The First Commandment

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Cris, Mar 1, 2003.

  1. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

    Who or what are these other gods?

    If God knows he is the only god then why would he even imply that there is a choice?

    If we assume that God does not exist then the commandment makes more sense. It can then be seen as the result of a group of religious zealots trying to assert that their particular fantasy is the best and that other fantasies of gods should be ignored.

    Some people interpret this commandment symbolically: they see it as prohibiting the worship of money, status, success, beauty, etc in place of Jehovah. But the commandment text makes no such implications.

    If we assume that God really exists and that he is the ONLY god and if we put ourselves in his position, then how would we write this first commandment so it makes sense?

    I tried but couldn't create a wording that made sense. If he was the only god then the first commandment is redundant.
     
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  3. pumpkinsaren'torange Registered Senior Member

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    ..money, people, pornography, delusions....you name it....anything that stands in the way of your getting to know God....that's idolotry... anything can be a person's idol...if it's more important to a person than God is, than that is an idol (read: "other gods" )... and, we are all guilty of it to some degree....
     
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  5. man_of_jade Psychic person Registered Senior Member

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    It could also mean gods of other religons, or gods you make up a belief about to attract attention to yourself for.
     
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  7. Bridge Registered Senior Member

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    pumpkinsaren'torange

    You said it all so succinctly,


    I can't think of anything to add.
     
  8. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    But those are modern interpretations that I do not believe were intended at the time the commandments were written.

    The commandment talks about gods as if there can be multiple supernatural gods and potential competitors to God.
     
  9. spacemanspiff czar of things Registered Senior Member

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    our god is a jealous attention grabbing god
     
  10. ConsequentAtheist Registered Senior Member

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    The key is found in the textual history of Deuteronomy 32:7-9.

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  11. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    CA,

    OK, but that is slightly too obscure for me.

    But at a guess it looks like the biblical god is the god of the Israelites only. The god of the commandments is just limited to his chosen people only.

    That of course implies that other peoples can have their own legitimate gods, but that they are not for the Israelites.

    That would make a lot of sense.
     
  12. pumpkinsaren'torange Registered Senior Member

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    it's quite simple: whomever chooses God/Jesus is/are his chosen people....not israelites only.
     
  13. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    pumkins,

    The idea of Jesus wasn't conceived at the time of the commandments.

    I can't see where the commandments are expanded to include anyone other than the Israelites.
     
  14. pumpkinsaren'torange Registered Senior Member

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    prophosized

    i beg to differ....yes, it was...it was foretold/alluded to many times in the OT.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Cris

    Most specifically, Ba'al and Astarte. I'll dig up some references later, but in the Chronicles, or Kings, I think, there's a story about the Jews razing temples.

    And I wish my Karen Armstrong was here and not there. (It's on a friend's shelf.) Why is it that I think you've read History of God? At any rate, in the early pages, Armstrong describes a scenario whereby a guy is walking through a desert when he sees a burning bush or some such, and then Yaweh-God makes him an offer he can't refuse--allegiance will bring nations to his name. The rest is just building the power base. Knocking off the competition, so to speak.

    And I'm having trouble dredging up a non-politicized link about Jewish polytheism, something I hear passing reference to but never do the actual reading. Of course, if it touches at all on the Qabala, then I know where it comes from.

    :m:,
    Tiassa

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  16. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    tiassa,

    I think that was because I recommended her to you a long time ago.

    But on page 29 she says "the events of Exodus made Yahweh the definitive God of Israel."

    It looks like the god of the commandments was very much just a cruel and violent god but who fought on the side of the impotent and oppressed, i.e. the Israelites.

    How people choose to perceive him has certainly changed over time to where modern day Christians like to think that how they see him now is how he was seen at the time of the Exodus myth. That is patently wrong.

    But Jewish polytheism was something I seem to recall being mentioned before, and I suspect it was from you.
     
  17. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    pumpkins,

    I mean the idea of love they neighbor etc., that was created as part of the later Christian paradigm. Those ideas were not foretold. The god of the commandments was cruel, harsh, and tyrannically authoritarian, which was how the peoples of those times expected gods to behave.

    The mythmaking process that created Christianity certainly included whatever OT references it could muster to support its storyline; the OT didn't foretell Jesus, but rather the Jesus stories were written so to appear to support the prophecies.
     
  18. pumpkinsaren'torange Registered Senior Member

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    for a simpleton such as myself...could you please rephrase this...i am not quite sure i am catching the drift...thanks.

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  19. pumpkinsaren'torange Registered Senior Member

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    ;

    yeah...but, how would they have even KNOWN to write it into scripture...to "put the cart before the horse" if you will?? ...know what i mean?
     
  20. ConsequentAtheist Registered Senior Member

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    Massoretic Deuteronomy 32:8 speaks of sons/children of Israel.

    Early variants (e.g., LXX & Qumran) of this verse speak of sons/angels of God, while the 14th century Aramaic variant reads
    So what? So the Ugaritic Deity, El, had 70 Sons by Asherah, and these lesser dieties divided up the kingdom of man.

    Deuteronomy 32:8 is best understood as redacted henotheism.
     
  21. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    pumpkins,

    LOL. I should read back what I write.

    How about this -

    How people choose to perceive him has changed over time. Modern Christians view their god as far less violent than the people of the Exodus period viewed him.
     
  22. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    pumpkins,

    In the same way that I can make predictions of the future like -

    One day man will land on the moon again.

    Some time in the future a world leader will be assassinated.

    Some time in the future the USA will cease to be the most powerful nation on the planet.

    Etc., etc.

    The problem with prophecies is that they can be written such that they can give hope to people that increase the probability of the prophecy being true because it becomes an objective. It is then no longer a prophecy.

    The only true prophecy is one with immense specific detail that is written down, and kept safe and secret until after the event. Even then there is always the chance of coincidence.

    So the Christian myth writers would have known about the earlier vague prophecies and then weaved their storytelling around those concepts.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    I knew it was something like that

    Cris

    Actually I vaguely remember it. But enough people tell me that I'm wrong about details of my memory that I've come to distrust it. (Incidentally, I'm finding in other issues that I was right all along, but that's more an argument to have with my father over about seven or twelve beers.) I just didn't want to be presumptuous, especially on a day when the haze in the room is pleasant.

    But as to the Jewish polytheism ... I saw a reference to it on Google the other day when I was looking for the academic assertion that there is no true polytheism in history, and it was in a context that I normally wouldn't have taken. Didn't take the second to check out the link when I should have, but ... er ...

    Anyway.

    In the meantime, while it serves little toward the actual issue at hand, an interesting article on The Commandments.

    I don't know, maybe it will be useful.

    I did find an interesting bit elsewhere, which gives me a cornerstone for a comparative comment:
    This is, on the one hand, a crystal-clear statement of faith. If only we could find such clarity throughout the Biblical adventure ....

    And it is a bit of a surprise to me, as I had been concerned with notions of polytheism because I had learned the situation as to reflect the occasional suppression of Judaism, in the context of henotheism. So that while some Jews may be subject at some times to local customs requiring their observance of local religious holidays, Yaweh-God be kept foremost and never forsaken.

    But I learned that from either the Lutherans or the Catholics, and I know some people take off points for Catholicism.

    However, I did get a new Unitarian slam out of the PB Ministries page. It's a personal thing with me ....

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    :m:,
    Tiassa

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