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The principle still applies in 2019, and JWs still live by that principle. They do not speak of modern day gods with any esteem.
I don't agree. I find from Genesis to Malachi - the entire Hebrew scriptures have the same agreement on the God required to be worshiped, and other gods - idol gods.
I should quickly correct this. I didn't say that Dowie was my great grandfather. Rather my great grandfather took his whole family, including my grandfather as a boy of 11 to settle in Zion, Illinois in the spring of 1902, within the first year of the city's creation. It's an utterly fascinating piece of history that many are unaware of. I have a fair amount of information on it, and have traveled there a couple times doing family research.
Noted!Greeting back! It's coming very soon. I want to be sure I have time to be responsive.
Then I take it they're like me in that they're unsure what a real god is.
That's not how the early writings read eg
Ok, let's seriously deal with this. ( If you really think this is important.)
It seems that this term 'Baal of Peor' specifically avoids using the god's name. It appears that Peor is a place and that Baal denotes that it is a god but without specifying a name -- as if the author has gone out of their way to avoid giving us a name.
Then by whose power were Pharaoh's magicians able to turn the Nile water into blood and then turn it back again, a trick Moses and Aaron were only able to match with Yahweh's help?
And the recognition of Chemosh as a god looking after his tribe just as Yahweh looks after his, is plainly expressed and straightforward. And this outlook is consistent with the other examples.
The parts of the bible I've been quoting. And of course the Decalogue, Thou shalt have no other gods before me and not, Ain't no other gods, folks.
Where before the Captivity are other gods, as a general principle, declared to be false? I'm not aware of any such declaration ─ only later.
Since I don't speak Hebrew, I'm content to be guided by the choice of words made by the translators of the KJV, the RSV (my usual) and the other translations I'm aware of.
But when the chips are down, when you have to use your scholarship to render the bible in good and accurate English, the meaning you choose is 'god' ─ or you do if you're translating the reputable versions.
As I said before, that's the post-Captivity version. Before then, everyone knew that every tribe had its god, and the earlier parts of the bible reflect this.
According to the footnote to Genesis 1:26 in my Oxford Annotated RSV, "The plural us, our probably refers to the divine beings who compose god's heavenly court." The Tanakh elsewhere refers to them as the 'sons of God' but does not confuse them with gods.
How many tribes did Adam and Eve belong to? That many gods. And Elijah. And Noah. But it's freely acknowledged in eg the Judges passage that each tribe has its separate God.
I gave you some quotes. Chemosh, for example.
As a biblical point, it's correct that Yahweh is the god of the mythical period from the point of view of the writers of the Torah. From an historical view, the story of Noah is copied, with slight adaptations, from the Mesopotamian Semites' tale of Gilgamesh from Babylon, who got it from Akkad, who got it from the non-Semitic Sumerians. We have it written on clay tablets from the decades either side of 2000 BCE, and we also have personal seals bearing images of the Sumerian Noah from at least 500 years before that. Yahweh, as you know, doesn't appear in history till around 1500 BCE.
Now you're being cute ─ it's merely magic if the Egyptian magicians do it, but it's something more noble when Moses and Aaron do it? Pshaw! Magic is magic whether done by Amun or Pharaoh's magicians or Yahweh or Simon Magus or Gandalf or Dumbledore.
And recognized as a god in Judges, as we've seen.
Just like Yahweh. And in their henotheistic society, explicitly so.
That's mere self-justification. My god doesn't like what you do, so we're taking your land, slaughtering your people, raping the young women and refreshing our stock of slaves.
The bible is not a magic book, or set of books. It's a collection of historical documents, and to be read as such. It's a wanton insult to each of the authors, and to history generally, to try to superimpose your own views on the text merely because you find it inconvenient.
Then I suggest, with the utmost courtesy, that you brush up on real ancient history, and see where the bible fits into that.
Nonsense.
Strong is one expert, and it's not my argument that he's wrong in the range of definitions he gives. My argument is that the translators of the bible, that's to say a great many experts, agree that the word in context should be translated 'god'.
As I said before, I don't speak Hebrew and am content to be advised by those who have expertise in the language.
When it speaks of other tribes and their gods, of course. Chemosh is yet again one example. This is where you need to be more familiar with real history too,
Yes.
If you check, you'll find that's a gnostic idea ─ the remote god, pure spirit, and the demiurge, his agent, who made the (impure) material world and so has a foot in both camps. It's not the only gnostic notion of Paul's.
The rules about true gods were the same then as now ─ whether or not there are many gods, there's only one true god, namely mine.
Tribal politics, tribal gods, as I said.
That's as true of Yahweh as it is of Marduk or Baal or Amun.
You're saying you resent that a great many people who have expertise that neither you nor I have are disagreeing with you.
Yes, I've noticed that the KJV translates from the Greek, not so much to affirm, as to avoid disagreeing with, the Trinity notion. I forget the two examples, but I remember remarking them. And I suspect that's set a tone for later translators.
Just as Martin Gardner observed about ESP, evidence of a successful prophecy (in the bible or anywhere else) is overwhelming evidence of retrofitted fraud. Prophecy in the bible is a political tool. If you want magic, you won't find it in reality.
Come now! Even you can see the actual situation. The tribe believes their covenant with their god includes a promise of protection. Instead, their army's been wiped out and their land conquered by the far greater military power of the Babylonians. You're the priest. Do you state the truth?: Oops, what I told you about our god doesn't work against very big armies! Or do you say what's recorded in the Tanakh ─ It can't be God's fault, so it must be yours!
And the bible has made many claims only to be corrected by modern learning. The authors of the bible thought the earth was flat and immovably fixed, over it was the hard firmament to which the heavenly bodies were attached, all going round and round the earth, and if they came loose, they'd fall to earth. (You can read their cosmology in their own words on >this link<.) Genesis says plants existed on earth before the sun existed, birds existed before land animals, that if you follow the Tigris and the Euphrates to their common source you'll be in Eden, on and on. It says there was an historical Moses, but the evidence is becoming clearer that there was neither an Egyptian captivity nor a Moses. It says there was an historical Jesus, but there's no clincher either way for that claim ─ despite what the admirable Bart Ehrman says.
As I said, there are other Scriptures:
You appear not to know what your book says.
Not from the sun. It doesn't exist till Day 4, as the text explicitly states.
Since I don't speak Hebrew, I leave those matters to the translators, who have formidable expertise in Hebrew. And they very solidly agree with what I quoted above.