Thanks!
Let's start simple with the first link.
El might mean "god" (as in pagan or false gods) or it could mean "God" (like the god of Israel). So you claim to have not only defined "God" clearly enough for everybody, but even enough to determine that there is only one god? That's a bold assertion.
I can't wait to hear the sound reasoning and evidence behind it that isn't dependent upon appeal to authority. You did say it was a rational definition that can stand on its own merit, right? Not just a cultural belief or way of describing mystical insight?
Also, this meaning (pagan or false gods) indicates that not all other deities were false, but only it was inappropriate for the people of Israel to worship them. Does this mean you believe that other Pagan deities also exist? I guess that would be consistent with the definition.
Yes, I believe other pagan deities do in fact exist. I believe that the Hebrew Bible is explicitly clear that "Angels" are called gods, this distinction became lost at some point in the Greek where "Angel" became known as a class of being in itself, as we see with Psalm 8:5 where "Elohim" is translated as "Angel". The original Hebrew beliefs, as many scholars believe, was closer to Henotheism, and only later seemed to drift towards a strict Monotheism in which the existence of other gods was completely dismissed. Nonetheless, even in Josephus's time there is still some reference to "the gods", as well as in the Jewish Sibylline oracles. So no, I am not claiming there's only one god, I will claim there's only one "Elohei Ha-Elohim", only one god of the gods, who is called "The most high god" (Or "Ascending/prevailing god"), he was called "prevailing/most high god" because he's the top god, the "king of the gods". When the Israelites are commanded to have "no god before" Him, it doesn't mean "You shall not believe in the existence of other gods", it means "You shall not place these existent beings who do in fact exist in higher regard and place than the most high god who is the god of the gods/king of the gods".
As for an appeal to authority, with what limited knowledge we have on the subject, all one can do is appeal to an authority about the meaning of a word if the textual evidence, such as its use in Psalms as "power of your hand" and referring to Angels/Divine beings doesn't suffice.
Evidence can be seen with the Septuagint vs. Masoretic issue of Deuteronomy 32:8, in which it was clearly identified that the nations of man each had their own "son of god" (a god) as their watcher, and that Israel was chosen for THE god Himself. Though some may argue the Masoretic is original, that in itself is a whole can of worms.
So I'd have to ask if this is not sufficient for "Sound reasoning apart from appeal to authority" what you would consider to be such from the text itself in which divine beings are indeed referred to as "gods".
We can also see the fact that the "Most high god" is referred to with the article to differentiate him from other gods. Why would that be? Why would he need the article?
We also see that the word "El" is translated as "power", here is some appeal to Wikipedia's authority on the issue:
Theophory in the Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
names referring to El, a word meaning might, power and (a) god in general, and hence in Judaism, God and among the Canaanites the name of the god who was the father of Baal.
What we can see is that the name "El" in the Canaanite Pantheon meant "The big daddy god", they named him "god" as a title like in Hebrew it would be "Elohei Ha-Elohim" or "god of the gods", or simply "god", like "Boss", to mean "boss of the bosses". In this sense, other "gods" are still "gods' but they're "false" gods compared to THE god. So this is why there is an articulation of THE god, "The most high god" in the Hebrew belief.
Now when it comes to such Appeal to Authority, we can at least see that this is a general scholarly view on the matter, and to its credit, hardly just from those grounded in a Theological position. Rather it seems its those who HAVE a theological stake who seem to be most against this historical idea and prefer the modern Revisionist approach. Granted, different authorities will have different opinions on particularly controversial language issues (especially where Theological doctrines are at stake), but on this issue this is a pretty much universal view. In this case, it's often those who have an Orthodox-Christian Theological agenda who are challenging the majority scholarly view on the meaning of "El", so keep that in mind if you challenge this.
So at what point will you accept the idea that the word "god" did in fact have a specific being and concept in mind and wasn't some mystical up in the air idea? What kind of evidence would you need other than specific references to angels as gods?
