Did we invent Gods laws in the Old Testament?

[ShamashUruk]

I have more and more come to reject the idea that revelations from God are dictated to us from on High, pure and unadulterated, and uninfluenced by anything of the human sphere. This would be akin to accepting the Islamic version of events of God dictating through Gabriel, and Mohammed being a perfect secretary taking down the message to the last jot and iota.
The version of the commandments written by the finger of God.
The ten commandments may have been written by the hand of God by tradition, but for the larger part the Law was hammered out in a fully human context.
Since God formed us from the mud, he has been interacting with us according to the raw material at hand. In terms of the Law, and even many of the narratives of the Bible, the raw material existed in the pre-existing cultures and beliefs that the Jewish people shared land and history and culture with
God's hand and voice is present in Scripture to be sure but he works alongside his people, dialogues rather than dictates to us through Scripture.

Good points you bring up that since we as humans were designed by God in a Biblical sense we are essentially acting in accordance by what God wants.

However, early culture's are polytheistic and not monotheistic in any sense.

Also, Cuneiform and scroll writing, Cuneiform is a much older writing than Scroll writing, and those cultures who engaged in Cuneiform are polytheistic. While I understand the Israelite's become monotheistic after Babylonian captivity.

 

[ShamashUruk]

Hey everyone, good responses so far, feel free to bring up and relate to any topic related to this. The point being of my discussion is that Polytheism is pre Monotheistic, and that we see evidences of it reflected in a biblical mythological context. Therefore, you should bring up as many points as possible to refute this. I will respond as best I can, thanks folks.

 

[HereIStand]

However, the Christian perspective would be irrelevant in Old Testament as Christianity doesn't emerge until much later in Rome. Prophecy is usually and generally related to "mancy", such as John on Patmos and his use or terms for Apocalyptic Horses which reflect that on the Island of Patmos a Hippodrome was discovered, we see Hippomancy concerning prophecy.

The Old Testament is considered Christian scripture. The Old Testament saints are celebrated as Christians in Hebrews 11.

 

[Soyeong]

True. There is an affirmative aspect to the law. We are to live by it, however, we can not hold to it in every instance. Hence, the need for Christ to fulfill the law and set us free from a "yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1) to fulfill the law of love (Romans 13:10).

I agree that we can not hold to it in every instance, but the Law itself came with instructions for how repent when there are instances that we fail to keep it, so it came with no expectation that it would be kept perfectly, but rather the expectation was that we would continue to repent of our transgressions. Every single prophet up to and including Jesus came with a message of repentance, which would have been rather pointless if we had to keep it perfectly for some reason. The purpose of the Law revealing our sins is only useful insofar as it leads us back to repentance and obedience. According to Deuteronomy 30:11-15, obedience to the Law bring life and a blessing, while disobedience to the Law brings death and a curse, so the distinction between a blessing and a curse is in whether we continue to practice repentance. Jesus died to set us free from the curse of the living in disobedience to the Law so that we could be free to enjoy its blessing. In Titus 2:14, it does not say that Jesus gave himself to set us free from the Law, but to free us from all Lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, and God's Law is His instructions for how to equip us to do every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17, Acts 21:20). In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus summarized the Law and the Prophets as being about how to love God and our neighbor, so the Mosaic Law is the law of love.

If you think that the Law is a yoke of slavery, then I do not see how that can help but to reflect rather negatively on your opinion of the Lawgiver. However, God did not save the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to put them back under slavery to His Law, but rather as Galatians 5:1 says, it is for freedom that God sets us free. God's Law is a law of freedom (Psalms 119:45, James 1:25), while it is sin in transgression of God's Law that puts us into bondage.

To fulfill the Law means to cause God's will (as made known in the Law) to be obeyed as it should be. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said he came to fulfill the Law and then proceeded to fulfill is six times throughout the rest of the chapter by causing God's will (as made known in the Law) to be obey as it should be. In Galatians 5:14, it says that loving your neighbor fulfills the entire Law, which is obeying the Law as it should be obeyed, and which means that everyone since Moses who has loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire Law, so it does not refer to something unique that Jesus did to do away with it. Likewise, Galatians 6:2 says that bearing your neighbors burdens fulfills the Law of Christ, which refers to obeying it as it should be, not to doing away with it. In Romans 15:18-19, it says that Paul fulfilled the Gospel, which referred to causing the Gentiles to obey it as it should be in word and in deed, not to doing away with the Gospel.

 

[HereIStand]

Hey everyone, good responses so far, feel free to bring up and relate to any topic related to this. The point being of my discussion is that Polytheism is pre Monotheistic, and that we see evidences of it reflected in a biblical mythological context. Therefore, you should bring up as many points as possible to refute this. I will respond as best I can, thanks folks.

