Gods of the Bible: Biblical Polytheism and the Making of Monotheism | Interview with Mark Smith
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Welcome! Princeton Theological Seminary Professor Mark Smith talks about the polytheistic roots of the Bible and the long, elaborate making of monotheism. Mark Smith explains how the figure of Yahweh in Bible absorbed language, elements and attributes of other deities from Ancient Israel polytheistic background, Ugarit culture and Mesopotamian religion; and was then made become the Unique God of the tradition particularly under the pressure of Assyrian and Babylonian expansionism.
📌 00:00 Presentation of Professor Mark Smith
📌 01:44 Introduction to the Bible
📌 02:32 The Hebrew Bible
📌 6:30 Copies of copies of copies
📌 8:50 Polytheistic roots of Ancient Israel
📌 10:36 The Ten Commandments
📌 13:21 Ancient Israel and Canaanite culture
📌 15:36 Ugaritic narrative and mythology
📌 16:20 Yahweh’s attributes taken from Baal and other deities
📌 20:22 The birth of Biblical Monotheism
📌 22:30 Marduk and Mesopotamian deities.
📌 24:24 Worldview of the Assyrian Empire
📌 27:57 Role of Israelite priesthood
📌 31:00 El Shaddai: God of the Mountain and God Almighty?
📌 40:30 Greek-Roman concept of God vs Hebrew Bible's concept
📌 45:05 Translations and meaning of Elohim in the Bible
📌 52:33 Elyon and the Council of Gods (Psalm 82)
📌 55:30 Reading the Bible and losing one's faith
📌 1:04:53 Reception of Mark Smith’s work on Ancient Israel Polytheism
📌 1:08:16 Two Popes in the Catholic Church
📌 1:11:06 Faith, UFOs and extraterrestrial life
Further reading:
Mark Smith's books mentioned during the interview:
👉 www.amazon.it/Memoirs-God-His...
👉 www.amazon.it/Early-History-G...
👉 www.amazon.it/Origins-Biblica...
👉 / 1014074.ugaritic_narra...
Edward Wright's book mentioned during the interview
👉 www.amazon.com/Early-History-...
Further reading as mentioned in this interview and previous interviews on the same subjects:
👉 www.amazon.it/Bible-Believer-...
👉 www.amazon.it/Extraterrestria...
👉 🔥🔥 Mauro Biglino's cutting-edge rereading of the Bible: www.amazon.com/forever-change...
👽👽 Aliens, don't be afraid! Subscribe to this earthly channel.
Favorite quotes of this interview to Professor Mark Smith, Princeton Theological Seminary:
🔥 How to read the Bible: “We just have to remember, that there's a lot of things we don't know about how all this happened. No one sat down and wrote us a biblical book or something else that says: "this is how our religious history happened" or "this is where we go". We only know things from the remains of the day, and we infer based on our study of those remains, what happened. We're sort of like textual archaeologists who find all this material and we have to figure out how it all happened.”
🔥 “I actually don't think of Israel, let's say in the 12th and 11th century BC, as all that different from its neighbors. And I think what we do is that we tend to think of Israel as so separate, based on the fact that we read the Bible, and we don't read the Ugaritic texts, as if they are the Bible. And also, the later view of the biblical authors, from maybe the late monarchy on, you know perhaps from the eighth or seventh century on, we're starting to get this strong idea that we're really different from the others. But I think, in part, they're reacting to their own older polytheistic past. I actually think that early Israel and the Canaanite culture that's around it are not easily separable, you can't separate them as readily as people assume that you can now.”
🔥 "Usually, when people discuss the issue of polytheism versus monotheism, many people think that polytheism is something that only Israel's neighbors have, or the other peoples of the Ancient Near East, but that Israel is thoroughly monotheistic. And when it isn't thoroughly monotheistic it's because they've fallen away from the old monotheistic ideal, which they believe is laid out in the ten commandments at Mount Sinai... This is not hardly original with me, I'm just largely summarizing, in some of my work, like "The early history of God", I'm really summarizing what has been a direction of study, with new information and new research thoughts going back over a century, about polytheism within Ancient Israel.”
