Download or read book The Origin and Rise Decline and Fall of the God Known As Yahweh written by G. R. Pafumi and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the Bible, Abraham hears the voice of god. God instructs Abraham to leave Ur, a city southeast of present-day Baghdad, and go to Canaan, where God would make Abraham a “great nation.” Abraham goes to Canaan where Isaac is sired. Isaac begets Jacob, who sires 12 sons. The offspring of those twelve sons represent the Twelve Tribes, or Children of Israel. Jacob's favorite son Joseph is sold into Egyptian slavery by his jealous brothers. He rises to become the most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh because of his ability to interpret the Pharaoh's dreams. When a famine strikes Canaan, he brings the Children of Israel down to Egypt, where they settle in the Land of Goshen, the land from which the Hebrews later left Egypt at the time of the Exodus. After Joseph dies, a new pharaoh comes to power who “knew not Joseph,” and the Hebrews are enslaved. Their captivity lasts for 430 years. When Pharaoh learns that a Hebrew “deliverer” is born, according to prophesy, the first male of every Hebrew family is killed by Pharaoh's soldiers. One Hebrew male baby is sent down the Nile River where he is found by the Egyptian princess Bithiah, who adopts the child. She names him Moses. Moses later learns of his Hebrew heritage, and in a rage kills an Egyptian soldier. He then flees Egypt. He meets Sephora in the desert, marries her, and is introduced to the location where the “god of the mountain” lives.Moses meets “God” and learns that His name is YHWH, pronounced Yahweh, the Tetragrammaton which is loosely translated as, “I am that I am.” The God of Abraham instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh refuses. God inflicts the Ten Plagues of Egypt upon Pharaoh's people. After the firstborn son of Pharaoh dies as a victim of the 10th plague, Pharaoh lets the God of Israel's people go. Moses takes the Hebrews into the desert. While they are waiting for Moses to return from Mount Sinai, where Moses is receiving the Ten Commandments, they build a “golden calf” to worship the pagan god of the Canaanites, Ba'al. The God of Abraham condemns the Hebrews to wander the desert for 40 years until all those who worshiped the false idol have died. Moses gets the Hebrews to the edge of Canaan where he dies and is buried on Mount Nebo. Joshua takes the Hebrews into the “Promised Land” where he leads the Hebrew tribes in the conquest of Canaan. Joshua fights the Battle of Jericho, where the soldiers of the Israelite army blow their trumpets and the “walls come tumbling down.” This is the biblical narrative which chronicles the early rise of the Jewish nation and people, Israel and the Israelites, and how they came to know and exclusively worship the God of Abraham, YHWH. And not a word of it is true! This book will attempt to reconstruct the most likely series of events which can best describe how Israel and the Israelites came to be. The biblical stories of creation, of the universe and of humans, as well as the origin of Israel, are works of fiction.Around 4,000 years ago, an Asiatic horde known as the Hyksos invaded Egypt and rose to prominence. By 1675 BCE they were in control of Lower Egypt, the northern half of Egypt, which had separated from Upper Egypt, still under control of the Egyptians. By 1550 BCE, Upper Egypt regained control of Lower Egypt and expelled the Hyksos, who left Egypt (in an "Exodus"). As they transited through the Sinai Peninsula, they were introduced to the pagan god (YHW) of the Shasu, Bedouin nomads. As the Hyksos made their way into Canaan, YHW evolved into YHWH, Yahweh. The God of Abraham who "spoke to Moses," YHWH, is most likely a new and improved version of the pagan god YHW. The god of Jews, Christians and Muslims is most likely an updated version of a pagan god of desert nomads. The Hyksos, with their "new" god Yahweh, merged with the pastoral nomads of the Canaanite highlands. A nation was formed, Israel. The Hyksos and pastoral nomads of the Canaanite highlands became the Israelites.

