How do christians claim the bible is the word of god when theres a clear lineage from judaism baal el yahweh and all that and clear influences from pagan religions?

All aperahamists resist learning real ANE history and critical explanations of their scriptures. The lineage stops being "clear" when you're completely indoctrinated and believe if you doubt what the Bible says about the origins of Hebrews and Canaanites you're going to be tortured forever.

>>17827593 (OP)
Because Christians go by the resurrection

>>17827593 (OP)
Influence is a sufficiently vague and suggestive word to raise this question, but once you take some time to study those commonalities you will see that they don't amount to a whole lot. From the top of my head:
>Flood myths were stolen from Mesopotamian religions
Flood myths are universal, they are found on every continent and no single culture "owns" these myths so they cannot be "stolen". Hebrews simply had their own iteration of a myth that seemed to be universally valid.
>Baal
The Bible is making conscious jabs at Baal (both the cult and the god himself), including references to the Ugaritic Baal Cycle in Psalms and Isaiah. It's not that Hebrews happened to assimilate some pagan beliefs by virtue of hanging out with Caananites, they purposefully wrote the scriptures to say "Baal isn't the Lord, our God YHWH is the actual Lord".
>Polytheism
The Bible attests to Hebrews falling into polytheism many, many times. Finding YHWH in a pantheon doesn't contradict the Bible, it confirms its historical testimony.
>Neoplatonism
On paper it's very close to Christianity, but when it comes to who God is and how he works in practice they are irreconcilable.

Lastly, just let me point out that it's Jesus Christ who is the Word of God. The Bible is the word of God in the sense that it's his message.

>>17827593 (OP)
Christ's resurrection narrative is rooted in pagan solar archetypes that far precede even Judaism itself (which is why Christianity spread so quickly).

>>17827655
Pagan solar archetypes don't solve death, sin and separation from God. To connect the two is like to connect the theory of evolution to Greek titans producing Greek gods. It has some poetic merit but to look for a more profound connection is to misunderstand both.

>>17827662
>Pagan solar archetypes don't solve death
That's literally the central point, retard.

>>17827667
What do you think the celebration of Spring means in a religious sense through a Pagan lens? The triumph of life over death. Christianity was far from the first faith to venerate that.

>>17827602
Enjoy hell...that's what happens happens when you turn your back on the literal word of god.

>>17827641
/thread

>>17827676
I would rather go to heck forever than play by the rules of your cringe redditard jew god

>>17827641
>Flood myths are universal, they are found on every continent and no single culture "
This is not actually true, and some flood myths are clearly related to others.
>The Bible is making conscious jabs at Baal (both the cult and the god himself), including references to the Ugaritic Baal Cycle in Psalms and Isaiah. It's not that Hebrews happened to assimilate some pagan beliefs by virtue of hanging out with Caananites,
This theory only makes sense if we first assume the old testament speaks with one voice and that Hebrew religion did not evolve the way religions in other parts of the world did. Otherwise the oldest sections of the OT and archeology suggest that Hebrews integrated large parts of Canaanite religion and mythology and only in later stages became something distinct.
>The Bible attests to Hebrews falling into polytheism many, many times.
And most parts of the OT were written long after the early period. The archeology suggests they were not falling into polytheism but they did not even have a concept of monotheism until rather late.
Basically this apologetic only works if we already assume the Hebrew religion was somehow special. Immune from the trends and changes of normal human religion.

>>17827667
Is it? Can you please name me one religion where the solar archetype has defeated death as such? Not just so he himself can live forever (Christ would have lived forever regardless), but that the entire universe remains in eternal life?

>>17827669
To venerate life over death? Well yes, such incredibly unspecific idea was probably present not only in other religions, but probably even among some primates and observant canines. But you could just as well reduce Jesus Christ's resurrection to "good thing happened". Yes, it was a good thing happening and it is good news. Yes, other religions had good news about good things happening too. But to bridge such complex narratives via such a vague reduction is to give up on understanding entirely.

>>17827719
>Can you please name me one religion where the solar archetype has defeated death as such?
Cult of Ra, very explicitly the central point.
>To venerate life over death? Well yes, such incredibly unspecific idea was probably present not only in other religions
It's also the central point of Christianity so maybe shouldn't be all that dismissive if you are a Christian yourself. There's nothing unique about your desert cult compared to what inspired it long before it ever existed.

