From: canders@isr.harvard.edu (Carl E. Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Who do you kneel to when you pray?
Date: 1 Oct 92 03:18:49 GMT
Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

In article <1a9tofINNfv1@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> jmm25@po.CWRU.Edu (Jessica M. Mcgeary) writes:
>I've been taking a course in the literature and history of ancient Israel
>for some time now... this is in regards to T.O. Radzykewycz's
>statement about jealous gods that won't allow any competition having
>serious problems.
>
>According to Professor Flanagan- oh, don't give me that, he's not a priest
>or anything, he's a REAL LIVE archaeologist, seems to be into the 'beat-
>on-the-Bible-with-a-baseball-bat-until-it-gives-up' school of bible study-
>the oldest narrative in the bible- not prose, that would be 2 Samuel 9-20-
>is in Exodus. Specifically, Exodus 15, verses 1-18, and then verse 21. (The
>intervening bits were inserted at a later date). According to various 
>studies of this section, it's generally agreed that verse 11, among other
>bits of Exodus, show (in the original Hebrew, mind ye, and I've got a printed
>version of the Hebrew right here) that the Israelites believed in other gods.
>And that God knew they believed in other gods- at least, this is how the
>ancient authors, whoever they might have been, viewed it. It's merely that
>the Israelites who wrote this bit were trying very, very hard indeed to
>cast off their time in Egypt, and rejected their polytheistic past as 
>violently as possible. Under their form of radical Yahwism (it wasn't Judaism
>yet, that word doesn't appear for many many years yet, this part of Exodus
>dates to about the twelfth century BCE), YHWH was a god of those who had
>fallen outside the system. Unlike the Egyptian gods, who were tied to specific
>places, this was just a god of one people- and they had to be a people of
>one god. They did accept that there were other gods, but this one was theirs,
>and they had to stick to this one.

	Sure, I've always been kind of into this stuff.
	There is a great book called _The_Early_History_of_God_ by Mark S.
Smith, a Yale prof, which is concerned with "Yahweh and the other Deities
in Ancient Israel".  Not light reading, quite scholarly, but very cool
stuff.

	Actually in a similar vein check out
_The_Unvarnished_New_Testament_ (translated by Andy Gaus).  It's just a
plain translation of the original Greek; without the influences of later
translations and doctrines which have significantly colored certain
passages of the New Testament.  Very readable, and interesting too.

	Now for the Obligatory Semi-Pagan reference, try _The_Heliand_
(translated by G. Ronald Murphy).  This is the 9th century Continental
Saxon, uh, "version" of the Gospels.  Some interesting things were done to
the New Testement in order to sort of bring it home to the Saxon warrior
aristocracy.  I think the following excerpted chapter titles say it all:

The Creator's spell, by which the whole world is held together , is taught
	to four heroes.
The Chieftain of mankind is born in David's hill-fort
Three thanes from the East, led by the workings of fate, follow a star
Christ the Chieftain is immersed in the Jordan by his loyal thane John
Christ, the mighty Chieftain, chooses His first warrior-companions
The instructions on the mountain; the secret runes of the Lord's Prayer
The last mead-hall feast of the warrior-companions
The Chieftain is hanged on the criminal tree

	Pretty wild shit, especially that last with the Wotan/Christ
references, neh?

Cheers,
Carl

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Carl Edlund Anderson	            	"Hefi ek ok aldri sva reitt vapn
canders@isr.harvard.edu			at manni at eigi hafi vidh kommit."
OR
anderso2@husc.harvard.edu			- Skarphedhinn Njalsson 
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