 |
| Ancient artwork depicting Egyptian gods. Image source. |
I've been reading the book "Inspiration and Incarnation" by Peter Enns. Right now we're in the middle of chapter 3, which is about how different parts of the bible say different (or even contradictory) things. In this post, we'll talk about whether the bible teaches there is 1 god or many gods.
Basically, there are 2 different perspectives, presented by different passages in the bible:
- There is only 1 god.
- There are many gods, but our God is the most powerful one of them, and you should *only* worship this *one*.
This is what the Lord says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God.
...
The blacksmith takes a tool
and works with it in the coals;
he shapes an idol with hammers,
he forges it with the might of his arm.
He gets hungry and loses his strength;
he drinks no water and grows faint.
The carpenter measures with a line
and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form,
human form in all its glory,
that it may dwell in a shrine.
He cut down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
It is used as fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself,
he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
“Save me! You are my god!”
So, this passage is saying idols are nothing, that it's such nonsense the way people make idols literally out of the same wood they burn for cooking their food, and think these wood carvings are actual gods. These gods are not real at all.
But then the book gives some examples from the book of Psalms, like this:
Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours. (86:8)
(And several other examples from Psalms, which say the Lord is the greatest of the gods.)
So the writer(s) of these psalms seemed to believe the other gods were real, but that our God is the best, above all the others. Or, it could be that the psalms are speaking metaphorically because they are poems, and the writers didn't literally believe other gods existed. Sure, that could be, but the point is, they were written in a society where many people *did* believe there were many gods- so their audience would have understood them that way.
Enns says, "We may not believe that multiple gods ever existed, but ancient Near Eastern people did."
The book also discusses Joshua 24:2, 14-15,
Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. ...'
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Enns says:
Joshua's point here is not that there are no other gods, but that Yahweh alone is worthy of worship. Joshua is not providing the Israelites with a bare statement of monotheism.
This is something I never really *got* before. Joshua is telling the Israelites here that even though they come from a polytheistic background, where they worshiped many gods, now the Lord (Yahweh) is calling them to make a change, to worship 1 God only. And maybe this is a big ask, but the argument is that Yahweh deserves that kind of devotion because he is the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. I never *got* how normal it was for the people of that time to believe in many gods- I always thought polytheism was just silly, lol, who would believe in that. (Honestly, though, believing in many gods is exactly as silly as believing in 1 god.)
(If you are confused about who "Yahweh" is: The Old Testament often refers to God as "the Lord" [with small caps, though I didn't write it in small caps in this blog post because I didn't want to look up how to do the formatting]; this is the Hebrew word Yahweh. I'm writing the whole word here in this blog post, not censoring it, but ancient Jewish people did not write or say it because it's the name of God.)
This brings to mind another bible story: Jacob and his wives and children are leaving Laban's household, and Rachel (one of Jacob's wives) steals Laban's "household gods." This is a really weird bible story- Jacob and his family are generally seen as the "good guys", and Laban is a liar and cheater and that's why they're sneaking away from his household without even telling him- Rachel is one of the "good guys" so why is she stealing idols? What on earth? And as readers, we are rooting for her, and she gets away with it. (By lying about her period. Like I said, it's a weird bible story.)
Why on earth would Rachel steal Laban's idols? The fanfic novel "The Red Tent" had this take on it: Rachel felt anxious about leaving her home and going on a long journey to a strange place, and she felt like "we need these gods to protect us." People *really did* believe that idols had power, and if you don't *get* that, then you won't be able to understand the bible.
"Inspiration and Incarnation" also gives the example of the way Moses talked to Pharaoh:
When Moses and Aaron go to confront Pharaoh, they say, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness'" (Exod. 5:1). Pharaoh's response is telling: "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go" (5:2).
I've heard plenty of people (myself included) telling the story of the Exodus like this: "Moses went to Pharaoh and said, 'God says, let my people go.'" But that's not quite it. It should be "Our God says." Pharaoh's refusal wasn't about "I'm gonna disobey God" but more like "there are lots of gods, everyone has their own god, I don't need to listen to this new god because my own gods are on my side."
The exodus story has Pharaoh's magicians also doing miracles to compete with what Moses is doing. So here's a question: Were these just tricks, just sleight of hand with no actual magic, or were the Egyptian gods really doing magic but it wasn't as good as Moses's god's magic? In particular, there's the scene where Moses and Aaron turn a staff into a snake, and then Pharaoh's magicians also turn their staffs into snakes- but then Moses's snake eats their snakes.
Were Egypt's gods really competing with Israel's god? Or were Egypt's gods not real at all? I think if you just take the story as written, it says Pharaoh's magicians *were* doing real magic ("the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts" - it doesn't say "the Egyptian magicians did it too but theirs was fake"). But modern readers often won't get that because we don't even realize it's a possibility- like, OBVIOUSLY those other gods are all fake, right? I seem to recall the movie "The Prince of Egypt" has a scene where the magicians are imitating the "turning water to blood" plague by sneakily adding a vial of dye to a bowl of water- just sleight of hand, not magic.
