Does the Bible teach us polytheism?

No, it teaches about one God in three different beings : God the Father, God the Son, God The Holy Spirit .

That’s just the Trinity, which confuses me enough. What I want to know is what are these gods that are mentioned in the Psalms that I quoted above?

Judaism differed from other religions in the ancient days in that it was monotheistic. I would guess that the references you give are a nod by their authors to the “gods” of the pagans.

I am very pious but I can rarely read the Bible because I have trouble reading and can’t read such small print! I like the Psalm sections and Exodus. I am a bit confused about the whole story, but I keep having faith. Believe in God.

Chuck there’s mention of God’s Spirit hovering about waters of earth in Book of Genesis and in it you’ll also find that God said twice ” let us make ” and ” in our image” and Hebrew for God which is Elohim is also plural just like one angel is Cherub and many Cherubim

Incidentally, I want to make clear that I mean no disrespect to anyone’s faith. I’m just curious about some things that are found in the Bible. Just because I am atheist, it doesn’t mean I’m anti-religion.

My boyfriend says, “Wait, wait I know the answer to that!” Then he blathered on about the story Genesis is closely modeled after and it seemed to boil down to: so in the earlier story the god involved defeats other gods and they become his people. In Genesis these other gods are replaced by the angels.

The boyfriend is totally upset with how I’m summarizing this. He says:
“No, no, in Mesopotamian myths, and Genesis is a Mesopotamian myth, the creator god always has this council of other gods who are basically his bitches. Marduk had the Annunaki, Yahweh has his heavenly council, aka his angels.”

Oh yeah and in the Book of Isiah and some Psalm there’s overshaddowing of God sending his chosen Messiah(Christ), if you ask what about Jesus’s role in all this, and Jesus fulfilled that role to the core .

I think some people in the old testament worshipped some god called Baal. I don’t know much about Baal though.

@Empress – “The boyfriend” sounds pretty knowledgeable about this stuff. Does he study religion?

That first passage is one I’ve never seen before. No explanation for that one.

Regarding the second quote: I was always taught that the “other gods” we weren’t supposed to worship were “false gods”, and not really gods at all. These “other gods” were fictional, even if people chose to worship them.

Ok, maybe not pious, but very religious.

Jewish tradition interprets the references to “gods” in Psalm 86 as referring to the human judges of Israel. This makes sense in light of the following verses, where admonition is given to the “gods” to administer justice to the people.

This interpretation (that this refers to humans) is reinforced by Jesus’ quotation of verse 6 of this Psalm at John 10:34 :“Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came…” Here, he’s trying to counter the accusation by the Jewish leaders that he’s blaspheming by claiming to be the Son of God. He quotes the Psalm to show that there is precedent for referring to humans as “gods”.

The Bible certainly does teach of other gods. In Egypt, Moses did some supernatural battle with Pharaoh’s court magicians to name another example amongst those mentioned above.

Now, I think that many of Christian faith would lean towards the belief that these other gods are really just fallen angels, brethren of Lucifer, and that they’re not so much “gods” as they are just other created beings masquerading as “gods”.

I do not think that the Bible teaches of any other god that is anywhere near on par with YAHWEH himself (which includes the Trinity), though.

Trinity is one god. And no, the Bible (as do all religious books) does not teach polytheism any more than a bank brochure would advise you to invest your money in another bank. But at the time Christianity was born there were many religions around, and it was often normal for people to have different religions even in the same family. It was a more personal thing, as it is today, and not as organised as it became in the next 2000 years.

(even though the text you quote is of course much older and is from the Old Testament, not the New one).

@shadling: Yes, he was a religious studies major in college.

I beg to differ, regarding all religious books teaching monotheism, as not all religions are monotheistic.

Jack, I mean this in the nicest possible way: I’m fairly certain not one statement in your main comment is true.

Polytheism is a religion that incorporates many gods, so your analogy does not hold true. Ancient religions were often a thing of the state—ie, there was an official religion, state functions surrounding it, etc. It was in no way a “personal thing”. And it was quite organized.

Really what it comes down to is that the bible no longer teaches anything. And it’s people who have interpreted the bible in their own way that digest it and “teach” it to other people. Yes you can read the bible and have it clearly contain a polytheistic message. Or you can read it again, and reinterpret it to become a monotheistic book.

