So you think redefining "Jew" is going to help you to weasel out of your being caught with your pants down. Sorry to disillusion you.A_Nony_Mouse wrote:Failure to agree with the postings of others is not grounds for condemnation.
As to a Yahu cult as Elephantine the devil is always in the details. As I have posted there is no question the region around Judea worshiped both Yahu and Ashara. These are not the heroes of the OT stories. Every non-religious reviewer of the papyri agrees they were polytheists and included Egyptian gods. These are not the heroes of the OT stories. These people appeal to the Persian governor for assistance instead of the restored kingdom under Isaiah. These are not the heroes of the OT stories. Now if today synagogues included statues of Ashara and Khnum and such then I could agree these people were the heroes of the OT stories. Samaritans today are closer to Jews than this. You have to read the Samaritans into the tribe before I consider the Elephantine folks.
Trying to claim polytheists are Jews is absurd. They don't even know when Passover occurs and have to ask a Persian about it certainly indicates Passover originated as a Persian custom. Claiming polytheists were Jews in the 5th c. trashcans the OT content indicating it was written long enough after the fact to forget to mention the other gods.
Your initial statement was: there is no evidence of the extent of the Yahu cult of Judea existing prior to the arrival of Pompey in the region in 67 BC. This claim has been shown to be wrong.
Stupidity. 4QTQahat represents a written tradition that is prior to the 2nd century.A_Nony_Mouse wrote:The assertion that such things developed during the writing of "scripture" still assumes a fact not in evidence, that a literate culture existed to write it. Literate culture is defined by Babylon and Egypt not by a couple scraps. Until someone can produce evidence from bibleland that tens of millions of words worth of documents of civil texts, in the same rough proportion of the civil to religious texts of literate cultures there is nothing basis for pretending the OT could have been written prior to the 2nd c. BC.
I donb't give a fuck about monotheism. You are running around grasping at straws, when you should be going back to the drawing board and facing the fact that there was a Yahu cult in the 8th c. BCE and signs that there was a continuing Yahu cult at least from that point onwards.A_Nony_Mouse wrote:As to monotheism in bibleland I have found not the slightest bit of evidence for it
This is a false etymology. Did you make it up or did you borrow it from some other bright spark? (A "temple of Astarte" would be BYT `$TRT (עשתרת). What I gather you are trying to manipulate is Straton's Tower. Note first that there is no initial vowel in Straton, while there is necessarily one in Astarte. There is also an omega and a nu in Straton and no equivalent found in Astarte. Folk etymology, probably ultimately from an Israeli scholar.)A_Nony_Mouse wrote:and much against it which I have recited including BYT STRT, Temple of Astarte, next to the Antonine Barracks on what is today called the temple mount.
Further and further off the rails, old son.A_Nony_Mouse wrote:That is, it was there is Roman times. These may have been priests dedicated to one god but that has nothing to do with the religion of the people. The people rule not the opinions of the priests of one cult god. There is no simple declarative sentence stating monotheism in either Judaism or Christianity until after it is declared by Mohamed. One hopes those who believe such a statement exists can cite it.
The OT itself is filled with mentions of other gods which clearly were believed to be real else condemning their worship makes no sense at all. If someone worshiping a fake god that is what you tell them, it is a fake god. You do not have a god jealous of fake gods. Yahu cannot be a jealous god without other real gods.
Simple declarative sentence from the OT saying there is only one god. Please feel free to post it. Yes it may be an old teaching. What is the evidentiary basis for the old teaching?
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One has to wonder if an occasional ancient name here and there in the scripts of Buffy or Angel prove the authenticity of those two heroes. One notices that one does not find any of these names in bibleland but rather are found only outside bibleland and often by 19th c. wishful thinking translators. After all the OT confirming inscriptions ceased by discovered AFTER the science of archaeology was established.
However there is room for different opinions. There is no place declaration of having given the final word on the subject and anyone who disagrees deserves the plank no matter how many believers support what is presented.
The issue of course is perhaps one thing cannot be explained but other theories fail to explain more such as the development of the OT by an illiterate culture. A couple scraps does not make a literate culture as much as it makes for wishful thinking. Almost as much wishful thinking as dreaming the suffix "ah" is a theophoric for Yahu. A theophoric for any god for that matter except perhaps Ahmen if one wishes to spell it that way.
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If polytheists are recognizable Jews then one can as easily claim the Egyptians were Jews. The Egyptians worshiped Amen. There were no gods before him. And he made the first people out of clay. Lets see. The Babylonians had animal sacrifice. The Jews had animal sacrifice therefore the Babylonians were Jews.
One does have to have some standards as to who was a Jew. I submit polytheists do not pass the test and do not match the descriptions of Jew in the OT at the time. Game over. Failure to jump to all the weasel words and exemptions and close enoughs is the only complaint.
I do not accept such foolishness.