God And Gods

[Ntrw]

"A generation ago, when I was a graduate student, biblical scholars were nearly unanimous in thinking that monotheism had been predominant in ancient Israelite religion from the beginning—not just as an "ideal," but as the reality. Today all that has changed. Virtually all mainstream scholars (and even a few conservatives) acknowledge that true monotheism emerged only in the period of the exile in Babylon in the 6th century B.C.E., as the canon of the Hebrew Bible was taking shape." -William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel,pg 294–95.

"Yet at the same time, Pslam 82, like Deutoronomy 32:8-9, preserves the outlines of the older theology it is rejecting. From the perspective of this older theology, Yahweh did not belong to the top tier of the pantheon. Instead, in early Israel, the god of Israel apparently belonged to the second tier of the pantheon; he was not the presider god, but one of his sons. Accordingly, what is at work is not a loss of the second tier of a pantheon headed by Yahweh. Instead, the collapse of the first and second tiers in the early Israelite pantheon was caused by an identification of El, head of this pantheon, with Yahweh, a member of the second tier." -Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, pg 68.

"One of the members of the Israelite pantheon was Asherah. She was worshiped in the Temple in Jerusalem, where her statue was clothed with garments woven by women working in the Temple precincts. ... In Jerusalem and throughout the land, this goddess, the queen of heaven, was paired with Yahweh, the king of heaven." -Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, pg. 116-117.

"The language of a divine couple and their offspring stems from a living religious tradition in ancient Israel itself, for which we have documentation in the Bible, in it's polemics and commandments. We also have evidence for this tradition in non-biblical texts and artifacts, even though these are only sporadically attested because of the vagaries of preservation and discovery. The cumulative evidence, however, is continuous and undeniable: Yahweh is envisioned as a sexual being." -Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, pg 120.

"God addresses his pantheon, his divine council: 'Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.' The narrator goes on to say: 'So God[elohim] created humans in his image in the image of elohim he created them, male and female he created them.'...An alternative is to understand elohim in the second line in it's plural sense: humans are male and female in the image of the gods -because the gods are male and female, humans are as well. Which male and female deities are the model? Although the entire pantheon is a possibility, the divine couple, Yahweh and his goddess consort, are more likely." -Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says, pg 118.

"Many biblical writers frequently used polytheistic concepts, depicting Yahweh as the head of a large pantheon whose members advised him and celebrated his accomplishments. This pantheon functioned, as in Mesopotamian and Greek religion, as a kind of divine council or assembly, under the rule of the high god." -Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says pg 116.

[Robert F. Smith]

Hey Necheroo

What's your point? Aside from scandalizing and shocking readers on this board . . .

Why does N. T. Wright think that Gen 1-2 is "a temple text"?