No Gods Before Me

[Nakosis]

Why do you think that your speculation about what God knew or thought has anything whatsoever to do with what the text says?

I'd assume from the from the context of the text having had originated from God but I suppose that is speculation as well.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I'd assume from the from the context of the text having had originated from God but I suppose that is speculation as well.

It has far more to do with how Hebrew expresses possession. One does not say "I have a book" but, rather, something akin to "there exists for me a book."

 

[Ingledsva]

So who turned.the.Egyptian priests staff into a snake?

Well, all of these religions had serpents.

In the story it is YHVH who tells Mosses to tell Aaron to toss his rod before Pharaoh, and that it would become a Serpent.

But the story says Pharaoh called his Sorcerers, and they used Enchantment to turn their rods into Serpents.

YHVH's Serpent consumes the other Serpents.

So I guess we are supposed to take from this story that either, YHVH's Magic is stronger, or YHVH's Sorcerers are stronger then other Sorcerers.

*

 

[Nakosis]

It has far more to do with how Hebrew expresses possession. One does not say "I have a book" but, rather, something akin to "there exists for me a book."

Sorry I'd rather honestly plead ignorance then pretend to understand...

I have a wife. There exists for me a wife.
I have a have a Monster energy drink. There exist for me a monster energy drink.

The second seem a bit more archaic, but still gets the same message across.

If I tell someone that there exists for me a car, they may look at me a little odd but I don't think there's going to be any necessary confusion about what I meant.

 

[nazz]

I highly doubt the Christian God of America (I'm from the US bear with me), is anything close to what the God of the NT was, who is even significantly different then the God of the OT. Now here is the kicker? Because of how different God appears in these two opposing books, are the actually different Gods?

more or less

 

[Riverwolf]

Sorry I'd rather honestly plead ignorance then pretend to understand...

I have a wife. There exists for me a wife.
I have a have a Monster energy drink. There exist for me a monster energy drink.

The second seem a bit more archaic, but still gets the same message across.

If I tell someone that there exists for me a car, they may look at me a little odd but I don't think there's going to be any necessary confusion about what I meant.

On the other hand, "I have no other Gods" conveys a slightly broader meaning than "There exists for me no other Gods." The former can possibly be polytheism or henotheism; the latter is quite distinctly monotheistic.

 

[Nakosis]

On the other hand, "I have no other Gods" conveys a slightly broader meaning than "There exists for me no other Gods." The former can possibly be polytheism or henotheism; the latter is quite distinctly monotheistic.

There exists for me no other wife.

More of a vow than necessarily an actuality.

Personally I guess I am more polytheistic. We create lessor gods which which an individual can experience an interaction with.

In a way I see Christians having created Jesus into a lessor god. Still there is a higher "true" God for lack of a better term. Unknowable, unnamed force behind existence. Is this what was meant by Yahweh even? I don't know. Perhaps even Yahweh was a tribal god created by Judeans to worship as an ideal.

Did Moses believe there was only one God and all others did not exist or that his God was more powerful than the rest?

I don't know, just an interesting question.

 

[Riverwolf]

There exists for me no other wife.

More of a vow than necessarily an actuality.

Personally I guess I am more polytheistic. We create lessor gods which which an individual can experience an interaction with.

I'm a polytheist, but certainly not in terms of having "lesser" Gods. I don't really believe in a hard and fast Cosmic Hierarchy.

In a way I see Christians having created Jesus into a lessor god. Still there is a higher "true" God for lack of a better term. Unknowable, unnamed force behind existence. Is this what was meant by Yahweh even? I don't know. Perhaps even Yahweh was a tribal god created by Judeans to worship as an ideal.

Did Moses believe there was only one God and all others did not exist or that his God was more powerful than the rest?

I don't know, just an interesting question.

There is some information, and a few theories, regarding those questions. It is an interesting topic, so I highly recommend you look further into it.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

On the other hand, "I have no other Gods" conveys a slightly broader meaning than "There exists for me no other Gods." The former can possibly be polytheism or henotheism; the latter is quite distinctly monotheistic.

Do you see any difference between …

• There is for me no other gods.

and …

• There is for me no other gods.

 

[Riverwolf]

Do you see any difference between …

• There is for me no other gods.

and …

• There is for me no other gods.

Unless my school teachers lied, such a distinction would have been more properly marked with commas, to clarify that "for me" is a parenthetical statement. Otherwise, the former is the conveyed meaning, since English doesn't mark stresses in its writing.

Is the distinction marked in Hebrew?

 

[Midnight Rain]

There is a passage in the bible that states:

Exodus 20:3-5 (KJV)
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Now I am posing this question to all theists. Does this implicitly state that no other Gods but the Abrahamic God, exist? Or that other Gods exist, but one will not worship and bow down before them? I read it as the latter, maybe because I have polytheistic leanings. I am asking this because upon discussion with a friend, she said she does not believe in other Gods because in the Bible it says not to have any other gods before hers. That prompted my response that acknowledging that another god exists is no blasphemous or against that statement, as long as she is not worshipping hte other deity.

Anyways, thoughts?

EDIT: Mods, if this needs to be moved into scriptural debate please do so, I was unsure quite where to post this.

People need to remember that the Hebrew Tribe was an ancient tribe of people in the midst of other tribes. The gods of each individual tribe were highly personal.

Think of it in a similar way we think of the Greeks. Each Citystate had their own God or Goddess that they held in reguard. For Athens that was Athena. Other city-states had other personal gods that were part of a pantheon. The Hebrews would have been in a similar situation. Their "god" was for the Jews alone and not for anyone else. It didn't mean that other gods didn't exist as at that time it would have been unrealistic to assume as much.

It is believed that Judaism developed out of a polytheistic religion that preceded it.