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Muhammad as the anti-christ (Read 22057 times)
goldkam
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #165 - Mar 9th, 2018 at 6:17pm
 
Auggie wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 11:21am:
Mattyfisk wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 7:02pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 6:20pm:
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 3:38pm:
what "inherent beliefs" Auggie?

I don't have to change any of my "inherent beliefs" to know my religion is a religion of peace.


The belief that the Quran is unalterable word of God.


Oh, come on. The Bible isn't?

You must have missed the opening verse, dear.


The point is that there is a tradition of hermeneutics in Christianity which looks at each text as being written by specific followers of the disciples many years after the fact. Paul’s letters were written by him to different communities.

Now there are Christians who say that those people were divinely inspired; but there’s still wiggle room in interpretation.

The Quran on the other hand is considered to be the unalterable word of god. As a Muslim you can’t say that the texts were written by people after the fact (even though that is likely the case). To a Muslim the Quran is the literal word of God, chapter and verse.


That notion of the unalterable word of God is not entirely accurate. Some elements or readings of the Quran are not looked upon or interpreted if there is no conflict of interest, rather if there is a conflict of interest occurs the following happens. The writings of the Hadith will be interpreted and examined by scholars. If this fails and a decision or interpretation cannot be met,  it passes onto the Consensus of the Scholars who interpert both the Hadith and Quran to reach an amicable solution.
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #166 - Mar 9th, 2018 at 7:02pm
 
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 10:00am:
freediver wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 7:22pm:
Quote:
Good question FD. I believe I asked you that exact same question when you made your BS claim about Islam recruitment only starting when potential followers saw the attraction of slaughtering innocent and defenceless caravaners.


No Gandalf. I asked you the question. I have asked it every time you use this excuse, to highlight the absurdity of your excuses. How does Muhammad's mistreatment by some people in Meccca justify an entirely different group of Muslims using it as an excuse to murder and steal from an entirely different group of Meccans? This is the evil of Islam.



No really FD, I asked you. 7 days ago, to be exact - here it is again:

polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 2nd, 2018 at 11:15am:
freediver wrote on Mar 1st, 2018 at 7:56pm:
Muhammad had bugger all followers until he started robbing Meccan trade caravans and murdering innocent traders from his base in Medina.


Quote:
For most of the Muslims, it was the first attack. They only became followers of Muhammad to join in the looting.


Good point FD. Now if you wouldn't mind just furnishing me with some figures (with evidence preferably) for the pre and post first caravan raid muslim population. Just a ballpark figure will do.

thanks.


Oh surprise surprise, you ducked and weaved from it.

Why is this important? Because your BS claim that the caravan raids were carried out (at least in part) by a population that were not involved in the hijra - is completely baseless. But once again, as you always do, you state it as unquestioned fact.

As it happens, we know you are wrong. The caravan raids were carried out entirely by the emigrants (muhajirun) - which a simple search on wikipedia would have told you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhajirun

And while we're on the subject of BS claims, lets also dispense with your claim that it was "years" between the hijra and the first raids. The hijra happened in sometime between June and September 622, and the first raid happened between January and March the following year - well under one year later.


polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 2:49pm:
freediver wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 12:42pm:
Just as an example, is the wikipedia article you posted a link to an example of you proving me wrong on a specific point of historical fact?


Yes.

Now drawing on your knowledge of that wiki article I posted, would you describe this claim of yours as accurate?

Quote:
For most of the Muslims, it was the first attack. They only became followers of Muhammad to join in the looting.


Also, do you acknowledge you were wrong to claim it was "years" between the hijra and the first caravan raid?


Gandalf, here are some examples of what the article actually says:

The fourth raid, known as the invasion of Waddan, was the first offensive in which Muhammad took part personally with 70, mostly Muhajir,troops.

The fifth raid, known as the invasion of Buwat, was also commanded by Muhammad.[3] A month after the raid at al-Abwa, he personally led 200 men including Muhajirs and Ansars


Those numbers seem to be starting out awefully small don't you think? 6 in the first raid, 20 in the second, 70 in the fourth (of which apparently the majority were original emigrants from Mecca), 200 in the fifth.

How exactly do you go from there to

Quote:
As it happens, we know you are wrong. The caravan raids were carried out entirely by the emigrants (muhajirun)


???

