Date of Invention of an Alphabet and its Implications for Biblical History

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Jabin
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x-posted from the History board:

The date of the invention of an alphabet keeps getting pushed back to earlier and earlier dates. For example, an ivory comb with a complete sentence written on it in ancient Canaanite was found in Lachish and dated to about 1700 BC, supporting the argument that the alphabet was invented around 1800 BC.

Southern Adventist University Archaeologists Find Ivory Comb With First Written Canaanite Sentence | Southern Adventist University

And a "curse amulet" written in proto-Hebrew and dated to 1400-1200 BC was found at the site of an ancient altar on Mt. Ebal.

ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found - Associates for Biblical Research (biblearchaeology.org)

(The altar is almost certainly the altar built by Joshua on Mt. Ebal shortly after the Israelites crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan, as described in Joshua 8:30.)

The significance of these finds is to rebut one of the criticisms of the 5 books of Moses. That is, the critics claim that Moses could not have written them because there was no alphabet during Moses's life (1500-1400 BC). Both of these finds demonstrate that alphabets were most definitely in existence, and that even a proto-Hebrew alphabet existed.

There are many other archaeological finds of early alphabet usage. This is yet another example of the error committed by Biblical skeptics in relying upon the absence of evidence as evidence of absence. Absent evidence in archaeology typically means merely that "we haven't found anything yet."

americathegreat1492
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Why does Moses have to have written the Pentateuch?
Jabin
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Well, I suppose because the Bible is replete with references to Moses as its author. Skeptics also start with attacks on Moses's authorship in their attacks on the overall historicity of the OT. I guess I'll turn the question around: why are so many skeptical scholars so eager to dispute Moses's authorship?

With all that said, I'm not aware of any scholar that won't concede that at least some, limited portions of the Pentateuch had to have been edited after Moses's death. The prime example of that is the description of Moses's death itself. A few anachronisms are also apparent, such as the use of names of locations that had different names when Moses originally wrote. Despite that, all "conservative" scholars and theologians believe that Moses was the original author of the Pentateuch and wrote the overwhelming majority of it.
Rocag
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AG
The more important argument here is the view that there is very good evidence that the Pentateuch was written by multiple different people at different times with different points of view rather than one person at one time. When you have stories that get repeated but with different writing styles and vocabulary being used I think you do have to explain that if you believe it was the product of any one individual.

I personally don't remember ever reading an argument against the traditionalist view of the Old Testament based on a lack of an alphabet.
File5
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AG
Why does it have to be physically written down at a specific point in time? Before it was written down in any form it had to be passed down orally in some fashion. Are people really trying to nail it down as "Moses physically wrote these things down in this specific year and presented them all in a box set to the Israelites" like an Old Testament Joseph Smith?
Jabin
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Quote:

When you have stories that get repeated but with different writing styles and vocabulary being used I think you do have to explain that if you believe it was the product of any one individual.
Genuine question - have any of those stylistic & vocabulary tests ever been tested themselves? I am under the impression that that style of criticism has been largely discarded with regard to other ancient texts.

And if you're referring to the JEPD theory, that has been largely demolished although scholars still love to rely on it or parts of it.

And to reply to File5, I'm not aware of anyone who claims that Moses had to write the entire Pentateuch at one sitting. The question is whether Moses was the author or not. The majority view among skeptics and "liberal" theologians is that the entire Pentateuch, as well as the OT "histories", were written about 1000 years after Moses, probably during the post-Babylonian era or even as late as the Hellenistic era.
Rocag
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AG
While I would certainly agree that specific formulations of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed and disregarded over the years, the core idea that the Pentateuch is made up of the works of several different authors writing at several different times and then later combined into its current form is still agreed upon by most scholars. The real arguments here are about how many there were, who they were, when they wrote, and when the final version was produced. You seem to be saying that because one specific version of this idea isn't accepted the general idea has also been rejected which is not the case.