There is evidence that monotheism was the original religion, and after that the worship of nature and polytheism followed. It's known as original monotheism, which Winfried Corduan addressed this his book A Tapestry of Faiths. In it he clearly shows that knowledge of one God is rooted in the most primitive cultures. This is of course the opposite of the religious trajectory based on evolution, which places monotheism last in the evolution of religion.

 

[ShamashUruk]

The Old Testament is considered Christian scripture. The Old Testament saints are celebrated as Christians in Hebrews 11.

Incorrect, the Old Testament is written firstly in Judaic texts, the Tankh specifically. Hebrews is written much later than the Pentateuch of St. Moses, so even in the book of Hebrews I'd refer to much earlier Tankh, which we don't see Christianity, we see Judaism.

 

[ShamashUruk]

There is evidence that monotheism was the original religion, and after that the worship of nature and polytheism followed. It's known as original monotheism, which Winfried Corduan addressed this his book A Tapestry of Faiths. In it he clearly shows that knowledge of one God is rooted in the most primitive cultures. This is of course the opposite of the religious trajectory based on evolution, which places monotheism last in the evolution of religion.

Interesting, I will look at the book when I get a chance to. However, the Sumerian's are a Pre Semitic aggulagnative speaking people and are polytheistic. They are no where near Monotheistic, and the language of the Semites (developed from Akkad) begins with loan words from Sumerian culture. I'd like to know how the Sumerian's were at any time Monotheistic?

 

[Hank77]

Hammurabi is influenced by Samas the Sun God who is essentially God in Babylonian and is El in Israelite context, so we'd see Polytheistic influence on Monotheism. So when you say you have no issue with this, I'd be aware to be specific about which "God" figure it is.

Hammurabi may have thought he was influenced by an imaginary pagan god. But that is not the point I was making.
You were comparing Hammurabi's law to Moses' law. Both could have been given to both men by the one true God.

 

[Soyeong]

Checked the website and it continues that "We see the laws of Khammurabi operating in Genesis in the following instances", meaning we see the influence of Hammurabi in the Genesis.

Before I begin, Hammurabi is one set of laws that dates back to even the time of Sinai, but even further back we find the code of Ur-Nammu which is pre Biblical law. And concerning Sinai and the law collection or the pinnacle of the revelation at Mount Sinai according to the story of Exodus 19–24, is directly, primarily, and throughout dependent upon the Laws of Hammurabi. The biblical text imitated the structure of this Akkadian text and drew upon its content to create the central casuistic laws of Exodus 21:2–22:19, as well as the outer sections of apodictic law in Exodus 20:23–26 (along with the introduction of 21:1) and 22:20–23:19.2 This primary use of the Laws of Hammurabi was supplemented with the occasional use of material from other cuneiform law collections and from native Israelite-Judean sources and traditions. The time for this textual borrowing was most likely during the Neo-Assyrian period, specifically sometime between 740 and 640 BCE, when Mesopotamia exerted strong and relatively continuous political control and cultural sway over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and a time when the Laws of Hammurabi were actively copied in Mesopotamia as a literary-canonical text.

The Covenant Code also appears to be a unified composition, given the influence of Hammurabi’s laws throughout, the thematic integrity resulting from this, the unique scribal talents and interests necessary for the text’s composition, and its temporal proximity to the basic laws of Deuteronomy, which depend on the Covenant Code’s laws and date not much later, probably to the latter half of the seventh century.

Moreover, because the Covenant Code is largely a creative rewriting of Mesopotamian sources, it is to be viewed as Inventing God’s Law an academic abstraction rather than a digest of laws practiced by Israelites and Judeans over the course of centuries. Its selective character and the manner in which it reshapes the political and theological landscape of the Laws of Hammurabi, in fact, make it appear to be preeminently an ideological document, a response to Assyrian political and cultural domination.

This model differs decidedly from current critical scholarly appraisals of the text. According to these, the Covenant Code’s similarities with ancient Near Eastern law—perceived only imperfectly until now—are due to general or specific traditions, preserved orally and reflected in inherited legal practice, that reach back into the second millennium BCE. One model proposes that Mesopotamian customs became known in Syria-Canaan through the establishment of cuneiform scribal schools in this western region during the mid-to-later second millennium. These were then handed on primarily in oral form into the first millennium, at which time the people of Israel took them over,
practiced them, and encoded them in law. An alternate model proposes that the customs go back earlier to the beginning of the second millennium or even to the late third millennium, to a common stock of Amorite practices that eventually became independently encoded in the Mesopotamian law collections and the Covenant Code. Only a few scholars have allowed for direct or indirect literary influence from Mesopotamian law collections, and they usually limit this to a few laws, such as those about a goring ox. No one has ventured the idea that the apodictic laws have any connection to Hammurabi’s text. The arguments for the prevailing traditions explanation, as just described, have seemed persuasive.

