Are the Jewish and Christian faiths polytheistic?

[Dubium]

A friend of mine posted this on another forum. I thought I would post it here and see what response it got, as it's not generating much discussion in the other place.

He says...

Where does it say that the judeo-muslim(ie. christian) god is the only god?
From memory and some quick looking, I'm pretty sure that this god does not deny the existance of other gods. If I am recalling correctly the aforementioned god just says you aren't allowed to have any god except me. My understanding is simply that jahweh doesn't play well with other children, but he doesn't deny that there are other children.

btw. this also helps explain where all the other tribes came from that Caan & Abel got to go off and breed with.

Most definitions of monotheism define it as being a belief in only one god, as separate to simply following only one god but believing in more.


...snip...
Edited for breach of Rule 4.



Thanks for any input.

[Nettles]

1. I can talk about gods without conceding that they have in independent existence. I can talk about Zeus or Woden or Isis as though they were real entities without thinking of them as real. The fact that the Bible refers to other gods doesn't mean that they're anything but human constructs.

2. Elohim is a grand singular not a plural, though it is plural in form. A comparable singular is mayim which means water, conjugates as a plural but which is a grand singular form. The singular word elo'ah, which means "god" or "the god of", is also sometimes used in the Psalms to mean God.

The Bible never denies that there are gods other than God. Indeed, there are whole tracts of the Prophets where the discussion of gods like Ba'al verges on the obsessive.

I am prepared to concede that the documents on which the redacted Hebrew Bible is based were drawn up by originators who imagined an independent if inferior existence for gods like (for instance) Ba'al Peor or Dagon: the textual evidence supports this.

The textual evidence does not by any means, however, support independent co-equal entities with God.

[c4ts]

The OT implies that there are other gods, but they are somehow false and inferior, and the NT seems to reinforce that viewpoint. I vaguely remember OT stories about Baal having inferior abilities lighting sacrificial burn pits or something, and the NT had stories where the powers of other gods were demons hoisting people around on invisible cables. And then Milton had his demons posing as the other gods in the OT, consistent with the "false god" concept. I don't know much about Islam, but they seem to have the same idea, with Mohammed smashing the false idols of his people and such. This looks more like a problem with the semantics of ancient Hebrew than anything else, which is already annoyingly complicated and they need to buy a vowel!

[Bikewer]

At least one early-Christian sect believed that the OT's Jehovah was part of a pantheon of Gods, and he (it?) was a rogue who had broken away from the others.
That, according to the author of Lost Christianities.

[a_unique_person]

It's a chronical of less sophisticated to more sophisticated thought, that is, how can we make god seem better and better. Also, as the process of recording history gets better, and less just a transcription of old myths, it becomes less and less fantastic. The bible starts with god walking around the garden of eden, floods that cover the earth, giants, etc, and the OT ends with prophets asking an invisible god for guidance and the odd favour.

With the NT, we are right back in the realms of the fantastic, but the history of it shows the process of creating such myths, from the much more bland original gospel, each scene in the subsequent gospels adds it's gilding of the lilly.

[FireGarden]

In Islam, the first breaker of idols is Abraham [sura 37:91]. "He stole away to their idols and said to them: "Will you not eat your offerings? Why do you not speak?" With that he fell upon them, striking them down with his right hand."

But this isn't where Abraham goes looking for something to believe in -- that's in sura 6.

(I'll use the translation of NJ Dawood, because the English is better. There are some (subtle) differences in meaning introduced. EG: the first line is given as "Lo! Abraham said to his father Azar," by Yusuf Ali)

[6:74-79] Tell of Abraham, who said to Azar, his father: "Will you worship idols as your Gods? Surely you and all your people are in palpable error."

Thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, so that he might become a firm believer.

When night drew its shadow over him, he saw a star. "That," he said, "is surely my God." But when it faded in the morning light, he said: "I will not worship Gods that fade."

When he beheld the rising moon, he said: "That is my God." But when it set, he said: "If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely go astray."

