And yet the Bible tells God is spirit. So, the Greek idea is very different.
So you are wrong on so many levels, it's hard to even know where to start.
1) You are responding to -
"Yahweh is the same as older Greek gods. Anthropormorphic, dynamic, colorful, emotional, vivid, changeable, masculine, real body parts. In "God: An Anatomy" Francesca explains the Hebrew text is very explicit in this."
if you bother to listen to the clip, she is talking about the first 5 books, Yahweh is a typical Mesopotamian deity. He walks with people, wrestles people. has a fform and body. Every body part is described in the original Hebrew, which Fransesca details in her book. She gives examples of the same stories that early Yahweh does like fight the Leviathan, it's all exactly the same.
So what is your response? To ignore old Hebrew stories and go right to ...................JOHN?????? WHAT????? You go right to the Hellenistic stuff, and then think I'm wrong about the Hebrew stuff? How can you possibly mess this up this bad?
God as spirit was NOT A HEBREW IDEA. It was a Greek idea and that is why the NT changes Yahweh.
How many times have I posted the list from Smith about Hellenistic changes in theology, which includes.............."
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (
e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of transcendent, supreme"
Yahweh is the name of the state god of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and, later, the Kingdom of Judah. His name is composed of four Hebrew consonants (YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton) which the prophet...
www.worldhistory.org
Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El. Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that “the Most High, El, gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.
As Dr Tabor points out,
The New Testament comes out of a wholly different milieu. First, it is part and parcel of the broad changes in religious thought that we know as "Hellenization."It is characterized by a vast and expanded dualistic cosmos, an emphasis on immortality and personal salvation,i.e.,one scaping this world fo ra better heavenly life. At the same time, and to be more specific,it is absolutely and completely dominated by an apocalyptic world view of things, whereby all will be soon resolved by the decisive intervention of God, the End of the Age, the last greatJudgment, and the eternalKingdom of God. In addition, the Christology that develops, even in the first century, is thoroughly"Hellenistic," with Jesus the human transformed into the pre-existent, divine, Son of God, who sits at the right hand of God and is Lord of the cosmos.The whole complex of ideas about multiple levels of heavens, fate, angels, demons, miracles and magic abound.It is as if all the questions that the HebrewBible only begins to explore - questions about theodicy, justice, human purpose, history, death, sin - are all suddenly answered with a loud and resounding " Yes ! " There is little, if any struggle left . There are few haunting questions, and no genuine tragedy or meaningless suffering.All is guaranteed it will shortly be worked out.
Of course, various attempts are made to reinterpret this early Christianity for our time. usually in terms of ethics or some exis -
tential core of truth . But early Christianity rests on two essential points, both of which resist easy demythologozation: it is a religious movement built on apoctalyptic view of history and an evaluation of Jesus as a Hellenistic deity, i.e., a pre-existent divine Savior God in whom all ultimate meaning rests. If thes eare unacceptable in the modem world, or incompatible with the fundamental Hebrew view of things, then the whole system becomes difficult, if not superfluous.
James Tabor
Reflections on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament
God as a spirit IS A GREEK IDEA, John is in the NT which is a Hellenistic document in form and content.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24
He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8
We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
1 John 4:16
Thank you for answering a point about early Hebrew Yahweh with the latest NT gospel???????????????????????
NOT A SPIRIT IN THE OT, each chapter in Fransesca's book goes over original Hebrew passages in they Bible about descriptions of Yahweh's body.
The Greek ideas of god was of a spirit, beyond this realm.
en.wikipedia.org
Yahweh[a] was an ancient
Levantine deity, and
national god of the
Israelite kingdoms of
Israel and
Judah.
[4] Though no consensus exists regarding the deity's origins,
[5] scholars generally contend that Yahweh is associated with
Seir,
Edom,
Paran and
Teman,
[6] and later with
Canaan. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early
Iron Age, and likely to the Late
Bronze Age, if not somewhat earlier.
[7]
In the oldest
biblical literature, he possesses attributes typically ascribed to
weather and
war deities, fructifying the land and leading the
heavenly army against Israel's enemies.
[8] The early
Israelites were
polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of
Canaanite gods and goddesses, including
El,
Asherah and
Baal.
[9]
In later centuries,
El and Yahweh became conflated and El-linked epithets such as
El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone.
[10] But some scholars believe El and Yahweh were always conflated.
[11][12][13] Characteristics of other gods, such as Asherah and Baal, were also selectively "absorbed" in conceptions of Yahweh.
[14][15][16]
