Here’s part of the BBC’s “Bible’s Secrets” series. This is episode 2, which deals with the character Asherah who – possibly – was seen as the wife of Yahweh. As always, remember that these programs are trying to be provocative. Broken into four parts.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
(via Scott Bailey)
Question? How many Christians are willing to watch these videos and be challenged by the assertions made?
Dan,
I’ve watched them and I’m a Christian. The videos are good but they are not devastating or anything like that. The Hebrew Scriptures are clear that many authoritative people (i.e. Kings, priests) had very divergent views about God. Why does everyone act like this is “new” news? No one is “uncovering” a secret. These facts are plain as day.
I think Mark S. Smith has done a good job showing that “monotheism” is a later development in religion in general that basically arose for political reasons. Why should this bother Christians? Those who claim it should have never been able to explain why it should. Can you? (btw my tone is not an attacking one. I am really curious.)
Daniel
Um…because monotheism is a fundamental tenet of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If you show that monotheism is a secondary development in Abrahamic theology, it undermines the claim that there was One True God who created the universe and continues to rule it.
At the very least, it shows that Christianity and its cousins are no different from any other religion. They evolve over time, according to changing political and philosophical schools of thought. I.e., they are not divine eternal truths, but very human social constructs. You seem very comfortable with the idea that monotheistic Christianity theology is a product of politics- so why is it, exactly, that you would assign it any more truth value than any other religion?
This demonstrates that religion is derived from the desires of humans. It shows how religion is crafted as a political tool, this is nothing new or surprising. It should bother you as a Christian that your religious text were written in this way and that their content was not written or dictated by a god. Whether a god or many gods exist, it is clear that all religions are the products of human imagination.
Also the fact that god had a wife sort of breaks his “Universal Power Status” since there is “another being who probably has the same powers since she exists in his reality” (Assuming that reality exists.)
The irony of genesis is that God was created by man, not vice versa.
So God wasn’t the boss then? :) That’s why the view on women is so poor in the bible..
“I wouldn’t give Satan a snowball’s chance in hell against a woman’s ego, man. He’d rule the Earth for a day. A week later we’d see Satan out cuttin’ the lawn.” Bill Hicks
Ah! That explains a lot! God is a Men’s Right’s Activist!
1. He hates women and never mentions his wife
2. He asks that everyone else hate women for unknown and irrational reasons based on irrational arguments about what women have done.
3. He sleeps around with younger women who he dominates using his power rather than personality
4. He abandons his kid and shows no responsibility towards him
Why didn’t we realise this before?
You win the Internet!
Sounds like the description of Zeus.
Yeah, but Zeus had a terrible father. It’s practically a quantum leap in behaviour considering the worst Zeus got upto was womanising and occasionally frying a mortal. He didn’t try and eat Hephasteus…
I suppose it’s a description of the Hindu gods but the big 6 (the big 3 gods and their female goddess wives) are a bit less sexist and a whole lot more metal (I am sorry. A pretty lady who can turn into either Rambo or Cannibal Ogre is a lot more awesome than “turns someone into salt”). Not to mention a lot of Hindu gods superpower levels are in the “doing things because things need to be done radically”. Killing someone is only acceptable if you kill him with a giant robot (sigh… there is a Hindu story about a 100 foot tall giant robot which fires buzzsaws…. It guards the ambrosia from anyone trying to steal it… It is awesome)
Didn’t Zeus eat Athena’s mother to prevent her from having a male child that would dethrone him?
Had God’s wife to be veiled?
Are you kidding? I know Ashera was real, because one of her descendents, Jane ASHER, was Paul McCartney’s girlfriend, and one of the hottest British acresses of her era! A veil on her would be a crime!
The 1st commandment tells us there are may g0ds.
How can you have any g0d before the g0d if S/He/IT is the only one?
And if g0d is BEYOND space and time and we can never go there how do we know there is only one? Because some bronze age goat herders say so?
And yes the ‘facts’ in the videos are not knew but I am still willing to bet most (insert desert BS) has never heard of these ‘facts’ and will probably not in the future.
And I’ll take Zeus any day over the psychotic sky-demon we are always hearing about today. After all Zeus never drowned 99.99% of the world just cuz he had a pissy day!
Actually….
Greek and Hindu mythology have had a mixing point. The Seulecids. A lot of mythology shifted around, such as Achilles – Krishna (krishna dies by an arrow through the ankle), heracles – Bheema, achilles – durhyodhana (durhyodhana is invulnerable except for his groin. Because in Hindu chivalry groin strikes are forbidden. The guy who kills him smacks him in the crotch with a double handed mace.)
Hindus have a Noah’s ark story. Vishnu appears as a fish that grows and grows and grows outgrowing every container till the only one that could hold him was the sea. He then asked the man who saved him to build a small boat. Matsya (the name of the fish) then caused it to rain to cover the world while all the animals marched inside the giant fish being carried to safety.
It’s entirely possible that the story is from Hinduism or the Far East since the chinese too have a similar myth and similar stories. Trade between the two societies was common enough to notice similarities in story telling.
Interestingly enough the first anti-flood hypothesis that we know of is from Leonardo Da Vinci who stated that a global flood would not lay down strata in such ordered lines. Very sexy observation for the period considering idiots today believe the opposite despite our technology.
Most gods are psychotic bastards. They have to be, because the easiest motivator is fear. And if you really want to control people, then a whip is a crass tool that can easily be turned against its master. What you need is a whip in the mind and the best part of that whip is people will hit themselves with it even if you aren’t paying attention. That is religion.
Best description I ever heard.