And there's an entire literary field of study related to comparing texts to determine and verify authorship, not just confined to ancient texts or the Bible. Modern studies have been done to test the methods used as well and shown them to be useful, though of course we start dealing with probabilities instead of certainties here.
Jabin
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Rocag said:

While I would certainly agree that specific formulations of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed and disregarded over the years, the core idea that the Pentateuch is made up of the works of several different authors writing at several different times and then later combined into its current form is still agreed upon by most scholars. The real arguments here are about how many there were, who they were, when they wrote, and when the final version was produced. You seem to be saying that because one specific version of this idea isn't accepted the general idea has also been rejected which is not the case.

And there's an entire literary field of study related to comparing texts to determine and verify authorship, not just confined to ancient texts or the Bible. Modern studies have been done to test the methods used as well and shown them to be useful, though of course we start dealing with probabilities instead of certainties here.
First, by no means am I an expert on the documentary hypothesis or so-called higher criticism. However, what I've read has indicated that it is such an inexact discipline that no two scholars who ascribe to it can agree on which parts were written by which author or when they were written.

Second, although you are correct that the majority of scholars ascribe to it, that has never had as much persuasive authority to me as the facts upon which those scholars rely. The supposed "facts" behind the documentary hypothesis seem to be very suspect. I suspect that most if not all conservative scholars (theologically, that is) find the documentary hypothesis to be less than convincing.

If we all simply surrendered to the "majority of scholars" refrain, no advancement would ever be possible in any discipline.

For example, one of the primary arguments behind the documentary hypothesis is the differing uses of Yahweh and el in the Pentateuch. Those two words form the foundation for much of the documentary hypothesis. Yet in a series of lectures that were reprinted in a small book in 1941, Umberto Cassuto demolished that hypothesis by pointing out that the two words were used in completely different contexts - el was used in referring to God in a global sense and Yahweh when God was dealing with the Israelites particularly. So rather than pointing to different authors, the two words instead demonstrate completely different aspects of God to the early Israelites.

So how have most scholars dealt with Cassuto's work? They simply ignore it, its facts, and its logic.

At least one prominent non-conservative scholar has come out with heavy criticisms of the documentary hypothesis. Van Seters, in his book "A Review of the Edited Bible" (2006) points out that the hypothesis is based on anachronistic views of ancient documents. The authorship of The Iliad and Odyssey are examples he provides, where at one time it was argued that they had multiple authors. Van Seters demolishes all of the assumptions and arguments behind those assumptions, step by step, and shows how those same erroneous assumptions have been applied to the Biblical documentary hypothesis.

Finally, how does one determine "probabilities" without being able to test the data? The reasoning behind the multiple authors theories, whether applied to the Bible or to ancient texts, are based on assumptions and circular reasoning.

ETA:

You said:
Quote:

You seem to be saying that because one specific version of this idea isn't accepted the general idea has also been rejected which is not the case.
By no means am I suggesting that the general idea has been rejected. Quite the opposite. Rather, I am suggesting that the general idea seems specious because no two scholars who support the general idea can agree on any particulars.
Rocag
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AG
I'll be honest, I haven't read either of those authors. And, knowing what I do about internet debates, I'd frankly be shocked if you actually had and weren't just quoting an article you read somewhere. I did google Cassuto and found an article which talked about his "small book" "demolishing" this or that argument. Curious choice of words on your part then.

I'm really not interested in you saying "Oh well this author demolished that idea in this book". It's just not an informative statement. What specifically was the argument and why do you find it convincing? The Cassuto argument about the names of god used is immediately unconvincing to me because while his assertion might be true about a specific group at a specific time (and I have no idea if it actually is) I do know that further back in the timeline the two words certainly weren't interchangeable and didn't refer to the same god in different ways. This goes back to Canaanite polytheism in which El and Yahweh were two distinct gods. And you can't just hand wave that away as using the word to mean a deity in general because the Bible directly equates El Shaddai with Yahweh.

Why are you convinced that no one has addressed the concerns your authors raised? Have you actually read the arguments of people who support some version of the documentary hypothesis? Because the arguments raised by Cassuto are very general things that any argument for the documentary hypothesis would need to address.
Jabin
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I have not only read Cassuto's book as well as Van Seter's, but have outlined them and put my outline notes into a database I'm developing. And, yes, I have read some of the works by the scholars who disagree, but find them comprised almost entirely of subjective opinion and speculation and thus wholly unconvincing.

