There has been, historically, heavy pushback from the broad Christian community against the Mormon conception on the multiplicity of gods and mankind’s potential to become as God is. They seem to consider it blasphemous to assert that there are ANY other deities out there besides their own version of God, most popularly the Trinitarian view of the godhead as being 3 aspects of God layered sumptuously together into one king-sized Milky Way chocolate bar of pure righteousness.

As a nonbeliever, a humanist with a passion for Near East archaeology, mythology and ancient scripture, the idea of the supremacy of Jewish monotheism over the more polytheistic traditions of Mormonism and other “heathen” religions is fascinating to me. It might interest some to read that there's ample evidence that Jewish monotheism derived from several ancient theological frameworks, including polytheistic traditions from Canaan, Egypt, Assyria and Persia.

Even between the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah in antiquity, there were two "supreme" gods: Israel in the North took their deity from their Canaanite roots - El, more commonly known as Elohim, a bearded, white haired god who lived in a tent on top of a holy mountain. He was considered the father of mankind and of all animals, and was the head of a council of lesser gods (though he was often paired with Ba’al, a Canaanite fertility god). In the southern hill country of Judah, meanwhile, Yahweh began to gain popularity, a deity quite possibly derived from the Shasu of YHW, a nomadic group just east of Judah in Moab and Edom.

These two gods, El and Yahweh, slowly amalgamated into a single deity as these two Semitic groups came together when Israelite refugees fled southward from the invading Assyrians. The name Yahweh eventually superseded El, and in time became transliterated into our Jehovah.

It's worth pointing out, by the way, that monotheism didn't really take root in Israel until about the 6th-century BCE, around the time of the Deuteronomic Reform under King Josiah. At this time the veneration of other deities became anathema, with the royal courts and the temple cult making the worship of gods other than Yahweh punishable by death. Interestingly, the biblical texts which were compiled and written during this time make a particular point of demonizing the cults of Ba’al and Asherah, Yahweh-Elohim’s coregent and wife, respectively. The new one God of Israel did not share power or worship.

Incidentally, monotheism probably wasn't an original idea for the Israelites; they came in contact with the Persian Zoroastrian faith which centered their worship around a supreme benevolent deity, Ahura Mazda, while in exile. Also of note, the dualistic friction between good and evil supernatural forces very likely ALSO came from Zoroastrianism, as Ahura Mazda battled Angra Mainyu, a destructive demon spirit.

Even then, Israel was more of a henotheistic religion, acknowledging the existence of several gods but worshiping only one:

"God stands in the assembly of El;
in the midst of the gods he renders judgment." (Psalm 82:1 NET)

As a matter of fact, the tradition of angels as the "sons of God" (Job 1:6; 2:1) seems to have come from a council of lesser gods, who were given authority over the various ethnic groups of the world while Yahweh-Elohim took stewardship over the Israelites, his Chosen People:

"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..." (Deuteronomy 32:8 NRSV)

These are all fairly common ideas within modern biblical scholarship, bolstered by archaeological excavation and literary and historical criticism of biblical and extrabiblical texts. Some of the theories here are, admittedly, somewhat more radical than others, but they’re all consistent with the data modern science and scholarship have collected.

I want to be clear: the ancient claims of Mormonism’s roots are demonstrably false, and Joseph Smith had no special knowledge that made his new theology authentically antique. Having recently read through large portions of the Pearl of Great Price, I can say the books of Moses and Abraham are unmistakably and hilariously 19th-century American, with absurd embellishments and ridiculous anachronisms awkwardly woven together into semi-coherent Bible fan fiction.

However, religion evolves with the times in which it’s practiced. Judaism absorbed ideas from its neighbors and developed into something very different from what it had been. Josiah united Israel under the banner of Yahweh, centered on the temple cult in Jerusalem. Centralizing the religious traditions and laws allowed them to survive as an ethnic group and culture, in very much the same way that Christianity, codified and popularized by royal decree under Constantine, united the better part of Europe under a shared system of belief.

Thanks. That was really interesting and I learned something about the ancient beliefs of Middle East peoples.

Excellent post, En Sabah Nur!

Mormon polytheism used to be Christian monotheism or trinitarianism:

Book of Mormon (1830): God the Father and God the Son are the same person. (Monotheistic modalism/Sabellianism)

Book of Moses (1830): " I God" created the universe- Moses 2:3ff (monotheism)

Book of Abraham (1842): "They (the gods)" created the universe - Abr 4:3ff (polytheism)

The Moses vs Abraham contradiction is a big one, IMHO.