#bible #elohim #biblestudies
Congratulazioni per l'intervista davvero stimolante ed esaustiva. Concordo con molte delle affermazioni del prof. Smith, da anni sostengo le stesse tesi. Un caro saluto, a presto! Mauro Biglino.
Grazie mille Mauro, a presto!
I have found Mark Smith to be very humble and quite knowledgeable. In recent years I have read a number of his books and they have helped me to gain a better understanding.
He was very generously available
@@inqualestato I agree. I have had a few professors like him. The thing I appreciated about them is they welcomed questions and were not afraid to tell people they did not know. That is what we need today in servants of God.
Great interview, presentation, and indexes!
Really interesting and challenging, thanks a lot !
Indeed. It opens new fascinating perspectives on a book that is at the root of our culture.
'[They sacrificed] not to [the] God of gods (ie. Eloha Elohim), [but] they sacrificed unto Lords(ie. Shaddim), whom they knew not, to new [Lords] that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.' - Deuteronomy 32:17
'And I appeared unto Abraham and unto Isaac and unto Jacob, with El Shaddai, but my name, "He who is the LORD (ie. Yehowah)," *I did not make known* to them.' - Exodus 6:3
Yehowah is a son of El Shaddai, and Yehowah in Israelite religion is Eloha Elohim, aka Ba'al Yisrael.
This is an excellent interview and I thank you for allowing us the pleasure to hear it. My only question is that can the information in this book affect how Christians view other religions? If so how?
I think it would affect more how Christians see themselves
@@inqualestato Got you. Thanks Starviews.
Is it possible that Elyion is not Yahweh?
Most likely, in fact. ua-cam.com/video/Q3hava4j2VQ/v-deo.html
The texts "not nailed down" til after the biblical era? What about the Septaugint bro!!!??
Secular scholars have their dates all wrong. It sends them in all sorts of crazy directions.
26:38 "No one sat down and wrote us a biblical book...that says 'this is how are religious history happened'" 🤣
I don't remember the passage, but I believe he referred to the Hebrew Bible vocalized by the Masorets in the 6th - 9th century CE
@@inqualestato In one respect you could say it's fair to refer to the Masoretic texts as the "final copy", however, considering the 2 are nearly identical, and the Septuagint having been the version that the New Testament writers used and quoted, the suggestion that it was being substantially edited after Christ becomes untenable.
It also clearly places the book of Daniel earlier than his stated date of 165 BC, which also places the book of Daniel before Antiochus Epiphanes. That gives academia a major problem that they do not want to admit.
YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah or the Abrahamic god started out as one of *many* patron deities before becoming "God of the universe" as monotheism started taking shape and was conflated with the fictional Canaanite gods El and Baal.
According to critical scholarship YHWH *was* a son of El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah).
The original god of the Israelite patriarchs was the Canaanite god El who the war/storm god YHWH from the southern Levant was later conflated with.
Basically, YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah is fictional just like the other *hundreds* of fictional gods from ancient Canaan that he shared the region with.
*Ugarit and the Bible*
Many people are familiar with the texts found at Qumran, commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the 1940s. But fewer people have heard of the Ugarit findings, which began to be unearthed in the late 1920s. Both discoveries greatly increased our knowledge and understanding of Biblical texts and also of the history surrounding the evolution of Judaism and Christianity.
The Dead Sea Scrolls impacted both the Old and New Testament interpretations, while the findings at Ugarit impacted only the Old Testament. *These texts and architectural inscriptions predate the Hebrew settlement at Canaan, but interestingly, they mention some of the same gods that appear in the Hebrew religious writings, produced after the Hebrew contact with the Ugarit region. The most significant god mentioned is El.* In one temple inscription he is said to be the father of Ba’al. In other mentions, he is even the father of Yahweh.
