Monday, July 11, 2011

Question for Bible people. Care to comment on any of these six passages from Bible?

I've looked at these and others before. The most likely explanation is that Judaic theology transformed over time. In earlier stages, God was the source of everything, both good and evil. There was no concept of Satan (which means "adversary") as a power in opposition to the power of God. As time passed and the ancient Israelites mingled with other cultures, other ideas began to take root in their theology, including the idea of a dark power that was the source of evil, and was not God himself. Another change that happened was the transition from a belief in many gods to only one. A Hebrew word for "God" used in early passages was "elohim," which is plural (gods). This was not a revelation of "the trinity" as some might like to think. Apparently, there actually was a belief in many gods among the early Semites. So, roughly speaking, the transition was from belief in many gods, to one god being the source of both good and evil, to a god being the source of good and his adversary being the source of evil.

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