These include a judgment that the Covenant Code’s basic casuistic laws (whatever a particular analysis may determine these to be) are old, from around 1000 BCE, give or take a century. Support for this date has been sought in the sociological and cultural picture imagined to be reflected in the basic casuistic laws. For example, the Covenant Code never speaks of a king. Hence the basic laws have been assumed to be premonarchic or at least built on legal traditions from that period.

An early dating of the Covenant Code is also supported by a relatively early dating of the laws of Deuteronomy. If the latter date to the eighth century, for example, then the Covenant Code
may be from the ninth or even tenth century BCE. In addition, several scholars believe that the Covenant Code was included as part of the Elohist—a few say the Yahwist—source of the Pentateuch. An early dating of these sources has required an early date for the Covenant Code. Furthermore, scholars have made connections between the Covenant Code and features in second-millennium cuneiform documents, such as slave customs reflected in Nuzi texts or the class
of persons denoted by the term ab/piru in El-Amarna and other texts, to which the designation “Hebrew” in the Covenant Code has been related.

The date of the Covenant Code, it is supposed, must be relatively close to the time of the second-millennium texts with these comparable elements. This early dating of the Covenant Code precludes borrowing from contemporary Mesopotamian literature because Mesopotamian influence did not extend to Israel and Judah until the mid-ninth-century BCE and not significantly so until the mid-eighth century.

Cuneiform scribal schools in Syria-Canaan that flourished in the second millennium, evidenced in Akkadian texts found from various Canaanite cities and the El-Amarna tablets of the fourteenth century, ceased to exist around 1200 BCE with the urban collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Hence the Covenant Code’s similarities to cuneiform law, so a traditions argument would claim, cannot be due to the maintenance of cuneiform law texts from the second millennium into the first millennium in the west. If any written sources were influential, these would have presumably been written in Aramaic or Phoenician and would have been limited in scope, perhaps small excerpts of laws or scribal exercises on particular subjects. But since there is no evidence for such texts—certainly there is none for the transmission of the whole of the Laws of Hammurabi in these Northwest Semitic languages—the content of the Covenant Code must result mainly from oral tradition. In any case, most scholarship has also assumed that the laws of the Covenant Code reflect actual legal customs in Israel or Judah. Therefore, whatever relationship there is to Mesopotamian custom, it is only through a pedigree of actual practice. This rules out dependence on a text and even oral traditions transmitted as abstract matters of academic discussion among scribes or jurists.

A portion of the casuistic laws, as well as the apodictic laws, based on different evidence and considerations. The primary historical problem before us can be boiled down to this: are we to believe that legal traditions from several centuries and maybe even a millennium or more past have happened to come together in a form and with a content that matches the Laws of Hammurabi, precisely at a time when Israel and Judah were under Assyrian control and when the Laws of Hammurabi were part of the Great Books library of Akkadian scribes, but that this text had no influence on the Covenant Code? A more parsimonious and compelling explanation of the Covenant Code’s origins recommends itself, and that is what this study presents. We'd also have to look at a methodological chronology and synchronization of the texts.

Pause if you will to consider the implication of establishing that laws of Hammurabi existed in Genesis centuries before Hammurabi and in which direction the influence would be. There is nothing that indicates that the laws that God gave to Moses had to be new laws that had never been seen before, but as Genesis shows, many of God's laws were in place long before Sinai. Many of the God's laws were given by Him prior to Abraham, but as Genesis 26:5 states, Abraham had been given God's laws. It should not be surprising to find that other cultures adopted some of these laws and it should not be considered copying of other cultures when the same God who gave laws throughout Genesis and to Abraham gave the same laws to Moses.

 

[ShamashUruk]

Hammurabi may have thought he was influenced by an imaginary pagan god. But that is not was not the point I was making.
You were comparing Hammurabi's law to Moses' law. Both could have been given to both men by the one true God.

However, we don't see Hammurabi as a monotheist. The earliest traces of Monotheism we see is with the Egyptians. The claim from both Moses and Hammurabi is that God (of their own culture) gave them the divine laws, yet Hammurabi is a much older version, while Moses a much younger version.

 

[Hank77]

Interesting, I will look at the book when I get a chance to. However, the Sumerian's are a Pre Semitic aggulagnative speaking people and are polytheistic. They are no where near Monotheistic, and the language of the Semites (developed from Akkad) begins with loan words from Sumerian culture. I'd like to know how the Sumerian's were at any time Monotheistic?

