of approach, but you'll have to consider very carefully what the effects of these suggestions might be, before you do anything:
The lack of affection in the congregation makes you feel like you're attending due to obligation, not because of any love amongst the brothers. If you can come close to stating his feelings about being "[made to] feel guilty for not being at meetings and he reluctantly goes because he feels pressured" without obviously mimicking his comments, you might be able to get a kindred feeling about how both of you really view the constant demands to attend the meetings.
What if he'd been born somewhere else? Afghanistan? Amish country? Mennonites? He wouldn't know about the Jehovah's Witnesses - but would STILL have the same attitude about being "no part of this world".
>He also said he doesn't like to talk about not going to meetings and I said if I can't talk to him about it then who would I talk to?
DON'T talk about it. Let it slide. True apathy is one of the biggest enemies the Watchtower Society has. Whenever you talk about attending the meetings, you are reinforcing the guilt he's feeling, even (especially!!!) if you're talking about the meetings in a negative way.
On the other hand, real apathy just ignores things, wishing they'd go away. Real apathy seeks out excuses to avoid attending meetings. If he's having a spurt of spirituality right now, but his past behaviors show that he really doesn't want to do it, then your best response would be to show up at some meetings with him, but fake a headache for others. When you do go to meetings with him, keep your responses flat. No response afterwards. Just so bored with it, you can't even be bothered to react negatively. If you've got an electronic tablet, then read something else while you're at the meetings.
Have you ever done a first-aid class where they teach the students how to pick up a fully-relaxed, unconscious person? That lesson amazed me; if a person goes completely limp it is VERY difficult to pick them up. A small person of around 100 pounds is harder to lift if they're as limp as a cooked noodle.
If you feel you need to attend any more meetings with him, then just go completely limp [so to speak]. NO negative resistance, but also absolutely no interest whatsoever.
Personally I'd pull up some of the books written by authentic bible scholars & read them during meetings, like "The Early History of God - Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel" or "Did God Have a Wife?", or
https://www.amazon.com/Early-History-God-Biblical-Resource/dp/080283972X
https://www.amazon.com/Did-God-Have-Wife-Archaeology/dp/0802863949
https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686
Whether or not Jesus existed:
https://www.amazon.com/Historicity-Jesus-Might-Reason-Doubt/dp/1909697494
There's a whole world of research out there, that the Watchtower Society absolutely doesn't want their members to have a clue about. You could gain far more knowledge about the real (man-made) origins of the bible while you're sitting there in the meetings. You could be sitting there, cool as a cucumber, learning more about the bible than any male leader of the Watchtower Society knows, even the 7 men on the Governing Body.
That would keep your mind occupied while your husband struggles with the guilt & obligation of an unloving, manipulative cult.
For that matter, you could also read about how cults manipulate people, while you're at the meetings. Anything to feed your mind while he loses his - er, while he gets a belly-full of the banality, hypocrisy & idiocy of the WT meetings & literature.
I believe I answered this question in an earlier thread one year ago.
How did polytheism transition into monotheism?
EDIT: Just FYI, I'd recommend reading "The origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Text" by Mark S. Smith. Perhaps you should also read the prequel, "The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Biblical Resource Series)".
Not the person you were talking to but Atenism is very similar Second Temple Judaism. I can dig up some books on it if you're interested, but here is a series of five mini lectures (should start at ep 108 if I got the link right).
Regarding the origins of Judaism, I would recommend The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, Yahweh and The God's and Goddesses of Caanan and anything by Thomas Römer. Links to his classes and others you might enjoy here. And here's a PDF of From Gods to God that shows how Israel interacted with the religions of its neighbors through myth.
>Well, have you actually read War and Peace in Russian? Then your argument just fell fell apart. The nuance in good literature can have vastly different meanings, depending on the reader.
Whether someone reads it in English or Russian, the story is the same and so are the themes. They don't change just because the language is different.
>Let’s review a few reasons why that’s ridiculous! At least 194 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize,1 accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2015.
How many grew up in a shtetl? How many were religious? Why don't you have any Jewish Nobel Prize winners coming out of the pale of settlement?