Download or read book God Is Dead Don t Blame Nietzsche written by G. R. Pafumi and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013-03-24 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was originally intended to be an update of my first book, Is Our Vision of God Obsolete? Often What We Believe Is Not What We Observe. However the modifications were so extensive that I realized this was a new book which required a new title. Since my first book was written, science has come to believe that the universe had no beginning (it always existed and was not created) and I have philosophically moved from being an agnostic to a full-blown atheist. Why believe in a creator who does not create? In a universe with no beginning, the concept of god the creator no longer has any meaning or relevance.The book's cover reflects the hypothesis behind this book's new title. The image portrays the crucifixion of Jesus which ended with his death. Jesus is god, according to Christian theology, and Jesus is dead in the portrait; hence god is dead. “God is dead” is a quote made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche from his classic work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. “God is dead” never meant that Nietzsche believed in an actual god who first existed and then died in a literal sense. It was Nietzsche's way of saying that the increasing secularization of European society had effectively “killed” the Abrahamic god, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. Christian values and dogma could no longer be the source of our moral compass. But it was not Nietzsche who killed god. It was Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking.However the origin of the universe stood in the way of my eventual atheistic beliefs. Newton second law of motion deals with cause and effect. Most college science students learn about the Big Bang theory and that our universe began from a single point in space and time. But what happened before the Big Bang? Hawking has argued that asking about what happened before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole. I am not satisfied with this notion. How could a universe be created from nothing? And if the answer is god or “The Creator,” who or what created the creator? And who or what created the creator who created the creator who created our universe? This presents an endless circle of questions for which there are no answers. Thus for a while I was an agnostic in that I could not reconcile in my mind what happened before the Big Bang or who or what was responsible for it.The question remained, if the universe was not created, how did it come into existence? Lawrence Krauss provided some possible answers to this inquiry in his book, A Universe From Nothing, Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. Everything we see could have emerged as a purposeless quantum burp in space or perhaps a quantum burp of space itself. As Krauss explained, there really is no such thing as nothing. Even if all of the atoms are pumped out of a space and a perfect vacuum is created, the space is not really empty. There is still the energy which resides in the empty space. In empty space, the resident energy creates particles out of pure energy. In our universe, empty space creates particles and antiparticle partners continuously. They exist for a moment but as soon as they make contact, they annihilate themselves and convert the matter they contain back into pure energy. No matter or energy is created or destroyed. Energy is simply converted to matter and then matter is converted back to energy. This same concept can be applied to singularities, the particles which reside inside of black holes. A black hole can erupt into a universe when sufficient energy is provided to it by the fabric of the cosmos, in the same way that particle-antiparticle pairs are created continuously in the universe. Thus universes are created out of nothing all of the time, if one defines the fabric of the cosmos, which is a true vacuum, as nothing in that it has no matter. It is simply pure energy. God is not necessary to explain the origin of universe, and by extension, the origin of man.

Download or read book The Early History of God written by Mark S. Smith and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2002-08-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is still much disagreement over the origins and development of Israelite religion. Mark Smith sets himself the task of reconstructing the cult of Yahweh, the most important deity in Israel's early religion, and tracing the transformation of that deity into the sole god - the development of monotheism.

Download or read book The Decline and Fall of the Kingdom of Judah written by Thomas Kelly Cheyne and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Yahweh written by G.H. Parke-Taylor and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biblical tradition asserts that the revelation of God to Moses in the burning bush involved also a declaration of the divine name, the Tet (represented by the letters Y, H, W, H), and its meaning. There are indications that the divine name was known prior to the time of Moses, although ultimate questions of origin and precise meaning are shrouded in obscurity. IN fact, even the exact pronunciation of the name (usually pronounced YAHWEH) is by no means certain. The author of The Divine Name in the Bible surveys the immense literature on this subject, and traces the use of various names for deity in Israel from patriarchal times onwards, with special attention to the significance of the Tetragrammaton, which in course of time, became the name by which the God of Israel was known. Various aspects of the theological meaning of the name in the Old Testament writings are explored. The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Jewish Talmudic literature, and later mystical writings are also examined. The translators of the Old Testament into Greek used Kyrios as the equivalent for YHWH—with implications for the New Testament understanding of the person of Jesus Christ, reflected also in subsequent Christological formulations.