Did you read the article?
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #167 - Mar 9th, 2018 at 7:49pm
 
Yes FD, evidently I was wrong to say they were all carried out by muhajirun.

Do you know how many emigrants there were? I'm not being tricky here - I genuinely don't know. I doubt you know either, which is why I asked you where you got your information that the raids were conducted mostly by non-muslims. I maintain still that you are wrong. I assume their numbers were in the order of a few hundred - enough, I would have thought, to qualify as a "community" that could legitimately feel they were in a state of war when they were evicted from their homes. But thats just my opinion.

Now your turn - where did you get "years" between the hijra and the first raid, when it was in fact a matter of months?
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Outlawing the enemy's uniform - hijab, islamic beard - is not depriving one's own people of their freedoms.
 
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #168 - Mar 9th, 2018 at 9:20pm
 
freediver wrote on Feb 28th, 2018 at 6:28am:
Muhammad is literally the anti-christ.

There are many. Muhammed is one, probably the most significant so far.

canto 28 is marvelous and harrowing. Canto 28 is perfect.

He [Dante] begins by listing famous battlefields—if all the mangled bodies and limbs and guts from all these vicious wars were combined, he says, they would pale in comparison to the ninth pit of hell. The first thing he sees here is a man “cleft from the chin right down to where men fart.” What’s remarkable about this line is not that a poet as great as Dante would use the word fart—although, let’s face it, that is sort of funny—but that it’s almost identical to a line that Shakespeare would write many centuries later, in Macbeth: “unseamed … from the nave to th’ chops.”

Our unseamed sinner—with his entrails and “loathsome” “poo” sack torn asunder—is Mohammed, who tells Dante that this pit is reserved for those who “sowed scandal and schism.” The Hollanders point out that Dante must therefore have seen the prophet not as the founder of a new religion, but as the catalyst for the schism that would branch off from Christianity and become Islam.

Mohammed explains how punishment works around here. He and his fellow mangled sinners eventually find that their injuries have healed—but once they’re all closed up, they’re mangled yet again by a demon. The punishment is not simply about pain and suffering, to say nothing of the inconvenience of having to carry your colon in your hands; the indignity of being mangled is equally important. Mohammed believes, for some reason, that Dante and Virgil are dead and simply taking a tour of hell before being punished. Clearly, Mohammed hasn’t quite grasped the way hell works.



"sowed scandal and schism" - Dante is sharp and precise.  Choosing to follow Mohammed is choosing scandal and schism. And carrying your shitful entrails before you for eternity.



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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #169 - Mar 9th, 2018 at 10:33pm
 
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 7:49pm:
Yes FD, evidently I was wrong to say they were all carried out by muhajirun.

Do you know how many emigrants there were? I'm not being tricky here - I genuinely don't know. I doubt you know either, which is why I asked you where you got your information that the raids were conducted mostly by non-muslims. I maintain still that you are wrong. I assume their numbers were in the order of a few hundred - enough, I would have thought, to qualify as a "community" that could legitimately feel they were in a state of war when they were evicted from their homes. But thats just my opinion.

Now your turn - where did you get "years" between the hijra and the first raid, when it was in fact a matter of months?


Why did you push the excuse that they were merely retaliating for their mistreatment by the Meccans, for so many years, despite not knowing basic facts like how many there were, and despite me pointing out this flaw in your argument repeatedly? Do you think its important bringing actual facts to the table when debating actual history? When you have been proven wrong so many times on specific points of historical fact, do you think it delegitimises your argument? Even just a little bit?

https://www.al-islam.org/muhammad-yasin-jibouri/prophet-madina-622-ad

The immigrants, forty-five in number, were called “Muhajirun.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_in_Medina

These attacks provoked and pressured Mecca by interfering with trade, and allowed the Muslims to acquire wealth, power and prestige while working toward their ultimate goal of inducing Mecca's submission to the new faith.

In March 624, Muhammad led some three hundred warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan.

the Muslims won the battle, killing at least forty-five Meccans

The raiders had won a lot of treasure


Later that month:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Uhud

A group of approximately 1,000 Muslim men set out

Muhammad was able to prepare a force of about 3,000 men.

In 630, Muhammad marched on Mecca with an enormous force, said to number more than ten thousand men.