Religion literally has nothing to do with intelligence, unless it is to retard it. You also seem to have an obsession with race/ethnicity, two concepts that literally don't make any sense biologically. We're all homo sapiens sapiens As Richard Feynman put it, "To select, for approbation the peculiar elements that come from some supposedly Jewish heredity is to open the door to all kinds of nonsense on racial theory."
>Shabbat, a day of rest – origin – yes, the Jews.
?
People today get the weekend off (i.e. two days off), weekend being a British concept. Even that has been found to be insufficient though, as 50 hour work weeks are deemed to be too much by many psychologists and sociologists and lead to a decrease in productivity.
But what does that have to do with anything though? Also, where do you see a culture that hasn't had some sort of impact one way or another? All cultures do, because that's how cultures work, they're effusive.
>Washing hands to avoid disease – a practice started a long, long time ago.
The Celts practiced the same thing, using soap. Again though, what does hygiene have to do with anything? Especially as hygiene practices varied worldwide back then.
>Biblehub is a Christian site, btw.
With translations from numerous publications that are translated by numerous philologists in turn. Besides, the other two aren't and lo and behold, their translations are the same.
>And to liken Judaism to a cult? I have no problem with what you think about Scientology and the Mormons, but you have some huge problem in your cerebral connections to associate Judaism with a cult.
How is Judaism NOT a cult? It literally started off as a cult of Yahweh. Here are some books and papers you can read on the matter:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-History-God-Biblical/dp/080283972X
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic/dp/0195167686/ref=la_B001H6IMK6_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1339523114&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Religions-Ancient-Israel-Parallactic-Approaches/dp/0826463398/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339523840&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/The-Religion-Ancient-Israel-Library/dp/066423237X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339523840&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/History-God-000-Year-Judaism-Christianity/dp/0345384563/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339523372&sr=1-1
http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/BBRMonotheism.pdf
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=pomona_theses
This isn't even mentioning that Judaism today exhibits many cult characteristics. There are elitist tendencies (chosen ones); proscribed and identifiable clothing; barring of intermarriages with those outside of the group; kashrut laws encouraging members to only mingle with other in-group members; an elite class charged with authority and leadership within the group (rabbis); demands of immoral actions such as genital mutilation; a closed social system that frowns upon any deviation; end-time revelation; concept of mesirah; etc.
Judaism is a cult just as every other religion is.
>Oh, by the way, don’t bother to reply, I tire of your weak,
wandering responses,
ok
> Also, monolatrism was present in a number of belief systems throughout Europe and the Middle East. Its not a stepping stone to monotheism.
evidently it can be. monotheism is not necessarily the terminal state of religious evolution, and you don't necessarily have to have monotheism come from monolatrism. for instance, in greece, monotheism seems to have come from a philosophical tradition unrelated to the polytheistic/henotheistic/monolatrist cults. in egypt, monotheism very briefly existed rather suddenly when one pharaoh just rejected all the other gods, with no monolatrism in between.
however, in the ancient near east, there was already a tradition of monolatrism across just about every canaanite culture in the bronze age, with similar traditions in babylonia/sumeria/akkad. the israelites were monolatrist because the people they descended from were monolatrists.
> Now how did Judaism become monotheistic? Probably conquest and forced conversion.
that's, uh. i don't even know what you mean here. but it wasn't the answer to the question i was asking. of course there was probably some conquest involved, as one monolatrist cult became monotheist and struggled for power against the other cults. this may have happened under the reign of josiah of judah, shortly prior to the babylonian exile of 586 BCE. it's also possible that something similar happened around the return from exile a few years later, when the more persian influenced jewish aristocracy came back with some new ideas. this is the generally accepted model in academia. it's also possible that the babylonian invasion effectively eliminated the non-yahwist cults in judah. hard to say. but what nobody in academia doubts is that prior to being monotheist, the tradition that led to judaism was monolatrist, with yahweh as the patron god.
we don't doubt this because we have the stuff they wrote down about it.