I'm still not sure what your point is. What makes you think that the one true God wasn't working in men's lives before the Sumerians existed? What makes you think that He didn't give prophecy to others before the Israelites?

 

[ShamashUruk]

Pause if you will to consider the implication of establishing that laws of Hammurabi existed in Genesis centuries before Hammurabi and in which direction the influence would be. There is nothing that indicates that the laws that God gave to Moses had to be new laws that had never been seen before, but as Genesis shows, many of God's laws were in place long before Sinai. Many of the God's laws were given by Him prior to Abraham, but as Genesis 26:5 states, Abraham had been given God's laws. It should not be surprising to find that other cultures adopted some of these laws and it should not be considered copying of other cultures when the same God who gave laws throughout Genesis to Abraham gave the same laws to Moses.

Then we'd need to establish a chronology based on timelines. Moses doesn't pen his books until about 1700 BC, while Hammurabi much earlier. Also, earlier laws existed in the Ur-Nammu code. We don't have anything that predates Sumer, a Pre Semitic aggulagnative speaking people.

Let's delve a little further, let's look at assemblies in each cultural context in order to see why and what has passed in time.

It is not uncommon for Bronze Age texts from Mesopotamia and Syria to refer to the general collectivity of deities as a “council” or “assembly.” Indeed, this divine social structure seems to be the dominant way to refer to the gods and goddesses as a group. Mesopotamian literature attests to “the assembly of the gods” (puhruilani) in a number of different contexts.

The Ugaritic (these are a sect of nomads alongside the Israelite's and Canaanite's) texts also use this language extensively to refer to the deities.

Apart from the expression “meeting of the gods” (‘dt’ilm), which is confined to one section of Kirta (1.15 II 7, 11), the terminology for the general assembly involves the root, *phr. The usages with this term is divided into three categories:

• “the assembly of the gods,” phr ’ilm (1.47.29, 1.118.28, 1.148.9)
• “the assembly of the divine sons,” phr bn ’ilm (1.4 III 14)
• “the assembly of the council,” phr m‘d (1.2 I 14, 15, 20, 31)

The meaning of Ugaritic phr is suggested not only by the ample attestation of its cognate term puhru in Akkadian (inventors of the Semitic language) but also by its use in the Ugaritic texts.

In 1.23.57 the word refers to a group: “and the assembly sings” (wysr phr).

In 1.96.9, 10, the word is apparently parallel to “gate” (tgr).

These passages illustrate the sensibility of what Ugaritic phr designated, namely, a group (1.23.57) and perhaps the location where that group meets (1.96.9–10).

The contexts of the other nondivine attestations are unclear (1.84.41; 4.17.2). In the cases listed, the word might denote the pantheon as a generic whole without reference to any particular deity.

The word ’ilm in this first category means “gods” or the name “El” with final -m. In favor of the first option, we contrast the expression, “the assembly of the sons of El,” mphrt bn’il, where the lack of -m on the final word marks it as a singular noun and hence the god’s name.

Accordingly, one might not be inclined to view these expressions of assembly as El’s assembly as such. To The Structures of Divinity put the point differently, the mythological texts present El as the head of the divine assembly, but the terminology embedded in the expressions for assembly here do not refer specifically to him.

Accordingly, the word “assembly” (phr) refers to a more restricted groupings of deities centered around particular gods. In contrast to the more inclusive expressions noted thus far, these expressions clearly name a specific god: El “the assembly of the sons of El,” mphrt bn ’il (1.65.3; cf. 1.40.25, 42; cf. 34); cf. bn ’il (1.40.33, 41, and its reconstruction in parallel lines in the same text, lines 7, 16, 24; 1.62.7; 1.65.1; 1.123.15). “the circle of El,” dr ’il (1.15 III 19) “the circle of El and the assembly of Baal” dr ’il
wphr b’l (1.39.7; 1.62.16; 1.87.18) “the circle of the sons of El,” dr bn ’il (1.40.25, 33–34) “the assembly of the stars,” phr kbbm (1.10 I 4), possibly parallel to “sons of El,” bn ’il and “the circle of those of heaven,” dr dt sˇmm (1.10 I 3, 5) Baal “the assembly of Baal,” ph % r b‘l (1.162.17); cf. dr ’il wph% r b’l (1.39.7; 1.62.16; 1.87.18).

Ditanu “the assembly of the collectivity of Ditanu,” phr qbs dtn (1.15 III 15; cf. line 4; 1.161.3, 10). These expressions suggest a more particular organization than the pantheon as a whole, namely, various groupings centered around a specific divine figure. These may represent the families of these patriarchal figures. This paradigm is evident in the case of 1.40.33 where “the circle of the sons of El” (dr bn ’il) is preceded by “the sons of El” (bn ’il).

