Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Pastor Mark Eddy" <markeddy AT adams.net>]

I really don't have time to get involved in this. If only there were 36 hours 
in a day! I still have to
answer questions on another thread (which I intend to get to in a couple 
weeks), but I have to chime in a
little bit (interspersed below).
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried"


> Dear Ian,
> I disagree that the people of pre-Exilic Judah were polytheistic.

What do you mean by "the people"? I know that the prophecies of Jeremiah were 
not compiled until the exile
had begun, but it seems to me that there were at least two groups in Israel 
at his time. The "orthodox"
monotheists, such as Jeremiah, and large number of other people who 
worshipped many gods. What else does
Jer. 11:11-13 mean?
 11 Therefore thus says YHWH: "Look, I am bringing to them an evil from which 
they will not be able to get
out; and they will cry out to Me, but I will not listen to them.  12 And the 
cities of Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer 
incense, but they will surely
not save them in the time of their evil.  13 For the number of your cities 
became (the number of) your
gods, O Judah; and the number of the streets of Jerusalem (is the number of ) 
altars you have set up to
the shame, altars to burn incense to Baal.

> I don't know that the figurines represented
> Ashera or that they were worshipped.

I have long wondered if some of them were the equivalent of Barbie dolls. How 
do we know that adults
worshipped them? Maybe the girls dressed them up and played house. But there 
is evidence that some people
did worship Ashera, e.g. Jer. 17:2. And I remember hearing that something 
with male and female figures on
it, dated to the 7th or 8th century B.C., was unearthed in the 1980s with an 
inscription, to "YHWH and his
consort." I didn't subscribe to BAR at that time, so I don't have the details 
about this in front of me.

> I don't know who
> wrote the grafitti on the Kuntillit Adjrud pithoi. I can tell
> you tho that there was only one matzevah at Arad, the
> other one you see in all the photos was part of the wall
> and had fallen into the cella area.
> All the polemics that you read in Ezekiel, etc. are just their
> way of explaining the disasters. The temple was captured,
> the people deported -- ERGO they must have worshipped
> other gods.

But Jeremiah was in Jerusalem at the time, and he saw the altars to other 
gods and how they were being
used. And how does anyone know that the word of YHWH did NOT come to Ezekiel, 
when he prophesied against
the altars and idols of Israel (e.g. Ezek. 6)? And what about Ezekiel's claim 
(e.g.) that in the 12th
years of his captivity he received news directly from an escapee from 
Jerusalem that the city had been
captured (Ezek. 33:21)? Ezekiel knew (at least second hand) of the religious 
conditions in Jerusalem in
its last days, and that included the fact that some people worshipped many 
gods. He wrote, not just to
explain Jerusalem's fall, but to condemn idolatry. Or is Ezekiel one of the 
lying prophets about whom
Jeremiah claimed: "And YHWH said to me, 'The prophets are prophesying 
falsehood in My name. I did not send
them, and I did not command them and I did not speak to them. They are 
prophesying to you a false vision,
and worthless divination, and the deceit of their own hearts'" (Jer. 14:14)? 
If he was a lying prophet,
just making up a charge of polytheism is Jerusalem, then he did not help set 
up the cultus of post-exilic
YHWHism, but he was engaged in starting a cult (like Mormonism). In which 
case, why are we studying what
that liar wrote?

Mark Eddy