(urth) Oannes

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com>

>> David Stockhoff:
Lee Berman: I have suggested that the God of the OT seems to be rather pagan by our 
>>> modern Christian  standards.
> 
>> I'm not sure what this means.
> 
> I mean the God of the OT recognizes the existence of rival gods,

In the early books, but not the later ones.

> seems to have human emotions
> and faults, demands burnt offering sacrifices, toys with the idea of human 
> sacrifice,

All true.

> is tolerant even approving of polygamy,

Jesus had nothing to say about polygamy, which seems like tolerating it.  Paul said a church overseer or deacon should be "the husband of one wife", which still doesn't look to the naive like an outright condemnation, though apparently it's usually taken that way.

> engages in genocide of innocents if they are Hebrew
> enemies, etc. He isn't much like the God most Christians know and love 
> today.

One important difference is that in the Old Testament, God punishes people in life, while by New Testament times, no one could believe this any more (I assume), so in the NT, God punishes people after death.  In this respect, neither seems more pagan, as the Greek gods punished people both in life and after death.

> He is more like 
> all the other gods of His time. His main distinction (as I see it) is that He is 
> One God 
> (allowing him to avoid the sin of incest committed by all the other pagan 
> pantheons).

An interesting point.

Another important distinction is that He is depicted as the direct source of a wide-ranging code of laws.  In contrast, the oldest surviving law code is presented as the work of a king (who got his position by divine favor).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu

Likewise, as I understand it, the Greek gods punished offenses against them and a few transgressions against mortals, notably killing or having sex with one's relatives, but they didn't particularly care about murder, theft, adultery, etc.

Jerry Friedman