The book goes on to say,
But Pharaoh does not know who Yahweh is. The next several chapters, culminating in the Red Sea incident, are designed to acquaint Pharaoh and all Egypt with Israel's God. This purpose is made explicit in 9:15-16, a statement found in the middle of the plague narrative: "For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."
... The plagues bear witness to Egypt and Israel that Israel's God is not just mightier than Pharaoh but mightier than the gods that Pharaoh and his people serve. ... In fact, some of the plagues are thought to reflect elements of the Egyptian pantheon:
- Plague 1, Nile turns to blood: The Nile was personified and worshiped in Egypt. God turned it to blood.
- Plague 2, frogs from the Nile: Heqet, the Egyptian goddess of childbirth, was depicted in Egyptian art with the head of a frog. Later, God will kill Egypt's firstborn.
- Plague 5, death to livestock: Hathor, the mother and sky goddess, was depicted as a cow.
- Plague 7, hail: A hailstorm, accompanied by thunder and "fire" (likely lightning; see Exod. 9:23), shows Yahweh's supremacy over Egyptian gods associated with storms (e.g., Seth).
- Plague 9, darkness: The Egyptian sun god was Re (sometimes spelled Ra), and Pharaoh was considered his son or earthly representative. God blocks him out to make it dark during the day.
- Plague 10, death of the firstborn: Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead, yet Yahweh will claim the firstborn as his own.
... What would have spoken to these Israelites-- what would have met them where they were-- was not a declaration of monotheism (belief that only one God exists), out of the blue. Their ears would not have been prepared to hear that. What we read in Exodus is perhaps less satisfying for us, but it would have set the ancient world on its head: this god Yahweh, who lives in a desert, who is a god of slaves, who no one had even heard of before, meets these powerful Egyptian gods on their own turf, and-- if I may put it this way-- beats them up.
This is so fascinating- the exodus story was written to make a point about Israel's god being more powerful than the Egyptian gods. And in the story, God's goal is not simply to get the Israelites out of Egypt, but also to show his dominance over the Egyptian gods.
But I'm not convinced that "it would have set the ancient world on its head." Weren't there other ancient myths also written for the purpose of hyping up a specific god? In a previous post we talked about "Enuma Elish," the Babylonian creation myth, which portrayed the god Marduk as the hero- did that "set the ancient world on its head" when people heard it and said "omg, Marduk did all those things? We should definitely worship Marduk"? I mean, plenty of storytellers are able to tell a good story about why one specific god is the best ever. Since none of them are true stories anyway, is there any reason the stories in the bible are more powerful or real or meaningful than other ancient stories?
Perhaps the story is powerful because it's sort of an underdog story- the god of slaves defeating the powerful Egyptian Pharaoh and his army. And the point that it's making- the reason it's powerful even though it's not a true story- is that slavery is bad, and people deserve to be free. Except, is it really making that point? The Israelites came out of Egypt and then immediately set up rules for their own slave-owning practices. (See: The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus) So it's not "slavery is wrong" but "make sure when you enslave people, they aren't people who have a powerful god that's going to come and save them." Or perhaps this is a case of the bible presenting diverse views, as "Inspiration and Incarnation" tells us. The writer of the "coming out of Egypt" part of the story was anti-slavery, and the writer of the "God gives laws to Moses afterward" part thought slavery was fine.
But let's bring it back around to the question of "what are modern Christians supposed to learn from this story?" If we take the perspective of "this is not a true story, but it was written to make a point, and that point is absolute truth, inerrant, that point is the timeless lesson that we are supposed to learn from the story and apply to our lives"- a sort of galaxy-brain version of inerrancy, which "Inspiration and Incarnation" does NOT seem to be advocating, though I've seen it advocated elsewhere- then the lesson that modern Christians are supposed to learn is... God is greater than the Egyptian gods? God is greater than whatever thing in your life you think God can't face head-on?
I don't know, I feel like it misses the point, this compulsion to filter every bible story into "what lesson are we supposed to learn and apply to our lives?" And "Inspiration and Incarnation" says that we should just take the bible stories for what they are, rather than expecting them to work in this way.
The story of the exodus, I think we should just enjoy as a story. And it's really interesting to me to read about the literary symbolism that the writer intentionally used to make a point about Egypt's gods. It's not a true story though. And I don't really think it says something about the God I believe in.
(And since we're talking about the exodus as a story about conflict between gods, I want to plug this bible fanfic: Lament for the Slave Girl in Pharaoh’s House by Micah J. Murray.)
