No, I’m referring to an account of an actual battle or battles. I’m only guessing that it’s in Joshua (if it is, I couldn’t find it with a search of my digital bible). It could be elsewhere, but it will take more searching to find it.
Huh. I seem to have a completely different understanding of it. Rather than “before me” meaning “You shall not count any of these other gods as being greater than myself” I take it to mean “You shall not worship any other god in my sight”. Not that i’m suggesting God was ok with idol worship in private; more that it’s just a general phrasing that seems pretty in keeping with Biblical language. God’s basically saying “Hey, i’m watching you. No worshipping other gods, k?”
Hmm . . . interesting theory. But is the phrase as ambiguous in the original Hebrew as it is in English translation?
I have the same question. In my hagadah (the book used for Passover services) a passage is repeatedly translated as ‘executed judgement on their gods’. The hagadah I read at another house translates the passage as ‘exposed the fraud of their priests’.
Re Egyptian Sorcerers
The explanation of the ‘there is only one God’ school is that the sorcerers used stage magic, sleight of hand and trickery. Have you seen Prince Of Egypt? The two high priests in the movie are con men using sleight of hand. Note also that they could copy Moses other two feats- turning a bottle of water to blood and turning a healthy hand leprous and back- as well.
Re Let Us make man in Our image
As a Jew, you won’t convince me this is the Father talking to Jesus. However, some schools of Jewish thought hold that G-d has many parts and thus the plural. OTTOMH, one of the names for G-d is Elohim which means ‘bright ones’
RE Gods and dominions
I cannot remember the passage but I recall a verse where a new convert to protoJudaism wants to dig up a bunch of dirt and take it home. This was based on the prevailing pagan belief at the time that a god had power only in their own country. The man believed that unless he had his altar on soil from the Jew’s land, G-d would not hear his prayers.
Re The Book Of Job
Satan isn’t even a proper noun here. It just means adversary. Essentially we have an angel playing devil’s advocate and taking the negative position. This didn’t keep Satan from popping up in Jewish folk beliefs.
If I were to guess, and the book I referenced earlier seems to back up this opinion, as the idea of monotheism grew, books changed and translations were altered to reflect less of the “greater God” idea, and more of the “everything else is false” idea.
If you were asking me, no clue. I’m sure there’s a Bible expert who’ll be along in a minute to tell us.
In some schools of thought of Christian demonology man made ‘gods’ can be ‘made real’ by demons. This ‘demon-god’ is alive and in possession of power but is far short of God’s power. This is sometimes extended back to the poly gods of old like Zeus, Jupiter, Ra. These demon-gods sometime mating with humans creating nephelium <sp> that is mentioned in scripture which would correspond to the great heroes, half human half god.
Yes but many names from back then were just descriptive terms and not names as we know them today (i.e. Adam means man)
In the NT fortune telling was done by demonic possession, once the demon was casted out then the ability of the slave girl to tell fortunes went away, I would put sorcerers in the same category myself.
But in short demonic power is Satanic power and less then God’s.
Still wouldn’t want to go up against one in a fiddle duel.
That definitely smells of revisionist history. If that was the case, then why wouldn’t the ancient biblical sources make an immediate distinction? Is there a solid biblical case (preferably stemming from a source that tries to translate as literally as possible) for the idea that “demons” were the cause of these other “gods” that are referred to as “Gods” that you wouldn’t have before them. Isn’t a slightly arbitrary distinction, given that I’ve already presented the idea that there was still the idea of other higher powers and Yahweh was simply a “more powerful” version of these same ideas… from whence does this arbitrary distinction of supernatural forces emerge, especially referencing writings in the Old Testament or written in a similar time frame?
I realize I am getting perilously close to hijacking this thread by asking this, but what the fuck are the 10 comandments doing in front of the local city offices. And which numbering version of the Commandments is displayed? The ones used by Roman Catholics and Lutherans or the ones used by Anglicans (Episcopaleans) and non-Lutheran Protestants? There ARE two numbering systems, you know. So which religious group does your local city office favour?
If the moderator would like to split this off into a separate thread, fine.
Don’t bother, gold violins don’t play for shit. And talk about a bad loser!
Perhaps a limitation of the language of the time. There are some references to Jesus as the Son of ‘adam/Adam’, and we still don’t know if that means that Adam was His greatgreatgreat…grandfather, or that it means Son of man. Many names of people and places in the OT are descriptions.
In one of the letters of Paul IIRC there is a warning not to accept false Christ, if you do you will be given a false spirit. Which boils down to accepting false teachings about Christ, especially teachings that Jesus did not rise in the flesh, would result in receiving a demon instead of the Holy Spirit.
I’m not as fluent with the OT as the NT, but then again I am talking about Christian demonology theory, so I am force to go with the NT to answer your question. Jesus is accused of casting out demons with the power of Satan (actually a alias of Satan IIRC). Jesus answers If Satan cast out Satan how can his kingdom stand? Here Jesus acknowledges that Satan has a kingdom and demons are under Satan’s kingdom.
So we are here faced with two choices:
One can look at this passage and say that it is typical of what a 1st-century Jewish scholar who was intelligent but superstitious and ignorant by our standards would have believed;
-OR-
One must believe that Jesus was the Son of God and therefore that the Kingdom of Satan peopled by demons under Satan’s control really exists.
In scripture is it unquestionable that Jesus believed in (the existance of) demons.
Technically, though you may be correct as far as Christian Demonology, it would seem that to answer this question we DO need to refer to the OT. As I’ve been continually pointing out, in particularly the older books of the OT, it seems quite clear the Yahweh expects to be worshipped exclusively among all of the possible Gods, and furthermore that he is worthy of exclusive worship because he particularly is more powerful and has more dominion than other gods.
It is revisionist history to suggest that the early Israelites/Jews/Worshippers of Yahweh really thought that there was ONLY one God.
So if one believes that Jesus was the Son of God, He could not possibly have told us about demons that do not exist. Unless you postulate a lying God. Therefore, one cannot logically be a Christian without believing in demons and the Kingdom of Satan which they inhabit.
Mark puts a lot of emphasis on Jesus as a “magical” being, he treats demonic possession as a common occurance and calls our attention to Jesus’ power to exorcise on command. As well, it is reported by Matthew that non-Christians were using Jesus’ name as a magical power to expel demons (source of the “Rebuke them not, for he who is not against us is with us…” line).
The later gospels seem to shy away from this line, preferring a much more ethically based Jesus, one more in tune with Hellenistic culture.
Wiki has a good starting point, if you want to know way, way more than anyone will ever need…