In the Old Testament, Ba’al is associated with the Canaanites. And he is described as the focus of their religious worship in those stories-while El is described as being another name for Yahweh, the Hebrew patron god. *In reality, however, based on the discoveries at Ugarit (the land called Canaan in the Bible), El is clearly the father of the gods in much the same way that Zeus is the head of the gods on Olympus in Greek mythology. And Yahweh is not another name for El, but a separate deity.* Like Zeus, El headed a pantheon. He was not only the father of mankind, but the leader of the Ugarit gods. *His pantheon, in Ugarit, is called the* ***Elohim*** *(literally, the plural of El).*
Using the book of Genesis as an example, the best scholarly estimates date it back to somewhere between 950 and 500 BC. *It appears that the writings were composed in two styles, one style preferring to refer to god as El and the other using YHWH (or Yahweh).* Eventually these texts came together into the form we have today, sometime around 450 BC. *Just to give some perspective, the best documented time in the Ugarit history was between 1450 and 1200 BC.*
According to many modern apologists, El is simply another name for god, or even a generic word for “god” used by the Hebrews; and Elohim is simply another form of El. However, Bible translators do translate Elohim as plural in some instances and do translate El to be a proper noun in some instances. Some apologists defend a wholly singular usage of Elohim by pointing to the inconsistency with which Elohim is used with singular verb forms; however, this does not rule out the very real (and likely) potential that as monotheism evolved out of polytheism, the Hebrew texts were adjusted to correct for this problem (as we discussed the evolution of the book of Genesis in the above paragraph). ***However, it does seem oddly coincidental-and difficult to overlook-that the Hebrews had significant contact with Canaan and then, some years afterward, wrote out a Hebrew religious mythology using a name for god that parallels the Ugarit mythology’s chief deity.*** *It is also odd that Elohim appears in Ugarit texts as a clearly plural form of El, and then later in a sometimes confused singular/plural fashion in the Hebrew texts.*
*The important question becomes, then: Is there any reason beyond the contact with Canaan to view the Hebrew deity as being synonymous with the Canaanite god El? The answer is “yes.”* There are parallels between the two gods. For example, if we look at more of the attributes of El in the Ugarit texts, we find that El had a consort, Asherah *(who was also, occasionally, recorded as the consort to Yahweh).* This would appear to distance the Hebrew El from the Ugarit El then, if there is no mention of the Hebrews combining El with Asherah. *However, there is mention in the Hebrew texts that illustrates that Asherah was connected with El in the minds of the Hebrews as well as in their worship. Twice in Jeremiah (chapter 7 and chapter 44), she is referred to as the Queen of Heaven, and it is clearly indicated that the Hebrews were worshipping her in those instances.* Also, in 2 Kings 18, it is noted that her objects of worship (the Asherah poles) were removed from the “high places” of worship to El/Yahweh.
*There is no doubt that as the Hebrews moved from polytheism, into henotheism, and ultimately into monotheism, that they adjusted their religious practices accordingly.* It is not surprising that the worship of Asherah was ultimately condemned, discouraged, and forbidden. *But what can’t be ignored is the fact that the Hebrews did acknowledge Asherah. They did worship her.* And they did associate her with El by placing her symbols in the same temples of worship. ***If Hebrews did not adopt the older Ugarit El, with which they were surely familiar, then it is very odd that Asherah also appears in their religious texts and worship.***
I would never underestimate the apologist’s ability to find a perspective that can reinterpret this data to make it less problematic. ***However, the clear and simple explanation is this: The Hebrews interacted with Ugarit, adopted their pantheon, and their religion evolved, as all religions do through time, to become a uniquely Hebrew monotheism.***
Google *"The Atheist Experience™: Ugarit and the Bible"*
Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards.
Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on.
Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40.
Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"*
(By a former theist)
Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.
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In addition, look up the below articles.
*"Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites - Biblical Archaeology Society."*
("The study in Cell not only establishes that the ancient Israelites were ***descended from the Canaanites,*** but also establishes that the Canaanite people across the separate city-states of the southern Levant, and over a period of 1,500 years, were a genetically cohesive people.")
