|
"shaddai" also being able to refer to "mountains" is an interesting connection because that's a very common association with yahweh in the old testament, at least in some translations. would have to do some digging to have any textual support here but i swear i have heard some of those "el shaddai" passages translated not as "I am God Almighty", but as "I am the God of the mountain", although i think there are several other passages involving yahweh proclaiming himself god of the mountain that might not involve the "el shaddai" wording
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 01:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 22:25 |
|
|
Could be both. Lots of mountains named after boobs in the world.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 01:15
|
|
|
Omnomnomnivore posted:Could be both. Lots of mountains named after boobs in the world.  El Shaddai: The God With Breasts posted:Modern scholarship identifies Shaddai with the Akkadian word sadu, “mountain.” Again, Albright cautions us: “A direct identification is, however, hardly possible because of fatal phonetic obstacles” (p.183). Biale contends that if El Shaddai was thought of as a mountain deity, then “why is he not attached to any specific mountainous sanctuary in the biblical texts?… Some have suggested that the utter lack of location characteristic of El Shaddai is simply a result of the Priestly theology in which God is universal” (pp.242-3). Certainly Shaddai was never connected to specific mountains such as Yahweh’s Sinai, Horeb, Zion and Moriah. Wikipedia on "El Shaddai," under "Ugarit" posted:Ugaritic primer lists zd as breast.[21] There is a DN Athtart-šd in Ugarit.[22] There are references to DNs (indicated by the kbkb star divine name determinative) ydd.w šd (possibly "beloved[23] & breast") & šmm w thm ("heaven & abyss") in KTU3 1.179:11.[24] Makes sense. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jan 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 01:24
|
|
|
"fatal phonetic obstacles" is a fantastic phrase
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 02:00
|
|
|
nrook posted:Sounds like another W for the Father of History, who figured the names of the gods must have come from Egypt because, like, look at how old that place is. They've been worshiping them for millennia. They gotta know what's up. "Hero", dote us 
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 03:23
|
|
|
Big Yawhe Milkers Motorboating the almighty
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 06:50
|
|
|
It's really not uncommon for gods to have multiple, seemingly random and even contradictory domains and traits while being clearly considered the same god, depending on where, how and why you're worshiping them. It's even iirc used to date particular myths and put them in context, as the way a god is depicted can potentially be connected to a particular era and region.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 11:24
|
|
|
Roman/ancient history: FreudianSlippers posted:Big Yawhe Milkers
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 14:09
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:It's really not uncommon for gods to have multiple, seemingly random and even contradictory domains and traits while being clearly considered the same god, depending on where, how and why you're worshiping them. Sure! It's also common to have multiple Gods that end up syncretised into the same God. In fact this is often how you get one God with multiple seemingly contradictory domains. It just manifests a little differently when you're talking about like, Hermanubis, a syncretism from two polytheist societies, as opposed to admitting the presence of other, previous or contemporary Gods for the purposes of a monotheist hagiography.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:12
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Sure! It's also common to have multiple Gods that end up syncretised into the same God. In fact this is often how you get one God with multiple seemingly contradictory domains. Also domains that seem contradictory to us possibly didn't at all to the worshippers at the time. Especially seeming opposites; a god that grants something can by definition withhold and withdraw it, and thus provide its opposite. They even say 'The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.' Polytheism gets particular weird with this, I do get the impression with Ancient Egypt it was almost a matter of musical chairs with various domains and roles, and nearly everyone got a turn at being the sun god.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:16
|
|
|
So sorry, I am just a bit unclear if you are stating it's not probable another Semitic God snuck into the Old Testament under the name El Shaddai (because, as I understand it, early Semitic societies being polytheistic is pretty uncontroversial) or just making observations 
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:24
|
|
|
The God of the Bible is actually three gods in a celestial trenchcoat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:25
|
|
|
FreudianSlippers posted:The God of the Bible is actually three gods in a celestial trenchcoat.  oh my God I have a meme for this Mister Olympus posted:Had one of those dreams where there's a new popular meme that only makes sense in the dream and I had to recreate it before I forgot it
