There was an actual rather unique process in Judaism of the elimination of female goddesses in favour of a purely male religion. I consider that process is the same thing as the fall from grace into corruption.
Where Egypt had Isis as the equal queen alongside Osiris, and where in fact Jehovah used to be married to Asherah, Judaism evolved into a religion where Jehovah had no female consort, hence the priority that Moses explains of smashing the groves of Asherah.
Even Zeus had Hera as a highly powerful queen of heaven. In Genesis, Eve totally gets the blame for the fall from grace, a myth that has been used extensively in Christianity to justify sexism, and Adam's first wife Lilith is out of the picture in the Bible.
Has such a process of unbalanced sexual religious power occurred elsewhere? It is remarkable that the Jewish sexist attitude proved so suitable for the theory of God in modern civilization. There is a good argument that this unbalanced theory is a source of sin and alienation of spirit from nature as primary cultural pathologies.
Even with the modification by Christianity to include the Blessed Virgin Mary and the nurturing qualities of Jesus, the core belief of God as Father sees the idea of God as Mother as a heresy. Mary is outside the divine trinity, in which the holy spirit suffered a sex change to male from its earlier female identity. Mary is idolized under patriarchal control as virgin mother, but also has a prominent mythical role of queen of heaven, continuing the role of Hera and Isis within pagan myth.
My view in terms of primary archetypes is the paternal divine is about eternal cosmic order and control, while the maternal divine is about temporal earthly care and nurture. Atheism, by attacking God the Father, actually facilitates social delinquency through the undermining of paternal transmission of values.
But the case for atheism is provided by the unbalanced nature of patriarchal religion which fails to recognize the equal role of the feminine. So the answer is not atheism but rather a reform of religion through a holy marriage between Jehovah as Sky Father and Gaia as Earth Mother.
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Is God a silverback?
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Re: Is God a silverback?
So what evidence historical or archaeological do you have to support your theory, Robert? In fact there is considerable evidence that monotheism was the original belief and polytheism a deviation from this.Robert Tulip wrote:As I have argued, Jewish monotheism arose in ancient Israel primarily as a military security response, as a way to enforce patriarchal hierarchy in a situation of considerable threat from big surrounding empires. Older forms of social organisation that were more egalitarian and free did not provide the moral strictness required to enforce conformity and deter attack.
In this podcast Dr Winfried Corduan discusses his book on the subject and the evidence supporting original monotheism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNTJF1QYlbo
As far as evolutionary psychologist Barash's absurd silverback thesis is concerned, this is characteristic of the habitual 'explanatory' absurdity evo-psych churns out from it's impoverished reductionist Darwinism.
http://www.discovery.org/f/388
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Re: Is God a silverback?
See the views attributed to God at http://biblehub.com/niv/2_kings/23.htmFlann 5 wrote:monotheism was the original belief and polytheism a deviation
Josiah’s very convenient “discovery” of Deuteronomy, seemingly after laying dustily forgotten for centuries, illustrates that claims about the early existence of monotheism are fraudulentGod wrote:He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord.
Here we see the real emergence of monotheism in the Bible, with King Josiah’s edict banning polytheism.God wrote:The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts.
The fact that “kings of Judah” practiced astral religion again illustrates that polytheism preceded monotheism.God wrote: He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.
This is a key incident regarding the divorce of God. Previously, Asherah was married to Jehovah, but as the society became less peaceful, this marriage no longer served the objective of social stability, and Asherah had to be cast into the outer darkness to gnash her teeth.God wrote: 6He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. 7He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.
Here the banning of astral religion is made most explicit with the burning of the chariots of the sun, which in the previous more peaceful days before the patriarchal fall from grace had served to enable the veneration for the natural cycles of the seasons as part of polytheist culture.God wrote: 8Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. 9Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. 11He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the courta near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
These desecrating acts of iconoclasm and vilification are central to Judeo-Christian identity, and really need to be psychoanalysed as a basis of the ongoing sick pathology of contemporary supernatural monotheistic patriarchy.God wrote: 12He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.