> The obvious fact that they've directly stolen from their neighboring religions demonstrates the invalidity of their claims.
uh, okay. and? religious traditions borrow from others all the time. the israelites/judeans were canaanites, they have mythology similar to other canaanites, yes. not a surprise here. it's just that instead of worshiping hadad, or melqart, or hammon, whom other canaanite cultures called "baal" (lord), they worship yahweh, whom they call "adonai" (my lords).
> You continue to insinuate deeper meaning, as if the conclusions of monothiests are true and obvious, but if they are... prove it. Support your statement. Don't insinuate false knowledge.
i'm not sure what you think i'm arguing, but i suggest starting at the top again, and re-reading my posts. this time, don't assume i'm defending some particular religious tradition, and note that i say things like "we have no reason to" "take religious traditions at their word", and that i'm arguing for a relatively late shift towards monotheism around the time of persian contact.
> Prove this. Prove that they were yahwists.
kay.
>> אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים: לֹא-יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, עַל-פָּנָי.
>> we are yahweh your god, that brought you out of egypt, from the house of slavery. do not have yourself other gods in my presence.
the person who wrote this is a) a yahwist (see the name יְהוָה there?) and b) monolatrist (see how he says not to have other gods, rather than that there are no other gods?) this text was compiled around the time of the babylonian exile, 586 BCE, or shortly after from component sources that antedated the compilation. the components are probably in the range of 800-700 BCE for J and E, 600 BCE for D (probably written specifically for josiah), 500 BCE for P, and all over the place for R.
> You keep citing yahwist monolatrists, but that was never a thing.
they literally left us a book about yahweh and monolatrism. we know they existed.
> You're inventing history to satisfy your need for deeper meaning.
i am not!
> But it's a blatant fabrication, and when directly addressed, you simply refute a semantic misinterpretation as if that's a valid rebuttel instead of supporting your claim with evidence. All red flags.
would you rather i throw the books at you?
> I genuinely don't understand how people can purport deeper meaning from these belief systems.
i... really don't care? that's not what i'm trying to do here. i was trying to present a model for how persian zoroastrianism influenced early judaism-proper, but you came in an objected to the fact that used the term "monolatrist yahwist" as if such a thing didn't exist, because... you think i'm looking for some deeper meaning here? defending christianity? what? i don't think you've read my posts to carefully, and i don't think you're at all familiar with iron age ii mythologies or cultic systems...
> The stories of the Abrahamics are shared by older polytheistc religions.
no, older monolatrist religions. the enuma elish, for instance, from babylonia, is a monolatrist text heralding marduk above the other gods. it has some things in common with the later israelite creation myth. the canaanite baal cycle is a monolatrist text heralding baal above the other gods. it has some things in common with several later biblical texts. we generally lump "monolatrism" in with "polytheism" in some discussions, so it's unclear why you're objecting to it above as it i meant "monotheism". the ancient greeks, for instance, were generally divided into different monolatrist cults, but we consider greek mythology in general polytheistic.
> To this day they are filled with numerous historical inaccuracies,
it's much worse than simple inaccuracies, i assure you. much of it is outright mythology.
>Archaeological record suggests nothing. People, in this case Archaeologists, study what's been buried in the ground and try to construct stories that explain what they've found.
So looking at clues in the ground is less trustworthy than a book that talks about a burning bush, a guy living in a giant fish and someone being born from a virgin mother? Archeology is a science. It's not a bunch of random people making random assertions, or quoting a mythological document from the bronze age, its people making arguments which are then discussed and refuted. Archeology isn't perfect, but like all science, the fact that it admits is imperfection makes it infinitely more trustworthy than interpreting the bible.
>Citation?! What are the objective, reliable historical documents that tell this story and why should we believe them?
The citation is the archeological evidence and the religious books from canaan. The fact that you are so surprised by it shows how little you've really looked into this. Really I could list a bunch of scientific papers, but are you honestly going to read them if this is the first time you have even heard of the actual history of Canaan?
http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Biblical-Monotheism-Polytheistic-Background/dp/0195167686
http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/canaanite-faq.html#A2)[Canaanite/Ugaritic Mythology FAQ, ver. 1.2