This is a great observation.

The change from the more Trinitarian view of the godhead to Joseph's "every Mormon gets to be a god and gets a planet" doctrine is both drastic and damning.

And now, with the church retreating somewhat from this doctrine per the recently released essays, it seems clear that Mormonism cares very little with doctrines, and the Q15 are perfectly willing to change both tenets and rituals in order to secure converts and donations. The various changes in the temple ceremony also highlight this quite well.

A really excellent explanation, En Sabah Nur...

Thank you!!!

Mono theism prevailed over polytheism in Judaism and then in the formation of traditional Christianity because there was a political motivation and then a political mandate for that particular outcome.

Those who were politically ambitious and who wanted to speak for God as a means to assert their assumed political authority needed to speak for a unified divine front. It was far less clumsy to suggest / assert that divine power of diety was completely consolidated into ONE supreme and exclusive god rather than to suggest that the many competing and often quarreling gods of polytheism had somehow miraculously reached an consensus and then needed the ruler to communicate that consensus to the mortal masses.

Hence, as political power became more consolidated, even down to one supreme political ruler over the land, so did the number of gods speaking to / directing the political ruler, even down to one supreme god.

When religion was a superstition and /or amusement, there was room for all kinds of speculation and many kinds of gods. When religion became more definitively linked with politics as a means of regimenting subjects and building empires, then just as the number of sovereign rulers across the land dwindled so did the number of gods.

The Trinitarian concept was a veiled ode to the old multiplicity of gods that was never going to be allowable again in the empire as the empire was being more effectively directed and managed.

This is an important insight I can't remember ever seeing before, smirkorama...

I will be thinking it through (there has been a great deal of history lived since the beginning human concepts of deity), but at first read, it sure sounds spot on to me...

Well done!!!

(thank you)

Uniting under the banner of monotheism seemed to have worked quite well for King Josiah and Constantine, certainly.

Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's father, wasn't so fortunate. He tried to consolidate Egypt's various cults under the Aten, the divine solar disc. This didn't sit well with the priests, who resented having their power usurped by the pharaoh. Once Akhenaten was dead, they reestablished their cults, tore down the temples to the Aten and attempted to chisel the pharaoh's name out of existence.

They were quite successful, too: he was lost to history until the 19th century, over 3000 years later, when his capital city of Amarna was discovered.

Josiah's religious reformations were essential for creating and sustaining Israelite identity; by compiling and attempting to harmonize the oral and written traditions of the Semitic peoples in the Levant and centering their worship practices at the Jerusalem temple - establishing a paid professional clergy in the process - 5th century Judah became culturally strong enough to withstand the barrage of invasions from Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Constantine's endorsement of Christianity certainly had a dramatic positive effect on early Christianity, but whether his allegiance to Jesus (or, on the flipside of his coin, Sol Invictus) had a unifying effect on the Roman Empire is a complicated notion to dissect, of which I'm not read up enough to give a truly cogent commentary.

En Sabah Nur (nli) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Constantine's endorsement of Christianity
> certainly had a dramatic positive effect on early
> Christianity, but whether his allegiance to Jesus
> (or, on the flipside of his coin, Sol Invictus)
> had a unifying effect on the Roman Empire is a
> complicated notion to dissect,

Perhaps that is correct -when considered only in the actual duration of Constantine's reign or close to it, but that alliance ("allegiance") considered over the long run, the fact that the Roman Empire as the Catholic Church has had a much better run in terms of; more members/citizens/adherents, more wealth, more political influence over more area across the world even if not outright exclusive control, over more time (longer) than it ever did as the original Roman Empire, then Constantine's allegiance with Jesus appears to have worked wonders for solidifying and maintaining the Roman Empire's place/ presence in the world.

In fact, its been an arrangement and an empire that is hard to surpass.

Interesting.

I mostly believe that Christianity evolved outside of the Roman political system. It seems that by the 2nd and 3rd century most issues were doctrinal and the end result of 4th century ecumenical councils was mostly to consolidate the political power structure by using the Roman mandate to squash the doctrinal debates.

Aten was definitely a power grab, but I think Christianity's monotheism happened because it made sense (in its own sphere). As Christ evolved from a man to god he also became the epitome of good. Christ cannot be all good, all powerful, all present, all knowing, never created, creator of all, and the various other superlatives that were assigned to him if he was also just one of many gods. Christianity must be monotheistic if it is going to even remotely make sense.