Then, when he beheld the sun shining, he said: "That must be my God: it is the largest." But when it set, he said to his people: "I disown your idols. I will turn my face to him who has created the heavens and the earth, and will live a righteous life. I am no idolater."

I compare it to Voltaire's "If God did not exist, then it would be necessary to invent him." But that's probably because I'm the sort that reads stories and asks "What do I see here?" rather than "What did the author intend here?"

When Abraham finds his God, he doesn't name it; he doesn't point to it. He just believes. Unlike Moses/Mohammed, he's not guided by a voice from a burning bush, or revelations from an angel. He believes the guidance is there without pointing to a physical source -- in fact, he gives up trying to find a physical source when he realises that none fit the bill.

So Islam also talks of other Gods. It describes them as false because they have no effect. But how you get from idolatry to a religion with exactly one God is left somewhat unexplained -- at least in the Abraham story. Sans burning vegetation etc, it seems to be just a choice.

[Odin]

so... What did polytheistic religions make of the Gods from other pantheons or monotheistic religions they encountered?

[TragicMonkey]

so... What did polytheistic religions make of the Gods from other pantheons or monotheistic religions they encountered?

Sometimes they adopted them and added them to their own cast of gods.

[kedo1981]

The whole thing is more easily understood when you compare modern day religions with the root of all near eastern religious belief, ancient Egypt.
Their pantheon of gods, belief in the after life, and burial practices are the base for nearly all the European “pagan” (at least Greek and Roman).
The polytheistic practices evolved into Catholicism, the monotheistic movement of the pharaoh Ank-un-natin (ok, so I know I didn’t spell it right) morphed into Judaism which later begat Islam and Protestantism (with Jesus filling the role of the resurrected sun god)

[c4ts]

so... What did polytheistic religions make of the Gods from other pantheons or monotheistic religions they encountered?
The Greeks and Romans would view them as aspects of their own pantheon, kind of like how some monotheistic religions interpret other gods as part of their own. Occasionaly they would add a new one, if no equivalent existed, but most of the majors could be shoehorned into an existing pantheon figure. All those animal headed things were just how the Olympic gods chose to appear to the Egyptians, anyway...

[FireGarden]

Odin
What did polytheistic religions make of the Gods from other pantheons or monotheistic religions they encountered?

In the old days, Gods had children with each other and with humans. So a God you'd never heard of would not have been any more inexplicable than a person you'd never met.

That said, I can't think of an example where a God was born within the lifetime of a religion. Is there one? Did the Vikings celebrate Thor's birth, or was he born before the religion was formed?

EDIT: just thought... Emperors like Caesar and Alexander were deified.

[Beerina]

Judiasim (via OT) and therefore Christianity and Islam are polytheistic.

Why? Recall that Yahweh (via Moses) and the Egyptian Pharoah's god (via the pharoah's priest) got into an infinite big-dork swinging contest over whose sticks, turned to snakes, was tougher.

Yahweh won, proving he was the tougher god, since the snake from Moses' stick ate up the two, count 'em, two snakes created from Pharoah's priest's stick.

Apologists suggest this was really the devil doing this, but that:

1. Isn't supported by the story at all. It's my god can beat up your god.

2. If it were true, then the point of the story becomes moot. Why would God want it in the Bible if it isn't about what it purports to be about? Why not mention, as part of the story, that it's secretly the devil who is instantiating the other snakes?

3. If it were a mundane sleight-of-hand trick on Pharoah's priest's part, then why couldn't Moses also have been pulling a fast one, prestidigitating in his own snake and merely claiming Yahweh did it?


Nope, I've never heard a decent explanation as to why there aren't more than one actual, existing god in this story.

[FireGarden]

Beerina
Judiasim (via OT) and therefore Christianity and Islam are polytheistic.

Judaism may have been polytheistic at one point. But that doesn't mean it is today. Or that it was at the time Christianity and Islam were formed. The founders of Islam obviously recognised the overtones of polytheism in previous scripture. Perhaps that's why they made "There is no God but The God," a cornerstone of the new faith.

