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"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?|
Tell me, if you have understanding.|
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!|
Or who stretched the line upon it?|
On what were its bases sunk,|
or who laid its cornerstone|
when the morning stars sang together|
and all the heavenly beings^a shouted for joy?"|
^a Heb sons of God|
The Israelite religion is heavily based off of the pantheon of the Canaanites:
Excerpt from HarperCollins with added notes:
>“By a remarkable act of theological reduction, the complex divine hierarchy of prior polytheistic religion was transformed into the authority of a sole high god in classical Israelite religion. YHWH…was not, however, the only god in Israelite religion. Like a king in his court, Yahweh was served by lesser deities, variously called “the Sons of God,”^a “the host of heaven,”^b and similar titles. This “host” sometimes fought battles of holy war…^c and were also represented as stars…^d These lesser deities attended Yahweh is heaven…^e Another category of divine beings consists of the messenger gods or angels. The angels carry Yahweh’s messages to earth…^f In later biblical books, the sons of God and the angels merge into a single category and proliferate…^g ”^2
The high God of the Israelite religion by no means served alone. This triple hierarchy (YHWH, the Sons of God/heavenly host, and messenger gods/angels) “derives from the earliest structure of Canaanite religion.”^2
The differences: the Canaanites worshiped El and his wife Asherah as the high gods. YHWH took on most of the traits of El, and Asherah was no longer worshiped, “although there are hints in some texts that she was worshiped as a goddess in some times and places.”^2 While El was highest authority in the pantheon, some the children of El were prominent deities. On the other hand, the sons of God in the Israelite religion are “demoted to a class of relatively powerless beings.”^2
On the subject of polytheism, the text also seems “to acknowledge that gods of other nations exist.”^2 Each nation has its own God that it worships, "but Yahweh is Israel’s god and is the greatest god.”^2 See Deuteronomy 32
Deuteronomy 32:8⌂|
When the Most High apportioned the nations,|
when he divided humankind,|
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples|
according to the number of the gods|
as an instance of God "delegating authority [to the heavenly beings] to govern other nations". ^3 The Israelites would then originally be monolatrists, meaning they worshiped one high God without denying the existence of others. Re-read the First Commandment
|Exodus 20:2-3⌂
|I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before^a me.|
|^a Or besides
for a different understanding of God’s commandment. This is by far the greatest difference in my opinion between the early Israelites’ understanding of God and modern Jews and Christians.
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Notes:
|^a see Gen 6:2-4; Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7; Psalm 29:1 (list here)
|^b see Deut 4:19, 17:3; 1 King 22:19; 2 King 17:16, 21:3, 21:5, 23:4; 2 Chr 18:18, 33:3, 33:5; Neh 9:6, 24:21; Isa 34:4; Jer 8:2, 33:22; Dan 4:25, 8:10, 1:15 (list here)
|^c see Josh 5:13-15⌂
|^d see Judg 5:20⌂; Job 38:7⌂
|^e “I saw YHWH sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him” (1 King 22:19⌂)
|^f see Gen 28:12⌂
|^g “a thousand thousands served him” (Dan 7:10⌂)
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Works Cited:
|^1 H. W. Attridge, ed., The HarperCollins Study Bible, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), p. 13, annotation to 6:1-4.
|^2 Ronald Hendel, "Israelite Religion, God and the Gods", The HarperCollins Study Bible. H. W. Attridge, ed., (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), p. xliv-lv.
|^3 B. M. Metzger, ed., The New Oxford Annotated Bible, (New York: Oxford UP, 1991), p. 261, annotation to 32:8.
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Further Readings:
"Israelite Religion", HarperCollins Study Bible
A History of God by Karen Armstrong
Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman.
Canaanite religion (Wikipedia)