These examples also show the terms, “circle” (dr) and “collectivity” (qbsfi). The term dr might be rendered either “council” or “circle,” or perhaps better “collectivity,” based on “the collectivity of priests” (dr khnm) in 4.357.24.9 In sum, the terminology of ph % r divine name reflects different divine “assemblies,” one belonging to El, a second to Baal, a third to Ditanu. As the next section claims at greater length, none of these represents the pantheon as a whole.10 Of the expressions I listed, “the circle of El and the assembly of Baal” (dr ’il wph% r b’l) in 1.39.7 and 1.41.16//1.87.17–18, seem to refer to the pantheon as a whole as the sum of two parties named according to the two chief gods; if correct, it would imply that dr ’il does not constitute the pantheon as a whole.11 The general Ugaritic pantheon may lie behind the enigmatic expression in 1.47.1, ’il sfipn, “the gods of Sapan,” given the rather inclusive listing of deities that follows (note also the collective phr ’ilm in line 29 of this text); if correct, subsuming the deities under the rubric of Baal’s mountain would reflect the divine leadership of Baal over the pantheon.

F. M. Cross (Assyriologist) offers a wider definition of the The Divine Council pantheon as a whole (1.3 V; 1.4 IV–V; 1.17 VI):
"wherever two or more deities with El are present, there the general divine assembly meets, even if the terminology of council is absent from the passage."

However, there is no reason to assume that the mythological scenes describing El at his abode involve (even as pars pro toto) the general pantheon, perhaps only El’s more immediate assembly. Indeed, the language of assembly is missing from these scenes, and their rendering of El’s abode differs markedly from the description of the divine council.13 The issues are admittedly complex and the data debatable, but given these differences in the rendering of El’s abode and the site of the divine council, caution in identifying them is in order; the same point may apply to the language of El’s council and the pantheon more generally.

 

[ShamashUruk]

I'm still not sure what your point is. What makes you think that the one true God wasn't working in men's lives before the Sumerians existed? What makes you think that He didn't give prophecy to others before the Israelites?

Sumerian's are polytheistic, they have Gods ranging from Anu, Enki, Utu, Enlil, Tiamat and so on. At least in an archaeological sense we don't see Monotheism in Cuneiform writing (writing that pre dates any Israelite writing in their scroll form). My point is that language dictates that Polytheism existed long before the Israelite's entered into Babylonian captivity and engaged in Monotheism.

 

[Hank77]

However, we don't see Hammurabi as a monotheist.

What does that matter? King Cyrus wasn't a Jew or a believer in Judaism. God spoke to him and used to him to help the Jewish people.

The earliest traces of Monotheism we see is with the Egyptians.

Ah..So man has no history with God before cuneiform or hieroglyphics?

 

[Hank77]

Sumerian's are polytheistic, they have Gods ranging from Anu, Enki, Utu, Enlil, Tiamat and so on. At least in an archaeological sense we don't see Monotheism in Cuneiform writing (writing that pre dates any Israelite writing in their scroll form). My point is that language dictates that Polytheism existed long before the Israelite's entered into Babylonian captivity and engaged in Monotheism.

What has that got to do with the one true God using polytheistic men to bring about His will?

 

[ShamashUruk]

What does that matter? King Cyrus wasn't a Jew or a believer in Judaism. God spoke to him and used to him to help the Jewish people.

Ah..So man has no history with God before cuneiform or hieroglyphics?

What has that got to do with the one true God using polytheistic men to bring about His will?

King Cyrus isn't until about 600 BC, a Persian king, and by this time we see a monotheistic invention.

No, history doesn't show monotheism pre Cuneiform. History shows the Ankhet being monotheists, however, they are not Israeli monotheist. In fact they exodus from Egypt, the same a story we find later in the book of exodus. So I don't understand your connection between Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform.

It has a lot to do with it, since we don't see a "monotheistic" God in any sense in polytheism, at least in the sense of Christianity. Christianity is a much later development, but let's take a look into this a bit, the sources of Biblical monotheism as they develop. We see that the name of the god El is the same as the word for “God” in many West Semitic languages. This fact is taken as evidence that as head of the West Semitic pantheon, El was regarded as the pre-eminent god (or, divinity “incarnate”).

Etymologically speaking the best guess for the etymology of both the word “God” and the name of El has been *’y/wl, “to be strong,” but other proposals have been made.

The noun may be a “primitive” biradical form meaning “chief” or “god.” The name of El occurs clearly first in personal names attested at Ebla, and then Mari and Amarna. In contrast, the evidence in other Mesopotamian personal names is contested. These cases may involve the generic term “god,” not the proper name of El. Because of the lack of evidence for El’s cult in Mesopotamia, the second view may be preferable.