Nope, I've never heard a decent explanation as to why there aren't more than one actual, existing god in this story.

The Quran [7:104...] and [20:56...] says it was trickery. The sorcerers didn't actually make snakes. "They bewitched people's eyes." I get the impression they stood in front of the crowd and waved a stick in the air -- you know how... To make it look as if it's gone bendy! :D Or it could be some slight of hand...


I'm not entirely clear on the use of the word "God" in the OT.

Exodus 7 ::: And the Lord said onto Moses "See I have made thee a god to Pharaoh and Aaron shall be thy prophet."

But the magic contest that follows doesn't explicitly mention competing Gods. Can a magician throw one thing while pretending to throw another?

[Nettles]

3. If it were a mundane sleight-of-hand trick on Pharoah's priest's part, then why couldn't Moses also have been pulling a fast one, prestidigitating in his own snake and merely claiming Yahweh did it

Are you suggesting that people have trouble believing that one conjuror's trick is stage magic while another's is evidence of Genuine Psychic Powers(TM)?

Aaron turns his staff into a crocodile. The Hebrew word is tanin which is also used to mean "dragon"; and is distinct from the word nachash which means "snake", though later in the chapter a forgetful God refers to "the staff you turned into a snake". The staff eats the crocodile-staves of the Khartoumim, a wonderful word that doesn't translate well.

Pharaoh consults chachamim (wise men) and mechashefim, which is the masculine plural form of the noun later translated by the AV as "witch", but the actual transformation is performed by the Khartoumei Mitzrayim where the latter word means "of Egypt" and the prior word (the genitive plural of the noun Khartoum) is very unclear in its meaning. One thing none of these terms mean is "priest". The term "kohen" is used for priests not only of God, but also of the Egyptian religion (in Genesis where Joseph marries the daughter of Potiphera, the Priest of On, the priest is called Potiphera kohen On).

So Aaron turns his staff into a crocodile. The Khartoumim do the same. Aaron's staff eats the staves of the Khartoumim.

Let's go back to Beerina's point: Why should Pharaoh be impressed by Aaron's conjuring trick even if it did involve one stick eating two other sticks?

The answer is, he isn't. Ex 7 : 13: "And Pharaoh's heart hardened, and he did not listen to them, just as God had said."

The Khartoumim might be a subset of the wise men or of the sorcerers, or they might not. Their conjuring is not ascribed to the power of God, the power of their own gods, or to the power of impersonal magic: so far as I can see, it could have been stage magic. (If I'd been in the audience, I rather think that would have been my conclusion -- it certainly seemed to be Pharaoh's.)

If, as Beerina suggests, apologists suggest "this was really the Devil doing this", then perhaps these apologists had never heard of stage magic.

Why, then, does God prepare Aaron with this stunt? God makes it clear in his briefing Ex 7:8-9. "And God spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying, 'What if Pharaoh speaks with you, saying "give us a sign"?' And he said to Aaron take your staff and throw it before Pharaoh and it will become a crocodile." This is just meant to establish Aaron's bona fides: to prove that Aaron is a wonder-worker, not to prove that God is more powerful than the Egyptian gods.

The Egyptian gods are confronted later in the story, not in the incident with the staves.

[Beerina]

The Quran [7:104...] and [20:56...] says it was trickery. The sorcerers didn't actually make snakes. "They bewitched people's eyes." I get the impression they stood in front of the crowd and waved a stick in the air -- you know how... To make it look as if it's gone bendy! :D Or it could be some slight of hand...

I sit, corrected. At least someone in Islam recognized it as a problem and tried to retrofit the situation, although the other point is still valid -- if Pharoah's priest used trickery, how do we know Moses didn't?

[Seb1]

Because the Koran says the priests used trickery and Aaron didn't.

[FireGarden]

What Seb said!
If we had a different reason, we'd be discussing archeology not religion.

[RSLancastr]

Also, Christianity is defined by some as polytheistic because of the Holy Trinity.

