Dear Yuyutsu,

Scripture does not get revised whether or not it reflects reality. The Bible cites the death penalty for violating the Sabbath along with many other obsolete injunctions.

Your statement that Jews never denied the existence of other gods is false.

You stated that questioning the deity is a modern notion. All that is needed is one example to show that it is not a modern notion. Your statement was, “it has no interest in questions of existence. Such questions are relatively new and only arise in the minds of modern men."

That statement is false.

God remains a figment of the human imagination.

Repetition of nonsense remains nonsense. I see no point in continuing.

Dear Josephus,

Pharaoh was indeed considered a god, but Judaism rejected and opposed any such notions. It would be very uncharacteristic of Judaism to refer to kings/emperors as gods. Judaism often refers to God as the "King of the kings of Kings", not just "King of Kings".

In your earlier post you seem to have omitted verse 12:

"And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."

The word translated to English as 'God' in this verse, is originally 'Elohim'.

So here YHVH declares that He ("from me") is Elohim.

'Elohim' is an unusual word, since it suggests plural, but used grammatically in the singular. 'YHVH' also suggest a trinity: "Will-be/Is/Was", but is grammatically singular.

One way to think of 'Elohim' is as the personal aspect of God: the one who keepeth me, the one who keepeth you, the one who keepeth him, the one who keepeth her,... it's different functions of the same one, "the keeper".

Man is unable to describe God, hence it's only natural to use many names: though they all fall short, they help directing our attention towards God. Not only different names, but Abram's family also used different physical images. This practice was no longer appropriate for Abram and so he left and started using the more abstract mental image of the trinity of tenses (which you could also think of as 'Time' with a capital T). His descendants were not as evolved as him and so they felt the need for something more concrete which they could relate to easier... and built the golden calf.

Josephus,

Yes, those 82,000 deaths a year are all very regrettable, and we need to do what we can to reduce those numbers as much as possible.

<<... they fail to speak out against the 82,000 abortions that took the life of a potential Australian child last year.>>

But unfortunately the pregnant woman's rights need to take precedence. There is no other way it can work in a civilised society. If you don’t like that, then you need to ask your god why he made us in a way such that abortions would be inevitable and necessary.

I don't think he cares too much, though. After all, with miscarriages out-numbering abortions by a long shot, he's the biggest abortionist of all (Isaiah 45:7).

As for the binding of Isaac, all I can say is that there are many translations done by professional translators (with the New Living Translation being the most literal), and they all disagree with your interpretation.

One could cut down on the number of abortions by having obligatory sex education in schools including instructions in contraceptive methods along with the availability of contraceptives. Unfortunately many who oppose abortion are more horrified by the thought of teenagers having sex than they are by abortion. Thinking back on my virginal teenage years I regret that they were virginal.

AJ Philips,
Said,"As for the binding of Isaac, all I can say is that there are many translations done by professional translators (with the New Living Translation being the most literal), and they all disagree with your interpretation".

AJ Most English translations are taken from the Greek Septuagint where all terms for God are Theos, as the translators recognised there was in reality only one God. The exceptions were where the name of the god was mentioned such as Molech to whom children were sacrificed or Baal etc.

Yuyutsu, It is assumed Moses is writing the Torah account and he is indicating the conflict of Abraham's conversion from polytheism to monotheism. It was Elohim originally in the account that asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it was Elohim to whom the homage was made. YHVH would never ask anyone to sacrifice their child as it is an abomination to YHVH. This is clearly identified as an act of abomination by Moses.

To be killing children is equivalent to ancient paganism if we believe it will make our lives more prosperous. This is an abomination to the Lord.

davidf

your dogma like that of AJ totally blinds you. Kids these days have more education on sex than ever before. Baby killing is still our national sport. Just think for once before blabbing god denier doctrine. I suspect teaching a few absolutes to our kids would have a much more beneficial effect on children than more immoral education which the secularist specialise in.