All in self defence eh? Or was it because they were starving? Or do you have some other excuse now?
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #170 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 10:29am
 
Frank wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 9:20pm:
freediver wrote on Feb 28th, 2018 at 6:28am:
Muhammad is literally the anti-christ.

There are many. Muhammed is one, probably the most significant so far.

canto 28 is marvelous and harrowing. Canto 28 is perfect.

He [Dante] begins by listing famous battlefields—if all the mangled bodies and limbs and guts from all these vicious wars were combined, he says, they would pale in comparison to the ninth pit of hell. The first thing he sees here is a man “cleft from the chin right down to where men fart.” What’s remarkable about this line is not that a poet as great as Dante would use the word fart—although, let’s face it, that is sort of funny—but that it’s almost identical to a line that Shakespeare would write many centuries later, in Macbeth: “unseamed … from the nave to th’ chops.”

Our unseamed sinner—with his entrails and “loathsome” “poo” sack torn asunder—is Mohammed, who tells Dante that this pit is reserved for those who “sowed scandal and schism.” The Hollanders point out that Dante must therefore have seen the prophet not as the founder of a new religion, but as the catalyst for the schism that would branch off from Christianity and become Islam.

Mohammed explains how punishment works around here. He and his fellow mangled sinners eventually find that their injuries have healed—but once they’re all closed up, they’re mangled yet again by a demon. The punishment is not simply about pain and suffering, to say nothing of the inconvenience of having to carry your colon in your hands; the indignity of being mangled is equally important. Mohammed believes, for some reason, that Dante and Virgil are dead and simply taking a tour of hell before being punished. Clearly, Mohammed hasn’t quite grasped the way hell works.



"sowed scandal and schism" - Dante is sharp and precise.  Choosing to follow Mohammed is choosing scandal and schism. And carrying your shitful entrails before you for eternity.





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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #171 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 12:09pm
 
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 6:08pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 4:29pm:
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 2:35pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 11:23am:
Auggie wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 6:03pm:
polite_gandalf wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 3:36pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 3:09pm:
Unless you’re saying that there were some things he did that weren’t commanded by God?


LOL of course there were. Do you think he waited for God's permission every time he needed to pee?




I’m talking about the laws and principles of behaviour. Are you saying that there some wars or battles he fought which were not commanded by God


Please address this point.


Precisely zero battles were 'commanded by God'.


So, the ‘kill them wherever you find them’ and ‘smiting at the neck’, were they commanded by God?


Are they commands to launch specific battles, or more general guidelines for the conduct of war?


So, Muhammad ‘started the battle’ and the God revealed to him how to conduct warfare?

Doesn’t make sense to me.
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #172 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 12:11pm
 
Brian Ross wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 2:43pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 9th, 2018 at 11:22am:
Brian Ross wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 6:18pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 8th, 2018 at 5:39pm:
Now that was below the belt, that first point, Brian.


How is asking for clarification about what you have written "below the belt"?

Quote:
The answer is no: as Gandalf admitted before, you can’t have an ‘anything goes’ approach with religion. We have to identify certain objective beliefs about religion and about what those people believe.

Anything else is just a lie.


So, belief has nothing to do with religion?  My, how interesting...   Roll Eyes


I thought you were having a snipe at my incorrect grammar. If I’m mistaken, I apologise.


I was asking what you actually meant.  It had as I suggested, two alternative versions.  If I want to have a go at your grammar, I will.

Quote:
Second, I don’t believe I was saying that.


So, belief is important then?   I am somewhat confused.  You appear to be saying that belief has no place in ascertaining what religions believe in.    Roll Eyes


Of course belief has a place in religion. That’s precisely my point. Christians believe that Christ existed and was the sin of god. That I don’t believe it doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it.
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #173 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:17pm
 
Auggie wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 12:11pm:
Of course belief has a place in religion. That’s precisely my point. Christians believe that Christ existed and was the sin of god. That I don’t believe it doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it.


I am not suggesting that you don't.  However, why is the belief of Christians about Christ existing and being the son of God acceptable but the Muslim's beliefs about Mohammad not acceptable?

Both are based upon fairy tales and myths, as far as I am concerned.   Both are as equally valid therefore.   Why do people get upset when I question Christianity in the same way they are questioning Islam?   Could it be because they are Christians and not Muslims?  Mmmm?   Roll Eyes
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #174 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:29pm
 
Brian Ross wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:17pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 12:11pm:
Of course belief has a place in religion. That’s precisely my point. Christians believe that Christ existed and was the sin of god. That I don’t believe it doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it.