I know, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all supposed to be three different aspects of the same God, but they are also separate and distinct, and talk to each other.

Hmmm.

[Euromutt]

I'm not sure you can fairly describe Christianity as a whole as being polytheistic, but various branches of Protestantism have certainly levelled the accusation that the acceptance of saints by the Roman Catholic church is nothing other than crypto-polytheism (by extension, this applies to the various Orthodox churches as well).

I seem to recall there's a word describing the apparent OT Jewish practice of acknowledging the existence of multiple gods while being devoted to only one.
Oh, here we go: the term is henotheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism), described by the guy who coined the term as "monotheism in principle and polytheism in fact."

[RSLancastr]

Mormons consider themselves to be Christians (while many people in more traditional Christian denominations would disagree), and they definitely believe in multiple gods, since the main goal of a Mormon is to become a god with their own universe to populate.

So, they worship only one god (the one who runs this universe), but believe that there are an infinite number of gods, present and future.

Not sure whether that qualifies as polytheism or not!

[aargh57]

OK, what about the devil, angels, spirits, demons, saints, etc.... They sure as heck aren't supposed to be human. What's the difference between these and some polytheistic lesser "gods"? Where is the god cut-off line? The devil's always described as being one bad dude with some pretty godlike powers. Some of those angels are supposed to be pretty tough too.

[sackett]

OK, what about the devil, angels, spirits, demons, saints, etc.... They sure as heck aren't supposed to be human. What's the difference between these and some polytheistic lesser "gods"? Where is the god cut-off line? The devil's always described as being one bad dude with some pretty godlike powers. Some of those angels are supposed to be pretty tough too.

You’re on my list, buddy: I’ve been harping that string for years.

If you encountered religions identical to Judyism (as the liberal rabbis pronounce it) or Christianism or Mohammedoidism being practiced in, say, the wilds of New Guinea or somewhere in the Amazon basin, you’d see them as clearly polytheistic: Worshippers believe in all kinds of supernatural beings, some good, some bad, some of them bigshots (Ghod, Jizus, Setan), some smaller fry (saints, angels, djins). You wouldn’t waste your time trying to sort the various deities into classes; you’d just report the natives’ beliefs and try to work out what role the cult played in the society as a whole.

You say we’re not in New Guinea? Oh
yes
we
are.

[FireGarden]

The Greek gods didn't create the universe. But somewhere along the line, being the Creator seems to have become a necessary part of the definition of God. So no matter how powerful devils/angels etc are, they don't live up to that one criteria.... So they aren't gods.

I'm not sure when that narrower definition begins to apply. Moses was made a god to Pharaoh in Exodus 7, he wasn't made the one and only creator for Pharaoh. The word seems to be used in the sense of Lord/Master etc.

[aargh57]

From dictionary.com we get the following definitions:

God
1. a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
4. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
5. A very handsome man.
6. A powerful ruler or despot.
7. An omnipotent, omniscient, noodley appendaged pasta (ok, I put this one in there)

So, I suppose if you stick to definition #1 then Christianity/Judaism is monotheistic. However, why do some religions get to basically decide they're monotheistic and then turn around and claim other religions (like the ones sackett described) aren't?

[a_unique_person]

You’re on my list, buddy: I’ve been harping that string for years.

If you encountered religions identical to Judyism (as the liberal rabbis pronounce it) or Christianism or Mohammedoidism being practiced in, say, the wilds of New Guinea or somewhere in the Amazon basin, you’d see them as clearly polytheistic: Worshippers believe in all kinds of supernatural beings, some good, some bad, some of them bigshots (Ghod, Jizus, Setan), some smaller fry (saints, angels, djins). You wouldn’t waste your time trying to sort the various deities into classes; you’d just report the natives’ beliefs and try to work out what role the cult played in the society as a whole.

You say we’re not in New Guinea? Oh
yes
we
are.

