The Gnostic records depict the Hebrew Deity as evil. They call him Samael which means the blind God, Yaldabaot or Saklas. What sort of God do the biblical records depict?
Exo. 32:9-15 states: "And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people: Now let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God and said, Lord, why doeth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do onto his people."
How could a God who was not Evil intend to do evil. With his human qualities, Moses makes the God repent. This does not indicate any superior thinking abilities or ethical traits on the part of the God. Here Moses is only able to avoid the disaster of his God wiping out the entire race and then making a great nation of Moses alone by telling his God that the Egyptians would state that for evil purposes did he bring the people into the desert to wipe out one and all.
Isaiah 30:27 says that the Lord is coming from afar, burning with anger. His lips full of indignation, and his tongue a devouring fire. Not to wonder, the Canaanite God Yammu was depicted as an evil dragon. Jeremiah 42:6 says that a promise is made to follow the lord whether he is good or evil, just so that it may go well with them.
Jeremiah 42:10 says that the Lord admits he did evil toward the Israelites... "I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you." A good God does not ever have to be excused for the evil he has done. The Gnostic stated Evil does not come from Good nor does Good come from Evil.
Jeremiah 42:17 says that if they go to Egypt, none will escape the evil of the Lord. Evil deeds are the threats this lord employs in order to make his people follow him.
Ezekiel 4:12 states: "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shall bake it with dung that comes out of man, in their sight." This is a proclamation made by the lord. After pleading by Ezekiel, where he tells the Lord what a good worshipper and great follower of the law he has been, the Lord finally relents as we read in Ezekiel l4:15, "Then he said unto me, lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shall prepare thy bread therewith." This not only indicates this was a vindictive God, but notice also the fact Ezekiel has to indicate to the God how devout he has been. The God depicted by the Church today would have known these things.
In Ezekiel 7:2-27, the Lord talks of his coming to judge the Israelites. In verse 7:5, he states about himself: "...An evil, an only evil, behold is come." Not very flattering, but what is flattering about the Lord depicted in the Old Testament other than the evil he is capable off.
Yes, it has been justified by talking about the evil the Israelites did, but this holds no water. The followers did the best they could to follow the Lord. The Israelites did not do evil other than the evil which the Lord had demanded of them.
Ezekiel chapter 25 tells of all the evil the Lord is going to do, not only to the Israelites but to Edom, Moab and the Ammonites and, they shall all know he is the Lord because of the evil which he does is the conclusion of the chapter.
Amos 3:6 states: "Shall there be evil in a city, and the lord not have done it?" A good question. These people know evil comes from their God. They follow the God because of the fear they have of the evil which will befall them if they should change their form of worship.
The Sumerian divine God and the sign of divinity used at Mari was Ilum or El-Oim, with the same meaning as the one handed us by the Hebrews. A-AB-BA was the Sumerian for sea. Yam was the name used at Mari. Psalm 74:13 states: "Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the water. Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." That the Israelites continue this ancient myth is no surprise. The duplicate story in Ugarit is not the original. The tale of Marduk slaying the same dragon is not original. It is virtually certain the Hebrew Deity did not conquer any dragon of the sea. The God Baal slew the dragon of the sea in the original Israelite tale, of that we can be certain. That the dragon which is here slain was the same dragon the Israelites worshipped is also correct according to the legends. The problem with these ancient Gods was that they did not remain dead.
Isaiah 51:9-10 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? This is Baal whom is talked about as the material from Ugarit makes abundantly clear. It goes on to talk about Baal returning to Sapanu His sacred dwelling and not Yammu/YHWH to his dwelling in Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 4:10 states: "Then said I, Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul." Jeremiah 5:2 states: "And though they say, The Lord liveth; surely they swear falsely."
Jeremiah 10:11 states: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Yes, this God had dire predictions for other Gods. We see Yammu/YHWH laments his faith at the hands of Baal in Jer.10:19,20: "Woe is me for my hurt! My wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is a grief, and I must bear it. My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains."
Yammu is the friend and son of the God El. He is contested by the God Baal who is referred to as the Lord of Earth and who was also a fertility god of the Canaanites. The judging was done by the goddess Nanshe, and seated beside her was the goddess who was in charge of writing and accounting. No wonder the Hebrew God was so miserable to get along with, he was just plainly overworked. What the Sumerians, Babylonians and other peoples were aware of was that it took several Gods to handle what he was supposed to take care of all by himself. Monotheism is not a step forward. It would be quite reasonable to assume that many primitive races held one god as the one being in charge of everything much like the tribal leader taking care of all the tribe. It would only be in later more civilized societies that they would discover it took the cooperation of many individuals to manage a civilization and it would then be natural for them to assume it was the same with the Gods.