The most extensive Bronze Age source about El comes from Ugarit. The texts there attest to the word ’il over five hundred times, in its generic use, in the name of the god, or in proper names. In the Ugaritic mythological narratives, El appears as the divine patriarch par excellence. His role as ’ab, “father,” applies to the pantheon that is his royal family. The deities are generically referred to as dr ’il, literally “the circle of El,” but perhaps better translated, “El’s family” (CAT 1.15 III 19). Athirat is El’s elderly wife with whom he has produced the pantheon, generically (but not all inclusively) referred to as “Athirat’s seventy sons.” As divine progenitor, El is sometimes called ’il yknnh, “El who created him/her.”

As the divine patriarchal authority, El oversees the actions of the pantheon, presented as a royal assembly in 1.2 I. He issues decisions and exercises authority over the other deities, including Athirat, Baal, and Anat. His authority is expressed in his title, “king” (mlk). The same notion seems to underlie his epithet, “bull” (tr): like the chief and most powerful of animals, El is the chief of the deities. His fatherly disposition toward his family is captured in his larger appellation, “Kind El, the Compassionate” (ltfipn ’il dp’id).

One other factotum, we see Abraham descending from Ur, however, Ur is a Sumerian city and not West Semitic. Yet, the name Abraham is a Common Stock West Semitic name, hence Abram, Ibrhim, Abraham is not a proper name adopted into Jewish Monotheism. The original name would be Sumerian and not West Semitic as there are differentiating factors between the Sumerian's from the South and the much earlier people of Akkad from the North. We see loan words from Sumer to Akkad in the development of the Semitic language by the Akkadians. Hence, it would be more probable that Abraham would have spoke Sumerian, yet Biblical infers a West Semitic patriarch. This hardly shows monotheism in its strictest sense.

 

[Hank77]

King Cyrus isn't until about 600 BC, a Persian king, and by this time we see a monotheistic invention.

You keep invading my questions.
Once again, so what? Cyrus was not monotheistic and God used him. Cyrus didn't become a monotheistic believer when God influenced him.

Do you think that God only uses monotheistic people? Do you think that because we have no written history, outside of religious writings, that no one could have been monotheistic from the beginning of mankind?
Could it be that originally mam was monotheistic but through imagination man began to concocted stories, myths, fables, that were pleasing to men and corrupted their knowledge of the one true God?

I cannot prove to you that man was originally monotheistic and you cannot prove he wasn't. Do you see how silly the whole argument is?

 

[ShamashUruk]

You keep invading my questions.
Once again, so what? Cyrus was not monotheistic and God used him. Cyrus didn't become a monotheistic believer when God influenced him.

Do you think that God only uses monotheistic people? Do you think that because we have no written history, outside of religious writings, that no one could have been monotheistic from the beginning of mankind?
Could it be that originally mam was monotheistic but through imagination man began to concocted stories, myths, fables, that were pleasing to men and corrupted their knowledge of the one true God?

I cannot prove to you that man was originally monotheistic and you cannot prove he wasn't. Do you see how silly the whole argument is?

King Cyrus of Persia, I may not have many direct references for him in Mesopotamia. Of course the story indicates that Cyrus is influenced by "God" we see this in the book of Ezra.

First part of the problem, El or Yahweh is the proper named used, not necessarily "God" at least not until translation. But a quick look into Ezra and the term in the Tankh is Lord, while in the KJV the term Lord is also used, I imagine this refers to Yahweh (Ba'al) and not necessarily El in the Israelite pantheon.

So it makes a big difference when we are talking about influence on monotheism from polytheism.

Also, to define the term "God", it isn't a monotheistic term in its natural status. We see by nomenclature in ancient Mesopotamia the term God used to also describe female God the term Goddess is omitted as the Sumerian's do not have a concept of the term Goddess. Denoting that God is neither male nor female or is both, yet Biblical references brings about male.

Another good example in Cuneiform we see three comprised epics written about 4000-3000 BC:

1. The epic of Ziusudra, and the deluge. A pious man who worshiped his Gods, when Enlil sends the flood, Enki intervenes and has him build an ark.
2. The epic of the Ziggurat, the Sumerian's of a certain sect build a Ziggurat to the heavens which angers the Gods and the Gods specifically Enki and Enlil destroy the Ziggurat.
3. The epic of languages being split, as annotated by author Sam Noah Kramer. The Cuneiform contains a passages wherein Enki righteously splits the languages.

None of these epics indicate monotheism at all, and they are all pre Semitic writings.

We see the similar epics in Biblical myth, with the flood of Noah, the tower of Babel and the languages being split in Babylon. Also, the Bible isn't penned until 1700 BC by Moses, so even by that account we see a much later event of Monotheism.

