Re: Hyers' Dinosaur Religion (was: HYAR'S...; Hyers' Article -Cods Wallop)

Regarding YHWH's female consort, I can't put my finger on the reference (it was in one of the books on Hellenistic Egypt I sold after retiring), but back in the third century, a group of Jewish mereceries and their families were settled on a island at Elephantine in the upper Nile by the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt to serve as a garrison to protect that region. According to inscriptions unearthed there long before the island was flooded by the Aswan Dam, the Jews built a temple dedicated to "Yahu and his consort." The consort was unnamed, but it is more than likely it was Asherah the Canaanite goddess, and that these Jews had brought this religious practice with them from Palestine. "The Asherahs" were a frequent target of the prophets' wrath; as she was associated with both El and Baal, it should not be surprising that she would have been also associated with the conquerer YHWH, since the cults of both Canaanite divinities influenced the development of cultic worship of YHWH.

Bob
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Don Winterstein
  To: Ted Davis
  Cc: asa
  Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 6:27 AM
  Subject: Re: Hyers' Dinosaur Religion (was: HYAR'S...; Hyers' Article -Cods Wallop)

  Ted Davis wrote:

   "...Idolatry was widely practiced among the Hebrews for much
  of the monarchial period, during which Genesis was written down in its
  present form. The biblical clues are the tip of the iceberg, since they
  represent Temple Judaism with its (correct) denial of idolatry."

  Are you talking about biblical clues in the history books (Kings & Chronicles)? If so, I tend to agree. But some of the prophets expose more of the whole iceberg. The most severe language in the Bible attributed to God addresses flagrant idolatry among the citizens of both Israel and Judah. Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, among others, have many heated and sweeping diatribes against idolatry. Ezekiel is especially biting (e.g., chapters 8, 14, 16, 20, 23,...). His chapters 16 and 23 are IMO the most forceful and biting reprimands of anyone in the entire Bible.

  Ted: "God was often seen as having a female consort, a type
  of fertility goddess, both of whom were worshipped."

  It's understandable that God (YHWH) would be worshiped _alongside_ or _in addition to_ foreign deities. The prophets often refer to this sort of thing. But for YHWH to have a female consort from among them sounds strange. There's nothing in the Bible that I interpret to allude to such a thing. I'd like to know how strong the evidence is that YHWH was the one who had the consort rather than, say, Baal, Chemosh, Molech, etc.--gods that we know the people worshiped and that we know had female consorts. This might be hard to pin down just from a bunch of unearthed idols. Without written documentation from the monarchical period I'd be skeptical. Experts have been wrong before.

  Don

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Ted Davis
    To: dfwinterstein@msn.com ; pruest@mysunrise.ch
    Cc: asa@calvin.edu ; dickfischer@earthlink.net
    Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 5:41 AM
    Subject: Re: Hyers' Dinosaur Religion (was: HYAR'S...; Hyers' Article -Cods Wallop)

>>> pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch 02/25/04 12:50AM >>>writes:

    Evidently, I have again written some shorthand, rather than precisely
    describe what I mean. I agree with both of you, Ted and Don, that idolatry
    was the fundamental sin of Israel between their captivities in Egypt and
    in
    Babylon. I certainly didn't intend to play that down.

    However, there is much less of this to be found from Abraham to Joseph,
    although Abraham came from a Mesopotamia with its idolatrous cultures and
    lived among idolaters in Canaan, and Joseph lived in Egypt with its
    idolatry. Now, if we try to go even further back than Abraham, there is
    not
    very much idolatry to be seen in the few texts we have before Genesis 12.
    At
    least the biblical texts we have do not tell us much about the Israelites
    and their forefathers being much seduced by idolatry before Aaron's golden
    calf.

    Ted responds:
    Glad to see we agree about the importance of monotheism to the Hebrews.
    Your comments on the early biblical period are very interesting, let me
    gloss them with some recent archeaological information (coming from Bill
    Dever, perhaps the leading American scholar of the relevant cultural
    period). In fact, idolatry was widely practiced among the Hebrews for much
    of the monarchial period, during which Genesis was written down in its
    present form. The biblical clues are the tip of the iceberg, since they
    represent Temple Judaism with its (correct) denial of idolatry. In the
    countryside, however, God was often seen as having a female consort, a type
    of fertility goddess, both of whom were worshipped. Household idols of the
    consort are turning up in excavations all over the place. So, it would make
    sense that idolatry was very much in people's minds when Genesis was put
    into its present form.

    Peter writes:

    If we look at God creating humans in his image as the beginning of
    humanity,
    the most natural impression is that first there was monotheism, and
    polytheism represented a later degeneration. Now, Genesis 1 squarely
    belongs
    into this first period of monotheism, no matter when the story, previously
    transmitted orally, was finally written down, and no matter when this
    first
    period of monotheism petered out into a later period having a predominance
    of polytheism. This is why I doubt that polytheism is a major concern of
    the
    creation story (although, as I hinted at, God, who certainly foresaw the
    degeneration, may already have included some provision for those later
    times). I prefer to see the earliest divine revelations to humans as
    positively directing their thinking (1) to himself as their Creator, and
    (2)
    to all else that surrounded them as his creation. If this would stick,
    there
    would be no need of making much ado about the "nothings".

    Ted responds:
    Very interesting. This was Isaac Newton's view--that there was a
    primitive, true religion of monotheism, related to heliocentrism (something
    pretty close to the Neoplatonic view that the sun and its light represent
    the divine presence in the world), and that in the days of Noah idolators
    arose and they lost their correct cosmological understanding together with
    their monotheism. Of course, monotheism for Newton was exactly that,
    monotheism in the very Jewish sense; God exists but only as the Father, not
    as the Son and Holy Spirit.

    No way do I attribute this view to you, Peter, it moves in a very different
    direction. But I'm seeing this part of the Bible perhaps now more clearly
    as leading Newton to think this.

    ted
Received on Fri Feb 27 11:47:04 2004