I am not suggesting that you don't.  However, why is the belief of Christians about Christ existing and being the son of God acceptable but the Muslim's beliefs about Mohammad not acceptable?

Both are based upon fairy tales and myths, as far as I am concerned.   Both are as equally valid therefore.   Why do people get upset when I question Christianity in the same way they are questioning Islam?   Could it be because they are Christians and not Muslims?  Mmmm?   Roll Eyes


Because as I’ve said before, in this thread we’re talking about specifically the actions and teachings of both founders.

I’m willing to concede as you’ve mentioned that supplement teachings have been added into the religions, such as the just war theory.

But for now, we’re talking just about Jesus and Mohammad. That’s it.

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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #175 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:55pm
 
Auggie wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:29pm:
Brian Ross wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 1:17pm:
Auggie wrote on Mar 10th, 2018 at 12:11pm:
Of course belief has a place in religion. That’s precisely my point. Christians believe that Christ existed and was the sin of god. That I don’t believe it doesn’t mean I can’t talk about it.


I am not suggesting that you don't.  However, why is the belief of Christians about Christ existing and being the son of God acceptable but the Muslim's beliefs about Mohammad not acceptable?

Both are based upon fairy tales and myths, as far as I am concerned.   Both are as equally valid therefore.   Why do people get upset when I question Christianity in the same way they are questioning Islam?   Could it be because they are Christians and not Muslims?  Mmmm?   Roll Eyes


Because as I’ve said before, in this thread we’re talking about specifically the actions and teachings of both founders.

I’m willing to concede as you’ve mentioned that supplement teachings have been added into the religions, such as the just war theory.

But for now, we’re talking just about Jesus and Mohammad. That’s it.


And you know about Jesus and his "miracles", how, again, Augie?  Oh, thats right, The Bible.  Oh, dear, guess who wrote and edited The Bible?  The Church(es).   Funny how they control the only source of information about their Messiah, isn't it?   Tsk, tsk.    Roll Eyes
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #176 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 3:30pm
 
Funny how the only source of information on Jesus teachings portray him as a man of peace and love.

Hilarious how the only source of muhammads teachings about the revamped moon god allah, portray him as a thief liar pedophile rapist torturer and mass murderer.

Rib-tickling mirth that right now muslims are the worlds top 24 listed terrorist organizations.
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #177 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 3:40pm
 
Quote:
How the Jews Invented God, and Made Him Great

Modern biblical scholarship and archaeological discoveries in and around Israel show that the ancient Israelites did not always believe in a single, universal god. In fact, monotheism is a relatively recent concept, even amongst the People of the Book.

Decades of research into the birth and evolution of the Yhwh cult are summarized in The Invention of God, a recent book by Thomas Rmer, a world-renowned expert in the Hebrew Bible and professor at the College de France and the University of Lausanne. Rmer, who held a series of conferences at Tel Aviv University last month, spoke to Haaretz about the subject.

The main source for investigating the history of God is, of course, the Bible itself.

When exactly the Jewish holy text reached its final form is unknown. Many scholars believe this happened sometime between the Babylonian exile, which began after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE (some 2600 years ago), and the subsequent periods of Persian and Hellenistic rule.

However, the redactors of the Bible were evidently working off older traditions, Rmer says.

Biblical texts are not direct historical sources. They reflect the ideas, the ideologies of their authors and of course of the historical context in which they were written, Rmer explains.

Still, he notes, you can have memories of a distant past, sometimes in a very confusing way or in a very oriented way. But I think we can, and we must, use the biblical text not just as fictional texts but as texts that can tell us stories about the origins.

What's in God's name

The first clue that the ancient Israelites worshipped gods other than the deity known as Yhwh lies in their very name. Israel is a theophoric name going back at least 3200 years, which includes and invokes the name of a protective deity.

Going by the name, the main god of the ancient Israelites was not Yhwh, but El, the chief deity in the Canaanite pantheon, who was worshipped throughout the Levant.

In other words, the name "Israel" is probably older than the veneration of Yhwh by this group called Israel, Rmer says. The first tutelary deity they were worshipping was El, otherwise their name would have been Israyahu.