>>17827700
>ancient Jews we monotheists
>no they were polytheists
The Bible attests to both. What came first, the chicken or the egg? It doesn’t matter because the end result is still a chicken.

>>17827682
>would rather go to heck forever

done...enjoy burning heathen. Remember you asked for this bub

>>17827700
>>Flood myths are universal, they are found on every continent and no single culture "
>This is not actually true
Which continent is exempt?
> and some flood myths are clearly related to others.
>Hebrews integrated large parts of Canaanite religion
I bet. Good authors use tropes and elements that their audience is familiar with. And once you dive deeper into what "related" means, you will see that some tropes are used exactly the opposite way than the neighboring religions use them. Which goes exactly against the idea of Hebrews passively absorbing influences from their neighbours.

>only in later stages became something distinct.
>The archeology suggests they were not falling into polytheism but they did not even have a concept of monotheism until rather late.
Pretty much no archeological evidence shows monotheism even during the periods when we actually know monotheistic traditions existed (textually). This is the sort of point where one sip of historical criticism makes you a skeptic but drinking the full glass makes you realize this type of research is the blind leading the blind. If archeology itself is considered, then still by 5th century BC we see YHWH being part of a pantheon. But by then Deuteronomy already exists. Second Isaiah already exists. Parts of Genesis already exist. All explicitly monotheistic.

All in all I don't think anybody is opposed to acknowledge that the Bible draws lots of pagan influences. What people are opposed to is assuming that this means adapting pagan content instead of merely using pagan tropes or outright using pagan language to contradict paganism.

>>17827737
>>Can you please name me one religion where the solar archetype has defeated death as such?
>Cult of Ra, very explicitly the central point.
I'm not sure what iteration of the myth you have read, but Ra never defeats death as such once and for all for the whole cosmos. He strikes a balance with death, which is a completely different outcome.

>There's nothing unique about your desert cult
If you use the vaguest reductionism possible, of course! But that's just not a very good way to understand things.

>>17827593 (OP)
Christianity is a plaigurized amalgamation made from ideas of several older religions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJSpujHhaGQ

>>17827593 (OP)
Atheist fanfiction . Read the bible

>>17827800
>>>>>>> Zeitgeist
I'm sure you were told this on /his/ already but Zeitgeist is infamous for getting volumes of things wrong. And conveniently, each mistake is made in favour of making Christianity seem like other cults.
>Horus was not born on December 25th
>Horus was not crucified or resurrected
>Mithras was born from a rock, not by a virgin
>Mithras had 2 disciples, not12
>Krishna wasn't born of a virgin
>Krishna was not crucified but died by an arrow
>Solstice deities list is wrong
>...

There are some good sources for investigating the parallels between Christianity and other religions. This one is not it.

>>17827742
The Tanakh is highly continuous with the Ugaritic texts, both in mythical content and linguistically. Only one verse can be seriously interpreted as a monotheist expression*, the earliest strata presuppose the existence of other gods on the typical ANE model of tutelary deities under a father god. Psalm 82 shows the directionality - God is in the divine council (with the gods of other nations - a Canaanite and generally ANE motif), where he "holds judgement", but the council "judges unjustly" and shows "partiality to the wicked"; therefore the Psalmist announces that the gods of the nations shall "die like mortals" and calls on God to "judge the earth, for all the nations belong to you". Cf. the Septuagint and DSS variant of Deuteronomy 32:8 - the Psalm announces that God shall be taking possession of the inheritance of the goyish tutelary deities. Jews literally retconned (whence the MT variant) this in favor of the very much later doctrine that YHWH is the only god.

* Isaiah 44:6 - "Thus says YHWH, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, YHWH of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; besides me there is no god." This would suffice to prove the Hebrew Bible has monotheist expressions; except, unless v. 47:8 is mounting an accusation of solipsism, this exact claim can mean simply that you're the greatest. So the most that can be said is that you can interpret it that way.

