Original Sin?

Quote: FrGamble

EXACTLY!

This made me laugh out loud.

Quote: Evenbob

Padre, no comment on this post? Yahweh was a local
cult and gradually they kicked the rest to the side and
elected him the chief. Moses was in the cult and so
was very concerned that the commandments were
heavy on the side of setting everybody straight on
which god to worship.

I'm sorry, you finally make a good point with some good information to back it up and I am still working on a response and doing research. Thanks for bringing this to my attention it has been helpful. I think there is a way to talk about this using Paul Wellhausen's four source theory for the Pentateuch but I'm still trying to get my head around it.

Quote: FrGamble

I'm sorry, you finally make a good point with some good information to back it up and I am still working on a response and doing research. .

You won't find anything different from what
I posted. The early Jewish tribes had lots
of gods, just like the Norse and Romans.
Only they were smart and elected one god
to rule them all. It brings the tribes together
under one roof, makes perfect sense.

Quote: FrGamble

There are many academics who recognize the truth behind the stories of Adam and Eve, temptation, original sin, and Noah's ark while recognizing these writings are not literal histories.

What is the "truth" in the Adam and Eve myth? Do as you're told? Obey? Understanding is not necessary, only obedience?

Or about Noah's myth? Other than the god of the Old Testament engages in a great deal of destruction and punishment. The flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the tower of Babel, the innocent first-born children of every Egyptian.

That's par for the course for a deity in ancient times, of course. The Greek gods were capricious as well, not to mention jealous. Ponder the fates of Pandora, Prometheus, Arachne and even the whole Trojan War thing (a gift from Eris, if memory serves). The last just goes to show limited deities with limited powers can wreak havoc on a scale larger than themselves.

Quote: Nareed

What is the "truth" in the Adam and Eve myth? Do as you're told? Obey? Understanding is not necessary, only obedience?

Or about Noah's myth?

Even more than teaching about humility, obedience, trust, and the trouble we get in when we act selfishly; I think the most important lesson is that God remains faithful even after we sin. We sin, are punished, and God gives us another chance. This pattern is repeated throughout the first chapters of Genesis, the entire history of Israel, through the Apostles, and even up to today.

Quote: FrGamble

I think the most important lesson is that God remains faithful even after we sin.

Let's see:

After "sinning" in the Garden of Eden, God made it so human babies would be born with outsize heads, which aren't even fully developed. So after a painful act of labor and delivery, the woman must hover over her infant constantly for several years.

That's in general. In specific Adam and eve bore two sons, one of whom killed the other. Since we don't hear of any other children by A&E after that, we could assume this was genocide and God had to create Man all over again.

I'll go check in the back for a disinterested, watch-maker type of deity if you don't mind. ;)


BTW, on an unrelated matter, Larry Niven called Dante's "Divine Comedy" the "first hard science fiction book ever written." Explaining that theology was the "hard science" involved. I've never read Dante, but I'm familiar with the broad aspects of his Hell; I suppose most educated people are, too. So I feel confident asking this: how true to life is Dante's version of Hell?

Quote: Evenbob

Really? This took 10 sec to find on
Wiki:

In the oldest biblical literature (12th–11th centuries BC), Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior" who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies; he and Israel are bound by a covenant under which Yahweh will protect Israel and, in turn, Israel will not worship other gods.[4]:158–159 At a later period, Yahweh functioned as the dynastic cult (the god of the royal house)[5]:69–70 with the royal courts promoting him as the supreme god over all others in the pantheon (notably Baal, El, and Asherah (who is thought by some scholars to have been his consort)).[6][7]:917 Over time, Yahwism became increasingly intolerant of rivals, and the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.[5]:69–70 [7]:917 With the work of Second Isaiah (the theoretical author of the second part of the Book of Isaiah) towards the end of the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the true god of all the world.

Yahweh was one of many until they made
him the one and only. This is very old
news.

As I've mentioned before it is always important to keep the divine pedagogy in mind when looking at the Old Testament. There is a natural, organic development of God slowly revealing who He is to humanity. This was part of the insight of Julius Wellhausen in 1878 when he came up with the documentary theory for the writing of the OT that has gained near universal acceptance first in protestant scholarship and now pretty much in Catholic circles too. Quick summary: there are four sources the Yahwist account (J), the Elohist account (E), the Deuteronomist account (D) - which is pretty much just responsible for the Book of Deuteronomy, and the Priestly account (P). Studying the words used (especially for God), the styles, and the themes the entire Pentateuch has been pretty well mapped out as to which sections or stories are from the J source, E source, the J+E source together, or the P source. These sources also represent a progressive understanding of who God is. The J account has a more anthropomorphic view of God, similar to pagans. Here God has magical appearances and is in definite mythological style. The E account gives a deeper awareness of the spiritual otherness of God sometimes referred to as the mysterious Divine Distance from us.

