Posted by:
baura
(
)
Date: April 13, 2014 01:44PM
Cruelty to enemies was not considered bad in ancient times.
Once your army conquered a city your men looted the city, raped
the women and took for slaves everyone you didn't kill. The
alternative in such a situation to slavery was death.
Ancient gods were not all-knowing, loving beings. They were
powerful, but limited and tended not to care what happened to
humans. Humans would sacrifice to the gods to try to induce
them to favor the humans. One of the reasons the Christians
were persecuted in ancient Rome, was their refusal to honor the
Gods who protected Rome. This was close to treason.
The Jewish God, YHWH, was a new kind of God. He was not a god
of any particular physical phenomena (In the Egyptian pantheon
Shu was the god of the air/wind, Geb was the god of earth, Ra
was the Sun, Nut was the sky, Hapy was the innundation etc.)
and JHWH was not localized to any place or country. The
passage in 1 Kings 19:11-12 underscores this removal of YHWH
from physical phenomena.
"11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the
Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong
wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before
the Lord; but THE LORD WAS NOT IN THE WIND: and after the wind
an earthquake; but THE LORD WAS NOT IN THE EARTHQUAKE:
"12 And after the earthquake a fire; but THE LORD WAS NOT IN
THE FIRE: and after the fire a still small voice."
In ancient Egypt not only was Shu, god of air, IN the wind, Shu
WAS the wind. Not so with YHWH--he created the physical earth
but he was not part of physical creation like the pagan gods
were.
In ancient paganism once you went from one country to another
you adopted the worship of the local gods. Just as if you move
from one state to another you have a different governor. Both
governors are "true" but limited to their region. Similarly
with pagan gods. Belief in one group of gods did not preclude
worship of others. Paganism was very tolerant this way.
Not so with YHWH. His rule was death to those who worshipped
any other god--"for I, God, am a jealous God." This is why
Genesis mentions "the greater light to rule the day and the
lesser light to rule the night" instead of saying "the sun and
the moon." To say the word "sun" or "moon" would be equivalent
to naming the sun god or the moon god--rival pagan gods.
On the other hand YHWH gave a code of conduct to humans. This
was something new. Ethics and morality were not part of the
concern of the gods in ancient times. It was no skin of Zeus's
nose if you raped, stole or murdered. Morality didn't come
from religion in ancient paganism. But the Hebrew god, JHWH
created humans in his "own likeness." How they behaved toward
each other mattered to him and he gave detailed rules for
behavior.
The Judeo-Christian tradition goes back into ancient times and
much of the Old Testament is jaw-droppingly cruel and immoral
by present standards. To try to attribute things to a
constant, unchanging, and loving God requires tremendous
rationalization.
Once you look at the Old Testament as a collection of ancient
literature rather than God's unchanging word to us, it can come
alive. But you have to approach it on its own terms, as with
the Iliad or Epic of Gilgamesh, and not try to fit it, as a
square peg into a round hole, into some Mormon theology.