The Bible appears to address this early worship of El in Exodus 6:3, when God tells Moses that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai (today translated as "God Almighty") but was not known to them by my name Yhwh.

In fact, it seems that the ancient Israelites weren't even the first to worship Yhwh – they seem to have adopted Him from a mysterious, unknown tribe that lived somewhere in the deserts of the southern Levant and Arabia.

The god of the southern deserts

The first mention of the Israelite tribe itself is a victory stele erected around 1210 BCE by the pharaoh Mernetpah (sometimes called "the Israel stele"). These Israelites are described as a people inhabiting Canaan.

So how did this group of Canaanite El-worshippers come in contact with the cult of Yhwh?

The Bible is quite explicit about the geographical roots of the Yhwh deity, repeatedly linking his presence to the mountainous wilderness and the deserts of the southern Levant. Judges 5:4 says that Yhwh went forth from Seir and marched out of the field of Edom. Habbakuk 3:3 tells us that God came from Teman, specifically from Mount Paran.

All these regions and locations can be identified with the territory that ranges from the Sinai and Negev to northern Arabia.

Yhwhs penchant for appearing in the biblical narrative on top of mountains and accompanied by dark clouds and thunder, are also typical attributes of a deity originating in the wilderness, possibly a god of storms and fertility.

Support for the theory that Yhwh originated in the deserts of Israel and Arabia can be found in Egyptian texts from the late second millennium, which list different tribes of nomads collectively called "Shasu" that populated this vast desert region.

One of these groups, which inhabits the Negev, is identified as the Shasu Yhw(h). This suggests that this group of nomads may have been the first to have the god of the Jews as its tutelary deity.

It is profoundly difficult to sort through the haze of later layers in the Bible, but insofar as we can, this remains the most plausible hypothesis for the encounter of Israelites with the Yhwh cult, says David Carr, professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

The many faces of god

How exactly the Shasu merged with the Israelites or introduced them to the cult of Yhwh is not known, but by the early centuries of the first millennium, he was clearly being worshipped in both the northern kingdom of Israel and its smaller, southern neighbor, the kingdom of Judah.

His name appears for the first time outside the Bible nearly 400 years after Merneptah, in the 9th-century BCE stele of Mesha, a Moabite king who boasts of defeating the king of Israel and taking the vessels of Yhwh.

[cont'd]
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #178 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 3:42pm
 
Quote:
While Yhwhs cult was certainly important in the early First Temple period, it was not exclusive.

Jeremiah speaks about the many gods of Judah, which are as numerous as the streets of a town. There was certainly worship a female deity, Asherah, or the Queen of Heaven, Rmer told Haaretz. There was certainly also the worship of the northern storm god Hadad (Baal).

The plurality of deities was such that in an inscription by Sargon II, who completed the conquest of the kingdom of Israel in the late 8th century BCE, the Assyrian king mentioned that after capturing the capital Samaria, his troops brought back the (statues of) gods in which (the Israelites) had put their trust.

As the Yhwh cult evolved and spread, he was worshipped in temples across the land. Early 8th-century inscriptions found at Kuntillet Ajrud probably refer to different gods and cultic centers by invoking Yhwh of Samaria and his Asherah and Yhwh of Teman and his Asherah. Only later, under the reign of King Josiah at the end of the 7th century BCE, would the Yhwh cult centralize worship at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Nor, in ancient Israel, was Yhwh the invisible deity that Jews have refrained from depicting for the last two millennia or so.

In the kingdom of Israel, as Hosea 8 and 1 Kings 12:26-29 relate, he was often worshipped in the form of a calf, as the god Baal was. (1 Kings 12:26-29 explains that Jeroboam made two calves, for the sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan, so the people could worship Yhwh there and wouldnt have to go all the way to Jerusalem. Ergo, in northern Israel at least, the calves were meant to represent Yhwh.)

In Jerusalem and Judah, Rmer says, Yhwh more frequently took the form of a sun god or a seated deity. Such depictions may have even continued after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile: a coin minted in Jerusalem during the Persian period shows a deity sitting on a wheeled throne and has been interpreted by some as a late anthropomorphic representation of Yhwh.

Rmer even suspects that the Holy of Holies in the First Temple of Jerusalem, and other Judahite sanctuaries, hosted a statue of the god, based on Psalms and prophetic texts in the Bible that speak of being admitted in the presence of the face of Yhwh.