Now, as it is practiced is also up to debate. The trinity is no where in the bible. The concept of trinity is doctrine that has developed over the years. The bible NEVER says that Jesus, the holy ghost, and god are one in the same. The fact that they are constantly distinguished as individual throughout the bible actually lends itself to polytheism. Doctrine (not the bible) has reconciled this by making them one in the same, thus maintaining the guise of monotheism.

And if you were to include roman catholicism in all this, it is practiced very much like a polytheistic religion. Saints can be prayed to directly (this is never mentioned in the bible) and the virgin mary (or in many cases specific apparitions of the virgin mary ie. our lady of guadalupe, or our lady of fatima) can be prayed to. No where in the bible does it say that saints (saints actually don’t exist in the bible) or mary worthy of being prayed directly to.

For those who are going to get upset over my post, please point out where I’m wrong with chapter and verse quotes from said bible.

Great answer Noon.

@Noon, not trying to get a debate going here, but…

Two Points:

1. “For there are three who bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” 1 John 5:7

2. The Bible then goes on to spell out in many places that God himself is the only God:

“I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things… I have made the earth, and created man on it.” Isaiah 45:5–12

—

So, in short, the Bible identifies God as a three-person trinity (not three gods) and then goes further to say that there is only the one real God and that He is responsible for all creation.

Doctrine, where it comes into play, is working with actual scripture.

@robmandu
You fell into my trap….HAHAHAHA ;-) Just kidding. But you have fallen for a very much contested verse in the bible. I’m not going to bother explaining it all here, cuz whole books have been written on the topic, so I’ll just site my sources. But the point is that 1 John 5:7 doesn’t appear in all bibles, and is something that is mostly an english bible debate as it is not even present in most other languages’ translations.

It’s also a wonderful example of how the text of this supposedly divinely inspired book is manipulated, mistranslated, and just plain changed for certain political goals.

Sources:
Comma Johanneum:Wikipedia
for those of you who don't trust Wikipedia here is bible.org
The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7–8

As for your second point. It doesn’t change how the religions of the bible are actually practice. Some have chosen to have a looser interpretation of “no other god besides me”. Many people forget that there are many religions that use the bible as a religious text, and some of them would be considered polytheistic by some standards.

Santería, Vodou, Rastafarian. And there are many more. These religions have no problem having the bible as one of their texts. People need to understand that interpretation is EVERYTHING. Without it, the bible is a book with a few stories.

heh, no problemo, @Noon.

I’m no Bible scholar (obviously) and I do enjoy learning more about the history.

a few stories, maybe. but…have you seen the movie?!

OOOh when I was young, I used to watch those videos in the private school I went to.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAARR.

@cprevite
Unfortunately, I think that is exactly what it would take for people to realize the craziness that is the bible. The US has the highest concentration of fundamentalist bible literalism, yet when given a biblical literacy test, the US is the most bible illiterate.

Now if someone were to actually make a movie of the bible, (a long one for sure) I think it would open some people’s eyes.

@Noon, not arguing… but in reading more about the I John 5:7 controversy, I came across this information which explains that the grammar of the entire passage doesn’t really make sense if verse 7 is omitted.

I know some seminary graduates. This being a somewhat well-known and long-contested controversy, I’ll ask their opinion, too.

Thanks for the heads up!

@robmandu
Good find. But yeah, just more and more debate. And I would still be weary when they would like to put more trust in a Latin translation even though the Greek translation supports the omission (save the grammatical issues). But, I’m no bible scholar either but I think this goes to show that there are still many issues with working from translations of translations. ;-)

Haha…am imagining a bunch of religious conservatives sitting
in a theatre watching Genesis. That’s at least an NC-17, right?

“This motion picture has been rated NC-17 for scenes of graphic begatting, smiting, and impenetrable language”

Just 2 things:
1. I would beware of taking Psalms literally. Psalms was written in the form of poetry, and as we all know from 1st grade, poetry should never be taken literal.

2. There are many instances as Robmandu stated that reference only a single God. I think when reading the bible it’s important to let the clear and obvious passages help to interpret the not so clear and unidentifiable ones.