The only exception would be nomadic tribes or hunters who relied on one leader. They had no need for organization and would not as readily have seen the necessity for structure. Another thing is that if you are the only one at something, you get bored awfully fast. Take for instance a chess master. He might love the game of chess but if he was to find only novices to play with, he would soon get bored. The first thing he would do would be to become a teacher to bring the novices up to his level so he could have some competition. The only time this would be the exception would be if the novice did not want to let on that he was a novice. Then he would want to play the game but change the rules so the experts would not discover his ignorance. Do not tell me I can not know how a God would feel because he is so far superior. It does say we are just as able and besides, I was supposed to be made in his image and therefore, I have a right to evaluate him on the basis of what exist here today.
The Gnostics would need no further proof. Psalm 51:17 speaks plainly enough: this God desires to destroy the Spirit of Man so he can control them and make Man a subject to his decrees.
Man weeps when he sees another man who is down. A brokenhearted person is always a sad sight. Someone whose Spirit is crushed affects just about all. Any person who has any trace of compassion whatever for another who is suffering is better than the God depicted in the OT That is a fact even if the God is able to destroy the entire planet with one fell swoop.
A good God does not make violence. This Deity demonstrated plenty of it! En-Ki's word is uttered against Man and not for his benefit.
En-Ki and YHWH had more than one thing in common. They may have been the same God. En-Ki may have been crafty but he became even more jealous with age. As En-Ki, he was jealous of his older brother who was ranked higher than him. In addition to En-Lil, Ea also became jealous of his son Marduk who was ranked higher than he was. As El (lord), he was jealous also but here we get a little confusion in mythology, for En-Lil was El. En-Ki was Dagan. Marduk became Baal, El was the father of all Gods with the exception of Baal. According to the Canaanites and others, Baal was the son of Dagan. Baal was the later epithet of Marduk and we know Marduk was the son of En-Ki/Ea. Dagan was known as far back as the Eblaites, and that they had a different name for the same God would not surprise anyone. After all, the Hebrews employed YHWH for En-Ki.
En-Lil was called Bel by the Mesopotamians. The later Babylonians transferred the powers of Bel to the God Marduk but, as we saw, Marduk was the son of En-Ki.
We have also seen the transfer of powers from God to God in many other instances like, for example, Mithra to Jesus Christ.
For Homer, to speak the truth was not merely to state a fact or make an accurate statement. It was to frame one's expression in a manner that the entire concept might be clearly seen. For this reason, truth is an intellectual feat of communication, perception and elocution.
Truth is knowledge of reality as expressed by the mind. Also according to the Greek thinkers truth existed only in the realm of the divine, in the realm of the mind. Truth could not appear in the physical universe because the physical universe was constantly changing. Truth never changed. Greek writings, such as the Peri Aletheia, indicate truth is only in eternal things yet, only imitations of truth are found on Earth. Aletheia also appears as the designation of revelation. It is the teaching in which the divinity makes itself known and as such, it is not mere doctrine but a divine power. Aletheia is thus closely related to Gnosis. To perceive this revealed truth is to enter the divine sphere of truth and be divine.
On the other hand, truth in the OT, which is also translated Aletheia, is not the Aletheia of the Greeks. It indicates the fidelity of Jewry to the covenant with Yahweh.
Whenever Yahweh is not holding up his end of the bargain, the Israelites blame themselves in the same fashion all other primitive religions did. When things went right, it was because they obeyed the God(s) and when they went wrong it was because they had sinned. Also in the Old Testament, truth was synonymous with the righteousness to a deity. When the deity is fickle it is because the adherents to the faith failed and then the prophets were those who came along to tell them how they had failed.
The Essenes and other Israelites viewed truth as a way of life. They lived in the truth of the covenant with their Lord. The truth at the time of Moses was not the same truth as the truth of the later prophets. At the time of Moses, they sacrificed the first born children as an offering to YHWH. Later prophets called this a blasphemy and made up a God called Molech to whom the Israelites were to have sacrificed their children (walked through the fire for Molech). Isa. 8:21 really reads "his Molech" and it talks about when the Israelites go through "it." How they shall curse their king and their God. There have been attempts by Biblical scholars to link the Canaanite God of the underworld, Malku to the Molech of the Bible. An exercise of futility.
