Commentary and response on The Hebrew Deity
C: The Gnostic records depict the Hebrew Deity as evil. They call him Samael which means the blind God, Yaldabaot or Saklas. What sort of God do the biblical records depict?
Exo. 32:9-15 states: "And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people: Now let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume
them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God and said, Lord, why doeth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do onto his people."
How could a God who was not Evil intend to do evil. With his human qualities, Moses makes the God repent. This does not indicate any superior thinking abilities or ethical traits on the part of the
God. Here Moses is only able to avoid the disaster of his God wiping out the entire race and then making a great nation of Moses alone by telling his God that the Egyptians would state that for evil
purposes did he bring the people into the desert to wipe out one and all.
R: Man was made in the image of God. There was a second tree which, if Adam and Eve had gotten to it would have made them equals with God. This is why God is so knowable. We were made in His image. God made us so closely in his image that we are a mere fruit from the tree of life away from being equals. This says a lot about God, about us, and the wonder of creation.
So what if God has human attributes? There is something so powerful about this being that you have to ask yourself - all seeming terror aside - do I believe this God of the Old and New Testament to be the creator of the universe?
I've always been of the conviction that the Y-hw-h of the Old Testament is alive. Where does he stand in the hierarchy of things? That is another question altogether.
Each gnostic sect probably has some ideas about this, but from what I've seen what they for the most part share is a suspicion or fear or hatred of Y-hw-h; He being at best a blunderer and at worst horribly maelific.
To me though, this is the million dollar question: What do you think of this God, the one who made this place and its people in His image?
We all have to go on our evidence and our experience. Myself, I realize that Y-hw-h did what the politically correct these days would call "terrible things." He apparently had ugly mood swings and was capable of being persuaded by a humble servant.
So what is one to do, try and find that fruit from the tree of life or serve, because Y-hw-h made us so we can only truly be happy when serving Him.
Isaiah 30:27 says that the Lord is coming from afar, burning with anger. His lips full of indignation, and his tongue a devouring fire. Not to wonder, the Canaanite God Yammu was depicted as an evil
dragon....
R: and later... through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, ... etc... very powerful stuff... are you for it or against it? From your postings I take it you believe that there is something superior, outside of the Lord.
C: Jeremiah 42:10 says that the Lord admits he did evil toward the Israelites... "I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you." A good God does not ever have to be excused for the evil he has done.
The Gnostic stated Evil does not come from Good nor does Good come from Evil.
Jeremiah 42:17 says that if they go to Egypt, none will escape the evil of the Lord. Evil deeds are the threats this lord employs in order to make his people follow him.
R: to continue... be not afraid of the kind of Babylon, of whom ye are afraid; be not afraid of him, saidth the Lord; for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand.
And I will shew mercies unto you, that he may have mercy uoon you, and cause you to return to your own land.
This story is very exciting if you continue to read it. Ask yourself, would you want an inhuman God or Y-hw-h, Adonai, Yeshua. There are many faces of this one, all-powerful God. I think it's amazing.
C: Jeremiah 42: 6: Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send the; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.
R: That shows how convicted those remnants were. What would happen if today Israel became a religious state...
That's one of the controversies inside Christendom by the way. Some believe there are prophecies surrounding the state of Israel today, and there are others who say no prophecies can come to pass until modern Israel becomes a God-fearing nation instead of a political entity.
Ezekiel 4:12 states: "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shall bake it with dung that comes out of man, in their sight." This is a proclamation made by the lord. After pleading by Ezekiel,
where he tells the Lord what a good worshipper and great follower of the law he has been, the Lord finally relents as we read in Ezekiel l4:15, "Then he said unto me, lo, I have given thee cow's dung for
man's dung, and thou shall prepare thy bread therewith." This not
only indicates this was a vindictive God, but notice also the fact Ezekiel has to indicate to the God how devout he has been. The God depicted by the Church today would have known these things.
R: It indicates God as a person. It all comes down to what you believe about the Lord and yourself. If there is something out there which is superior to the Lord, then this Christian God will die out, as will its Israelite cornerstone. I predict that the Lord will reveal himself to humanity soon. Even then there will be controversy as to what is right, for a display of mightiness is not a display of love. For that we have to look to the cross, or the way he treated the woman at the well, or the adulteress.
So those are the big questions: Is Y-hw-h real, and if so, is he awake, or asleep, and is he the most powerful God, the Lord of Lords?
Once you've answered those questions, if you still believe in the existence of Y-hw-h, then ask yourself, "Who was this Jeshua fellow?"