>>17827823
>the very much later doctrine that YHWH is the only god.
This is one point where I feel like Western scholars are very confused by Catholic commentaries and by Rabbinical revisionism post Second Temple Judaism. The doctrine is not that YHWH is the only existing entity from any pantheon ever. It's that he is the only TRUE God. As in that he is the Lord, the King, the Ruler of all other beings. Superior not only in terms of happening to have more power but in terms of his nature of who He is. "Besides me there is no god" doesn't mean that for example Aphrodite is made-up. It means she is a demon that doesn't rule with YHWH, as in ruling beside Him. Deuteronomy explicitly says that gods of other nations are demons and early Christians preached exactly this, for example Tatian said this exactly of the Greek pantheon.

The idea of monotheism as in belief that only one deity is real and all other are completely fictional isn't the religion of the Bible or of the Church Fathers who use the term polytheism fairly frequently, but monotheism pretty much never.

>>17827823
I don't think there's much of a retcon. The Bible progresses with human understanding. Pure monotheism wouldn't be comprehendible to an ancient tribe due to the ubiquitous abundance of gods people worshipped at the time. So God presents himself as being the greatest among many. And this moves onto the development of other gods being demons, which then leads into the final conclusion that there is no god but God. This happens the clearest in the New Testament where God is expressed as the one and only, with all the national fighting about other nations and their gods generally being over. The New Testament also makes a point to keep in line with the view that other beings proposing themselves as deities are actual evil spirits. I think it's reasonable to say that pure monotheism is something that was not necessarily developed, but progressively revealed in accordance with human understanding.

>>17827810
You're wrong

Go play with your bible and let the adults have their forum

>>17827764
> continent
Human cultures are not divided into continents. Flood myths tend to come from regions where flooding is a problem. Thats common since most civilizations are near water, but it is not universal.
>. And once you dive deeper into what "related" means, you will see that some tropes are used exactly the opposite way than the neighboring religions use them.
I question this, at least as a universal. Things like the divine council are, as far as we know simply standard parts of Canaanite religion. Rewriting the Baal Cycle to feature Yahweh is not parody, its the kind of religious displacement we see all the time where one god is conflated or replaces another.More over, Hebrew temples were not much different from Canaanite temples. They were a subset of Canaanites with a different local patron deity.
>ological evidence shows monotheism even during the periods when we actually know monotheistic traditions existed.
It might surprise you to know some scholars don't even think the word monotheism really applies to that entire period either. I was being generous, because drawing a line between fine distinctions henotheism, and near eastern theology, and true monotheism gets really dicey.
"Monotheistic" language in texts can be found in many polytheistic cultures across the near east. These are often praise pieces and the like that glorify a patron god, but in no way correspond to monotheism on the ground among either the common people or the elite.
>his is the sort of point where one sip of historical criticism makes you a skeptic but drinking the full glass makes you realize this type of research is the blind leading the blind.
That is certainly not where most historians, archeologists and other scholars who have a full pitcher of this stuff land. This is an area of scholarship where once again, most opposition comes from a handful of conservative religious scholars and apologists while the rest of the field as basically accepted the other position.

>>17827968
>common ... but it is not universal.
I noted what I meant by universal in my comment.
>Rewriting the Baal Cycle to feature Yahweh is not parody, its the kind of religious displacement we see all the time where one god is conflated or replaces another.
Obviously not conflated, since the Bible makes countless jabs at Baal in particular, but yes, the statement here is "Our God is actually Lord". Why is this problematic? This is the one thing you would exactly expect to see in the Bible.
>Hebrew temples were not much different from Canaanite temples.
And not only that, Genesis directly follows up on Canaanite temple building techniques, except framing it exactly backwards than the pagans did. Again, this is exactly what one would expect - taking familiar tropes and using them to proclaim your message.
>It might surprise you to know some scholars don't even think the word monotheism really applies to that entire period either
It doesn't... like I noted in >>17827845, "monotheism" is really a very recent and loaded term. But henotheism doesn't exactly cut it either. It's not like the Bible describes a pantheon of gods from which one is closer than the others. It describes a number of divine beings, of which some are gods and of which one is THE God (by his nature, not by some happenstance). It is both monotheistic (since only one God is truly God) and henotheistic (since other beings that are called gods in other religions aren't necessarily negated). Without this nuance you will just keep oscillating between one or the other and you'll start finding volumes of common "language" with other religions that isn't actually common at all.
>That is certainly not where most historians, archeologists and other scholars who have a full pitcher of this stuff land.
Most of these don't base their conclusions on archeological findings alone, as was in your argument. If they did then archeologists would be in a ceaseless battle with the textual critics.

