Well, I did read El General en su Laberinto in Spanish, but I don't do French. I took it in 6th grade, but when I found out my French name was Richarde it sounded too much like Rachel so I decide right then and there I didn't like it.
Anyone with power and authority. That's my understanding. I guess I should have been more specific and ask why Yahweh waited. There are many gods but only one Yahweh.
I actually have studied ancient Middle East history at some great length. It's been a long time and I've forgotten much of the detail, but it did help understand the culture in which the Bible story took place.
Good, good
As far as people claiming to be gods, this started, according to our records, with Naram-Sin
He is the first known king to be deified in literature, and the first known to have been identified as a god-man using the Akkadian cognate " dingir " ( god ) to the Semetic " El " ( God )
His name : ( "Beloved of the Moon God Sîn", )
The bit means " priest / lord " ( of ) " wisdom - En-Zu )
But, Naram-Sin did something that had a profound effect on life in the antiquities, and that was to standardize all measurements under one system, in 2150 BCE , using the " royal gur " ( cube ). Any measure or unit of measurement in the Bible can be directly traced to his system ( incredibly complex ! ), and we still to this day use some of his conventions for mathematics and mathematical astronomy, etc
Now...whether or not Jesus actually came from this lineage is a matter of debate, ( I'd be happy to go there ) but when the Bible says " priest-king ", I look to history and the historical records we have of priest-kings, to get more insight
I'm personally not a Biblical literalist, so when someone starts by assuming the Genesis narrative is an accurate representation of time / events passed, I just can't buy it, mainly for the fact that literalism is not something found in Mesopotamian literature