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:28
|
|
|
FreudianSlippers posted:The God of the Bible is actually three gods in a celestial trenchcoat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:29
|
|
|
FreudianSlippers posted:The God of the Bible is actually three gods in a celestial trenchcoat. Nestorius sock puppet spotted Well Played Mauer fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Jan 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:32
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:So sorry, I am just a bit unclear if you are stating it's not probable another Semitic God snuck into the Old Testament under the name El Shaddai (because, as I understand it, early Semitic societies being polytheistic is pretty uncontroversial) or just making observations Ah, sorry, I've got no idea myself, just observations. Just saying that there's a lot of potential reasons for what seem like incongruities to us, and I've always found the kind of domains and aspects of polytheism interesting. It seems to be a common thing, see also Catholics getting accused of it with the often idiosyncratic domains of saints. Nessus posted:There is that one line in Genesis of 'they will be like us, knowing good and evil' which I am confident means Xenogears was real. While I haven't read it in a long while, feels like it could be the royal we. Or talking to His angels.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 15:53
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Ah, sorry, I've got no idea myself, just observations. Just saying that there's a lot of potential reasons for what seem like incongruities to us, and I've always found the kind of domains and aspects of polytheism interesting. It seems to be a common thing, see also Catholics getting accused of it with the often idiosyncratic domains of saints. The Hebrews had a problem with language for their monotheism early on. They borrowed a lot of appellations and terms from other cultures until they could develop their own theology and unique terms. So their early writings are very similar to polytheists, because they didn't know how else to describe things. Sort of like how Native Americans described the British arriving in "cloud ships." They'd never seen sails before and didn't have a word for them, so "cloud" was the closest word they could think of.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:01
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:While I haven't read it in a long while, feels like it could be the royal we. Or talking to His angels. The line Nessus refers to is Genesis 3:22 quote:And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. and indeed the accepted explanation is that "us" is the Father, the Son and the Spirit and the Lord is talking to himself, so to speak. The most obvious explanation from another perspective is that he's talking to other/another God(s), especially since in some of the middle Old Testament there are books talking about how the Lord is now head of the supreme council (which implies other Gods, the "supreme council" is not a unique idea to the scribes of the Bible) but again, you know. Monotheism.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:03
|
|
|
However it relates specifically to this conversation, there's also the knowledge that the Old Testament, particularly the first five books, are oral traditions dating back several centuries by the time they were codified, circa 500 BCE. I'm under the impression that's also partially to blame for the obvious references to a universe where there are in fact more than one God in some parts of the OT, hearkening back to already-old traditions that have changed somewhat by the time Genesis et al. were written.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:10
|
|
|
Yeah I understand there was a period of “We only revere Hashem but other (stinkier) gods are out there” before it was “There is only one God and anything else is either delusional or devils” (broadly speaking)
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:23
|
|
|
Yahweh is basically the theological version of John Carpenter's The Thing
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:24
|
|
|
Asterite34 posted:Yahweh is basically the theological version of John Carpenter's The Thing Or katamari damacy if you prefer, lol
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 16:43
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Polytheism gets particular weird with this, I do get the impression with Ancient Egypt it was almost a matter of musical chairs with various domains and roles, and nearly everyone got a turn at being the sun god. Look, you live in a country where the only things you have are the river, the desert, and the sun, you're going to get some divine overlap. There's an entertaining bit in Pratchett's Pyramids where all the Gods who are the Sun God get into a big fight over the actual Sun, because it turns out that it being the Eye of Horus, the Aten, a flaming orb being pushed across the sky by a dung-beetle, Re in the Boat of Millions of Years, and gods only know what else, all at the same time, presents some logistical difficulties.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 17:37
