Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 1:01pm
No Gods Before Me
Column: A Heretic in Babylon
Richard Hooper—A Heretic in Babylon
Sedona, Arizona
May 15, 2008
No Other Gods Before Me: Polytheism in the Bible
Biblical literalists aren’t really Biblical literalists. If they were, they would
1) Sell their daughters into slavery. (Exodus 21:7)
2) Buy slaves from other nations instead. (Leviticus 25:44)
3) Put to death anyone who works on the Sabbath. (Exodus 35:2)
4) Put to death all shamans, wiccans and other New Age types. (Exodus 22:18)
5) Stone disobedient sons. (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21)
6) Put to death all women who have sex with animals. (Leviticus 20:18)
7) Put to death all children who curse their mother and father. (Leviticus 20:9)
8) Eat your children and your own flesh. (Deuteronomy 28:53)
9) And, my personal favorite: Smash your babies against rocks (Psalms 137:9)
Obviously, if we just followed the Bible more closely, the world would not be so overpopulated.
So, if you are one of those people who the earth was created in six days, six thousand years ago, then you have to believe this other stuff as well. It’s the word of God, damn it, and if you don’t like it, you can go eat your own excrement. (2 Kings 18:27)
Like all Christians and Jews, Biblical literalists ignore those passages they don’t like or don’t understand. Take, for instance, all those passages that show that the Israelites did not originally believe in just one god. For a good portion of their history God’s chosen people were polytheistic.
When Yahweh first became the tribal war god of the Israelites he was just one of many war gods—and not necessarily the most powerful. The earliest wars recorded in the Bible were not just struggles between nations, but struggles between gods. Take the battle recorded in 2 Kings 3, for instance. Here the Israelites are defeated by their enemy, the Moabites, because the Moabite god, Chemosh, was stronger than Yahweh.
The story of Jewish polytheism begins at the beginning, with the first creation story in Genesis 1:1. In this ancient myth, “God” is not “Yahweh,” but “Elohim,” the plural form of “El,” or “God.” But El is not a single god, he is merely the chief god of a pantheon of deities. El says to the other gods “Let us create man in our image.” Later Jews could have edited this story, but they chose not to because they considered it an important part of Israel’s history and culture. Instead, they simply changed the definition of “Elohim.”
“Elohim,” can be translated in either plural or singular form. And, in fact, “Elohim” often does refer to just one God in the Bible. But how the word is translated depends entirely upon the context in which it is used.
In the context of the first creation story, “Elohim” can only be translated as plural. The deities—not unlike the Greek gods of the same era—are jealous deities, protective of their turf and their status. They forbid Adam of Eve (man and woman) from eating of the Tree of Knowledge because then humanity’s knowledge would become equal to that of the gods. The Elohim do not want man and woman to eat from the Tree of Life either, for then they would become immortal just like they were. The gods, being jealous, did not want humanity to share in their own divine nature.
The same thing happens in the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1ff.) In this story, humanity is harmonious, and has only one language. Yet they have high aspirations; they want to become more like the gods. To this end, they are in the process of building a great tower that would bring them closer to heaven. When the gods discover the Tower, they put an immediate stop to the building. Elohim says, “’Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.” (Gen. 11:1-9)
No wonder Gnostic-Christians considered the Jewish creator-god an evil demi-god who oppressed humanity by keeping it in ignorance of its true divine nature.
We meet this Elohim, this “divine council” again in I Kings 22 and in Psalms 103:21 and 148:2. In Exodus 18:1ff, Elohim has become “three men.” In the Book of Job one member of the divine council, or “bene Elohim” (“sons of God”) is none other than Satan himself.
Hebrew Biblical history began around the tenth century BCE. From that point until Alexander the Great conquered Israel in the fourth century BCE, Yahweh was not yet the exclusively monotheistic deity he eventually become. While there were certainly monotheists among the Israelites prior to that time, polytheism was still an acceptable theology.
In Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Yahweh is not the “Most High,” but plays a subservient role. Here Elyon, the Most High, appoints an Elohim named Yahweh to rule over only that territory already claimed by his own people, the Israelites.
I should also mention that the Elohim were not just transcendent beings. Just as El physically walked in the Garden of Eden, the bene Elohim were in the habit of coming down to earth to interfere in the affairs of humanity. One day, however, they went too far. They fell in love with human women and married them—even produced offspring. Such misbehavior was unbecoming of a god and inevitably led to the gods’ fall from heaven. The bene Elohim became mortal and died like the rest of us. Stories about the god’s downfall can be found in Isaiah 14:12, 15 and in Ezekiel 28:2-8.
There is some good news for women in all of this. The sons of God, always up to no good, were nothing compared to God’s daughter. God’s first born was not Jesus, or any other man. God’s firstborn was Sophia, Lady Wisdom. Sophia comes to life in the wisdom literature of the Bible: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. But here’s the real shocker: In Proverbs 8:22-31 God creates the earth as Sophia’s plaything! I’d ask you not to tell my wife about this, but I think she already figured this out.