Not all scholars agree that the iconography of Yhwh was so pronounced in Judah. The evidence for anthropomorphic depiction is not strong, says Saul Olyan, professor of Judaic studies and religious studies at Brown University. It may be that anthropomorphic images of Yhwh were avoided early on.

The God of the Jews

In any case, many scholars agree that Yhwh became the main god of the Jews only after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, around 720 BCE.

How or why the Jews came to exalt Yhwh and reject the pagan gods they also adored is unclear.

We do know that after the fall of Samaria, the population of Jerusalem increased as much as fifteenfold, likely due to the influx of refugees from the north. That made it necessary for the kings of Judah to push a program that would unify the two populations and create a common narrative. And that in turn may be why the biblical writers frequently stigmatize the pagan cultic practices of the north, and stress that Jerusalem alone had withstood the Assyrian onslaught – thereby explaining Israel's embarrassing fall to Assyria, while distinguishing the prominence and purity of Judahite religion.

Religious reforms by Judahite kings, mainly Hezekiah and Josiah, included abolishing random temple worship of Yhwh and centralizing his adoration at the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as banning the worship of Asherah, Yhwhs female companion, and other pagan cults in the Temple and around the capital.

The Israelites don't keep the faith

This transformation from polytheism to worshipping a single god was carved in stone, literally. For example, an inscription in a tomb in Khirbet Beit Lei, near the Judahite stronghold of Lachish, states that Yhwh is the god of the whole country; the mountains of Judah belong to the god of Jerusalem.

Josiahs reforms were also enshrined in the book of Deuteronomy – whose original version is thought to have been compiled around this time – and especially in the words of Deut. 6, which would later form the Shma Yisrael, one of the central prayers of Judaism: Hear, O Israel, Yhwh is our God, Yhwh is one.

But while Yhwh had, by the dawn of the 6th century BCE, become our national god, he was still believed to be just one of many celestial beings, each protecting his own people and territory.

This is reflected in the many biblical texts exhorting the Israelites not to follow other gods, a tacit acknowledgement of the existence of those deities, Romer explains.

For example, in Judges 11:24, Jephtah tries to resolve a territorial dispute by telling the Ammonites that the land of Israel had been given to the Israelites by Yhwh, while their lands had been given to them by their god Chemosh ("Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever Yhwh our god has given us, we will possess.")

[cont'd]
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Brian Ross
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Re: Muhammad as the anti-christ
Reply #179 - Mar 10th, 2018 at 3:44pm
 
Quote:
Snatching God from the jaws of defeat

The real conceptual revolution probably only occurred after the Babylonians' conquest of Judah and arson of the First Temple in 587 B.C.E. The destruction and the subsequent exile to Babylon of the Judahite elites inevitably cast doubts on the faith they had put in Yhwh.

The question was: how can we explain what happened? Rmer says. If the defeated Israelites had simply accepted that the Babylonian gods had proven they were stronger than the god of the Jews, history would have been very different.

But somehow, someone came up with a different, unprecedented explanation. The idea was that the destruction happened because the kings did not obey the law of god, Rmer says. Its a paradoxical reading of the story: the vanquished in a way is saying that his god is the vanquisher. Its quite a clever idea.

The Israelites/Judahites took over the classical idea of the divine wrath that can provoke a national disaster but they combined it with the idea that Yhwh in his wrath made the Babylonians destroy Judah and Jerusalem, he said.

The concept that Yhwh had pulled the Babylonians' strings, causing them to punish the Israelites inevitably led to the belief that he was not just the god of one people, but a universal deity who exercises power over all of creation.

This idea is already present in the book of Isaiah, thought to be one of the earliest biblical texts, composed during or immediately after the Exile. This is also how the Jews became the chosen people – because the Biblical editors had to explain why Israel had a privileged relationship with Yhwh even though he was no longer a national deity, but the one true God.

Over the centuries, as the Bible was redacted, this narrative was refined and strengthened, creating the basis for a universal religion –  one that could continue to exist even without being tied to a specific territory or temple. And thus Judaism as we know it was established, and, ultimately, all other major monotheistic religions were as well.

[Source]

So, it appears that the Jewish and hence the Christian God descended from a cult in the southern deserts of Palestine.   I wonder, could it have been a moon deity?   More investigation is required, it appears.
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