…the not so clear and unidentifiable ones.
The Bible is supposed to be the exact word of God, right? Shouldn’t everything be real clear and easy to understand? I mean, God has a way with words, being the creator of language and all.

http://oddee.com/item_96543.aspx ツ

Well I would somewhat disagree that God is the creator of language, but that’s probably irrelevant to the discussion anyways. The Word of God, AKA the bible, was written by many authors overtime to many different audiences. The Old Testament written 100’s if not 1000’s of years BC was written for that particular audience. The bible is very much so “dumbed down” so that the present audience was capable of understanding it. The problem now is that we are ~3000 years later. When we read the Bible we need to take into account the location, timeframe, audience, author, etc. when interpreting it. Even though the Bible seems to withstand time that doesn’t mean ideas over years don’t change. Something that means one thing today means something totally different tomorrow. I mean the word bad used to mean bad, then in the 80’s it meant good, and now I think it means bad again.

@critter- Fundamentalists claim that the Bible is the literal word of God. I’m just trying to explain how ridiculous it all is using my usual sarcasm and amazing wit.

Got ya! :)

@robmandu- That’s pretty good. That last sign made me laugh out loud.

Lots of rhetoric here. Allow me to point out one thing…

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. – John 3:16 (KJV)

That is pretty simple and straightforward to understand, yes? (I agree that maybe that could’ve put that most salient of points someone at the beginning instead of 2/3 of the way through, but hey, whatcha gonna do?)

—

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But you’ve got to take that step and it has to be on the right path.

The reason I point this out is that it seems that you’re trying to say that you must perfectly understand every thing about God up front. He hasn’t laid it all out as plainly and clearly as you’d like. Problem is, there’s nothing you can understand everything about up front. Deconstructing even the simplest of elements (Hydrogen) to its constituent parts gets into mathematics and existential concepts that are debated hotly everyday. How much moreso the condition of the human spirit?

To truly understand anything in depth and to master that knowledge requires a lifetime of effort. Only you can decide what it is that your going to put that effort in to.

All God has done is bog things down with rhetoric. He’s left a lot of room for interpretation, don’t you think? We are taking about God, the Almighty. He can’t make things clear? I would argue that most people don’t know shit about physics. The thing is, God is supposed to be understood if one is to get to Heaven. At least physics can be interpreted through mathematics. If the Creator can’t get his point across without confusion then I don’t see how amazing He is.

Well, I hear ya. I think that would be nice, too.

But would you believe it was tried? And didn’t work? Adam & Eve couldn’t get it right and they were able to literally walk with God in the garden every day.

—

The thing is, at least for me, you need to focus on what’s important to understand clearly. John 3:16 spells out the most important concept. Figuring out side items like exactly how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit communicate with each other—do they think things at each other? do they talk out loud? do sound waves travel in heaven?—matters not so much when it comes down to the nitty gritty.

While that kind of thing is fun to contemplate, but it doesn’t really get you anywhere.

I’m not saying turn a blind eye to all other information. Or suggesting that you ignore contradictory info. Just pick and choose carefully exactly what it is you hang your hat on. There are absolute truths, but not every argument has to be won; not every point must be completely understood.

Well, I guess God could’ve made things a lot easier on us by just giving us all enlightenment.
But, then again, I think the Bible is just a book of fiction anyway.

@robmandu
What exactly did adam and eve not get right? What is the message of that story?

My understanding is that even in the garden of eden god was very clear in not making things clearly understood. He actually told adam and eve that to understand (have knowledge) was forbidden. What would have been the problem with him just letting them eat of the tree of knowledge, and have them learn from their mistakes, but continue to live in the garden of eden? Or better yet, not even have the tree of knowledge there, and just have god sit down with them and slowly explain what they needed to know. If you ask me, it looks like eve was set up, and they really had no other option.

If you mean “setup” like leaving a chocolate chip cookie on the table and then telling your kid not to eat it when you leave the room… well yah, it very well may have been a “setup”. I don’t know. Just my opinion.

Your kid is still wrong to disobey when he eats the cookie, though. In that sense, your kid failed to obey in much the same way as Adam and Eve did.

The choice Adam and Eve made in the garden was to willfully and knowingly do something God had said not to. It doesn’t matter that it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil… it could’ve been a Chocolate Chip Cookie of Cunning… the result was still the same.