*"The Canaanites weren't annihilated, they just 'moved' to Lebanon - The Times of Israel."*
*"Ancient Canaanite religion explained - **everything.explained.today**"*
*"Archeology of the Hebrew Bible - NOVA - PBS"*
("Many scholars now think that *most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites,* displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.")
*"Origins of Judaism explained - **everything.explained.today**"*
("According to the current academic historical view, the origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age amidst polytheistic ancient Semitic religions, ***specifically evolving out of Ancient Canaanite polytheism,*** then co-existing with Babylonian religion, and syncretizing elements of Babylonian belief into the worship of Yahweh as reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. (The Torah)".
*Refer to the bibliography at the bottom of the page)*
*"Canaanite languages - Britannica"*
("Group of Northern Central or Northwestern Semitic languages including ***Hebrew,*** Moabite, Phoenician, and Punic.")
*"The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History"*
*"El - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Refer to the section "El Outside the Bible" and the fact that *most of the early Israelites were originally indigenous or displaced Canaanites)*
*"El (deity) explained - **everything.explained.today**"*
(Refer to section "Ugarit and the Levant" and the fact that *most of the ancient Israelites were originally indigenous or displaced Canaanites* and see how YHWH later conflated with El (Yahweh-El(ohim)) is fictional)
*"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
(Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh)
*"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*
*"Married Deities: Asherah and Yahweh in Early Israelite Religion - Yahweh Elohim."*
*"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"*
*"The Gates of Ishtar - Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"*
(It appears in addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh it also appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort)
*"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*
*"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
(Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian)
*"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"*
(A second response to Michael Heiser)
*"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"*
(For a good summary of all of the above articles)
Nevertheless, the historical reconstruction that El was the chief god of the Israelites is not indebted only to the testimony of the (rather late) biblical witness of P. *Numerous biblical texts attest to the fact that the titles, functions, and the imagery associated with the Canaanite god El, as revealed by the Ugaritic texts and the Canaanite myth of Elkunirša, were assimilated into the profile of the deity YHWH.* According to the Ugaritic texts, El was known for his *wisdom* (e.g., KTU2 1.4.V.65[6]) and *great age* (’ab šnm, *“Father of Years,”* and drd, *“Ageless One,”* in KTU2 1.4.IV.24 and 1.10.III.6, respectively),[7] his *compassionate nature* (lţpn il dp’id, *“Kind El, the Compassionate One,”* e.g., KTU2 1.16.IV.9), his role as *father of the gods and humanity* (’ab ’adm, *“father of humanity,”* KTU2 1.14..III.47, and bny bnwt, *“creator of creatures,”* KTU2 1.17.I.24) and *creator of the cosmos.* [8] El was the *divine King* (e.g., KTU2 1.2.III.5-6) and the *head of the pantheon or divine council* (referred to variously as the dr ’il, *“circle of El/Family of El,”* KTU2 1.15.III.19; mpħrt bn ’il, *“the assembly of the sons of El,”* KTU2 1.65.3; bn ’il, *“the sons of El,”* KTU2 1.40.33, 41; pħr kbbm, *“assembly of the stars,”* KTU2 1.10.I.3-4; ‘dt ’ilm, *“assembly of the gods,”* KTU2 1.15.II.7; cf. KTU2 1.2.I; 1.3V; 1.4 IV-V) which met at the sacred mountain. *His consort was the goddess Athirat who bore him seventy sons* (šb‘m bn ’atrt, *“the seventy sons of Athirat,”* KTU2 1.4.VI.46). El was also known for his *divine patronage and blessing of progeny to humans* (as in the Epic of Kirta; see, for example, KTU2 1.14.III.46-51), for his *appearances to humans in dreams* (e.g., KTU2 1.14.I.35-37), as *being a healer* (KTU2 1.16.V-VI), and for his *dwelling at the sacred mountain* (e.g., KTU2 1.2.III.5-6) at the *sources of the mythical rivers* (KTU2 1.2.III.4; 1.3.V.6; 1.4.IV.20-22; 1.17.V.47-48) in a *tent* (KTU2 1.2.III.5; 1.3.V.8; 1.4.IV.24; 1.17.V.49; c.f. the Canaanite myth Elkunirša which *describes El’s abode as a tent[9]).[10]*