Jer. 32:35 states: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; Which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind..."
The Lord at first demanded the sacrifice of all the firstborn, and here this practice is no longer acceptable and the God Molech is invented as the one for whom the sacrifices were made. Here, Molech is tied to Baal. If the God made this statement, he is also a liar.
Exo. 22:29 states: "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me." My translation into English of the Norwegian version of the Lutheran Bible confirms this outrageous commandment. It states: "What fills your barn and that which fills your winepress thou shall not hold back. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me." What is surprising here is that the later editors missed this.
1 Kings 11:7 states: "Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon." Ammon meant the Ammonites. People such as Hammuraby was an Ammonite as were the Canaanites. Hammuraby and his people never sacrificed children to their Gods. The Israelites were another Ammonite tribe. Exodus tells us the Lord claims all the firstborn as sacrifices. It does not exclude the firstborn humans. Shall the excuses stand since our mind could not cope with the worship of a God who demanded the sacrifice of the firstborn? Today few biblical scholars attempt to justify this. They realize it was the shame of later generations which put the blame of this early Israelite practice on foreign Deities. Ezek. 20:25-26 states: "Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live; And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."
Here, this God does not deny the fact he was the God who made the people sacrifice their first born on a pyre to him. He excuses his actions by stating it was done so they might know he was the Lord. He may have been the Lord, fine, but as the Lord, he was the epitome of evil. No one need follow such a person or God.
He goes on in Ezek.20:31: "For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be enquired of by you." In other words, the God just admitted that he had given them statutes which were wrong and judgments whereby they should not live. Then he goes on to state that he is not willing to be questioned in regards to his evil. He takes no responsibility for his evil deeds, he is right and the Israelites are but his servants whom have no right to enquire any accounting by the evil God Yammu/YHWH.
Even though the evils were caused by the commandments of this God Ezekiel 20:43 states how the Israelites are to feel about it all: "And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for all the evils that ye have committed." That the God himself caused these evils by his commandments is no crime. His followers are to loathe themselves because they followed them. There is not a person alive today which has not the right to question this "God"! Look at Judges 11:30-40. Jephtah who is the Israelite fighter makes a vow to his God that if the enemy is delivered to him and he is victorious he shall offer for a burnt offering the first person who comes out of his house to greet him. Jephtah seems to at least be aware of the fact this Hebrew Deity has a taste for the smell of burning human flesh. When his only child, a daughter, greets him with dances and tumbrels, he rends his clothing. When he tells his daughter he has opened his mouth to the Lord and can not go back on his word she immediately understands and consoles her father. How could it be she understands what is to happen and does not seem repulsed or offended by the idea? She consoles her mourning father and asks but for some time in the mountains before she is burned on the offering table. This tale from Judges indicates child sacrifice must have been commonplace in that day and age.
Psalm 74:13, Job 7:12, Isaiah 51:9-10 and Jeremiah 5:22 state that YHWH divides the sea, but YHWH is Yammu. Talmudic Yamm is the prince of the sea. As the prince of the sea, dividing the sea would not be an unexpected feat.
Exo. 22:28 states: "Thou shalt not revile the gods nor curse the ruler of thy people." In other words, respect the pagan gods of thy masters.
Great contrast can here be seen between this time period and that of the later prophets (Exo. 22:23). The Israelites dwelled in the land of the Amorites before leaving the desert. In Exo. 21:35, they killed everything and everyone, like good God fearing people are supposed to do. In 1 Sam. 15:9, Saul's great sin, not killing all of the living people and animals, causes the break with the merciful Lord.
The Lord who knows the all did not apparently even know that Solomon would turn to other Gods. What does the all he knows include? Anyone able to perceive the mental image concepts of another would be able to discern what sort of person he is dealing with, and any God worth his breath would be able to read the mental image concepts of his subjects! The same goes when it comes to Saul, David, Jeroboam and the lot of them. Why was it so difficult to follow this lords commandments. What was in these commandments that the Hebrews were unable to follow? Was it something pertaining to their own conscience? Was it perhaps the offering of all the firstborn? True, much later in history, the God denies that he ever wanted the children to "go through the fire" for Molech, but who was Molech that craved child sacrifices?
There are no Gods besides a north African tribe who had such a tradition, and their God was not the Molech of the Bible. Anyone reading the later parts of the Bible would see that had Shakespeare read these parts, he might well have said, "Me thinkest the Deity denieth too much." Exo.13:2 states: "Sanctify unto me the firstborn, whatsoever opened the womb among the children of Israel, both man and beast: it is mine." The firstborn beasts were all sacrificed on the altar. The prescription is the same for the firstborn of people.
