Damned if I know, I’m still trying to figure out how Harry Potter could summon a Patronus. Both really good books though
Wasn’t he in the OT sort of God’s hit-man and all ‘bad’ he did was mandated by God. And it was only in the NT where he started his own business. ?
Not quite. He is still God’s hit-man, or rather God’s torturer, in 1 Timothy 1:20:
I smell a " Good Cop - Bad Cop" setup here.
I think we’ve been had.
Good Book by David Plotz (an absolutely excellent read) points out that the magic trick the magicians couldn’t do is make lice appear? Make lice appear? How many lice do you think were on the heads of the people at that time?
I have a vague memory of listening to something a while back - I think it was a course on Egyptian history by The Teaching Company - where the lecturer cited sources from ancient Egypt itself. These sources made it clear that the snake trick was a commonly done “magic” trick by street magicians of the time. We may not know exactly how it was done, but apparently it was the equivalent of pulling a quarter out of someone’s ear, or predicting where the queen of spades ends up.
Speaking about other gods, I posted a similar thought in another thread regarding angels, demons and Satan: if they don’t age, don’t die, can’t be killed or captured, live in a different time/space continuum and have powers and abilities far beyond those of me, then I’d say they are gods.
temp user: functionally, yeah… But the Judeo-Christian entities are so severely limited in independence and volition, they’re less “god-like” than they are servant-like.
Even Hermes, sometimes the messenger of the Greek Gods, had his own agenda, and followed it often. Iris was, perhaps, more like a servant.
It’s hard to respect someone as “godlike” when they can be hauled in by the ear and made to display deep ritual obeisance. Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, is an example.
In much the same way: are wood-sprites, Dryads, the centaurs of the hills, fauns, Naiads, and the like, “gods?” Some say yes, following a line of reasoning similar to yours. They are supernatural entities with powers beyond our own, and at least some of them are also deathless (at least until killed by a hero.) Others say no. Tricky; the term doesn’t have an universally agreed-upon definition.
Yes they are gods, or rather, used to be gods.
They are the remnants of the gods people used to believe in before this notion of ‘there is only one God’ came around.
Saying they’re no true scotsman gods is just weaseling believers have to do to reconsile the evidence with their idea that there is only one god.