"Aten was definitely a power grab."

I'm not so sure this is true. Akhenaten's conversion to the Aten cult definitely had political and economic repercussions, but I'm inclined to believe that his devotion was genuine. Frankly, though, I don't think there's enough data available to make a definitive assertion one way or another.

Thank you .... that was extremely interesting.

I had read somewhere about this, the Jews at one time

believing in many gods and ultimately believed in only

one, it was the evolution of their religion just as the

christian religion has evolved from what it began as into

what it is now.

The idea that religions "evolve" is ridiculous!!!

Look at how constant the true church has been over the decades since ghawd saw fit to restore his everlasting gospel...

:)

@En Sabah Nur
What are your sources?

This is a perfectly valid question.

If this had been a more scholastic treatise on this subject I would have been more careful with my citations, but I'll give you a few of my more recent sources in a moment.

I have done years of research on this topic, and I've pored over several different versions of the Bible. I've taken courses on on the subject and have listened to university lectures from Yale and Harvard. Most of the information I've provided here is from years of study and an obsessive reading of ancient scriptures.

A good place to start on biblical research and archaeology is The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. Professor Finkelstein's Quest for the Historical Israel is also helpful.

The two Bibles I read most frequently are the New English Translation (NET) and the New Revised Standard Edition (NRSV).

The copious notes in the New Oxford Annotated Version of the NRSV are particularly helpful.

Bible scholar Robert Price has two great podcasts worth checking out as a jumping off point for biblical research: The Bible Geek and the Human Bible.

The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia has also proved invaluable.

If you have the patience, read Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman.

For a more New Testament centered study, everyone on Earth, myself included, recommends the works of Bart Ehrman.

I can completely understand if the sources I've provided here are insufficient for a serious scholastic paper. However, this is merely a brief overview of biblical scholarship, not intended to be taken as gospel.

BY NO MEANS SHOULD ANYTHING I HAVE WRITTEN BE TAKEN AT FACE VALUE. You should absolutely question the things that I've asserted here, and I highly encourage you to study it out for yourself.

But don't bother praying about it. That shit doesn't work.

The Jewish religion was a pivotal force in shaping what made not only itself but its offshoots: Christianity and Islam.

I'm not sure I buy into the argument that governments needed a monotheistic God in order to become centralized as authority figures, and to control populations.

Having a monotheistic God, on the other hand, has shaped the democratic governments as we understand them, down to today.

The American system, for example, formed under a Judeo-Christian mindset of law.

"Ethical Monotheism has changed the world. John Adams, second president of the U.S., wrote:

'I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.' (John Adams, letter to F. A. Van der Kemp, 1808, Pennsylvania Historical Society)

It's no wonder Jewish ideas have changed the world. The Jewish national mission for over 3,000 years has been as a 'Light Unto the Nations.'

Spread of Monotheism

For millennia the Jews stood alone with these beliefs. How is it that this little people, 0.2 % of the world's population, the most hated people in human history, succeeded in getting the world to accept their ethical vision?

Paul Johnson, in A History of the Jews, gives part of the answer: '...the result was monotheism and the three great religions which profess it.'

The Jews have professed monotheism for almost 4,000 years. This was later adopted by Christianity and Islam, which have converted hundreds of millions of people from amoral polytheism to monotheism, introducing the basic tenets of Judaism to the majority of humanity."

http://www.aish.com/sem/wp/Part_11_Monotheism_and_its_Implications.html

Abraham is considered the "Father of Judaism." I don't believe that he accepted a pluralistic godhead, or was a polytheist.

From his becoming the father of the Jewish nation, it's a leap to say Judaism "used to be" Canaanite Polytheism, or any other theism besides what it is.

Judaism was a major departure from the above.

In answer to whether the Jews were ever Polytheistic? "There is no way to disprove the claim. However it depends on an interpretation of the bible that Jews would not recognise and that goes against over 2000 years of Jewish writings and teachings.