Place your bets. Go with your heart. I doubt anyone is really convincing anyone here, but the truth will be revealed and the people will be as they're supposed to be, and in my heart - that wretched human heart - I know that the glory of the Lord of Lords is soon upon us.
Someone here warned us all of hypocrisy. I sensed a certain silence in the level of postings then. Then these postings involving a gnostic view of the Lord appeared. I think that someone must respond to all of this.
Yes myself, I'm a hypocrite. I'm ashamed of it too. I wish I could truly repent and live in the Lord. Where does each of us stand with the Lord? How long will the Lord allow an anointed one - for that's what you are if you go about in public proclaiming the gospel of Christ - to secretly practice acts and thoughts which are not pleasing to Him? How long will the right hand be able to hide the deeds of the left?
What is the state of the church in America today? Laughable. Our prosperity has made us soft. Islamic soldiers prey outside the gates of our city. George Washington was a man of God. Is there a single man of God among us today?
What of the barbarians we raise from within, with their haunted and tortured music, their prosac, their single mothers, their self-involved, narcissistic, little-boy fathers?
What of a stock market bubble which is almost beyond imagination in its coordination by government and private offices?
The church needs to be revived, here and everywhere for Christianity to survive. If the miracles of Christ don't soon become evident, the power of Christianity will fade. There have been too few miracles of late. Where are the believers? Repent and find humility in the face of the Lord. It's not just about that lovey-dovey forgiveness that so many believers seem to talk so much about. It's a glory beyond comprehension; there is an awesome - yes often hideous power about the Lord. Where would our nation - and our remnant of believers - stand today if the Lord were truly to return?
C: In Ezekiel 7:2-27, the Lord talks of his coming to judge the Israelites. In verse 7:5, he states about himself: "...An evil, an only evil, behold is come." Not very flattering, but what is flattering about the Lord depicted in the Old Testament other than
the evil he is capable off.
Yes, it has been justified by talking about the evil the Israelites did, but this holds no water. The followers did the best they could
to follow the Lord. The Israelites did not do evil other than the
evil which the Lord had demanded of them.
Ezekiel chapter 25 tells of all the evil the Lord is going to do, not only to the Israelites but to Edom, Moab and the Ammonites and, they shall all know he is the Lord because of the evil which he does
is the conclusion of the chapter.
Amos 3:6 states: "Shall there be evil in a city, and the lord not
have done it?" A good question. These people know evil comes from their God. They follow the God because of the fear they have of the evil which will befall them if they should change their form of worship.
R: The Israelites did plenty to be disobedient. The Lord has never turned his back on them. Today rabbis in Israel dream of Yeshua, and upon waking try to decide what to do with the information that Jeshua is Lord, Jesus is Christ.
The Sumerian divine God and the sign of divinity used at Mari was
Ilum or El-Oim, with the same meaning as the one handed us by the Hebrews. A-AB-BA was the Sumerian for sea. Yam was the name used at Mari. Psalm 74:13 states: "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the water. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." That the Israelites continue this ancient myth is no surprise. The duplicate story in Ugarit is not the original. The tale of Marduk slaying the same dragon is not original. It is virtually certain the Hebrew Deity did not conquer any dragon
of the sea.
The God Baal slew the dragon of the sea in the original Israelite tale, of that we can be certain.
R: Where did you read this?
C: That the dragon which is here slain was the same dragon the Israelites worshipped is also correct according to the legends. The problem with these ancient Gods was that they did not remain dead.
R: Again, what are your sources?
Isaiah 51:9-10 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou
not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? This is Baal
whom is talked about as the material from Ugarit makes abundantly clear. It goes on to talk about Baal returning to Sapanu His sacred dwelling and not Yammu/YHWH to his dwelling in Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 4:10 states: "Then said I, Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul." Jeremiah 5:2
states: "And though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely."
Jeremiah 10:11 states: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Yes, this God had dire predictions for other Gods. We see Yammu/YHWH laments his faith at
the hands of Baal in Jer.10:19,20: "Woe is me for my hurt! My wound
is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it.
My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children
are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains."
Yammu is the friend and son of the God El. He is contested by the God Baal who is referred to as the Lord of Earth and who was also a fertility god of the Canaanites. The judging was done by the
goddess Nanshe, and seated beside her was the goddess who was in charge of writing and accounting. No wonder the Hebrew God was so miserable to get along with, he was just plainly overworked.