There was a thought called Ur Monotheismus, that asserted that mankind began as Monotheistic it was a theory founded by a school of thought in Vienna and by an atheist. However, apologetic Christians have rejected the idea, noting that Monotheism is a development with the Isrealite's. Unfortunate we don't truly see the Israelite's until Canaan. Hence, the admittance that Polytheism was pre Monotheism.

Even in linguistics, we see that the first set of languages are Sumero-Akkadian an early developed Semitic language and that before then the language of Sumerian is only in existence. The Sumerian's are not at all monotheistic, so you would have to pre date a culture that was monotheistic.

So to answer your question, no, we do not see Monotheism being earlier than Polytheism.

It matters because, what is seen is an adoption from Polytheistic culture to Polytheistic culture of motifs, beliefs, themes, and so on to other Polytheistic cultures until those ideologies reach the ancient Israelite's.

To your point a methodological principle I'd agree with is that 'The interpretation of biblical features.. .with the help of inner-biblical parallels should always precede the comparison with extra-biblical materials'.

For example, assuming that one has analyzed a particular text comprehensively on its own merits, one needs to do careful analysis of and comparisons between the various biblical accounts of temple building (see esp. Exod. 25-40, the tabernacle construction account; 1 Kgs 5.1[15]-8.66; 2 Chron. 2-7; Ezek. 40-48) before comparing them with other ancient Near Eastern temple building texts, such as the Gudea Cylinders.

I would also argue, however, that this is just as important for the nonbiblical comparative material. The Gudea Cylinders, for example, also need to be analyzed in comparison with other texts of their type from within their own immediate cultural and literary milieu.

Fortunately,a few researchers have already done much of this work. One has shown that there is a particular subgenre of Sumerian royal hymns known as 'building and dedication hymns', which includes the Gudea Cylinders and three other compositions.

Another has taken this subgenre of Sumerian texts as well as other (temple) building texts from the ancient Syro-Mesopotamian world, analyzed them, and in the context of that kind of analysis, has then compared them with the two major sanctuary construction accounts in the Bible, Exod. 25-40 and 1 Kgs 5-9.

 

[Ken Rank]

Hammurabi is Babylonian, the Semites are not necessarily Babylonian, but the Babylonian's did speak a Semitic based language. We see Hammurabi existing long before the laws in Sinai as well. So we see a disconnect strictly between St. Moses and Hammurabi in the strictest sense. But, the connection we do see is the Egyptians and the Babylonians.

Hammurabi was just under 200 years prior to Sinai and "Semite" like all words has a variety of applications. You said he spoke a Semitic language... then he is a Semite by one of those semantic applications. My point is simply that it all starts, in this case, with God and Noach. And God revealed His commandments (His will, instructions for humanity) over time. The basic do's and don't's (and I am going WELL BEYOND the 10 commandments with this - consider the pre-Sinai Genesis 38:8 as compared with the post-Sinai Deuteronomy 25:5 as ONE example of many) were well known before Sinai. Again, Abraham kept God's laws and commandments (Genesis 26:5). What happened at Sinai is it was WRITTEN for the first time and it had the ability to prosecute and the punishments ADDED because God's Law was to be used, by Israel, as their national rule of law. We live under secular rule... ancient Israel lived under God's rule. It existed before Sinai as a standard, it existed after as a Constitution.

 

[Ken Rank]

Before I begin, Hammurabi is one set of laws that dates back to even the time of Sinai, but even further back we find the code of Ur-Nammu which is pre Biblical law. And concerning Sinai and the law collection or the pinnacle of the revelation at Mount Sinai according to the story of Exodus 19–24, is directly, primarily, and throughout dependent upon the Laws of Hammurabi. The biblical text imitated the structure of this Akkadian text and drew upon its content to create the central casuistic laws of Exodus 21:2–22:19, as well as the outer sections of apodictic law in Exodus 20:23–26 (along with the introduction of 21:1) and 22:20–23:19.2 This primary use of the Laws of Hammurabi was supplemented with the occasional use of material from other cuneiform law collections and from native Israelite-Judean sources and traditions. The time for this textual borrowing was most likely during the Neo-Assyrian period, specifically sometime between 740 and 640 BCE, when Mesopotamia exerted strong and relatively continuous political control and cultural sway over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and a time when the Laws of Hammurabi were actively copied in Mesopotamia as a literary-canonical text.

The Covenant Code also appears to be a unified composition, given the influence of Hammurabi’s laws throughout, the thematic integrity resulting from this, the unique scribal talents and interests necessary for the text’s composition, and its temporal proximity to the basic laws of Deuteronomy, which depend on the Covenant Code’s laws and date not much later, probably to the latter half of the seventh century.