It comes back to me now, the "Patron Saints" and the Virgin Mary. People are encouraged to pray to them, for some reason. A whisper in the Virgin Mary's ear, via an intercessionary? prayer, and you can get the equivalent of a modern day lobbyist to use their inside access to an all powerful and all knowing god to give you a special favour.

[ruach1]

No

[aargh57]

No

Nominated

[ruach1]

Nominated
Thanks

[a_unique_person]

No

It depends on how literally you want to read the bible. If you take it literally, there were other gods, they just faded away over time.

[ruach1]

It depends on how literally you want to read the bible. If you take it literally, there were other gods, they just faded away over time.
Agreed.

This raises the question of: define God/god.

This obviously can't be done; we can only give what we think God to be and gods to be.

In what could be called "the common understanding," God as in God of Abraham/father of Jesus Christ is God--however one understands God to BE. Then the understanding of god as in gods as mentioned in the Hebrew Bible refer to fabricated deities who were the embodiment of different aspects of nature or the "power" of the stars. As these gods faded into history (as "a unique person" rightly proclaims) and God remained God to a vast number of believers (even to this day), the existence of these gods became untenable though they were probably real to ancient Hebrews as they are not real today.

(And yes, I can hear people thinking, "who says this God is anymore tenable today then the gods of yesteryear? Just because there's a vast number of believers, the existence of God like gods is equally untenable by any practical and demonstrable methods of verification." Dang. I'm good, aren't I? I should apply for that Million Dollar Thingamajig...)

So were the ancient Hebrews who believed in THE LORD yet held to the existence of other gods polytheistic? NO because they believed that only God is God--what the other gods exactly were was not known apart from them not being God.

[Leif Roar]

OK, what about the devil, angels, spirits, demons, saints, etc.... They sure as heck aren't supposed to be human. What's the difference between these and some polytheistic lesser "gods"? Where is the god cut-off line? The devil's always described as being one bad dude with some pretty godlike powers. Some of those angels are supposed to be pretty tough too.

Authority. A deity has, in its nature, authority over some dominion or aspect. Odin, as an example, has authority over chieftains and leaders. He's a god of chieftains. The valkyries, although they have power, does not have authority. They act as agents of Odin, and thus get their authority from him.

There are also free agents, such (to continue using the Norse mythology for examples) the dwarves or the Fenris wolf, which have power but no
authority -- or at least they have no authority over the human world.

Plus, of course, there's an aspect of "The enemy have spies, our allies have agents. We have intelligence officers" to the whole thing.

Of course, the lines between gods and other supernatural entities are not always distinct. There are several cases in history where gods have been demoted to daemons, kings have been promoted to gods and similar. It's similar to how to define a king -- a duke in one country might be more powerful than a king in the neighbouring country, and a warlord in a distant land might be more powerful than either.

[Mycroft]

Judiasim (via OT) and therefore Christianity and Islam are polytheistic.

Why? Recall that Yahweh (via Moses) and the Egyptian Pharoah's god (via the pharoah's priest) got into an infinite big-dork swinging contest over whose sticks, turned to snakes, was tougher.

Yahweh won, proving he was the tougher god, since the snake from Moses' stick ate up the two, count 'em, two snakes created from Pharoah's priest's stick.

Apologists suggest this was really the devil doing this, but that:

1. Isn't supported by the story at all. It's my god can beat up your god.

2. If it were true, then the point of the story becomes moot. Why would God want it in the Bible if it isn't about what it purports to be about? Why not mention, as part of the story, that it's secretly the devil who is instantiating the other snakes?

3. If it were a mundane sleight-of-hand trick on Pharoah's priest's part, then why couldn't Moses also have been pulling a fast one, prestidigitating in his own snake and merely claiming Yahweh did it?


Nope, I've never heard a decent explanation as to why there aren't more than one actual, existing god in this story.


An alternative explanation for this is that the priests were false priests using sleight of hand magic tricks to work their miracles. Moses learned the trade from his father in law, Jethro, who was an ex-priest himself. Moses worked the minor miracles himself, only getting the truly divine help for the big stuff like plagues and the slaying of the first born.