This alleged “foretelling” is pure fraudulent invention by King Josiah, who also allegedly found books that “foretold” his own rule. The view that female religion was the basis of sin served the military security dogma of patriarchal hierarchy that was central to the emerging religion of monotheism. Monotheism replaced polytheism as a steady evolutionary process driven by the increasing sophistication of metal technology as iron replaced bronze in the clash of empires within the melting crucible of Israel.God wrote: 15Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. 16Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
Hi Robert. Certainly monotheism is clearly found in Genesis for example.Robert Tulip wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
monotheism was the original belief and polytheism a deviation
See the views attributed to God at http://biblehub.com/niv/2_kings/23.htm
Not at all.The kings departed from the covenant with Yawweh and what is recounted is the renewal of the original covenant by Josiah.Robert Tulip wrote:God wrote:
He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord.
Josiah’s very convenient “discovery” of Deuteronomy, seemingly after laying dustily forgotten for centuries, illustrates that claims about the early existence of monotheism are fraudulent
Furthermore your theory that monotheism was 'invented 'by the rulers for political reasons to avoid conflict with surrounding nations, hardly explains why so many of these rulers (the kings) in fact vigorously pursued the worship of pagan gods.
It's in no way surprising that the book of the law was lost in such a climate.
Again you are assuming that these pagan practices were not a departure from the original covenant which is what the account is actually describing.Robert Tulip wrote:God wrote:
He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts.
The fact that “kings of Judah” practiced astral religion again illustrates that polytheism preceded monotheism.
How do you know that "previous days were more peaceful?" There is nothing peaceful about sacrificing children to Molech in the fire. And that was not a new religion.Robert Tulip wrote:
God wrote:
8Josiah brought all the priests from the towns of Judah and desecrated the high places, from Geba to Beersheba, where the priests had burned incense. He broke down the gateway at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua, the city governor, which was on the left of the city gate. 9Although the priests of the high places did not serve at the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, they ate unleavened bread with their fellow priests.
10He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice their son or daughter in the fire to Molek. 11He removed from the entrance to the temple of the Lord the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. They were in the courta near the room of an official named Nathan-Melek. Josiah then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun.
Here the banning of astral religion is made most explicit with the burning of the chariots of the sun, which in the previous more peaceful days before the patriarchal fall from grace had served to enable the veneration for the natural cycles of the seasons as part of polytheist culture.
So you say Robert,but Josiah was a mere boy and your characteristic attribution of Machiavellian manipulation doesn't ring true.Robert Tulip wrote:God wrote:
15Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also. 16Then Josiah looked around, and when he saw the tombs that were there on the hillside, he had the bones removed from them and burned on the altar to defile it, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by the man of God who foretold these things.
This alleged “foretelling” is pure fraudulent invention by King Josiah, who also allegedly found books that “foretold” his own rule. The view that female religion was the basis of sin served the military security dogma of patriarchal hierarchy that was central to the emerging religion of monotheism. Monotheism replaced polytheism as a steady evolutionary process driven by the increasing sophistication of metal technology as iron replaced bronze in the clash of empires within the melting crucible of Israel.
In fact your reasoning in relation to the dating and authorship of these books is heavily influenced by Wellhausen's outdated and discredited Documentary source Hypothesis.
You resort to the same kind of conspiracy theorizing about the gospels and the N.T. and ignore real history in doing so.
For instance,in the gospel of Luke there is an account of Jesus' encounter with Zacchaeus who is described as being a chief tax collector and well known to the people.
The idea that real people like Pilate,Herod, John the Baptist and many others, and their interactions with a 'mythical' Christ were fabricated and nobody noticed apparently, is not credible.
But we've been over all this before. You have your conspiracy theories but they don't really fit the facts of history.
P.s. This post was accidentally duplicated.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
King Josiah, who "found" the hitherto unknown book of Deuteronomy in the temple of Jerusalem, clearly did invent the monotheist back story.Flann 5 wrote:monotheism is clearly found in Genesis... The kings departed from the covenant with Yawweh and what is recounted is the renewal of the original covenant by Josiah.
Fundamentalists adhere to chronological schemes in which the Torah is written first, in much the same order as the books appear in the Old Testament. That dating scheme is fanciful junk and completely untrue.
