If you read a little about Canaanite and Jewish mythology, you will see that Yahweh was originally a dying-rising god identified with Baal, who ruled as divine king over his chosen nation with the consent of his father, the aged creator-god El. Then Yahweh became identified with El and the two were completely conflated with each other under post-exilic monotheism. Yet the distinction between Yahweh and El was retained in such works as Daniel which contrasted the "Ancient of Days" (the El figure) with the angelic "one like a son of man" (the Baal/Yahweh figure), who walks on the clouds of heaven (the favorite epithet of Baal and Yahweh was "Rider of the Clouds") and who reigns as divine king. The figure of Jesus in the gospels is a vestige of that of Baal and Yahweh; he refers to himself as the Son of Man who will walk on the clouds of heaven, he is regarded as "King of the Jews" and preaches about his kingdom, has a direct father-son relationship with God, and dies temporarily -- only to rise again as king over creation. Another factor is the replacement of the name Yahweh with "Lord" in OT texts, a title that is shared both with Jesus and Baal (which literally means "Lord" or "Master," and the equivalent Adonai was also applied to Baal; cf. the Phoenician deity Adonis).
Is Jesus the Same Jehovah of the Hebrew text????
by JT 21 Replies latest jw friends
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LittleToe
Terry:
Personal agenda? Maybe. Interpolations, and a writing out of Mary (as has been considered on another thread) are other possibilities.Leo:
That was the direction my research led me, though not in the depth to which you study it