What is the evidence that the Canaanites worshipped a god named Yahweh, by the way? And what is the date of that evidence?
Rocag
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AG
I'd have to look it up to be more specific, but if I remember correctly the dating on the earliest references to Yahweh depend on whether you accept that a similarly spelt name is just a prior spelling or refers to a different deity. Common belief certainly is that the deity originated elsewhere and was later brought to the region. But all of that does reinforce the point that Yahweh and El were originally two very separate deities which was my original point on the matter. I'm certainly not going to be arguing for an early appearance of any belief similar to what Judaism became.
Jabin
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Rocag said:

I'd have to look it up to be more specific, but if I remember correctly the dating on the earliest references to Yahweh depend on whether you accept that a similarly spelt name is just a prior spelling or refers to a different deity. Common belief certainly is that the deity originated elsewhere and was later brought to the region. But all of that does reinforce the point that Yahweh and El were originally two very separate deities which was my original point on the matter. I'm certainly not going to be arguing for an early appearance of any belief similar to what Judaism became.
Or, more likely, those were two Hebrew synonyms used in different contexts. What is the evidence that within the Israelites Yahweh and el were initially two separate deities? And are you aware that there are some very very early Egyptian references to Yahweh in connection with the Israelites? I'll dig those up for you here in a bit, if I can find them readily.

In addition, there's evidence within the Pentateuch itself indicating an early date. For example, a plethora of Egyptian loanwords and place names are used whereas no loanwords from the Persian or Hellenistic periods are used. As a prime example, Moses' name itself is an Egyptian name. As far as I know, and again I emphasize that I am not an expert, no skeptical scholar has even noted or replied to that evidence.

codker92
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AG
americathegreat1492 said:

Why does Moses have to have written the Pentateuch?


I find myself asking the same question. Moses clearly did not write the entire Pentateuch.
codker92
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AG
Jabin said:

I have not only read Cassuto's book as well as Van Seter's, but have outlined them and put my outline notes into a database I'm developing. And, yes, I have read some of the works by the scholars who disagree, but find them comprised almost entirely of subjective opinion and speculation and thus wholly unconvincing.

What is the evidence that the Canaanites worshipped a god named Yahweh, by the way? And what is the date of that evidence?


There is no evidence Canaanites worshipped Yahweh, but there is evidence other semites did. Midianites in particular.
Rocag
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AG
I don't see how that's a more likely conclusion. You've presented no evidence it is so other than stating that an author claimed it was in a book. And we can't act like the Hebrews were some completely separate group completely cut off from everyone who surrounded them, that makes no sense. We know that they and the cultures around them intermingled and affected each other. The Bible itself lends to this conclusion. But perhaps an obvious indicator that the Israelites themselves recognized that they two were recognized as separate deities is the fact that they had to go out of their way to make clear that they considered them one. It's the point of Exodus 6:2-3.

And I'm frankly a bit baffled by the things you state no critic of Mosaic authorship have considered or addressed. They are all, such as Egyptian loan words, a commonly known and discussed topic. The fact you think the entire subject is being ignored is very, very odd to me. Read literally any well researched author on the subject and they'll discuss it. And it's my understanding that there are lots of Akkadian loan words found throughout the Old Testament, however that fact doesn't tell us much about when they were brought in since Akkadian was spoken for such a long time.
Jabin
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Quote:

You've presented no evidence it is so other than stating that an author claimed it was in a book.
Well, I also presented a summary of his reasoning and arguments. Remind me of the evidence that you've presented? All I remember are your conclusions.

Quote:

And we can't act like the Hebrews were some completely separate group completely cut off from everyone who surrounded them, that makes no sense. We know that they and the cultures around them intermingled and affected each other. The Bible itself lends to this conclusion
True. I don't think that I've stated or even intimated anything different. If I did, I misspoke or failed to write clearly. But I don't think that that has anything at all to do with whether or not Moses wrote the bulk of the Pentateuch.

Quote:

But perhaps an obvious indicator that the Israelites themselves recognized that they two were recognized as separate deities is the fact that they had to go out of their way to make clear that they considered them one. It's the point of Exodus 6:2-3.
That cuts against your point which is that the two different references to God reflect different authors of the Pentateuch. Instead, it reinforces Cassuto's point.