Jews themselves say that their ancestors pre-Abraham were idol-worshipers. The Passover Seder meal service states (in the Hagadah - the book read (t this service) 'Originally our ancestors were idol worshippers, but God brought us to His service'. Several stories from the Book of Kings, and later, show that idol workship continued. An example is the story of Elijah versus the false prophets of Baal. However the essence of Judaism is monotheism - even if not all early Israelites followed this. The Hebrew Prophets condemned them for these false beliefs." (~ Arthur Weiss, Orthodox Jew)

https://www.quora.com/Were-the-Jews-ever-Polytheistic-Is-there-a-way-to-verify-or-disprove-the-claim

When we're discussing biblical history from a secularist position it's not helpful to quote from Jewish propaganda websites, which are by their very nature presenting a clear bias toward the authenticity of their historical traditions.

Let's talk about Abraham for a moment. The narrative of the first Patriarch contains several anachronisms which place the creation of his legend much later than c.2000BCE, the approximate time in which the Torah places him. According to archaeological excavation and cross-cultural textual analysis from Egyptian and Mesopotamian historical sources, the cities and social circumstances mentioned in the story of Abraham do not fit that time period. As an example, the Chaldeans, mentioned in Genesis 11:27, hadn't even emerged until approximately 1000 years after the supposed time of Abraham. The Philistines (Gen. 21:32) didn't show up until the 12th century BCE, 900 years later than the story places them.

Then there's Abraham's camels. Camels hadn't come into use in Israel until the 11th or 10th centuries BCE - once again, much, much later than the Abrahamic tale.

It seems likely that the stories of the Patriarchs, though based on older oral traditions, were largely fabricated during the period in which they were written down, around the 5th century BCE. The Torah is not a reliable source for historical information.

So the question of whether or not Abraham was a monotheist is an impossible one to answer, especially because there's no evidence to suggest that he had ever existed. Same goes for all the patriarchs.

The Israelites worshiped multiple gods up to the 5th century BCE. This is well attested in the archaeological record. Jewish monotheism didn't begin to exist until after their exposure to Zoroastrianism during their exile in Persian-occupied Mesopotamia. Zoroastrian monotheism had existed hundreds of years before Israel had any inclination toward worshiping one god.

Perhaps John Adams should have been thanking Zarathustra - and the Persians - for gifting Judaism, and by extension Christianity, with their religious ideologies. Zoroastrianism has also stood the test of time, as it's still in practice today.

Shall we also acknowledge the lasting power of Hinduism, and its offshoot Buddhism, which are practiced across the world by billions and have shaped a great many civilizations throughout history?

Let's be very, very careful not to become so blinded by our own biases and pet beliefs, by our own hubris, that we're not open to considering that the data may reveal a very different depiction of our world than we expected.

It's also fair to say 10,000 years from now there will be those who will say that we didn't exist either. There won't be any proof of our having lived, other than historical accounts, references, and speculation.

My contention is that Judaism replaced polytheism, for the Jews first, and then the other religions were an offshoot of Abrahamic teachings. Ie, Christian and Islamic thought in Western and Mid-Eastern culture.

History is also up for grabs, as in accordance with "who" is writing it for future generations. There's also definite power plays at work in that department. So I'm leary of historical citings when they can't be proven either.

There's also been sub-groups (ie, various sects) within Judaism since its inception. Like other sects within say Christianity, they may not be as homogenous as simply saying their beliefs or their practices were the same as mainstream Jewish thought was for their day and times they lived in.



:)

There is evidence within the text of Genesis that indicates that the story of Abraham is, to a large extent, a later fabrication, a few points of which I've provided above.

The Bible is not a reliable historical record.

The last 150 years of archaeology has unearthed a massive amount of data about the early Semitic peoples, some which corroborates elements in the biblical narratives (primarily in the latter centuries) and a great deal more which contradicts them.

We have contemporaneous written records from Egypt, Canaa, Assyria and other civilizations which do not match biblical assertions.

Critical examination of the Torah reveals that it's a mishmash of different tales woven together, with at least 4 separate sources.

There is ZERO evidence of Israel introducing monotheism to, say, the Persians, while there is ample evidence to suggest that Israelite theology was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism during their time in exile.

Jewish monotheism DID replace Israelite polytheism, but not 4000 years ago with Abraham. That's about 1500 years off the mark. Jewish monotheism really took root around 500BCE.

The data amassed by science and excavation does not match your timeline.

Also want to add before dashing off this morning is that Abraham was a Jewish version of a king. He amassed personal great fortune during his lifespan, which included land, animals, as well as a large family and infrastructure surrounding him.

Camels were living in the Middle East during his lifetime as pack animals.

As for Israel, its present day borders were not the borders of its earlier time and dispensation. Israel today is a tiny sliver of the land mass that was once the mighty nation, before it was rebirthed in 1948. During Abraham's lifetime, it hadn't yet become a nation.

