I’m curious to see where you’re going with this.
Shame that none of this was ever mentioned in the OT. But perhaps I’ve missed something. Cite?
Turning staffs into snakes is better than anything that I’ve seen David Copperfield, David Blaine, or Chris(sp?) Angel do.
OTOH, there is no mention of demons in the OT, apart from Satan’s brief role in the Book of Job.
It is fairly regularly argued that there was at least one other god(dess) around - Asherah. Archaeological and textual evidence seems to indicate that some forms of very early Judaism were not as monotheistic as later forms are.
Elenfair knows a fair bit about this. I also just reread a paper I wrote on Asherah from my first year of university - I had no idea my essays were so bad!
emphasis on this last part mine. This is the same thing Ive been arguing the whole thread: that any version of true from-the-beginning monotheism is revisionist history
It should also be noted that around the time they started to write down the OT Persia was the dominating power in the region.
The Persians had made a transition from polytheism to dualism. Good versus Evil.
Ahura Mazda has become the Top Dog on the Good side and Ahriman on the Bad side. The other gods had degenerated to their helpers.
One could easily see Persian influence in that Satan moves from being an adversary to the Adversary.
Yahweh and his angels versus Satan and his demons.
You have established that you believe in the existence of demons-can you point out any recent examples of their appearance?
also a good historical point in the development of the modern conception of the major religions.
I would really recommend A History of God for a pretty solid analysis of the origins of religion from a historical perspective. I think it links together the evolving views of religion really well, discussing the different sources for almost all of the OT, NT, and Qu’ran books, and how they related to prevailing scholarly/philisophical/cultural norms of the time, and how they were revised through that time.
Religion today is HEAVILY based on revisionism, it’s pretty clear.
Not only that but Zorastrianism also originated eschatalogical ideas about an end of the world and a day of judgement. The theological paradigm of a cosmic struggle between forces of good and evil (personified by a “good” god and a “bad” god) culminating in a final battle, an endtimes and a day of judgement all represented ideas which were absorbed into Judaism during the Babylonian exile and eventually made their way into Christianity. Much of Jewish theology was influenced by Persian theology and much of ancient Jewish literature (i.e. the Hebrew Bible) reflects post-exilic attempts to re-imagine Israelite history in the context of those ideas.
The archaeology of pre-exilic Israel – especially before about the 7th century BCE – looks far from monotheistic. Even the Davidic and Solomonic eras are filled with temples, inscriptions, idols and other artifacts indicating a robust polytheistic culture.
Traditionalists will attribute this archaeological evidence to backsliding, but there is still a lack of contemporary archaeological or documentary evidence that the Israelites believed in the existence of only one God before the exile.
Psalms 97:7 show false god idols bowing down before God.
Psalm 106:36-37 show how idols are demons. Deuteronomy 32:16-17 basically echo that idols are false gods and are also demons.
Yes, this is also the point of Christian demonology.
Your last statement does not logically follow. Christians learn their faith as they grow and as the Holy Spirit leads them. Not all Christians will need to deal with demons and perhaps never look into their existance. Some are new and will learn in time. Neither case disqualified one from being a Christian.
Not true, Deuteronomy 32:17, Psalm 106:37 mention demons, and evil spirit, which is usually assumed to mean demon is in 1 Samuel 16:14, 1 Samuel 16:23, 1 Samuel 16:15, Judges 9:23, 1 Samuel 19:9, 1 Samuel 18:10, 1 Samuel 16:16,
I don’t think demons are mentioned in Job, just symptoms of demonic possession/oppression, unless you count Satan as a demon, which, though Satan is the king of the demons I don’t consider him a demon, more a fallen angel. (note: demons seem to be earthbound, fallen angels are not, so they are not the same thing - this gets complex)
I would disagree with this, the 4 gospels have frequent mention of demons, the letters also have multiple mention of them. The letter to the Ephesians is considered by many to be the main book of spiritual warfare.
Demons are supernatural creatures that don’t have a physical form, so the word appearence is wrong. The VA-Tech shooter, from some of my readings of what he said in his video showed signs of demonic possession IMHO.
Christ was not created, even in a “pre-human form”. He is one of the three persons of God and has never not existed.
Is that a double negative, or a split infinity?
Perhaps one reason that demons are mentioned a lot in the NT and only a few times in the OT is in the OT demons were placed higher then man, and had authority over man. Man really couldn’t do anything about them on their own and had to depend on God’s mercy to remove the demon when God wanted to. In the NT Jesus gave man the authority over demons so more mention of them is needed as a instruction manual.
Exorcism is a specific RC rite and not a good place to learn about demons IMHO. The more common term is deliverance, which can be preformed by anyone (even apparently non-Christians depending on the demon), as long as the name of Jesus is used, or one of His other names.
A better place to start is Spiritual warfare - Wikipedia
Exodus 12:12 is also a interesting one where God says :
“…against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments–I am the LORD.”
I can’t recall anytime that God executed judgment against a non-living thing, the closest thing I can remember is Jesus cursed a fig tree.
Only if you accept a Trinitarian theology which raindog (as a Jehovah’s Witness) does not.
TVTime, you have still not answered my question as to whre these comandments are posted in front of local city offices. I see s civil rights case shaping up here.
so just to get this particularly straightened out so I’m sure I understand you, kanicbird… the current theology is that the false gods and/or other supernatural NON Yahweh (God/Jehovah/Elohim) forces in the OT were lesser demons. So a demon, then, would be a supernatural creature with limited powers and ability to work evil (and an angel would be a good counterpart, then), and often pretend to be gods, but in reality only God is, well, a God, and that definition includes being more or less ominpotence and/or being the final arbitrator of moral law?
Again, I ask, can you back up with any cites that this isn’t completely revisionist, as far as what the early Judaic culture believed (specifically with respect to my points and the addition of the point about zorastrianism)
The ‘counterpart’ to angel would be fallen angel, demons would be more accurately be a counterpart to Christians (humans), but not exactly. Again it does get a bit complex. Demons are confined to the Satanic kingdom and can’t do ‘good’.
But basically you got the gist of it.
If you are going to take the NT as revisionist, which BTW is the basis of Christian demonology, I would point to Deuteronomy 32:16-17:
um, I wouldn’t have pointed towards that verse if I were you. It seems to place “demons” and “new gods” in distinctly different categories, it would STILL be a polythiestic interpretation. And again the point is that the NT (if it can even be shown to clearly support this) seems to deny all other Gods as completely false, which IS revisionist to the way the early OT was written, and what most scholarly findings seem to indicate: the early followers of Yahweh were polytheistic but made a covenant to a God they felt had proven that he was the most superior God, able to help them out in ALL situations, not just a given field, or a given geographical area. To later recast these same Gods as mere “demons” (in a different class) is indeed revisionist.
I would argue that not all early Judaism was polytheistic. Obviously some people practiced a syncretic Jewish/Canaanite religion, but I think we can also see by the number of people that raise a fuss about them in the OT that there were also some groups who were more adamant about monotheism.