As most mothers know, vehement denial comes from a bad conscience. Another name can be added to YHWH/YammuMolech!
In 1 Kings 17:21, Elijah revives a dead boy by having the Lord bring back his Soul. That the God traps Souls, there is no doubt about. That is the chief concern of the Archons. Trapping of the Soul was also the chief purpose of the Canaanite Dragon God Yammu. To trap a Soul is easy, just make the Soul commit an unethical act.
In 1 Kings18:18, Ahab is accused of following Baalim (not to be confused with Baal).1 Kings 18:41 has the lord provide fire for the altar. Anyone doubting the validity of religion should try the same thing today. Any experiment as we all know is invalid unless it can be repeated. After the prophets of Baal fail to get Baal to light the fire, Elijah has them all slain. A just and fair treatment of the stupid prophets who were not aware of the fact Baal was not around after his defeat at the hands of Mot, and Yammu/YHWH was now the Lord of the Earth. Has not anyone else read the reminder of this chapter? When Baal was in the underworld, he could not start any fires or do anything on Earth. He was not available and all ancients were aware of this as a fact. This battle was in reality the battle of those priests who said the new growing season had started because Baal was back and those who stated he was still in the underworld.
1 Kings 18:43-46 is where Elijah sends his servant up to the mountain and eventually he sees the cloud coming in the form of a man,s hand. He tells them to get home before they are inundated by rain, and the skies are soon black with clouds. This was how the ancients knew Baal had returned. This part of the Bible does not in any way contradict the worship of Baal, but woe to the priest who tells Yammu/YHWH his reign is over prematurely. In 1 Kings 19:15, Hazael, the King of Syria, this time is again to aid in the slaying of the infidels. In 1 Kings 19:18, all but seven thousand Israelites have bowed to Baal (what happened is the rest had not heard Baal lives). For Yammu, the days are over for seven years (or one growing season) and Baal has returned after his defeat at the hands of Mot. In 2 Kings 2:11, Elijah is taken up to the lord on a whirlwind.
In 2 Kings 2:23-24, the mercy of the lord brings forth two bears which kill 42 children for mobbing one of the prophets, calling him bald and old and all those despicable things children speak which they deserve to die for.
How could anyone who have little children dwelling in their neighborhood, or possibly having children of their own who are a little on the lively side read this, and realize that here the Lord willfully had bears devour 42 little brats just because they called an old man old and bald. Then there is the idea the God sacrificed his one and only son to atone for the sins of Mankind. This can be used for a great many things, but if it is all true, it does not depict the great love and compassion of the Deity. The best thing to use this for would be to prove Man is not a thinking being. It indicates a complete vacuum when it comes to mental abilities. Many a Church state that before Jesus came to Earth to free Mankind, he was with his father in heaven, and all of them state the idea that after his death, he went back to his father. Where is the sacrifice? If my son left me to go away for a number of years, the sacrifice would be while he was gone, not when he came back.
We could go on. We could go on and on and on. There is no good deity depicted in the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, we would have to really justify the behaviors of most ancient Gods if we wanted to see real goodness in them. The God of the children of Israel displays anything but love for the Israelites. In some places it is real hatred which is reflected while in others, it is contempt.
The God which developed in Israel after the Israelites had their contact with Zoroastrianism was still a jealous god. But he was a bit tame. We could look at a lot more deceptions up to the time of Jesus. The God was absolutely not worshipped because of all the great things he could do for the Israelites. He never did any, he was a repressor of the human spirit. The sole reason the Israelites were worshipping this Deity was because of all the evil he would do if they did not follow him.
The God was supposedly not able to find any righteous people in Sodom and Gomorra. In all of the Old Testament, there is not the indication of even one single decent act by this God.
Who in their right mind could possibly think of this God as one who is qualified to judge righteousness? His characteristics are jealousy to be sure. A tremendous inferiority complex is present where he can not tolerate the slightest error by his followers. He lies about previous commandments when they are no longer acceptable by the people who were to worship him.
When he does make promises to repent of his evil, he soon falls back to his old ways. The Gnostics called him Samael, the blind God. We should add to this and call him the God of broken promises. Then, the God of the Old testament and the New Testament are not the same God.
Or more correctly, the God of Jesus was not the same God as the God in the OT. The God of the Old Testament and his minions were capable of perverting the teachings of Jesus and the Gnostic's and made a travesty of the entire salvation.