>>17827845
>doctrine is not that YHWH is the only existing entity from any pantheon ever
There is no confusion, this is by far the most common theology in Abrahamism today, and well represented among clergy and theologians. To the point where the NIV puts "gods" in scare quotes in Psalm 82 lol
>Deuteronomy explicitly says that gods of other nations are demons
Verse?
>and early Christians preached exactly this
This orthodox doctrine is explicit in 1Cor. 10:20. But the Didache says their sacrifices are rather to "dead gods". Sounds very reminiscent of Psalm 82. I don't think it sheds interpretative light here, but every time I'm reminded of this doctrine it reoccurs to me that the etymology of "demons" being "gods" appears to render this a distinction without a difference. "No, Aphrodite is a cacodemon!" - well as long as she's categorized correctly in your imagination... your coreligionists and I will continue to think of her as rather a figment.
I think Monotheism is post-Biblical, but not as young as you suggest.

>>17828036
It might be common in the West, (my Catholic books certainly make a great effort to promote it) but it isn't exactly what the Bible is telling you. Deuteronomy 32:17 is explicitly stating that foreign gods are real demons ...
>"They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your ancestors had never feared.
...and Tatian is telling Greeks the same when evangelizing.
>[you] acknowledge the dominion of many rather than the rule of one, accustoming yourselves to follow demons as if they were mighty.
There are also quite a few psalms where if you had replaced "gods" with "made-up bs", it would be somewhat blasphemous.
>Psalm 135: I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than [made up stuff?]
>Psalm 86: Among the [made-up stuff?] there is none like you
>Psalm 95: For the Lord is the great God, the great King over all [made up stuff?]

>But the Didache says their sacrifices are rather to "dead gods".
Yes, the rebellious 'gods' will die if they didn't do so already.

>I don't think it sheds interpretative light here
It doesn't make much difference in an average believer's life, no. Which is why Catholicism got away with this simplification. But when we're trying to dive deeper into the history, like the other Anon I've been talking to above, these distinctions become crucial since if you skew the Bible too henotheistically or too monotheistically, you will come to different conclusions about how the theology was developing.

>>17827593 (OP)
>Clear line
>90% of it is larps from leftists

Ok kidd

>>17828026
>Obviously not conflated, since the Bible makes countless jabs at Baal in particular
The Bible is not a single text. Even certain books in the Bible are not really single texts. Baal was, at least at one point, a rival storm deity that filled almost the exact same role in the Canaanite pantheon, so it would not be surprising that those whose patron god was Yahweh would take shots at Baal and say, "actually our god is the one who does those things" Its not problematic, unless you believe that Judaism was handed down by God and did not develop organically from Canaanite paganism.
>except framing it exactly backwards than the pagans did.
Can you give an example of this? Canaanite temples, like Hebrew temples typically followed the same layout with an innerchamber containing a divine image(s) used in worship. Of course they proclaimed the superiority of their patron god, so did the other Canaanites.
>Most of these don't base their conclusions on archeological findings alone, as was in your argument.
That wasn't my argument.
> It's not like the Bible describes a pantheon of gods from which one is closer than the others. It describes a number of divine beings, of which some are gods and of which one is THE God (by his nature, not by some happenstance)
This views all the Bible as speaking with one voice. In some of the oldest passages its not even clear that Yahweh is the highest God in the bible (El). He is just one of the son's of El who inherited the land of the Hebrews. But El was not "the God" either. He was the elder fatherly god who led the divine council, like in many pantheons.

