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Yahweh Elohim evolved from the Canaanite deity El.
Judaism and Christianity are based in polytheistic traditions.
Sources:
Mark S. Smith
Michael Cogan
Christine Hayes
William G. Dever
John C. L. Gibson
Yahweh Elohim evolved from the Canaanite deity El.
Judaism and Christianity are based in polytheistic traditions.
Sources:
Mark S. Smith
Michael Cogan
Christine Hayes
William G. Dever
John C. L. Gibson
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Who was Asherah?Asherah in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Asratu, and in Hittite as Aserdu or Asertu. Asherah is generally considered identical with the
Ugaritic goddess Atirat. Asherah is identified as the queen consort of the Sumerian god Anu, and Ugaritic El, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons, as well as Yahweh, the god of Israel and Judah. Despite her association with Yahweh in extra-biblical sources, Deuteronomy 12 has Yahweh commanding the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of his worship.
What is Judaism?Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is a monotheistic religion, with the Torah as its foundational text (part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible), and supplemental
oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship that God established with the Children of Israel.
Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah.
The Jews are an ethnoreligious group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2012, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14 million, or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. About 42% of all Jews reside in Israel and about 42% reside in the United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe.
Who is Elohim?Elohim in the Hebrew Bible refers to deities, and is one of the many names or titles for God in the Hebrew Bible. The word is identical to the plural of el, meaning gods or magistrates, and is used for the pantheon of Canaanite gods, the children of
El, and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim". The notion of divinity underwent radical changes in the early period of Israelite identity and development of Ancient Hebrew religion. The ambiguity of the term elohim is the result of such changes, cast in terms of "vertical translatability", i.e. the re-interpretation of the gods from 7th century BC, Judah to the emergence of monotheist Rabbinical Judaism in the 2 AD.
What is Israel?Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East. Located on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan
on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest.
Who is Yahweh?Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah. His exact origins are disputed, although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the Late Bronze: his name may have begun as an epithet of El, head of the
Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon, but the earliest plausible mentions of Yahweh are in Egyptian texts that refer to a similar-sounding place name associated with the Shasu nomads of the southern Transjordan. In the oldest biblical literature, Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern "divine warrior", who leads the heavenly army against Israel's enemies; he later became the main god of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and of Judah, and over time 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.
What is Pagan?Paganism is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians. It was applied on populations of the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population or
because they were not milites Christi (soldiers of Christ). Alternate terms in Christian texts for the same group were hellene, gentile, and heathen. Pagan and paganism were pejorative terms for the same polytheistic group, implying its inferiority. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry", and for much of its history was a derogatory term. Both during and after the Middle Ages, pagan was a pejorative term that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, and the term presumed a belief in false god(s).
Who is Baal?Baal was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults
and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Baal was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations.
Known by epithets like 'rider of the clouds' and 'Victorious Baal', he was associated with rain, lightning, wind, fertility, and kingship, and was often depicted in opposition to sea and death deities like Yammu and Mot. Worship of Baal spread throughout the Levant, Egypt, and the Mediterranean.
The Hebrew Bible includes use of the term in reference to various Levantine deities, often with application towards Hadad, who was decried as a false god. In the Hebrew Bible, Baal appears frequently as a foreign or rival deity, with prophets like Elijah opposing his cult, while in early Israelite contexts, the title may have sometimes referred to Yahweh.
Depiction as a false god was taken over into Christianity and Islam, sometimes under the form Beelzebub in demonology.
Who is GOD?In monotheism and henotheism, God is conceived as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power)
omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe
In deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one God or in the oneness of God
In pantheism, God is the universe itself
In atheism, God is purported not to exist, while deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism.