"Yet even beyond the technical issues with the dating methods, could there be other reasons that might allow for the presence of domestic camels in the herds of Abraham while they were not yet a prominent feature between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba? A look at the map should make the answer clear.

There is no reason to assume that the abrupt appearance of camel bones at a certain level in the copper mining region of the southern Aravah Valley precludes their use as pack animals by Abraham and his nomadic neighbors. Abraham entered the Levant from a northerly route, visited Egypt, and returned to the Levant where he remained the rest of his life. Whether or not camel-dependent trade routes across the Aravah Valley into the Arabian Peninsula were yet established has no bearing on the use of camels by people in the more westerly portions of the Levant.

And while Egypt’s domination of the region after the time of Solomon could well have resulted in more intensive use of camels through the valley, that also in no way demonstrates that camels weren’t used as pack animals elsewhere in the Levant for millennia before that."

https://answersingenesis.org/is-the-bible-true/the-bible-wins-the-debate-with-carbon-dated-camel-bones/

I'm not going to argue with you about camels in Israel.

Answers in Genesis is not a reputable site. It is a Young Earth Creation apologetics website run under the direction of Ken Ham, noted crackpot.

Fuck it. I lied. Let me discuss camels.

There will be more swearing.

Imagine you're a solar-powered, self-replicating dune buggy salesmen with a caravan of solar-powered, self-replicating dune buggies to sell traveling through Ancient Israel, where you knew they would be an enormous benefit to the people of the region. Do you sell them some of your goddamned solar-powered, self-replicating dune buggies or do you tell them to eat shit and die?

That article you posted ended up being hilarious, because it uses the EXACT SAME TACTICS as Mormon Apologists when they discuss the legitimacy of their scriptures:

1) To Hell with Egyptologists! What the fuck do they know anyway?

2) Fuck science! (This time it's radiometric carbon-14 dating instead of DNA.)

3) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!

Apologists are consistently inane. Their ignorance would be cute if it wasn't for all their fearmongering and deceptive tactics.

When all else fails, resorts to cursing and cussing.

Yes, cool heads prevail.

Hot heads never do.

The author of the article cited is both a scientist and medical doctor. Her article has been featured in numerous publications. The one cited is just one of many.

"Talented AiG researcher and writer Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell received a bachelor of science in chemistry from Furman University in 1980, graduating summa cum laude. She graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville in 1984 and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Affiliated Hospitals in 1988. She earned board certification and fellowship in the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology."

Being a medical doctor does not make Dr. Mitchell an expert on archaeological dating methods, skilled in logical thinking, or, clearly, adept at biblical apologetics.

The cursing is just for fun, thank you very motherfucking much.

En Sabah Nur (nli) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Being a medical doctor does not make Dr. Mitchell
> an expert on archaeological dating methods,
> skilled in logical thinking, or, clearly, adept at
> biblical apologetics.
>
> The cursing is just for fun, thank you very
> motherfucking much.


+ 100000

The Chicago Cubs are, and have always been, the team to beat in American baseball. I have proof!

ETA: In a private communique, I have been asked about my proof; nay, I have be CHALLENGED regarding the existence of my proof!! I shan't sit back and allow such maligning to go without riposte!

chicagocubsonline.com/

chicago.cubs.mlb.com/

www.csnchicago.com/cubs

...there! Suck on it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2015 04:01PM by elderolddog.

En Sabah Nur... first I wanted to thank you for sharing your

learning with us and secondly I wanted to know what created

your interest in this subject and thirdly I wanted to know

what your name means. If you don't mind.

En Sabah Nur is the true name of Apocalypse, the first Mutant and adversary of the X-Men.

My interest in the Bible started very early in life; I was a devout Mormon all my young life with a passion for ancient history and archaeology. Always the weirdo among my friends.

Not surprisingly, The Book of Abraham played a key role in my disaffection from Mormonism.

I'm currently in the process of turning my passion into a degree and hopefully into a mediocre-paying scholastic career.

Well much luck to you !!!!!!!!! I hope you are able to achieve

all your goals..... You make it all sound so interesting and

vibrant.

Isn't commonly known. And then people get upset when you discuss this information and accuse you of making it up.

Great post, First One. :)

Having been educated that the primary identity of the western faiths was one of monotheism, it surprised me greatly that the Jewish people had polytheistic roots.