We see these sources and the priestly edits and additions throughout Genesis and into Exodus. There are many reflections of traditional mythical language and themes but at the same time the Israelites are using these very same myths to destroy and demythologize the heart of pagan belief. The pagan pantheon of gods were really made in our image. You can see that in the way they have sex, are greedy, angry, petty, etc. They are really the manifestations of uncaring natural phenomenon. The pagan interaction with them was really an effort to manipulate them, appease them for our own needs. They didn't really care about humans that much anyway and were sometimes antagonistic to us for no good reason. In contrast to this image of God Israel uses some of the same stories and myths concerning the time before history and the Hebrew Scriptures paint a picture of a God who loved creation and saw it as very good, who was ordered and controlled chaos, who was all-powerful and punished misdeeds and reward good, this emerging image of God was concerned for, guided, instructed, and cared for human history. God called us not to baseness and selfishness, but to order and goodness. We now discovered that we were made in the image of this one holy and true God.

The name of YHWH apparently existed as far back as the very beginnings of a strange time in Egypt's history when a crazy idea of monotheism briefly arose (Pharaoh Akhenaton), the Midianites where Moses found himself exiled to believed in Him. However, after the Moses event at the burning bush where God revealed His name as indeed YHWH little remained of a pagan, nomadic deity. A new deeper understanding of the nature of God is formed with Moses as its spokesperson. What begins is a startling new religion unlike anything ever seen or know of before or since. A pure monotheism that would over a thousand years or so displace the widely held and passionately held pagan polytheism.

Quote: Nareed

Let's see:

After "sinning" in the Garden of Eden, God made it so human babies would be born with outsize heads, which aren't even fully developed. So after a painful act of labor and delivery, the woman must hover over her infant constantly for several years.

That's in general. In specific Adam and eve bore two sons, one of whom killed the other. Since we don't hear of any other children by A&E after that, we could assume this was genocide and God had to create Man all over again.

I'll go check in the back for a disinterested, watch-maker type of deity if you don't mind. ;)


BTW, on an unrelated matter, Larry Niven called Dante's "Divine Comedy" the "first hard science fiction book ever written." Explaining that theology was the "hard science" involved. I've never read Dante, but I'm familiar with the broad aspects of his Hell; I suppose most educated people are, too. So I feel confident asking this: how true to life is Dante's version of Hell?

I too wish there were not consequences, especially painful ones, to our actions - alas a disinterested deity is simply not worth my interest.

Speaking of consequences you asked about Dante's image of Hell. I actually think it is very unique and interesting. He has the very bottom of Hell where the devil lives entirely encased in ice. I think that is really profound. Fire assumes energy, action, movement, almost dancing - those things are more in Heaven. Without God, which is a definition of Hell, there is nothing. Everything is cold, motionless, and lacking all life.

Quote: FrGamble

What begins is a startling new religion unlike anything ever seen or know of before or since. A pure monotheism that would over a thousand years or so displace the widely held and passionately held pagan polytheism.

It's nothing more than the start of the
modern era. Each tribe had their own
god, and as tribes came together, this
didn't work so well. Putting all the gods
under one name was inevitable if the
people were to get along, so Moses
wrote some commandments, said they
were from god, and that was that.

It's the same mundane start all religions
have, buried in the murky past to give
it authenticity.

The Canaanite gods were El, Baal, Asherah, Anat, and Astarte. El was the father of the gods and creator of all this seems to fit with the concept of YHWH, and there have been some connections made as I think you have pointed out earlier. However if you look at the descriptions of the other gods there is hardly anything that would call to mind any of them in the one true God of the Israelites. In fact the fertility cult stuff was completely rejected by YHWH and as you can imagine it was a big and popular part of the ancient worship of some of these gods. Therefore, while it seems like your explanation is a reasoned secular response to the rise of monotheism I'm sorry to say it doesn't hold water.

This is also the second time you have mentioned the murky past as an excuse to doubt the authenticity of religion. Why do you think the past is so murky? We know quite a bit about ancient human history, certainly enough to make sure statements about how they lived and what they believed. You also seem to think religion is just history, that it lives in this murky past of which you speak. I can excuse that because you aren't a believer, but for us who believe our faith is grounded in the past but live vibrantly in our lives today.