Download or read book Yahweh before Israel written by Daniel E. Fleming and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yahweh is the proper name of the biblical God. His early character is central to understanding the foundations of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic monotheism. As a deity, the name appears only in connection with the peoples of the Hebrew Bible, but long before Israel, the name is found in an Egyptian list as one group in the land of tent-dwellers, the Shasu. This is the starting-point for Daniel E. Fleming's sharply new approach to the god Yahweh. In his analysis, the Bible's 'people of Yahweh' serve as a clue to how one of the Bronze Age herding peoples of the inland Levant gave its name to a deity, initially outside of any relationship to Israel. For 150 years, the dominant paradigm for Yahweh's origin has envisioned borrowing from peoples of the desert south of Israel. Fleming argues in contrast that Yahweh was not taken from outsiders. Rather, this divine name is evidence for the diverse background of Israel itself.

Download or read book Yahweh A God of Violence written by Harold Palmer and published by TellerBooks. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genocide, infanticide, the destruction of entire peoples—these are among the acts of violence commanded or condoned by Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Examples abound throughout the Pentateuch and beyond of violence perpetrated by the Israelites at the beckoning of God. Entire cities and peoples, including Sodom, Gomorrah, Jericho, Amalek and Midian, are destroyed directly or indirectly by God. The Israelites are commanded to kill man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. God instructs the Israelites to conquer and utterly destroy and show no mercy to seven nations and to put to death everyone in the cities—men, women, and dependents—and leave no survivor in Heshbon. Can we conclude from these examples that Yahweh is a brutal god of war and violence? Is Yahweh’s character incompatible with that of Jesus, who in the Sermon on the Mount teaches His disciples to turn the other cheek, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you? Some commentators have concluded from the Old Testament’s war accounts that Yahweh is a petty god with an insatiable blood thirst. In this study, Harold Palmer rejects and refutes these conclusions by approaching the question from a completely fresh angle. He sees the destruction of entire peoples not as a reflection of God’s character, but as a reflection of man’s character. Cities and peoples are destroyed as a natural consequence of their sins, with those having put their faith in Yahweh, such as Rahab, spared from the fate that befalls their community. The starting point for this study is thus that man was created by God for a purpose and to abide by a moral code. When that code is broken, man, having rebelled against and fallen short of God’s perfect moral law, is separated from God. The consequence of this separation is death, and its antidote is the gift of grace, perfected by Christ on the cross.

Download or read book Yahweh Origin of a Desert God written by Robert D. Miller II and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing the absence of a God named Yahweh outside of ancient Israel, this study addresses the related questions of Yahweh's origins and the biblical claim that there were Yahweh-worshipers other than the Israelite people. Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, with an exhaustive survey of ancient Near Eastern literature and inscriptions discovered by archaeology, and using anthropology to reconstruct religious practices and beliefs of ancient Edom and Midian, this study proposes an answer. Yahweh-worshiping Midianites of the Early Iron Age brought their deity along with metallurgy into ancient Palestine and the Israelite people.

Download or read book The Origins of Yahwism written by Jürgen van Oorschot and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compendium examines the origins of the God Yahweh, his place in the Syrian-Palestinian and Northern Arabian pantheon during the bronze and iron ages, and the beginnings of the cultic veneration of Yahweh. Contributors analyze the epigraphic and archeological evidence, apply fundamental considerations from the cultural and religious sciences, and analyze the relevant Old Testament texts.

