So who was Yahweh, anyway?

[Swammerdami]

Religious skeptics like to point out that the God (Yahweh) of the Old Testament is very different from the God (Father) described by Jesus in the Gospels. Yes: These were two very different entities.

I am particularly interested in evidence from ancient documents, including Old and New Testaments. Would it be futile to ask that writings and developments in the last 1900 years be off-topic in this thread?

The Yahweh in the Old Testament was not a particularly benevolent or forgiving god. There are incidents where Yahweh condemns an Israelite King because that King wasn't horrible or brutal enough?

Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

"Put to death men and women, children and infants"? If these are the words of a benevolent forgiving God, I'd hate to read about a vengeful one....

7 Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. 8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.

It sounds like Saul killed the women and children as he was instructed to do. Good boy!

9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.

10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

Nope. Saul kills the women and children, but contrary to Yahweh's orders spares the best calves and lambs. Bad boy. Yahweh regrets making Saul King over the Israelites.

Some Old Testament books refer to "Yahweh"; other books call their God "Elohim." I ask the experts: Was Elohim just as vengeful and blood-thirsry as Yahweh, or was he a more benevolent God?

Jesus' God was rather the opposite of Yahweh:

9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

Some say that addressing the Pharisees in John 8, Jesus specifically condemns Yahweh the "father" of the Jews:

44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Many ancient Gods were actually ancestral kings. Could Yahweh worship have begun as the veneration of a particularly vengeful king? (There are interesting clues about the earliest Hebrews, but I'm afraid scholars are reluctant to pursue them for fear of being called anti-Semitic.)

The first mention of "Yahweh" is uncertain but may come from Egypt's 18th dynasty, apparently in a list of enemies conquered or subdued by Amenhotep III

Yahweh (Yahu) in the land of the Shasu

(The land of the Shasu is approximately the land of the Edomites. In context "Yahweh" could be the name of a place, person or deity.)

 

[Elixir]

All I know is, if your god puts up with being referred to in the past tense, he has pretty much lost his shit. Nobody needs a washed up god.

 

[Tharmas]

Marcion (first half of the second century) was an early Christian (later called a heretic) who was the first to create a Christian canon and who probably heavily edited Paul's epistles and the Gospel of Luke. He preached that Jesus' loving, benevolent god was a completely different entity from the vengeful god of the Old Testament. Such a belief is also part and parcel of typical Gnostic theology.

 

[Politesse]

The real question is, who wasn't YHWH? People always bring up this supposed dichotomy between the "Old" and "New Testament", but they aren't reading either very carefully they think that, say Ezra and Job are portraying YHWH identically. And YHWH is not called by that name anywhere in the New Testament; the closest you get is an allusion, in a story where Jesus says a semantic equivalent in Greek and nearly gets stoned on the spot for it.

It doesn't help that English translations deliberately obscure the various names and titles of God, making any real discussion of the topic fodder for a graduate course.

 

[ideologyhunter]

The poor fella has read too many press releases from his PR people.
He has DID (dissociative identity disorder) and manic depressive syndrome: flies into unaccountable rages, resorts to violence, then assures anyone who will listen that he's really a peaceful and merciful soul. He should run in '24 for the Repubs.
Also, signs of Alzheimers have long been present, although this will take an autopsy to determine. For instance, he apparently commanded his followers to practice circumcision and kosher dietary law for all future generations, then rescinded all that.
Recommended Rx: Aricept (memory issues) + Zyprexa for the manic depressive episodes + OTC FiberCon for the constipated laws and regulations

 

[TomC]

To me, Bible God by whatever name is clearly a character type. God gets recreated multiple times throughout the centuries in the image of the creators.

God is wildly different just between Genesis and Exodus. Add several more centuries until New Testament times and you've got a God image that would be utterly unrecognizable to The Patriarchs. Then it gets even more bizarre as God becomes a Trinitarian pantheon.

How oxymoronic is "Trinitarian monotheism"?
Tom

 

[SLD]

There are some good books on this subject. One of the most fascinating ones is How to Read the Bible by James Kugel, a Jewish scholar.

He delves into the history of Yahweh and his early evolution. Compares him to other gods in the surrounding area. It’s a great book for skeptics and believers alike. He doesn’t talk about the New Testament though at all. One thing is clear, Judaism isn’t really monotheistic. There are other gods hidden in the Bible. Yahweh was the chief , the others were later abandoned.

 

[Politesse]

There are some good books on this subject. One of the most fascinating ones is How to Read the Bible by James Kugel, a Jewish scholar.

He delves into the history of Yahweh and his early evolution. Compares him to other gods in the surrounding area. It’s a great book for skeptics and believers alike. He doesn’t talk about the New Testament though at all. One thing is clear, Judaism isn’t really monotheistic. There are other gods hidden in the Bible. Yahweh was the chief , the others were later abandoned.

Poor, sublimated Chokmah!

 

[Valjean]

YHWH was the war god of the Israelite tribes, wasn't he?

 

[Thomas II]

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Besides the fact that the translator sounds like Father Guido Sarducci, the video nicely illustrates the pitfalls of translation. Should translation be meaningful or literal and how much of each? Ultimately the translators decide. All translation truly is a lie.

 

[BH]

I was watching The Five Doctors in the Dr. Who franchise. It made me think of this discussion about the Hebrew God in the Bible. In The Five Doctors one of the doctors has to explain to the Brigadier that the planet Gallifray had mythologized their founding timelord, Rascalon, into a kind benevolent and loving leader. The doctor says the actual records show he was a petty sorry son of a bitch asshole.

 

[DBT]

The gods are as sorry sons of bitches as those who cooked them up in their fertile imaginations...

 

[AdamWho]

Yahweh is a tribal war god in a pantheon of Babylonian gods. All the "names of god" are actually different gods.

 

[DBT]

God and Satan rolled into one package, it seems;


2 Samuel 24

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

1 Chronicles 21

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

 

[Politesse]

God and Satan rolled into one package, it seems;


2 Samuel 24

Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”

1 Chronicles 21

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.

Satan means "the accuser" or "the adversary" it's implied that his role in the court of the high god El was to convict humanity for its transgressions.

 

[DBT]

It does, and here the word is being used in reference to God himself.

 

[Thomas II]

I think this video explains everything quite well.

 

[BH]

I got that book and it is a very good book to read. Derek Lambert on Mythvision has interviewed the author on many occasions and always has something interesting to learn.

I always thought the Hebrews though God has a physical body, how else could Moses, after asking God to let him see him, have seen his backside revealed while protected behind a rock cleft? If God weas just some disembodied mind or spirit how could there be any backside to see?