*To underscore the fact that terminology and imagery originally used for the god El was adopted by the Israelites in their descriptions of YHWH,* the following brief summary might be placed in comparison to the discussion of El above: YHWH is an *aged, patriarchal deity* (Ps. 102:28; Job 36:26; Is. 40:28; Dan. 7.9-14, 22), *a father* (Deut. 32:6; Is. 63:16; 64:7; Jer. 3:4, 19; 31:9, etc.), *merciful and gracious* (Ex. 34:6; Jon. 4:2; Joel 2:13; Ps. 8615; 103:8; 145:8, etc.), *a divine patron who bestows the blessing of progeny upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,* often manifesting himself in *dreams or visions, a healer* (Gen. 20:17; Num. 12:13; 2 Kgs. 20:5, 8; Ps. 107:20, etc.), who *dwells in a tent* (Ps. 15:1; 27:6; 91:10; 132:3) *amidst the heavenly waters* (Ps. 47:5; 87; Is. 33: 20-22; Ez. 47:1-12, etc.), the *creator of the cosmos,* who is enthroned as *heavenly King* in the *divine council* (1 Kgs. 22:19; Is. 6:1-8; cf. Ps. 29:1-2; 82; 89: 5-8, etc.) on the *sacred mount of assembly* (e.g., Is. 14:13). Additionally, in much Israelite religious practice throughout the monarchic period, *YHWH had a divine consort, the goddess Asherah, the Hebrew equivalent of Ugaritic Athirat.[11]* (Originally the wife of El)
Google *"When Jehovah Was Not the God of the Old Testament. Part II - theyellowdart"*
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In addition, look up the below articles.
*"Yahweh - Wikipedia"*
(Yes, I know it's a Wikipedia article, but it's well sourced. Check out the references section)
*"Canaanite Phoenician Origin of the God of the Israelites."*
*"The Phoenician (Canaanite) God Resheph in the Bible - Is That in the Bible?"*
*"When the Jews believed in other gods - Archaeology - Haaretz"*
*"The Invention of God - Maclean's"*
*"The Boundaries of the Nations - Yahweh Elohim."*
*"How Did the Bible’s Editors Conceal Evidence of Israelite Polytheism - Evolution of God by Robert Wright."*
*"A Theologically Revised Text: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - Ancient Hebrew Poetry."*
*"Biblical Contradiction #11. When was the name Yahweh first invoked?"*
*"Biblical Contradiction #3: Which God is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth: Yahweh or El?"*
*"Biblical Contradiction #27. Are Yahweh and El the Same God or Not?"*
*"Biblical Contradiction **#294**, **#295**, **#296**. Which god liberated Israel from Egypt: Yahweh or El?"*
*"Mark Smith: "Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh's Ascendancy - Lehi's Library."*
*"The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) | Bible Interp"*
*"Quartz Hill School of Theology - B425 Ugarit and the Bible."*
*"The Origins of Yahweh and the Revived Kenite Hypothesis - Is That in the Bible?"*
*"Yahweh, god of metallurgy - Fewer Lacunae."*
*"Polytheistic Roots of Israelite Religion - Fewer Lacunae."*
*"Yahweh was just an ancient Canaanite god. We have been deceived! - Escaping Christian Fundamentalism"*
*"Religious Studies: El, Yahweh and the Development of Monotheism in Ancient Israel."*
*"Decoupling YHWH and El - Daniel O. McClellan."*
*"Yhwh, God of Edom - Daniel O. McClellan."*
*"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III - theyellowdart"*
*"God and the "Sons of God" - Yahweh Elohim"*
Very interesting, thank you
What are you on? Allah is not Yahweh. He's an Arabian deity which came into prominence around the 6th century AD. Allah is a personal name (the generic name for "god" in Arabic is "ilah"), just as Yahweh is a personal name. God doesn't have two personal names. The Judeo-Christian God, Yahweh, is not the god of Muhammad.