>>17828115
>The Bible is not a single text.
It is not many isolated texts either.
>Its not problematic, unless you believe that Judaism was handed down by God
In which case "our God is the real one" would be ... unexpected?
>>except framing [temple building] exactly backwards than the pagans did.
>Can you give an example of this?
Sure, pagans would frame it as in that chaos was beaten, a temple was established on the new territory for a god and the statue/image of god was placed in the temple. Genesis 1-2 invokes peace (Spirit hovering) instead of a battle with the chaos (deep), and places humanity in the middle of the territory as the actual image of God.
>Hebrew temples typically followed the same layout with an innerchamber containing a divine image(s) used in worship
Right. This is exactly what I mean - if your analysis is only interested in "yep, forms match", you will miss how these forms are actually being used to differentiate one religion from another. Scholarly research is full of this, but luckily there is no shortage of good research that rectifies this.
>In some of the oldest passages its not even clear that Yahweh is the highest God in the bible
If you take those passages in isolation and you purposefully look for formal similarities with other religions (but not what those similarities express) then sure, many things will not be clear. But that is not the burden of the Bible, that is the weakness of literary criticism applied to scriptures in general.

>>17828076
What reason is there to think Deuteronomy 32:17 is calling e.g. Chemosh a sheyd, and not rhetorically denigrating any gods which Jews worshiped prior to the henotheistic reform by calling them shedim and innovations, or at most levelling a sincere accusation at certain gods unnamed (Asherah for instance)? The idea that Hinduism and Zoroastrianism are originally monolatrous/monotheist but corrupted by worshipers of beings of dubious godhead/existence also has some currency and is completely ahistorical. This is hardly the "explicit statement" you claimed.
>Yes, the rebellious 'gods' will die
I think we're agreed the Bible presupposes other gods (couldn't ask for a more perfect translation for elohim [pl]) have real existence at points in both the Tanakh and New Testament, so why the scare quotes? Maybe Aphrodite is accurately called both a really existing but dead/dying/mortal pagan god and a demon, I think those don't really refer to the same thing as indicated by the fact that most Christians would read the latter designation as rhetorical or unobjectionable and the former as superstitious nonsense (pace Tatian, Bible, and Catholic Church).
You originally objected to my supposition that the MT recension of Deut. 32:8 was because the Jews believe YHWH is the only God, rather the doctrine behind the redaction "is that he is the only TRUE God" - the problem is that the "bene Elohim" variant is completely compatible with that doctrine, hence why it survived in two communities which would completely agree with it. Now my supposition isn't the only thing that could explain the text, it could also be the redactor thought the numbers of nations and gods were unequal. But I don't think it's a coincidence the Rabbis' version has YHWH as the sole "inheritor" of bounded land - ostensibly Chemosh would actually have to be real and potent to inherit a nation in the real sense.

>>17828195
>not hretorically denigrating
Because it outright says particular gods are demons. There are dozens of ways in which other deities would be merely rehtorically denigrated and I'm willing to even write off most of the Psalm references as denigration, but "to demons, to gods ... to new gods" is a pretty clear characterization.
>at most levelling a sincere accusation at certain gods unnamed
That is fine with me. The conclusion is still that beings which other religions consider to be gods do exist. Which is the goalpost here.
>why the scare quotes?
Because the term "god" denotes authority and they don't actually have any.
>the "bene Elohim" variant is completely compatible with that doctrine, hence why it survived in two communities which would completely agree with it
Benei Elohim version ended up being the Septuagint version so I take it as authoritative. With benei Yisrael there is an additional layer of interpretation needed which would do nothing for us here.
>You originally objected to my supposition that the MT recension of Deut. 32:8 was because the Jews believe YHWH is the only God
That's right. Seeing that other posters here are confused about monotheism/monolatry/henotheism I wanted to make it clear there is more to the phrases "only God" than one would usually thinks.

>>17828227
>Because the term "god" denotes authority and they don't actually have any.
Interesting, could you please tell me your eisegesis of the Deuteronomy verse then? Because it seems to me the LXX has it that YHWH inherited Israel, and (e.g.) Chemosh really inherited Moab.

>>17828281
I don't know about eisegesis but from the basic scholarly sources I've seen, the verses narrate how God decided to focus on one nation that he would create from one man's faith while the other/existing nations would be temporarily handled by other spiritual beings. That those beings started accepting worship for themselves is unfortunate, but it does seem to me - and this is the eisegenesis - that some religions stayed more true to this placeholder-for-the-One-God idea than others.The Bible narrates both Israel as YHWH's inheritance as well as YHWH himself being inheritance, it seems to be less about someone being handed something and more about a mutual belonging, so I'm a little suspicious towards textual criticism that tries to take one half of this equation and speculate whether the Lord received Israel from another Lord. But dissertations have to be written and textual criticism is a gift that always keeps giving so at this point it's a browser's market of ideas.