Richard Hooper is a former Lutheran pastor and author several books on the historical Jesus. You can write to him at Richard@sanctuarypublications.com
Sedona, Arizona
May 15, 2008
No Other Gods Before Me: Polytheism in the Bible
Biblical literalists aren’t really Biblical literalists. If they were, they would
1) Sell their daughters into slavery. (Exodus 21:7)
2) Buy slaves from other nations instead. (Leviticus 25:44)
3) Put to death anyone who works on the Sabbath. (Exodus 35:2)
4) Put to death all shamans, wiccans and other New Age types. (Exodus 22:18)
5) Stone disobedient sons. (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21)
6) Put to death all women who have sex with animals. (Leviticus 20:18)
7) Put to death all children who curse their mother and father. (Leviticus 20:9)
8) Eat your children and your own flesh. (Deuteronomy 28:53)
9) And, my personal favorite: Smash your babies against rocks (Psalms 137:9)
Obviously, if we just followed the Bible more closely, the world would not be so overpopulated.
So, if you are one of those people who the earth was created in six days, six thousand years ago, then you have to believe this other stuff as well. It’s the word of God, damn it, and if you don’t like it, you can go eat your own excrement. (2 Kings 18:27)
Like all Christians and Jews, Biblical literalists ignore those passages they don’t like or don’t understand. Take, for instance, all those passages that show that the Israelites did not originally believe in just one god. For a good portion of their history God’s chosen people were polytheistic.
When Yahweh first became the tribal war god of the Israelites he was just one of many war gods—and not necessarily the most powerful. The earliest wars recorded in the Bible were not just struggles between nations, but struggles between gods. Take the battle recorded in 2 Kings 3, for instance. Here the Israelites are defeated by their enemy, the Moabites, because the Moabite god, Chemosh, was stronger than Yahweh.
The story of Jewish polytheism begins at the beginning, with the first creation story in Genesis 1:1. In this ancient myth, “God” is not “Yahweh,” but “Elohim,” the plural form of “El,” or “God.” But El is not a single god, he is merely the chief god of a pantheon of deities. El says to the other gods “Let us create man in our image.” Later Jews could have edited this story, but they chose not to because they considered it an important part of Israel’s history and culture. Instead, they simply changed the definition of “Elohim.”
“Elohim,” can be translated in either plural or singular form. And, in fact, “Elohim” often does refer to just one God in the Bible. But how the word is translated depends entirely upon the context in which it is used.
In the context of the first creation story, “Elohim” can only be translated as plural. The deities—not unlike the Greek gods of the same era—are jealous deities, protective of their turf and their status. They forbid Adam of Eve (man and woman) from eating of the Tree of Knowledge because then humanity’s knowledge would become equal to that of the gods. The Elohim do not want man and woman to eat from the Tree of Life either, for then they would become immortal just like they were. The gods, being jealous, did not want humanity to share in their own divine nature.
The same thing happens in the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1ff.) In this story, humanity is harmonious, and has only one language. Yet they have high aspirations; they want to become more like the gods. To this end, they are in the process of building a great tower that would bring them closer to heaven. When the gods discover the Tower, they put an immediate stop to the building. Elohim says, “’Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.” (Gen. 11:1-9)
No wonder Gnostic-Christians considered the Jewish creator-god an evil demi-god who oppressed humanity by keeping it in ignorance of its true divine nature.
We meet this Elohim, this “divine council” again in I Kings 22 and in Psalms 103:21 and 148:2. In Exodus 18:1ff, Elohim has become “three men.” In the Book of Job one member of the divine council, or “bene Elohim” (“sons of God”) is none other than Satan himself.
Hebrew Biblical history began around the tenth century BCE. From that point until Alexander the Great conquered Israel in the fourth century BCE, Yahweh was not yet the exclusively monotheistic deity he eventually become. While there were certainly monotheists among the Israelites prior to that time, polytheism was still an acceptable theology.
In Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Yahweh is not the “Most High,” but plays a subservient role. Here Elyon, the Most High, appoints an Elohim named Yahweh to rule over only that territory already claimed by his own people, the Israelites.
I should also mention that the Elohim were not just transcendent beings. Just as El physically walked in the Garden of Eden, the bene Elohim were in the habit of coming down to earth to interfere in the affairs of humanity. One day, however, they went too far. They fell in love with human women and married them—even produced offspring. Such misbehavior was unbecoming of a god and inevitably led to the gods’ fall from heaven. The bene Elohim became mortal and died like the rest of us. Stories about the god’s downfall can be found in Isaiah 14:12, 15 and in Ezekiel 28:2-8.
There is some good news for women in all of this. The sons of God, always up to no good, were nothing compared to God’s daughter. God’s first born was not Jesus, or any other man. God’s firstborn was Sophia, Lady Wisdom. Sophia comes to life in the wisdom literature of the Bible: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. But here’s the real shocker: In Proverbs 8:22-31 God creates the earth as Sophia’s plaything! I’d ask you not to tell my wife about this, but I think she already figured this out.
Richard Hooper is a former Lutheran pastor and author several books on the historical Jesus. You can write to him at Richard@sanctuarypublications.com