Moreover, because the Covenant Code is largely a creative rewriting of Mesopotamian sources, it is to be viewed as Inventing God’s Law an academic abstraction rather than a digest of laws practiced by Israelites and Judeans over the course of centuries. Its selective character and the manner in which it reshapes the political and theological landscape of the Laws of Hammurabi, in fact, make it appear to be preeminently an ideological document, a response to Assyrian political and cultural domination.

This model differs decidedly from current critical scholarly appraisals of the text. According to these, the Covenant Code’s similarities with ancient Near Eastern law—perceived only imperfectly until now—are due to general or specific traditions, preserved orally and reflected in inherited legal practice, that reach back into the second millennium BCE. One model proposes that Mesopotamian customs became known in Syria-Canaan through the establishment of cuneiform scribal schools in this western region during the mid-to-later second millennium. These were then handed on primarily in oral form into the first millennium, at which time the people of Israel took them over,
practiced them, and encoded them in law. An alternate model proposes that the customs go back earlier to the beginning of the second millennium or even to the late third millennium, to a common stock of Amorite practices that eventually became independently encoded in the Mesopotamian law collections and the Covenant Code. Only a few scholars have allowed for direct or indirect literary influence from Mesopotamian law collections, and they usually limit this to a few laws, such as those about a goring ox. No one has ventured the idea that the apodictic laws have any connection to Hammurabi’s text. The arguments for the prevailing traditions explanation, as just described, have seemed persuasive.

These include a judgment that the Covenant Code’s basic casuistic laws (whatever a particular analysis may determine these to be) are old, from around 1000 BCE, give or take a century. Support for this date has been sought in the sociological and cultural picture imagined to be reflected in the basic casuistic laws. For example, the Covenant Code never speaks of a king. Hence the basic laws have been assumed to be premonarchic or at least built on legal traditions from that period.

An early dating of the Covenant Code is also supported by a relatively early dating of the laws of Deuteronomy. If the latter date to the eighth century, for example, then the Covenant Code
may be from the ninth or even tenth century BCE. In addition, several scholars believe that the Covenant Code was included as part of the Elohist—a few say the Yahwist—source of the Pentateuch. An early dating of these sources has required an early date for the Covenant Code. Furthermore, scholars have made connections between the Covenant Code and features in second-millennium cuneiform documents, such as slave customs reflected in Nuzi texts or the class
of persons denoted by the term ab/piru in El-Amarna and other texts, to which the designation “Hebrew” in the Covenant Code has been related.

The date of the Covenant Code, it is supposed, must be relatively close to the time of the second-millennium texts with these comparable elements. This early dating of the Covenant Code precludes borrowing from contemporary Mesopotamian literature because Mesopotamian influence did not extend to Israel and Judah until the mid-ninth-century BCE and not significantly so until the mid-eighth century.

Cuneiform scribal schools in Syria-Canaan that flourished in the second millennium, evidenced in Akkadian texts found from various Canaanite cities and the El-Amarna tablets of the fourteenth century, ceased to exist around 1200 BCE with the urban collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Hence the Covenant Code’s similarities to cuneiform law, so a traditions argument would claim, cannot be due to the maintenance of cuneiform law texts from the second millennium into the first millennium in the west. If any written sources were influential, these would have presumably been written in Aramaic or Phoenician and would have been limited in scope, perhaps small excerpts of laws or scribal exercises on particular subjects. But since there is no evidence for such texts—certainly there is none for the transmission of the whole of the Laws of Hammurabi in these Northwest Semitic languages—the content of the Covenant Code must result mainly from oral tradition. In any case, most scholarship has also assumed that the laws of the Covenant Code reflect actual legal customs in Israel or Judah. Therefore, whatever relationship there is to Mesopotamian custom, it is only through a pedigree of actual practice. This rules out dependence on a text and even oral traditions transmitted as abstract matters of academic discussion among scribes or jurists.

A portion of the casuistic laws, as well as the apodictic laws, based on different evidence and considerations. The primary historical problem before us can be boiled down to this: are we to believe that legal traditions from several centuries and maybe even a millennium or more past have happened to come together in a form and with a content that matches the Laws of Hammurabi, precisely at a time when Israel and Judah were under Assyrian control and when the Laws of Hammurabi were part of the Great Books library of Akkadian scribes, but that this text had no influence on the Covenant Code? A more parsimonious and compelling explanation of the Covenant Code’s origins recommends itself, and that is what this study presents. We'd also have to look at a methodological chronology and synchronization of the texts.

I just commented, I kind of rest on that. I teach a class on this, Shamashuruk, so I am very well versed with the times, places, and players in question. Please consider my last response to you, posted 2 minutes before this one. Shalom!