Origins of Christian God- Through Cultural, Historical, Anthropology lens

SerenityLives · 11-07-2020, 04:07 PM

this is a topic I would like to explore more. I have questions regarding whether God the Father is the same as God in the Old Testament, the differences between Elohim, Jehovah, and similarities of Israel’s God to those dieties worshipped among the Canaanites, Ancient Mesopotamians, Amonites, and “pagans”, even having similarities to greek and roman gods and goddesses and Egyptian mythology. . I learned the El Shaddah (Israelites God) originated from El who was was the main Canaanite God with Asherah, the mother of mankind. So did the Israelites plagiarize the pagan’s main God and made their own stories about an Israelite God? There is compelling evidence due to the words and letters used in those ancient transcriptions by the canaanites.

See inscriptions of Hebrew God names similarity to Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anci...anite_religion

awareness · 11-08-2020, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

originated from El who was was the main Canaanite God with Asherah, the mother of mankind.

This thread has a wide range of topics, some that go back into the fog of history.

But I wanted to point out that, Asherah was not only the mother of mankind, but was the wife of Yahweh. Male Jewish Bible author's and scribes edited it out.

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost

https://www.seeker.com/gods-wife-edi...766083399.html

SerenityLives · 11-08-2020, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awareness

This thread has a wide range of topics, some that go back into the fog of history.

But I wanted to point out that, Asherah was not only the mother of mankind, but was the wife of Yahweh. Male Jewish Bible author's and scribes edited it out.

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost

https://www.seeker.com/gods-wife-edi...766083399.html

This is quite interesting. It makes sense- I wonder where else in the bible we can find hints of Asherah.

And I also wonder if the female personification of Wisdom may have something to do with it in the Book of Proverbs and Job (carbon dated to be the oldest book in the entire Old Testament).
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/woman-wisdom-bible

and this makes me wonder even more the implications of Lilith (woman created by God before Eve for Adam) being editted out but still remaining in Jewish mythology texts.

awareness · 11-08-2020, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SerenityLives

This is quite interesting. It makes sense- I wonder where else in the bible we can find hints of Asherah.
I guess the translators of KJV didn't like Asherah. They translate it as "groves"

And I also wonder if the female personification of Wisdom may have something to do with it in the Book of Proverbs and Job (carbon dated to be the oldest book in the entire Old Testament).
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/woman-wisdom-bible

and this makes me wonder even more the implications of Lilith (woman created by God before Eve for Adam) being editted out but still remaining in Jewish mythology texts.

Asherah appears 40 times in the OT. But it's translated "groves." I guess the the KJV translators were embarrassed about Asherah. But they went with "Queen of Heaven," in Jeremiah 7:16–18 and Jeremiah 44:17–19, 25. Likely Asherah was that queen.

SerenityLives · 11-09-2020, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by awareness

Asherah appears 40 times in the OT. But it's translated "groves." I guess the the KJV translators were embarrassed about Asherah. But they went with "Queen of Heaven," in Jeremiah 7:16–18 and Jeremiah 44:17–19, 25. Likely Asherah was that queen.

There are a lot of tree imageries in the old testament that parallel Asherah’s function as fertility goddess, including the “tree of life” and eating of the trees in the Garden of Eden. Interestingly, she was also correspondent to serpents, as identified by Eve (mother of humankind) talking to the serpent, and Moses’ staff becoming a serpent and being healing for the Israelites. She was also associated with the golden calf, whom the israelites were worshipping when Moses came down from the mountain. You have to start to wonder why the Israelites kept worshipping other gods and goddesses or idols, and it qould make sense that it was because they were used to it; they were polytheists who worshipped Asherah and other Canaanite gods in addition to El or Yahweh, or even preferred her over Yahweh. In fact in the book of Jasher, Miriam, not Moses was the protagonist, and thus worship of Asherah over Yahweh.