Download or read book Forbidden Theology written by Miles Augustus Navarr and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 75% of the people who live on this planet are followers of one of the three major monotheistic religions. They all consider Abraham as the father of their race and religion. They all believe in one singular, all powerful, all knowing benevolent god. The Hebrew call him Yahweh, the Christians refer to him as Father or Lord and Muslims call him Allah, and yet millions and millions of people have been murdered, maimed and tortured by the followers of this single entity to prove that their version of this single god is better than the other two versions. Sounds ridiculous, and yet sadly enough, more people have died in the name of religion than any other cause in the history of humanity. Each and every one of us at one time or another has asked or thought about such fundamental questions as, Is there a God?' Where did humans come from?' Why out of millions of species on earth, only humans reached this level of sophistication?' Is there a life after death?' Is there a purpose to life?' Why are we here?' Are the scriptures truly the words of god?' More importantly, is there any way we could find answers to such questions? The fact is, the answer to most of these questions, and many more, that we thought unanswerable, have been written down on clay tablets by our ancient ancestors who lived in Mesopotamia over 7000 years ago. These records are readily available to those who are willing to step outside the dogmatic belief system of the establishment, and are prepared, mentally and spiritually, to tolerate a totally different rendering of the oldest written historical records about mankind's origin, purpose and the truth about god, our maker. The subject matter of this book is an attempt to investigate the circumstances under which Mankind was made, and to trace the beginning and development of such concerns as the emergence of the concept of god and the formation of what later became known as religion. This is done primarily by relying on our scriptural texts, particularly the Old Testament, as well as other ancient manuscripts such as Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian Creation and Genesis epics. The first chapter begins by examining the behaviour, commands and instructions given by Yahweh to his chosen people. These commands and instructions are then evaluated and compared with basic accepted human rights standards practised and observed by almost all communities and societies, past and present. The question is then asked, "How could an entity, powerful enough to have created the entire universe, issue such cruel and sadistic commands against some of his own creations?" Furthermore, Yahweh's behaviour is decidedly pro Hebrew, and shows no regards or thought about non Hebrew masses. How could the universal god show such bias towards a tiny fraction of his creatures, with total disregard for the rest? Finally the characteristics and personalities of Yahweh is analysed by scrutinising his behaviour, actions and directives as stated in the Old Testament, before examining the god of Christianity. In investigating the role and characteristics of God in Christianity, the first thing that immediately becomes apparent is the absence of a prominent role for God the Father, as we had witnessed in Judaism. The Christians, or more specifically Saint Paul, who was the founder and designer of Christianity as we know it today, in order to distance his creation from the Hebrews and religion of Yahweh, invented a new Godhead and named him Jesus Christ (Ancient Greek: Ἰησοῦς Içsous). Born of a virgin, with powers to heal the sick, give sight to the blind and even raise the dead, who was crucified but resurrected three days later. These were all characteristics borrowed from various religions and cults prevalent at the time in the Levant, from Mithraism to the cult of Apoll

Download or read book Yahweh s Coming of Age written by Jason Bembry and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2011-07-21 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

Download or read book Yahweh and the Origins of Ancient Israel written by Nissim Amzallag and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Nissim Amzallag offers new perspectives on the birth of ancient Israel by combining recent archaeological discoveries with a new approach to ancient Yahwism. He investigates the renewal of the copper industry in the Early Iron Age Levant and its influence on the rise of new nations, and also explores the recently identified metallurgical context of ancient Yahwism in the Bible. By merging these two branches of evidence, Amzallag proposes that the roots of YHWH are found in a powerful deity who sponsored the emancipation movement that freed Israel from the Amorite/Egyptian hegemony. Amzallag identifies the early Israelite religion as an attempt to transform the esoteric traditions of Levantine metalworkers into the public worship of YHWH. These unusual origins provide insight into many of the unique aspects of Israelite theology that ultimately spurred the evolution towards monotheism. His volume also casts new light on the mysterious smelting-god, the figure around which many Bronze Age religions revolved.

Download or read book The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament written by C. J. Labuschagne and published by Brill Archive. This book was released on 1966 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Rise and Fall of Gods written by Yussouf Shaheen and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-06-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, "mythology - gods and goddesses" have been brought together into the fold of "history." It is entirely a new academic research work, inviting universities and colleges worldwide to read the book. The book "Rise and Fall of gods" revolves around all the major gods and goddesses, then worshipped by our forefathers. One need not ignore the fact that the people since times immemorial have been worshipping their gods and goddesses in just the same way as we do ours. It had been the conviction of our forefathers that they were on the right path, as we consider ourselves to be now. They provided authoritative accounts of their faith, as well as of their gods and goddesses. Neither they had any proof to fully support their claims, nor do we really have such proof now. The religions of the past had a vital role in our history. We can find the roots of our cultures, laws and the traditions in these expired religions.