Quote:

And I'm frankly a bit baffled by the things you state no critic of Mosaic authorship have considered or addressed. They are all, such as Egyptian loan words, a commonly known and discussed topic. The fact you think the entire subject is being ignored is very, very odd to me. Read literally any well researched author on the subject and they'll discuss it.
That could well be true. It's admittedly not the primary focus of my research. The skeptical authors I've read have not addressed it. But with the point you make above, I will now focus on it. Out of curiosity, how do the authors you reference address the imbalance of loan words? Do they acknowledge that it's a strong factor contradicting the thesis of a late date for the writing of the Pentateuch? Which one or two books would you recommend?

As a parting comment, it's fine to be a skeptic. I'm one of the world's greatest skeptics about just about everything, including much of what passes for scholarly work in mainstream Christianity. But I frequently find that Biblical skeptics are not skeptical of the skeptics themselves. That is, many (not you, of course) take skeptical scholar's word for something without examining that scholar's conclusions critically.

From my limited reading of higher criticism, it strikes me as a lot of conjecture, personal opinion and conclusory statements without consideration of alternative explanations. For example, a change in writing style can be explained by a lot other than different authors. For example, Moses may have written at widely different times. My own writing style and vocabulary have changed dramatically over the years. Moses may have utilized an amanuensis who may have done more than simply write Moses's literal words. I just find higher criticism to be very subjective and incapable of disproof. It is also seemingly an almost useless analytical tool if no two experts can agree on which parts were written by different authors.
Rocag
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AG
Quote:

That cuts against your point which is that the two different references to God reflect different authors of the Pentateuch. Instead, it reinforces Cassuto's point.
I'm not seeing how you've reached that conclusion at all. Let me explain how I see it. We've got two different religious traditions. I don't want to just say authors here because I don't want to give the impression that I think they were creating some completely new story like Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard. One tradition focuses on a deity called El while the other has a deity named Yahweh. So the author has to address this difference, and they do so in the verse mentioned.
Quote:

2 Then God spoke to Moses, and said to him: I am the LORD.
3 As God the Almighty (El Shaddai) I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but by my name, LORD (Yahweh), I did not make myself known to them.
This certainly makes sense if the audience was understood to recognize the names as being references to separate deities, but not so much if they are just synonyms. If they were just that there's no reason for this verse to exist.
Zobel
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AG
This has been understood for over two millennia - two powers in heaven. The Word is Yahweh and the God Almighty is also Yahweh. There's also a *lot* of interfaith dialogue going on the OT - El and Lord being names or titles for other adjacent deities (eg Baal). But a lot of this wasn't re-learned until the discovery of the ugaritic texts last century.
Jabin
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It does if el was the universal name for God and Yahweh was the name for God as he addressed the Israelites in particular. We do that all the time in modern English. Texas A&M University is the formal name of our school but Texas Aggies is its nickname. Or my dog has a formal name that is used on her pedigree snd her name that I use to call her every day. Even today, the use of the word God does not necessarily reflect the god of Christians or the god of Hindus or any other particular God. It is simply a word meant to describe a supreme deity. But if you hear somebody refer to Jehovah, it's pretty clear that they are referring to the Hebrew or Christian God. The use of both names in each of those scenarios in no way reflects separate authors.

That illustrates exactly what I dislike about higher criticism. Its proponents seem to ignore any reasonable explanation other than the explanation of separate authors. Relying on El and Yahweh as evidence of separate authors is very weak sauce.
Zobel
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AG
Yes and when you combine this with the direct confrontation between Yahweh and the Baals or other gods it gets more confusing for us who lack context. For example Yahweh is more storm god than Baal the storm god (eg Elijah and the fire from heaven), Yahweh is a cloud rider over and against Baal (also why Jesus / son of man comes riding on the cloud) and so on.
Jabin
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That's really interesting. I have never heard of the Hebrew Yahweh described as a storm god before. Are you aware of any ancient references to him specifically as such?