The Canaanite god Molech (associated with the underworld and child sacrifices) has traits similar to the angry Jehovah in the Old Testament, who demanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac or for firstborns of cattle and sheep to be sacrificed; in addition to killing of firstborns, a common motif throughout the Old Testament. Satan can also be derived by him, due to association of of a fiery hell which child sacrifices in pagan rituals demanded or interestingly, the horns the Devil is commonly illustrated to have is very similar to Molech’s images.

The Canaanite god Ba’al interestingly was probably absorbed in the character of Israelite God: “The title baʿal was a synonym in some contexts of the Hebrew adon ("Lord") and adonai ("My Lord") still used as aliases of the Lord of Israel Yahweh. According to some scholars, the early Hebrews did use the names Baʿal ("Lord") and Baʿali ("My Lord") in reference to the Lord of Israel, just as Baʿal farther north designated the Lord of Ugarit or Lebanon.[50][6] This occurred both directly and as the divine element of some Hebrew theophoric names. However, according to others it is not certain that the name Baal was definitely applied to Yahweh in early Israelite history. The component Baal in proper names is mostly applied to worshippers of Baal, or descendants of the worshippers of Baal.[55] Names including the element Baʿal presumably in reference to Yahweh[56][6] include the judge Gideon (also known as Jerubaʿal, lit. "The Lord Strives"), Saul's son Eshbaʿal ("The Lord is Great"), and David's son Beeliada ("The Lord Knows"). The name Bealiah ("The Lord is Jah"; "Yahweh is Baʿal")[7] combined the two.” (source- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal)

SerenityLives · 11-09-2020, 07:41 AM

Okay this website has been my go -to for the topics in this thread: ANCIENT ORIGINS
https://www.ancient-origins.net/huma...sherah-0010611

And this article reveals a Moabite story showing that their god Chemosh defeated Yahweh, Israelite’s god. -

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haa...aism-1.6469415

Contrast that to 2 Kings portrayal of same fight/battle between the gods. Is this an instance of lack of omnipotence in portrayal of God back then due to existence of other powerful deities who had different duties.

SerenityLives · 11-08-2020, 04:43 PM

So I’ve been doing some reading, and it seems like while the Israelites were attempting to make their religion unique, there were multiple instances listed in the Old Testament where the kings of Israel forbade the people to worship Asherah, Baal and other gods. This started the “divorce” of Asherah from association with El or Yahweh. In fact the symbol of Asherah is interestingly a tree or cross ( like the one Jesus was on) and these cultic symbols were in front of the Temple of Solomon at the time. Biblical character Jezebel wanted people to worship Asherah, but the authors of the Old Testament looked down upon such worship and Jezebel became a villain.

Check out this article for more information: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mytholo...n-of-eden/amp/

This article has some references to Asherah in the Old Testament- https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/arti...Hadley_Asherah

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article...hasherim-bible

What is an Asherah pole? Connection with Garden of Eden-
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bi...erah-pole.html

There’s another theory: “ Perhaps what the question is intended to ask is not why there’s no mention of Asherah in the Bible (which there is), but rather why Asherah in her role of wife of El/Yahweh was edited out of the Bible. The answer is simple: she was never there. It is of course true that the Israelite religion evolved out of Canaanite polytheism through a stage of monolatry into, at least by the post-exilic era, monotheism; it is true that in the older ‘parent’ religion, El/Yahweh was the head of a pantheon with Asherah as his wife and various divine children, like Ba’al. However, the transition from polytheism to monolatry is quite ancient, maybe dating back in origin to about the time Hebrew culture first became distinct from other Canaanite cultures, 1200 BCE or so. Although I’m sure it was never a neat and clear transition, but ran on for centuries with attributes of other gods occasionally merged into Yahweh (such as Ba’al’s nature as a storm god), that’s still much earlier than the Bible: the very oldest biblical text is probably Amos ca. 750 BCE, and the five books of the Torah are much later still, dating to some time around the Babylonian exile (maybe during it, maybe just after) in the 6th century BCE. In other words, although Asherah was originally worshipped as a goddess and wife to Yahweh, by the time the Bible was written, the Hebrews no longer believed that and hadn’t believed it for half a millennium or so. Since they did not believe it, they didn’t write it down in the first place; hence it never had to be edited out.” from Quora.