|
|
|
Deteriorata posted:The Hebrews had a problem with language for their monotheism early on. They borrowed a lot of appellations and terms from other cultures until they could develop their own theology and unique terms. So their early writings are very similar to polytheists, because they didn't know how else to describe things. their early writings are not "like" polytheism or language issues, these things are remnants of a time when the hebrews were polytheists and the texts reflected that
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:05
|
|
|
There was polytheism at the root of the Hebrew religion, definitely (the biblical histories themselves make extremely clear that monotheism had to be enforced). But there’s also interesting traces of the god himself being a syncretic figure. When Yahweh introduces himself out of the burning bush (Exodus 6), he prefaces his instructions for Moses by confirming that he is Elohim (literally “the gods”, but treated as a singular personal name), who revealed himself to Moses’ forefathers as El Shaddai (lord of the mysterious mountain titties as discussed above), but whose actual name (allegedly unknown to these ancestors) is Yahweh. He then (after discussing how he’s going to save his people) says that he will be to them an Elohim, and they will know that he is Yahweh, their Elohim—the form of address that he sends in his communication to Pharaoh is “Yahweh, Elohim of the Hebrews”. So right from the start he announces his divinity in a way that encompasses specific past divinities and perhaps the entire generality of his people’s divinities.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:37
|
|
|
that's my standard response nowadays to peeps needing a theodicy. "why does god let evil poo poo happen?" "god is basically a ball of every god the hebrews had. they had some trouble formally rolling in the apotropaic demons like pazuzu, who you made sacrifice to to avoid falling off of cliffs, avoid unwanted guests and anyone fuckin w pregnant women, and others like him"
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:45
|
|
|
Why would anyone expect to understand god .
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:46
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Why would anyone expect to understand god . vain attempt to convince themselves such a being would in turn understand them
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:47
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Why would anyone expect to understand god . thats some orthodoxy poo poo speaking. that wasn't a serious factor for mass religion until the 1500s AD. religion was sanctioned magic until they figured out magic doesn't exist
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:53
|
|
|
Magic doesn’t exist ?? Edit Sorry thought this was the ufo thread. 🙏 euphronius fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jan 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:54
|
|
|
It does if you believe
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:56
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Why would anyone expect to understand god . bob dobbs is dead posted:thats some orthodoxy poo poo speaking. that wasn't a serious factor for mass religion until the 1500s AD. religion was sanctioned magic until they figured out magic doesn't exist Whoa now. God’s last soliloquy in Job is all about man’s eternal but groundless expectation to know what God’s up to. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.”
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:56
|
|
|
Gaius Marius posted:It does if you believe and its gotta be sanctioned! that's the difference between religion and witchcraft! skasion posted:Whoa now. God’s last soliloquy in Job is all about man’s eternal but groundless expectation to know what God’s up to. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.” book of job was written 6th century bc, during the last stages of the katamari damacy ball-rolling, where indeed they were having trouble rolling up the apotropaic demons because the demons were usually considered to be evil spirits you're buying protection off of, mob boss-style or consider zoroastrianism, which indeed has much less of a problem w/ theodicy because they did the katamari ball-rolling but into two (and a few more) balls, where all the good in the world is from ahura mazda and all the evil is with angra mainyu. and they fight bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 18:56
|
|
|
the yeti posted:Or katamari damacy if you prefer, lol Katamari deity
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 19:06
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Magic doesn’t exist ?? 
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 19:08
|
|
|
If magic is fake, how does the Emperor keep the Astronomican lit? Checkmate Horusists
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 19:09
|
|
|
Nessus posted:If magic is fake, how does the Emperor keep the Astronomican lit? Checkmate Horusists 40k poo poo is way, way closer to orthopractic religion than it is orthodoxy. those demons are deffo actually gonna come if you slaughter 888 warriors and present their skulls to the blood god, ok?