R: What are your sources for the above? Also, it's perfectly reasonable that a single entity could run everything. But none of us knows God for sure except for what we see. Since the tree of life was never eaten from, we are fallen creatures. One interesting tidbit is that I've heard that Adonai is actually plural, yet Elohenu is singular. Interesting, no?
The Lord appeared as three men at one spot in the Old Testament, and so there are many faces to the Lord; sheltering wing, shielding rock, Father, Spirit, Son, three men...
C: What the Sumerians, Babylonians and other peoples were aware of was that it took several Gods to handle what he was supposed to take care of all by himself. Monotheism is not a step forward. It would be quite reasonable to assume that many primitive races held one god as the
one being in charge of everything much like the tribal leader taking care of all the tribe. It would only be in later more civilized societies that they would discover it took the cooperation of many
individuals to manage a civilization and it would then be natural for them to assume it was the same with the Gods.
R: Well, monotheism works for the great majority of the earth's population today, does it not?
C: The only exception would be nomadic tribes or hunters who relied on one leader. They had no need for organization and would not as
readily have seen the necessity for structure. Another thing is that if you are the only one at something, you get bored awfully fast.
Take for instance a chess master. He might love the game of chess but if he was to find only novices to play with, he would soon get bored. The first thing he would do would be to become a teacher to bring the novices up to his level so he could have some competition. The only time this would be the exception would be if the novice did not want to let on that he was a novice. Then he would want to play the game but change the rules so the experts would not discover his ignorance. Do not tell me I can not know how a God would feel because he is so far superior. It does say we are just as able and besides, I was
supposed to be made in his image and therefore, I have a right to evaluate him on the basis of what exist here today.
R: You have every right to your beliefs. I have every right to mine. I think that your perspective is valuable here. I'm placing my bets on the one referred to as the Lord - Adonai Elohenu, Jeshua.
The Gnostics would need no further proof. Psalm 51:17 speaks plainly enough: this God desires to destroy the Spirit of Man so he can control them and make Man a subject to his decrees. Man weeps when he sees another man who is down. A brokenhearted person is always a sad sight. Someone whose Spirit is crushed affects just about all. Any person who has any trace of compassion whatever for another who is suffering is better than the God depicted in the OT That is a fact even if the God is able to destroy the entire planet with one fell swoop.
R: Maybe there is an unseen reason for what appears on the surface to be unreasonable suffering. It is a difficult thing to trust in the God of the Old Testament, but to me that's what I have; and the God of the New Testament as well. As to your documentation of all of the forged books of the Nicean canon, what are your sources for that as well?
I've seen some of the books which were thrown out at the council... they look like gibberish. There were others which looked more cogent. I will go back and take a look at some of them.
C: A good God does not make violence. This Deity demonstrated plenty of it! En-Ki's word is uttered against Man and not for his benefit.
En-Ki and YHWH had more than one thing in common. They may have been the same God. En-Ki may have been crafty but he became even more jealous with age. As En-Ki, he was jealous of his older brother who was ranked higher than him. In addition to En-Lil, Ea also became jealous of his son Marduk who was ranked higher than he was. As El (lord), he was j ealous also but here we get a little confusion in mythology, for En-Lil was El. En-Ki was Dagan. Marduk became Baal,
El was the father of all Gods with the exception of Baal. According
to the Canaanites and others, Baal was the son of Dagan. Baal was the later epithet of Marduk and we know Marduk was the son of En-Ki/Ea.
Dagan was known as far back as the Eblaites, and that they had a different name for the same God would not surprise anyone. After all, the Hebrews employed YHWH for En-Ki.
En-Lil was called Bel by the Mesopotamians. The later Babylonians transferred the powers of Bel to the God Marduk but, as we saw, Marduk was the son of En-Ki.
We have also seen the transfer of powers from God to God in many other instances like, for example, Mithra to Jesus Christ.
R: Where do you get those kind of theories as described above?
C: For Homer, to speak the truth was not merely to state a fact or make an accurate statement. It was to frame one's expression in a manner that the entire concept might be clearly seen. For this reason,
truth is an intellectual feat of communication, perception and elocution.
Truth is knowledge of reality as expressed by the mind. Also
according to the Greek thinkers truth existed only in the realm of
the divine, in the realm of the mind. Truth could not appear in the physical universe because the physical universe was constantly changing. Truth never changed. Greek writings, such as the Peri Aletheia, indicate truth is only in eternal things yet, only imitations of truth are found on Earth. Aletheia also appears as the designation of revelation. It is the teaching in which the divinity makes itself known and as such, it is not mere doctrine but a divine power. Aletheia is thus closely related to Gnosis. To perceive this revealed truth is to enter the divine sphere of truth and be divine.