>>17827593 (OP)
All the same lies, it is so boring. I can't wait to hear your screams, rodent.

>>17828155
>It is not many isolated texts either.
They are part of the same cultural tradition, much like a collection of important Babylon texts on gods and theology would be. They were not however written with one voice, or with one theology.
>In which case "our God is the real one" would be ... unexpected?
It would be unexpected for them to have much crossover with other local traditions.
>Sure, pagans would frame it as in that chaos was beaten, a temple was established on the new territory for a god and the statue/image of god was placed in the temple. Genesis 1-2 invokes peace (Spirit hovering) instead of a battle with the chaos (deep), and places humanity in the middle of the territory as the actual image of God.
This is a stretch. You are assuming a lot of symbolic meaning that may or may not be there.
>If you take those passages in isolation
If those passages show signs of being excerpts from older works or oral traditions then yes, it is worth looking at them in that context. As I said, many books of the OT are pasted together from older documents. This is not controversial.
> that is the weakness of literary criticism applied to scriptures in general.
this is not just literary criticism, it is not just archeology, it is all those things and more lining up to form an organic picture of a local patron god, similar in almost every respect to its neighbor gods, that gradually changed into a chief god and then a universalist "the God" over hundreds of years. The idea of a tribe appearing in the early iron age with a universalist God, attempting to resist corruption from local influences, is a pseudo-historical narrative.

>>17828543
>They were not however written with one voice, or with one theology.
You're about to bounce off the limit of textual criticism. This is not your flaw, this is a flaw of humanities in general. In their attempt to appear as sciences they needed to look objective and what better way is there to appear objective than to pretend that the thing a text communicates can be sort of peeled of and the "original" and "unintentional" datapoints can be collected? But sadly this exhumation theory works terribly in practice. You're free to doubt that the texts were written with one theology and in fact I am even inclined to strongly agree in light of the scholarly evidence of Genesis alone, but that's as far as the solid conclusions come: we're not sure that the people who first told these stories saw in them exactly what we do today.
>It would be unexpected for them to have much crossover with other local traditions.
Why? Would you also expect them to invent their own script, language and building methods?
>This is a stretch. You are assuming a lot of symbolic meaning that may or may not be there.
None of these are my own assumptions. The symbolic connotations behind Canaanite temples are fairly well documented, sometimes in the temple inscriptions themselves. And the Bible using and reversing a pre-existing logic is a pattern found again and again. Though if you're looking to find evidence via textual criticism (aka pretending we can dissect a text and find symbolism bare in its intestines), this is the wrong tool for this.
>this is not just literary criticism, it is not just archeology, it is all those things and more
I'm aware. I've seen this "picture" many times. Like I wrote about the other "commonalities", once you actually inspect them, you realize this "organic picture" was really circularly reasoned. Was pseudo-historical narrative better reasoned? Not necessarily. But they're pretty close.

>>17827773
Ra is literally rebirthed as the Sun after his death which is the ultimate "solar archetype defeating death" example anyone could ask for. You're just burying your head in the sand like the triggered christcuck you are

There are parts of older religions in the bible, this is undeniable, my question is why did god make those religions have some element of truth in them enough to be passed on to the bible itself

>>17829050
The goalpost was "defeats death as such once and for all for the whole cosmos". Like I wrote in the very comment you're replying to, Ra merely strikes a balance. He keeps getting re-birthed while us mortals die. Again, these resemblances between Christianity and other religions mostly depend on being as low-resolution and vague about the things you're describing.

>Haitian pagans had good news
>Christianity had good news
>tfw evangelium is just a copy of haitian religion

>>17830273
All people intuit the truth to some degree. There's no reason to expect every single claim from every single religion would be 100% wrong. There's also no reason to wonder why Hebrew writers used tropes that their audience already understood.
Though if you want a biblical answer, it's all because foreign gods were meant to be placeholders for the real God and they only gradually led the nations astray.

>>17827631
Never happened.