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 19:10
|
|
|
skasion posted:“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.” God hitting em with the "were you there?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 19:16
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:and its gotta be sanctioned! that's the difference between religion and witchcraft! First of all Second of all quote:book of job was written 6th century bc, during the last stages of the katamari damacy ball-rolling, where indeed they were having trouble rolling up the apotropaic demons because the demons were usually considered to be evil spirits you're buying protection off of, mob boss-style I feel like I don't know enough about Job to theorize too wildly about Job. But given the sort of, physical form of "Satan"/"the devil" is a big amalgamation of a bunch of rival Divinities, and a forums Satanist has recently remarked on the Satanist idea of the "real" Satan being "the human spirit," and Job gets mentioned as having the name Shaddai in it a bunch and also I read those papers about etymology of Shaddai developing into "Satan," I wondered aloud yesterday if maybe the most essential idea behind Satan, the "real" thing we are being warned away from the influence of in theological narrative, could be the voice inside you that tries to justify you doing a selfish thing, a lazy thing, a petty easy thing when it is a choice between that and the right thing, the noble thing, the Divine thing ("man has become like us, knowing right from wrong") and it's hard. Could that fit into "the Adversary" in Job, just a little insecure voice in the back of the Deity's head which keeps saying "Job wouldn't love you anymore if you weren't so nice to him" and he, the Deity, eventually gives into the anxiety voice and starts messing up Job's life, to see if he would still love him, to prove that lovely voice wrong? My partner did not discredit this idea immediately. So maybe? The body of Satan is all those goat-Gods and rival fertility Deities and the actual spirit of the Adversary, the thing we are being warned about listening to, is that voice that advocates for the bad choice. On "the Adversary" in Job, from Job's Encounters with the Adversary quote:Ha-satan, the source of our modern Satan, derives from the root Sin-Tet-Nun, to act as an adversary, and thus may be translated, "the adversary."' The most recent translations printed by the Jewish Publication Society rightly avoid rendering ha-satan by the proper name, Satan. Without the definite article, satan may be simply "an adversary." The italicized satan indicates a Hebrew accent, emphasizing that we are dealing with a key word in a foreign system of beliefs. Unlike the modern Satan, this adversary is not represented as an independent evil being, but rather names a variety of opposing forces. We learn this from the earliest occurrences of the word in Numbers 22:22 and 22:32, when God places an angel in the way of Balaam as a satan against him. This satan is an adversary or a power of opposition sent by God, and is clearly not independent of Him. The evolution of satan and ha-satan is worth following through Samuel, Chronicles, and Zechariah, but would lead us too far afield. I love that idea, actually. However I am skipping to the conclusion. quote:Who or what is ha-satan, the adversary? Depending on context, and even within a single passage, this key word may be interpreted on several levels. First, "the adversary" can be read as a metaphysical force of evil or reversal, fate or accident, or as an evil being that accuses men and women before God. But this literal reading of ha-satan comes dangerously close to positing a dualistic distinction between God and evil. Second, "the adversary" can be viewed as being embodied in false friends. Third, moving further from the pshat or literal level, "the adversary" may be a part of oneself, an enemy within, perhaps the irrational impulses of the id—or the tyrannical commonplaces of the superego. Finally, through rhetorical analyses which extend the conclusions of previous methods, "the adversary" may be understood to represent a form of misguided language. False questions and assertions oppose those who strive for a dialogical relationship to God. As satan is an aspect of God, rather than His antithesis, so misguided language forms part of language in general. Satan becomes associated with deceptive rhetoric, especially when it asserts too much, or raises misleading questions. To decide that encounters with the adversary are only encounters with language, with oneself, or with other human beings, would be a humanistic reduction. Instead, we should leave all four levels of meaning open. Okay, fair, it is probably all of those things or at least more than just the one. But "the voice telling you to make flawed decisions" could definitely be one of the ones. e: from the perspective of the Adversary being the Deity's worse nature, the "are YOU able to move the constellations, jerklord?" monologue in lieu of an actual answer is the act of a person caught out in being their worse self and going on the offense about it instead, deflect deflect deflect LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 17, 2024 |
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 21:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 22:25 |
|
|
Does anyone have any juicy sources on archaeoastronomy? Amateur naked eye astronomy was my starting point to getting into classics. I had to memorize it all out of a book in the late nineties, and helped me get a handle on myths related to constellations, stars, and the planets. That knowledge base has made me the weird humanities kid among a group of amateur astronomers with STEM backgrounds in my local amateur astronomy group. Which to my surprise makes me stand out as one of the few people at star parties that knows where anything is without reference, how any of it correlates to other nearby constellations, and anything outside of Greco-Roman myth. So I would like to know more about anything, whether it's Greek, Roman, anywhere else from Europe, Egyptian, Chinese, Native American, etc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 22:44
|
|