A more reliable dating is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_th ... l_overview
Sigmund Freud provides a fascinating if fanciful argument in his book Moses and Monotheism for how monotheism may have emerged from the Egyptian solar monotheism of Akhenaten. But clearly Moses was a late invention, since the Exodus from Egypt is pure fiction, together with the entire theory of a single God the Father that goes along with it.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
What's curious to me Robert, is that you happily accept the account in Kings when you think it supports your view of the Israelite practice of polytheism, which Josiah is described as attacking.Robert Tulip wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
monotheism is clearly found in Genesis... The kings departed from the covenant with Yawweh and what is recounted is the renewal of the original covenant by Josiah.
King Josiah, who "found" the hitherto unknown book of Deuteronomy in the temple of Jerusalem, clearly did invent the monotheist back story.
You don't though accept the same author's account of the discovery of the book in the temple by Hilkiah as that debunks your view.
Arbitrary.
Incidentally Hilkiah and Shaphan the scribe, Josiah's contemporaries are found in archaeological discoveries to be have been real historic people and not mythological beings.
Most scholars think the scroll was of Deuteronomy and how long it was lost for is not known but your hundreds of years is pushing it to an extreme.
Conservative biblical scholars certainly do dispute the claims of higher critical liberal scholars and their subjective approach to determining questions of the authorship and dating of biblical books.Robert Tulip wrote:Fundamentalists adhere to chronological schemes in which the Torah is written first, in much the same order as the books appear in the Old Testament. That dating scheme is fanciful junk and completely untrue.
A more reliable dating is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_th ... l_overview
Your wiki article is standard liberal scholarship which in reality is grounded in naturalistic and anti-supernaturalistic assumptions.
Heaven forbid that a prophet such as Isaiah should actually prophesy any future events and more disturbingly prophesy of the coming messiah's atoning death, suffering and resurrection!
Well that patently wasn't postdated.But the liberal scholars like in the wiki article have two or even three 'Isaiahs'.
The ghost of Wellhausen still haunts liberal scholarship and they tinker with the hypothesis and even come up with more sources than Wellhausen at times.
In the end worldviews dictate what many people are willing to accept in terms of evidence. The documentary source hypothesis is a dud, but it and variants of it are the best the liberal scholars have got.
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/20 ... px#Article
Last edited by Flann 5 on Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
More on the dreaded "liberal" scholarship is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_th ... _Testament which again shows that the idea that polytheism evolved out of monotheism is not true.Flann 5 wrote:you happily accept the account in Kings when you think it supports your view of the Israelite practice of polytheism, which Josiah is described as attacking.
You don't though accept the same author's account of the discovery of the book in the temple by Hilkiah as that debunks your view.
Arbitrary.
Far from an arbitrary reading, this is scholarship, unlike the traditional pious views which are entirely about justifying literal Biblical inerrancy.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
Well Robert you have just linked a more extensive wiki article on what most modern scholars think on dating and authorship of the books of the bible.Robert Tulip wrote:More on the dreaded "liberal" scholarship is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_th ... _Testament which again shows that the idea that polytheism evolved out of monotheism is not true.
Far from an arbitrary reading, this is scholarship, unlike the traditional pious views which are entirely about justifying literal Biblical inerrancy.
It's all founded on higher critical methods which are highly subjective and largely variants on the documentary hypothesis. The question is are these methods and arguments for their views any good?
This can't be decided by a head count but by the evidence and arguments themselves. In my previous post I linked an article critiqueing the documentary source hypothesis.They need to answer these arguments.
As I say arguments based on such as literary criticism can be misleading and plain wrong.Your most recent two posts are really the work of Deutero-Tulip not Proto-Tulip. Why? because Proto-Tulip's posts are lengthy and he refers to fundies whereas Deutero-Tulip's post are unusually brief and refers somewhat properly to fundamentalists.
In fact there are very good and compelling arguments for the unity and single authorship of Isaiah by the prophet Isaiah. The higher critics fail on their own terms.