11-07-2020, 04:07 PM	#1
SerenityLives Member Join Date: Apr 2019 Posts: 524	Origins of Christian God- Through Cultural, Historical, Anthropology lens this is a topic I would like to explore more. I have questions regarding whether God the Father is the same as God in the Old Testament, the differences between Elohim, Jehovah, and similarities of Israel’s God to those dieties worshipped among the Canaanites, Ancient Mesopotamians, Amonites, and “pagans”, even having similarities to greek and roman gods and goddesses and Egyptian mythology. . I learned the El Shaddah (Israelites God) originated from El who was was the main Canaanite God with Asherah, the mother of mankind. So did the Israelites plagiarize the pagan’s main God and made their own stories about an Israelite God? There is compelling evidence due to the words and letters used in those ancient transcriptions by the canaanites. See inscriptions of Hebrew God names similarity to Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anci...anite_religion

11-09-2020, 07:41 AM	#6
SerenityLives Member Join Date: Apr 2019 Posts: 524	Re: Origins of Christian God- Through Cultural, Historical, Anthropology le Okay this website has been my go -to for the topics in this thread: ANCIENT ORIGINS https://www.ancient-origins.net/huma...sherah-0010611 And this article reveals a Moabite story showing that their god Chemosh defeated Yahweh, Israelite’s god. - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.haa...aism-1.6469415 Contrast that to 2 Kings portrayal of same fight/battle between the gods. Is this an instance of lack of omnipotence in portrayal of God back then due to existence of other powerful deities who had different duties.

11-08-2020, 04:43 PM	#7
SerenityLives Member Join Date: Apr 2019 Posts: 524	Re: Origins of Christian God- Through Cultural, Historical, Anthropology le So I’ve been doing some reading, and it seems like while the Israelites were attempting to make their religion unique, there were multiple instances listed in the Old Testament where the kings of Israel forbade the people to worship Asherah, Baal and other gods. This started the “divorce” of Asherah from association with El or Yahweh. In fact the symbol of Asherah is interestingly a tree or cross ( like the one Jesus was on) and these cultic symbols were in front of the Temple of Solomon at the time. Biblical character Jezebel wanted people to worship Asherah, but the authors of the Old Testament looked down upon such worship and Jezebel became a villain. Check out this article for more information: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mytholo...n-of-eden/amp/ This article has some references to Asherah in the Old Testament- https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/arti...Hadley_Asherah https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article...hasherim-bible What is an Asherah pole? Connection with Garden of Eden- https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bi...erah-pole.html There’s another theory: “ Perhaps what the question is intended to ask is not why there’s no mention of Asherah in the Bible (which there is), but rather why Asherah in her role of wife of El/Yahweh was edited out of the Bible. The answer is simple: she was never there. It is of course true that the Israelite religion evolved out of Canaanite polytheism through a stage of monolatry into, at least by the post-exilic era, monotheism; it is true that in the older ‘parent’ religion, El/Yahweh was the head of a pantheon with Asherah as his wife and various divine children, like Ba’al. However, the transition from polytheism to monolatry is quite ancient, maybe dating back in origin to about the time Hebrew culture first became distinct from other Canaanite cultures, 1200 BCE or so. Although I’m sure it was never a neat and clear transition, but ran on for centuries with attributes of other gods occasionally merged into Yahweh (such as Ba’al’s nature as a storm god), that’s still much earlier than the Bible: the very oldest biblical text is probably Amos ca. 750 BCE, and the five books of the Torah are much later still, dating to some time around the Babylonian exile (maybe during it, maybe just after) in the 6th century BCE. In other words, although Asherah was originally worshipped as a goddess and wife to Yahweh, by the time the Bible was written, the Hebrews no longer believed that and hadn’t believed it for half a millennium or so. Since they did not believe it, they didn’t write it down in the first place; hence it never had to be edited out.” from Quora.