One reason I ask is that Manfred Bietak found a cylinder seal at Avaris in Egypt. He had it examined by Porada, recently deceased, who was the worlds leading expert on ancient cylinder seals. Among many other characters on it, it had a figure that she characterized as a storm God and attributed it to the cult of Seth. However, a rabbi has written a paper and instead describes each of the characters as symbolic of one of the 12 tribes of Israel and claims that it is a Hebrew artifact left in Egypt.

If one could show that the Hebrews actually thought of Yahweh as a storm God, that might put yet another interpretation on the seal.
Zobel
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AG
It's not that He is a storm god per se, it is that He is God proper, and none of the others gods are. So He is a storm god moreso than Baal. That's the underling claim or proof. Baal as a storm god is also fertility and rain god. When Elijah comes and says "no more rain" that's a direct challenge to Baal and those worshipping him. And when "fire from heaven" (lightning) consumes the offering to Yahweh - and not for the prophets of Baal - and then the rain comes, that's showing that Yahweh and not Baal is the true storm god.

Cloud rider is an epithet of Baal's yet the Son of Man, and Christ, ride the cloud. Same thing.

Baal conquers Yom (the Sea) in the Baal cycle yet Jesus who is Yahweh calms the sea. Baal is the storm god yet Jesus calms the storm. These types of claims are all throughout the OT and Psalms in particular. Psalm 24 is a direct mockery of the Baal cycle saying that Yahweh, not Baal, is the true king and conqueror.
Jabin
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I did not know any of that. That is incredibly interesting and really illuminates a lot of the old testament passages. It also shows the depth of those passages.
Zobel
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AG
Yeah and it also makes claims like the synoptic gospels don't identify Jesus as God silly. There's tons of direct identifications of Him as Yahweh in this way.
Win At Life
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This seems appropriate here. Kind of interesting that this found by a group right here in Katy Texas.

https://biblearchaeology.org/current-events-list/4896-abr-researchers-discover-the-oldest-known-proto-hebrew-inscription-ever-found

wbt5845
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AG
This is the kind of weird rabbit hole people go down when trying to justify a particular doctrine.

Written language exists only as a complement to a specific spoken language. It is just a tool, just like a crescent wrench - figures or diagrams that represent certain sounds. The string of the oral sounds is the actual language.
Jabin
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Win At Life said:

This seems appropriate here. Kind of interesting that this found by a group right here in Katy Texas.

https://biblearchaeology.org/current-events-list/4896-abr-researchers-discover-the-oldest-known-proto-hebrew-inscription-ever-found


That's the second link in my OP. Those guys do great archaeology. They seem to be much more cautious in their interpretations of archaeology than many secular archaeologists.

They've also done great work in relocating Biblical Ai from et-Tell to Khirbet el-Maqatir. When everyone assumed that et-Tell was Ai, it was Exhibit B in the skeptics' claim that there was no archaeological evidence for the Conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. Specifically, there was no et-Tell at the time that the Conquest occurred. However, even a basic reading of the Bible's description of the location of Ai makes it clear that et-Tell could not have been its location. Now, Ai is a great example of how skeptics constantly trip over themselves when they constantly violate the truism that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

The Khirbet el-Maqatir Excavations - Associates for Biblical Research (biblearchaeology.org)
Rocag
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AG
I think we're starting to get to the point of the discussion in which our disagreements about what is a more reasonable understanding of any point in the text is based on whether or not we are presupposing the text to be divinely inspired or not. If you assume that at the outset, or further that the text is explicitly inerrant, you are definitely going to reach conclusions that may be internally consistent but are otherwise not at all necessary. Now I'm sure you are confident that the text was meant to be understood this way, but it does make discussion with someone who doesn't make those assumptions difficult.

As for other deities appearing in the Old Testament, my opinion is that a lot of the stories make more sense if we see it not as depicting monotheists choosing one god over another but of describing a largely polytheistic society whose worship of any specific deity is very situational.
Jabin
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Rocag, I agreed that we may be at that point in the discussion. But with all due respect, what you say about theists may also be true of non-theists and skeptics in their view of scripture. In other words, skeptics and non-theists may be force fitting the evidence into their own preferred model. In other words, if you discover evidence that could possibly point to multiple authors, you immediately leap to that conclusion when there may be multiple other reasonable interpretation of that evidence.