Download or read book Language and Culture in the Growth of Imperialism written by Sharron Gu and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political science interpretations of international relations tend to focus on abstract terms of economic interest, domination, rights and justice. Trapped within this limited horizon, the discipline fails to explain why nations of similar economic structure would have variant ideas for their foreign policies, and why nations with different economic structures and ideologies could develop a similar global posture during certain periods of their histories. This innovative study examines imperialism from a cultural and linguistic perspective, portraying the rise and fall of ancient Greek, Roman, medieval Islamic, modern British, Russian and American empires as a part of the natural life of world civilizations. As these imperial cultures matured through centuries of literary accumulation and interaction with other cultures, they finally found their confidence on the world stage and transitioned from an aggressive policy towards others to a more tolerant one.

Download or read book The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone written by Victor G. Novander Jr. and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2006-03-07 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone is a concise history of humanity. It is written from the point of view of someone whose outlook on life has been transformed by primal therapy and who has become a lifelong primal person. No other history has been written from this unique perspective. The Decline and Fall of Practically Everyone offers to each one who is ready for it a fresh glimpse into his own history and into a sound understanding of the course all human history has taken toward the devolution of original human consciousness into unconscious self-awareness. In Part I, the author defines consciousness, unconscious self-awareness, primal pain, primaling and what living a primal life involves. He pictures the primal life as putting ones feet on the path toward greater consciousness. The authors stated purpose is to wake us up to our condition of unconscious self-awareness. He feels that, unless we are awakened, humanity will continue to careen toward destroying itself and the life-sustaining nurture of Earth. The authors approach to the necessary awakening is historical. If one can see history through primal eyes, one will not only see the devolution of consciousness into unconscious self-awareness down through the millennia, one will sense it in ones own life and do something about it. Then in Part II, he explores various attributes of unconscious self-awareness that are relevant to a primal understanding of history. These subjects include the basic split, the point at which unconscious self-awareness completely suppresses consciousness; the location and upward movement of unconscious self-awareness in the body; the experience of time and space; the changing nature of the supreme deity and the four motifs of religion. In Part III, the author begins to explore the historical devolution of original consciousness into unconscious self-awareness. Subjects revealing the devolution include beliefs regarding the origin of the cosmos and of humanity; the destiny of the dead; shamanism; the several millennia-long invasions by Warrior God societies of Mother Goddess cultures and the revolutionary religions of Buddhism and Christianity. In the authors view, everything that has happened since the 1st millennium B.C.E. is but a footnote to it, and he therefore skips to the Americas in the 15th century. In Part IV, the author concentrates on greed and lust for power as the chief characteristics of unconscious self-awareness in the modern period. He begins with Columbus and the euphemistically named Age of Exploration to illustrate how greed and the lust for power dominated the Western European Colonial powers. Next, he shows how the Age of Enlightenment and its major philosophers and economists provided the basis for our Founding Fathers to craft a constitution that enshrined themselves as a rich and powerful, elite ruling class. To illustrate the greed and lust for power of unconscious self-awareness in the rest of U.S. history, he discusses economics, individualism, class and class struggle, differences among people and between men and women in the degree of unconscious self-awareness, family parenting models, unilateralism as the national expression of individualism and the U.S. as a nation dominated by greed, by a lust for power, by a quest for world domination and by the willingness to use violence and terror to achieve these ends. In the final chapter, the author reiterates his purpose of awakening his readers from the state of unconscious self-awareness. In contrast to a strictly psychological approach to fulfill his purpose, the author has adopted, in addition, a perspective that encompasses the whole sweep of human history. He ends by offering a cautious optimism for the future.

Download or read book A History of God written by Joseph B. Lumpkin and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book we will look at the history and "evolution" of the three deities making up the bulk of the world's religions and the evolution of the religions formed from the worship of these three deities. We will learn how the Gods of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths have evolved over time.