Allen Roy wrote:
> From: <PHSEELY@aol.com>
> > << The Oceans basins are the fountains of the great deep. These basins
> were
> > broken up by asteroid impacts, initiating sinking of the dense oceanic
> crust
> > into the Athenesphere. >>
> >
> > Only by taking the "fountains of the great deep" out of their historical
> and
> > biblical context could they be considered "ocean basins."
>
> I have taken it within the Biblical context. The Historical context might
> be able to offer ambiance and flavor or contrast, but it certainly cannot
> not give the Biblical context. One of the major falshoods promoted among
> Biblical scholars is that monotheism grew out of polytheism, that Biblical
> ideas and theology must have developed from the surrounding cultures.
> Rather, the other religions developed as perversions of the true worship of
> God when men rejected God. The Bible tells us the true religion and the
> truth about origins.
Rather surprisingly I must express some degree of agreement with Allen
here - but only some.
The faith of Israel didn't simply "evolve" in a natural way from
polytheism. OTOH, it is wrong to imagine that "true religion" existed from the
beginning of the human race & that polytheism &c degenerated from it. The
biblical picture is rather one of _all_ people being separated from God and
worshipping false Gods, & of God then calling Abram out of those people. Cf.
Joshua 24:2-3.
& it's clear that for a long time the religion of Israel was not pure
monotheism. Until the time of the exile it's more accurately described as
henotheism - Israel was to worship only YHWH, but did not deny the existence of
other deities.
But more important for the present discussion is the fact that the
biblical writers certainly used many ideas from surrounding cultures which do
not touch directly on the nature of faith in YHWH. The cosmology of Genesis,
including "the great deep", is the most obvious example.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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