Rachel Margalioth wrote a book " The Indivisible Isaiah" analyzing themes,style,phraseology etc in Isaiah in some detail. This sample from her book provides a brief excerpt of the kind of studies she does analysing comparisons and contrasts etc which she finds in the book of Isaiah, pointing strongly to single authorship.
http://www.datingtheoldtestament.com/excerpt2.htm
Conservative biblical scholars are well versed and qualified in their field of study. In the article I linked it refers even to liberal scholars becoming dissatisfied with the documentary hypothesis and it's variants.
The real question is what view does the internal and external evidence support? Kenneth Kitchen in his massive work on the factual reliability of the Old Testament, laments the ignorance of ongoing archaeological discoveries in many liberal scholars,who are clinging to discredited theories.
It would be a gargantuan task to address all the books of the bible individually, but here's another article on the Pentateuch in the form of a review of a book.
http://www.equip.org/PDF/DW035.pdf
Last edited by Flann 5 on Fri Jul 22, 2016 6:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Is God a silverback?
Good to see you back, Flann. I hope you don't mind sticking my nose in here.
Robert Wright, in his book, the Evolution of God, argues that early humans were polytheists. Monotheism came into being much later and, indeed, was part of the 'evolution' that he discusses in his book. I don't think this is really disputed is it? Clearly there are references to polytheism in the Old Testament (Thou shalt have none other gods before me), but even so, you can look to other cultures dating back thousands of years (the Greeks, the Celts) and they were polytheists. Forgive me if I'm missing something here.
I came across this interview with Thom Stark, a scholar of ancient and modern religious texts. Though he is a Christian, he argues against the notion of an inerrant Bible.
An excerpt:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-t ... 77340.html
Robert Wright, in his book, the Evolution of God, argues that early humans were polytheists. Monotheism came into being much later and, indeed, was part of the 'evolution' that he discusses in his book. I don't think this is really disputed is it? Clearly there are references to polytheism in the Old Testament (Thou shalt have none other gods before me), but even so, you can look to other cultures dating back thousands of years (the Greeks, the Celts) and they were polytheists. Forgive me if I'm missing something here.
I came across this interview with Thom Stark, a scholar of ancient and modern religious texts. Though he is a Christian, he argues against the notion of an inerrant Bible.
An excerpt:
Maybe it's appropriate to apply First Commandment—though shall have no other gods before me—to those who worship the creeds? That's what Stark seems to suggest. But more importantly, Stark argues that the early Israelites were polytheists and that Yahweh was one El Elyon’s children. Only later did Yahweh become the one God of monotheist Christianity. There's plenty of textual evidence to support this.At this point, many Christians would abandon their faith, because their faith is in the creeds, and in an idea of an inerrant Bible. For me, on the other hand, taking the Bible seriously meant taking all of the conflicting voices within the Bible seriously, and I was able to see the value in that. What informs my faith is not so much what the Bible “says” as it is what the Bible displays, the processes that unfold in its pages, the struggle to find meaning that it represents. It’s precisely in the humanity of the Bible that we can gain real insight into the divine. What’s revelatory is not always the words themselves, but the spaces between them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-t ... 77340.html
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Re: Is God a silverback?
I was mildly nonplussed by Flann's surprising assertion that polytheism arose from monotheism. A traditional theory of religious evolution sees monotheism as the high point of religious enlightenment, evolving from earlier approaches such as animist belief in nature spirits and polytheism, which are both conceived as earlier more primitive approaches to religion. This model of animism=>polytheism=>monotheism imagines a close parallel between social and religious progress, but it breaks down when the failings of monotheism are considered.geo wrote:cultures dating back thousands of years (the Greeks, the Celts) were polytheists. Forgive me if I'm missing something here.
Atheists sometimes argue that loss of faith is the next higher step, as a cultural evolution beyond religion. The problem with that is that atheism fails to replace the tribal elements of religion. The communist version of atheism uses class war by the militant godless as the tribal motive, but that is a regression from religion. Capitalist atheism with its religious ideology of secular liberal individualism fails to capture the tribal ritual function of religion, and so lacks potential to provide a meaningful story able to inspire broad interest.