We all think that we are objective, but if there is any absolute truth in life, it is that no one is truly objective.
Win At Life
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AG
Oh, yeah. Apologize for not even looking more at your OP. I got caught up in all the ensuing discussion and never got back to the OP. Perhaps this is one you haven't already referenced:

Zobel
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AG
Rocag said:

As for other deities appearing in the Old Testament, my opinion is that a lot of the stories make more sense if we see it not as depicting monotheists choosing one god over another but of describing a largely polytheistic society whose worship of any specific deity is very situational.
Well, seeing as the entire story of the OT is of a people who were called out from (created from) a polytheistic world to worship a particular God, and then they completely and utterly fail repeatedly to ever - ever - be faithful to that calling... this makes perfect sense.

No one on the OT was monotheistic. The concept itself didn't exist until the 1600s.
Jabin
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Petrovic has just come out with a pretty good book on evidence for the Israelites in ancient Egypt. He may engage in a bit too much speculation at times, but that's true of every archaeologist I've read.
Jabin
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Quote:

No one on the OT was monotheistic. The concept itself didn't exist until the 1600s.
I assume that you mean 1600 BC? If that's correct, which person or event or you tying that to? Wasn't Abraham monotheistic? If so, he probably lived in the 1800s BC give or take.
Zobel
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AG
No I mean 1600 AD. That was when the idea of monotheism was created.

Abraham was henotheistic. He believed in Yahweh but by no means did he or any others in Israel deny that the gods of the nations existed. As St. Paul says, quoting Ps 96, the gods of the nations are demons. He doesn't say when you eat food offered to idols you commune with nothing - he says you commune with demons. Yahweh is the God Most High, but there are other gods. To try to scrub that out of the OT does great violence to the text.

That being said, those gods are not like the Lord - He alone causes things to be, He created everything, even the other gods. That's the difference.
Jabin
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Ahhh, Gotcha. I had never heard of that word nor the distinction before. What happened in 1600 AD? Christians before that time were henotheistic?

Edit to add more questions: Do we really know that the ancient Hebrews were henotheistic Or is it merely likely that they work? For example, do we really know if Elijah believed that Baal was a real deity without power or did he deny the very existence of Baal? You may very well be correct, but isn't the Bible somewhat silent on the precise point?

Second edit: after googling henotheism and Israelites, it appears that there are a bunch of verses that seem to show that Israelites were monotheistic. How do you deal with them?


Deut 4:35 - . . . the Lord [Yahweh], He is God; there is no other besides Him.

Deut 4:39 - the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.

2 Kgs 19:15 - You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.

1 Samuel 2:2 - Indeed, there is no one besides You,

Is 37:16 - "Lord of armies, God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and earth.

Is. 37: 18-19 - 18 Truly, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the countries and their lands, 19 and have thrown their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but only the work of human hands, wood and stone. So they have destroyed them.

Is. 41:4 - I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.'

Is. 43:10-11 - Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. 11 I, only I, am the Lord, And there is no savior besides Me.

Is. 44:6 - 6 "This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies:
'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.

(A bunch of similar verses & statements in Is. 45)


Jer 16:20 - Can a person make gods for himself? But they are not gods!

Neh. 9:6 - You alone are the Lord.

Ps. 86:10 - You alone are God.

Ps. 96:5 - For all the gods [Elohim] of the peoples are non-existent things [elilim], But the Lord made the heavens.

Those sound very strongly monotheistic to me.

Without giving it a great deal of thought, I've always assumed that the people around ancient Israel worshiped demons who did (and still do?) have powers, or, alternatively, that they worshiped idols of their own making to which demons may have given some power to further drive people away from the true God. Although those demons might have been supernatural beings with power, that did not make them divine.

Also, I suspect that el or El may have originally referred to the one true God. But that word became corrupted over time as people drifted away from Him to false deities of their own making. Just as God chose Abraham and his descendants to be committed solely to Him, He may have also given them His true name in order to avoid the corrupted word "El". Just spitballin' on that, though.
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