On the other hand, truth in the OT, which is also translated Aletheia, is not the Aletheia of the Greeks. It indicates the fidelity of Jewry to the covenant with Yahweh.
Whenever Yahweh is not holding up his end of the bargain, the Israelites blame themselves in the same fashion all other primitive religions did. When things went right, it was because they obeyed the
God(s) and when they went wrong it was because they had sinned. Also in the Old Testament, truth was synonymous with the righteousness to a deity. When the deity is fickle it is because the adherents to the faith failed and then the prophets were those who came along to tell them how they had failed.
The Essenes and other Israelites viewed truth as a way of life. They lived in the truth of the covenant with their Lord. The truth at the time of Moses was not the same truth as the truth of the later
prophets. At the time of Moses, they sacrificed the first born children as an offering to YHWH. Later prophets called this a blasphemy and made up a God called Molech to whom the Israelites
were to have sacrificed their children (walked through the fire for Molech). Isa. 8:21 really reads "his Molech" and it talks about when the Israelites go through "it." How they shall curse their king and
their God. There have been attempts by Biblical scholars to link the Canaanite God of the underworld, Malku to the Molech of the Bible. An exercise of futility.
Jer. 32:35 states: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; Which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind..."
The Lord at first demanded the sacrifice of all the firstborn, and here this practice is no longer acceptable and the God Molech is invented as the one for whom the sacrifices were made. Here,
Molech is tied to Baal. If the God made this statement, he is also a liar.
Exo. 22:29 states: "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me." My translation into English of the Norwegian version
of the Lutheran Bible confirms this outrageous commandment. It states: "What fills your barn and that which fills your winepress thou shall not hold back. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me."
What is surprising here is that the later editors missed this.
R: "The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me."
So what do you figure that passage really means?
C: 1 Kings 11:7 states: "Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon."
Ammon meant the Ammonites. People such as Hammuraby was an Ammonite
as were the Canaanites. Hammuraby and his people never sacrificed children to their Gods. The Israelites were another Ammonite tribe. Exodus tells us the Lord claims all the firstborn as sacrifices. It does not exclude the firstborn humans. Shall the excuses stand since our mind could not cope with the worship of a God who demanded the sacrifice of the firstborn? Today few biblical scholars attempt
to justify this. They realize it was the shame of later generations which put the blame of this early Israelite practice on foreign Deities.
Ezek. 20:25-26 states: "Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."
R: That's powerful stuff. Again, who do you believe Y-hw-h to be and where do you fit into the grand scheme of things as well?
C: Here, this God does not deny the fact he was the God who made the people sacrifice their first born on a pyre to him. He excuses his actions by stating it was done so they might know he was the Lord.
He may have been the Lord, fine, but as the Lord, he was the epitome of evil. No one need follow such a person or God.
R: Doesn't the creator of everything have the leeway to do whatever He wants? Have you ever read HP Lovecraft, Mountains of Madness? That's a chilling tale on creation. Yes the Lord does stand guilty in your mind. I would ask though; how could the Lord of Lords ever be guilty of anything if all things were to glorify Him in the end? How could you fault this God for any of his traits, if he is indeed, Lord of Lords? The reason I ask is because I'm definitely frightened by the displays of power throughout the old Testament; I'm also comforted when the Lord reaches out and loves me. It's not a male or female thing, but something outside of this human flesh. He walks in perfect flesh; ours is fallen because we're missing the tree of life. He has it. His promise through Christ is to restore us all one day to the tree of life. There is nothing in the meantime like being bathed in the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, how can one expect to be bathed in the Spirit on an ongoing basis if one is not repentant? How does one find repentance in a 20th-century mind, filled with sound bites and fed so much spiritual, intellectual, and physical garbage?
As a hypocrite I can tell you of my inner sin, but I can also tell you of the undying love of this maligned, misunderstood Lord of ours.
I fully expect to either repent or fall; I've seen enough of the Lord's glory to know that a prayer-filled, scripturally hungry existence is a high path. It's time for the nations to learn that.
Will my hypocrisy be my downfall? Perhaps. No matter what though; The Lord will be glorified. We may very well be at the last battle.
Remember, repentance is equally important in Christianity to forgiveness. You can't live in the forgiveness without the honest repentance. |
