4 ms·

This would be one of mine too. I remember reading a (speculative) argument that the earliest gospels were much more ambiguous about the "miracles" and exactly

This would be one of mine too. I remember reading a (speculative) argument that the earliest gospels were much more ambiguous about the "miracles" and exactly what happened after Jesus' death. Was the account of seeing him rise to heaven a later addition? Likewise I'd also like to see what the real Christ had to say (if he did in fact exist - that's still disputed AFAIK). I've always liked to imagine he was much less spiritual and more political. I imagine there were a few other would-be messiahs doing the rounds, I wonder what they were up to, and how similar they were (I think we can be confident they were about because the New Testament does mention them - albeit very unfavourably). Another time / place to go would be when the first books of the Old Testament were written. There's a theory doing the rounds that the first book written was Leviticus, which acted as a kind of early legal code. Then the theology was added later as a means of justifying the law and marrying it to a religion rather than just a city state. There are also arguments that early Judaism was polytheistic and Yehova was a god of a city rather than "the god" in the original conception. I've always been curious about the origins of those belief systems and how close our Bible reflects the actual beliefs and cosmology of Iron Age proto-Israelite society.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
> Another time / place to go would be when the first books of the Old Testament were written. There's a theory doing the rounds that the first book written was Leviticus, which acted as a kind of early legal code. Then the theology was added later as a means of justifying the law and marrying it to a religion rather than just a city state. There are also arguments that early Judaism was polytheistic and Yehova was a god of a city rather than "the god" in the original conception. They were all rewrites of Akkadian and Egyptian texts. Overlaid with Ugaritic basic beliefs. Origin stories in Judaism is mostly syncretic and fragmented stories of Akkadian/egyptian myth. Mostly rewritten altho the Ugaritic Baal cycle mythos gets reproduced somewhat intact brought in by the Cannanites from whom the Hebrews came.
- jbreckmckye 6y ago
  Is there a good place I can read about all this?
jwdunne 6y ago
How interesting, I was reading about this last night. In fact, El was a god worshipped by early Israelites, hence the -el in Israel. Yahweh was a god and worshipped at the time. But over time, Yahweh became the single worshipped god, who became “the god”. El became a generic name for a deity much like our god vs God. In fact, other gods were acknowledged to exist for a time, until eventually they too were denied to exist. I too am interested in the same question. More generally, how a polytheist belief system transforms into a monotheistic one.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  God is plural. The ‘Elohim’ as in Genesis. It literally translates to ‘sons of El’ El was the high god of the Canaanites and Hebrews most certainly were from Canaan. El was ‘god of gods and hosts of hosts’ Yahwehs were the 70 sons of El. There were 70 Yahwehs. Each Yahweh had dominion over a holy mountain they possessed and they each led their own tribes. Their mother was the consort of El aka Asherah. One of the Yahwehs ...who had dominion over one of the Canaanite tribes made the covenant and smashed the idols and prohibited idol worship and worship of all other Yahwehs. And now you have the old testement of the Hebrews. It was around the first Iron Age that the Hebrews slowly started moving away from the Babylonian polytheistic fold. The original Hebrew faith was incredibly syncretic with Akkadian and Egyptian texts and myths. And then it evolved by Iron Age of Babylonian captivity in 5th and 6th BCE.
samblr 6y ago
Weren't most religious texts written after a good 60-100 years ? That is like probably 200-300 years in today's time (?) (given how little were the means to record / reproduce) I would be curious to learn how Religions/Christianity gained its way into mainstream. Most of these religions started as fringe/niche. Between we are all curious about a religion's product-market fit ;)
- hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
  I have no idea what your first paragraph means. Can you try again?

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

> Another time / place to go would be when the first books of the Old Testament were written. There's a theory doing the rounds that the first book written was Leviticus, which acted as a kind of early legal code. Then the theology was added later as a means of justifying the law and marrying it to a religion rather than just a city state. There are also arguments that early Judaism was polytheistic and Yehova was a god of a city rather than "the god" in the original conception. They were all rewrites of Akkadian and Egyptian texts. Overlaid with Ugaritic basic beliefs. Origin stories in Judaism is mostly syncretic and fragmented stories of Akkadian/egyptian myth. Mostly rewritten altho the Ugaritic Baal cycle mythos gets reproduced somewhat intact brought in by the Cannanites from whom the Hebrews came.

jbreckmckye 6y ago
Is there a good place I can read about all this?

jwdunne 6y ago

How interesting, I was reading about this last night. In fact, El was a god worshipped by early Israelites, hence the -el in Israel. Yahweh was a god and worshipped at the time. But over time, Yahweh became the single worshipped god, who became “the god”. El became a generic name for a deity much like our god vs God. In fact, other gods were acknowledged to exist for a time, until eventually they too were denied to exist. I too am interested in the same question. More generally, how a polytheist belief system transforms into a monotheistic one.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
God is plural. The ‘Elohim’ as in Genesis. It literally translates to ‘sons of El’ El was the high god of the Canaanites and Hebrews most certainly were from Canaan. El was ‘god of gods and hosts of hosts’ Yahwehs were the 70 sons of El. There were 70 Yahwehs. Each Yahweh had dominion over a holy mountain they possessed and they each led their own tribes. Their mother was the consort of El aka Asherah. One of the Yahwehs ...who had dominion over one of the Canaanite tribes made the covenant and smashed the idols and prohibited idol worship and worship of all other Yahwehs. And now you have the old testement of the Hebrews. It was around the first Iron Age that the Hebrews slowly started moving away from the Babylonian polytheistic fold. The original Hebrew faith was incredibly syncretic with Akkadian and Egyptian texts and myths. And then it evolved by Iron Age of Babylonian captivity in 5th and 6th BCE.

samblr 6y ago

Weren't most religious texts written after a good 60-100 years ? That is like probably 200-300 years in today's time (?) (given how little were the means to record / reproduce) I would be curious to learn how Religions/Christianity gained its way into mainstream. Most of these religions started as fringe/niche. Between we are all curious about a religion's product-market fit ;)

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
I have no idea what your first paragraph means. Can you try again?