So the fact that it was the Tree of Knowledge had nothing to do with it. Even though it was clearly one of the temptations that eve had for eating of the tree.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.”

And I think really eve is the only one at fault. Cuz after eve ate of the tree, it should have been clear to adam that god had lied. God said that they would die if they were to touch or eat of the tree. After eve both touched and ate it and didn’t die, adam had no reason to trust anything god had said.

I think a better analogy would be placing a biology book on the table and telling your child if they were to read it they would be going to hell. But actually come to think of it, that happens all the time.

I believe the current theological thinking is that, by committing sin, Adam and Eve corrupted their otherwise perfect bodies. So, no Eve didn’t immediately die. But her body did start dying from the moment of initial sin. As did Adam’s when he joined in.

Also, I personally don’t believe Eve was any more at fault than Adam, not that that’s central to your point.

And your last point is simply unfair and not true of any folks I know. Matter of fact, my wife has a masters in molecular biology… so I can personally put the lie to your statement.

No matter, I know you’ve had a long day. I think you’ve might’ve possibly topped @daloon for most words in a day.

@robmandu
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Gen 2:17

That looks like a time line. In the day of eating. Adam died at 930 (and didn’t look a day after 500).

As for my last statement, I didn’t say it happens to you or your friends. I said it happens. And considering how homeschooling is on the rise in america due to religious convictions, I don’t think “all the time” is that large of an exaggeration. I don’t see how you can really call it a lie when there are documentaries, and articles written on the mis-education of youth by the biblical literalists. Yes, I might have diverged far from the topic here, but lie? I did not.

[ Edit:: meant to say dalepetrie, not daloon ]

I’ve read the book cover to cover and then some, and I can’t see how it could ever be interpreted as teaching or containing polytheism when taken in context. Anytime other “gods” have been mentioned they are called false gods which, of course, is saying not real. Calling them by a name doesn’t infer anything. If I say these people in this region worship Anun, or Baal, or Molech, that doesn’t mean I’m implying they are real deities. And to summarize, it’s not uncommon for people who go after other gods to get called superstitious idiots for worshiping something they dreamed up.(Isaiah 2:6, Leviticus 17:7, Deuteronomy 17:3, Ezekiel 13:17, Numbers 15:39, Isaiah 65:2, Jeremiah 9:14, much more…).

You quickly find out that the people, even God’s Israel, have a big problem with that and really like to worship the inanimate objects they build with their hands and the crap in the sky they don’t understand. It’s a practical observation as to why the first commandment is to not do it, and second commandment is to not do it.

I think the Bible is pretty easy to understand if (big if) you believe it is true. It’s a shame people try to over complicate it.

Hello all. Alot of information in this thread. I really like the way everyone is being respectful even if they have differing views, not that what I say should mean anything.
Noon – Good catch on 1John 5:7 as modern translations reflect what you said. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1John5:7-8;&version=NIV;HCSB;NKJV;NLT;NASB;

The word “god” in the Bible can mean several things. It seems most commentators acknowledge that when Moses is called “a god” at Exodus 7:1. http://biblecommenter.com/exodus/7-1.htm
/././ Strongs – http://strongsnumbers.com/hebrew/430.htm /././ http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H430&t=KJV /././ Matthew Henry – http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=4&contentID=685&commInfo=5&topic=Exodus&ar=Exd_7_1
The Bible shows that there are many gods (1Cor 8:5,6) such as the judges in Israel (John 10:34, Psalms 82:6), and Moses served as god to Aaron and Pharoah (Ex 4:16, Ex 7:1), but that the Father was the only true God. (John 17:3) I do not believe that Moses served as a false god, and jesus did not say that those in Psalms were false gods. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1Cor8:5-6;Exodus4:16;Exodus7:1;Psalms82:6;%20John10:34;&version=49;15;77;16;51;
http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/2316.htm (2316. theos) the supreme Divinity, God, godly.
Of uncertain affinity; a deity, especially (with ho) the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very—X exceeding, God, god(-ly, -ward).
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2316&t=DBY
Strong’s G2316 – theos (Greek)
4) whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way
a) God’s representative or viceregent
1) of magistrates and judges