Also, I know the whole point of this book is that God allows the bible to speak to people in ways they understand, rather than being a stickler about getting all the facts right, but I'm still not really sold on that, because what does it even mean? How involved was God in the creation of the bible, then, and how seriously can we take anything we read therein? And what do we do with it as modern readers?
Anyway, I have a few other examples about polytheism (not from the book, just things I've noticed myself when reading the bible):
In the creation story in Genesis 1, God says, "Let us make mankind in our image." Who is the "us"? Obviously Christians have a fan theory that this is referring to the 3 members of the Trinity- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. As the apostle John writes, "He was with God in the beginning." I am totally here for this fan theory; I believe it.
But. I don't think the writer of Genesis 1 wrote "us" to refer to the Trinity. (I also do *not* think that God inspired the writer of Genesis 1 to write "us" to secretly refer to the Trinity even though the writer themself was unaware of this "true meaning.") I think the creation story in Genesis 1 is based on a slightly different version of the creation story, where a group of gods was creating the world together. That version has been changed to a version with just 1 god, that we see in Genesis 1, but this "us" remains here.
Or maybe the author of Genesis 1 really did believe there were many gods. I know that modern Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy have this idea that all the writers of the bible were totally in agreement on The Truth About Everything, but that's very much not the case. Some of the biblical writers believed in many gods.
I haven't studied ancient Hebrew or theories on the authorship of Genesis or ancient Near Eastern creation stories, so maybe I'm totally wrong and my interpretation here doesn't actually make sense. I would be interested to read what actual biblical scholars say about the "us" in Genesis 1.
(Also what does it even mean to say I believe this Christian fan theory but also I don't think it's what the author intended?)
There's also this little story from 1 Kings 20, where Israel fought battles against Aram, and the officials of Aram advised their king, "Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they."
And then a prophet tells the Israelites, "This is what the Lord says: ‘Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the Lord.’" And then the Israelites defeated Aram in battle.
This story always came across to me like, wow, how silly that the Arameans thought that different gods had power in different settings. But it's not "silly"- people in the ancient world took that very seriously. And probably it made sense, probably there were some armies which fought better on the hills than they did on the plains, because of their strategy/training/equipment- from the perspective of ancient people, isn't that the same thing as saying their gods are gods of the hills?
There are lots of examples like this in the Old Testament. People really did believe in multiple gods. It wasn't as simple as "oh obviously they should worship just 1 God, the real God, and not worship idols"- that was not at all "obvious" to the ancient Israelites.
One thing I find odd about this section of "Inspiration and Incarnation" is how its overall message is "ancient people believed in many gods, so some biblical passages were written from that perspective, because God meets people where they are and speaks to them in ways they understand, but now we know that the correct number of gods is exactly 1." Like Enns is totally sure The True Number of gods is 1. Maybe that's totally wrong, but God (?) just lets us believe it because They meet us where we are and speak to us in ways we understand.
Christians make a big deal about how there's only 1 God, and believing in the Trinity does NOT mean we believe in 3 gods, no we can't explain what it actually means but DON'T YOU DARE say it means 3 gods. But also, Christians believe in angels, demons, and Satan. (Not all Christians- but in my experience with evangelicalism, yes we believe in those. I guess I probably believe in them too. Like I said, it's exactly as silly as believing in 1 god.) Are those gods?
Christians will tell you NO, they're NOT gods, there's only ONE GOD- but this is more about being required to agree with the statement "there's only 1 God" rather than about actually having a consistent definition of what a "god" is. Like, why aren't angels classified as gods? What's the difference? Perhaps one argument might be, angels were created by God and they obey Them, so they are not gods themselves. But there totally *are* polytheistic belief systems where one god creates other gods, or where some gods are subservient to other gods. So this doesn't disprove the idea that angels are gods.
So Christians won't tell you what counts as a "god" but they're totally sure there's exactly 1.
 |
| Scene from "The Avengers" where Captain America says, "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." Image source. |
Anyway! This section of "Inspiration and Incarnation" emphasizes the fact that the Old Testament was written in a culture where it was totally normal to believe in many gods. This is something I have rarely considered when reading the bible- I always read it from a perspective of "polytheism is obviously silly and wrong" (though honestly it doesn't make sense for people who believe in 1 god to judge people who believe in multiple gods...). But polytheism is something that the writers of the bible took seriously. Some of the writers did believe in multiple gods, and believed Yahweh was the greatest one and we should only worship him. Some writers believed other gods didn't exist at all. And some parts of the bible were written to address specific beliefs about the other gods, and make the case that Yahweh was more powerful, even over the areas that those gods were said to control.
---
Posts about "Inspiration and Incarnation":
Inspiration and Incarnation: Introduction
Inspiration and Incarnation: Other Ancient Near East Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: An Aside About Apologetics
Inspiration and Incarnation: Wisdom Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: The Ten Commandments
Inspiration and Incarnation: How Many Gods
Related:
No comments:
Post a Comment