Question: Did you also study ancient religions and how they may have been related to the old testament? Believing in one god.. which is Jesus father is where my faith is in. But I feel there is more than 1 god being described in the bible.. they just did not call them by different names. The point he also says he is a jealous god means there is someone else. not just someone or something that can be empowered by people like idols but as in other gods like himself but with different occupations.. just like in the greek stories. This is one reason young people who have had a strong religious faith lose it when they go to college or a seminary. Because instead of saying that there is one God and teaching that to the students, they will confuse them. Which is a good thing, because that makes them investigate for themselves. For many centuries, Jewish and Christian theologians agreed that the accounts of the worlds origin given in Genesis were not only inspired by God, but owed nothing to any other scriptures. These authors are probably correct that all but Bible believers (fundamentalists) have abandoned this view. The abandonment of the Genesis Creation Story as a factual account has become so prevalent that some denominations now treat it as myth in their Sunday School material. However, the fundamentalist view is not extreme. It is based on fact. The Genesis Creation Story does not owe anything to the creation myths of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The latter were written for a completely different purpose. They are not really about the creation of the universe at all. They are related to the genesis of a certain kings reign. Priest-scribes wrote them to establish the kings (and his gods) supremacy. Each myth is different with its local adaptations. The Biblical history has unity, never changing, as the myths do with each succeeding king. The first account of Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:31) was composed at Jerusalem soon after the return from the Babylonian Exile (500 BC). God is here named Elohim. The second account (Genesis 2:4-22) is also Judaean, possibly of Edomite origin, and pre-Exilic (600 BC). Here God was originally named Yahweh (YHVH), but the priestly editor has changed this to Yahweh (YHVH) Elohim (usually translated as the Lord God), thus identifying the God of Genesis 1 with that of Genesis 2, and giving the versions an appearance of uniformity. He did not, however, eliminate certain contradictory details in the order of creation. This interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 agrees with many scholars. Their opinions are that the Creation stories were made up quite late, precluding any Mosaic authorship. They claim (without proof other than some seeming similarities) that they were borrowed from the literature of other nations. Even though competent scholars have demonstrated that the Pentateuch (Torah) is much older than these men claim, the critics, nevertheless, continue to press their viewpoint. That their contentions hold sway even among church educators can be seen in a sample from a publication for the instruction of laymen. Out of these sources (Genesis through Numbers) they formed what is called the Priestly History. The motive for the formation of this history was Israels own situation. The community had been destroyed and the people scattered. How should they plan for the future? The priests turned to the past for their guidelines . . .[i.e., they composed the Books of Moses from oral tradition and the myths of the other nations of the ancient near east.] And so their Priestly History became the foundational document by which the exiles from Babylonian slavery sought to organize themselves. The author above espouses the theory that the priests made up the Books of Moses as a means of pulling the Israelites together and organizing them as a nation. Looking at it this way, religion could be used as an opiate. By this theory, Genesis is simply a semi-historical preamble for the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy. In the latter, the Tabernacle is described, the priestly order is laid out, the sacrificial system and feast days are all instituted. The above authors claim that these Old Testament books (the Tanakh) were written for the same purpose as all other Ancient Near Eastern documents were written - to control men through religion. To continue with the Laymans Introduction, The heart of this history is the story in Exodus 1-15 of the deliverance by God of Israel from Egypt. This key event, by which the exilic priests interpreted the meaning of history, was the central event to which Israel had looked for centuries. The narratives in the book of Genesis seem to have been added as a preface to the history of Gods salvation described in Exodus through Numbers; the creation stories in the Bible do not give us a scientific description, but a symbolic one. They were trying to present the theological meaning of creation. The writers of the Old Testament, however, borrowed motifs and allusions from the myths of Mesopotamia and Canaan as means of describing the significance of Gods acts in the world. They never borrowed the mythological materials unchanged, but always transformed them into ways of describing the actions of the one God of the world. So we do not read this creation story for accurate information about the process of creation. Many scholars teaching in seminaries train ministers and rabbis who, in turn, teach things similar to the above. Many today consider the Bibles Creation Story a myth. They believe it has evolved and is written for the same basic purpose as the truly mythical creation accounts of the Ancient Near East. These scholars seem incapable of understanding that the Bible is history and the myths of the ancient near east are little more than political propaganda. Characteristics of this position are the following: 1. Religion has evolved. Thus man will get better and better. 2. Adam and Eve were not real people. They were only symbolic, or mythical persons (but, we know that Jesus and Paul spoke of them as real people). 3. Israel did as other nations did. Their leaders manufactured the Torah to control the people. 4. The Torah (5 books of Moses) was written late, 600-500 BC, thus it was borrowed from other literature. 5. The possibility is rejected that Genesis was written early, enabling all others to borrow from it. 6. There is always the possibility that this kind of writer is guilty of that which they accuse the Bible writers, that is, of using a philosophy of the evolution-of-religion to control other peoples understanding of Gods Word. You also said that God mentioned that he is a jealous God, so that means there is more than one God… It is important to understand how the word “jealous” is used. Its use in Exodus 20:5 to describe God is different from how it is used to describe the sin of jealousy in Galatians 5:20. When we use the word “jealous,” we use it in the sense of being envious of someone who has something we do not have. A person might be jealous or envious of another person because he or she has a nice car or home (possessions). Or a person might be jealous or envious of another person because of some ability or skill that other person has (such as athletic ability). Another example would be that one person might be jealous or envious of another because of his or her beauty. In Exodus 20:5, it is not that God is jealous or envious because someone has something He wants or needs; Exodus 20:4-5 says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God...” Notice that God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him. In these verses, God is speaking of people making idols and bowing down and worshiping those idols instead of giving God the worship that belongs to Him alone. God is possessive of the worship and service that belong to Him. It is a sin (as God points out in this commandment) to worship or serve anything other than God. It is a sin when we desire, or we are envious, or we are jealous of someone because he has something that we do not have. It is a different use of the word “jealous” when God says He is jealous. What He is jealous of belongs to Him; worship and service belong to Him alone, and are to be given to Him alone. Perhaps a practical example will help us understand the difference. If a husband sees another man flirting with his wife, he is right to be jealous, for only he has the right to flirt with his wife. This type of jealousy is not sinful. Rather, it is entirely appropriate. Being jealous for something that God declares to belong to you is good and appropriate. Jealousy is a sin when it is a desire for something that does not belong to you. Worship, praise, honor, and adoration belong to God alone, for only He is truly worthy of it. Therefore, God is rightly jealous when worship, praise, honor, or adoration is given to idols. This is precisely the jealousy that St. Paul described in 2 Conrinthians 11:2; “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy...” Believe that THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD! God be with you…
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 08:48:11 +0000
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