What do you think about this one (I’m floored)? True or False?

Written by admin on November 14th, 2008


> YHVH is the creator of everything, even Ra.

Ho hum. There is the slight matter of priority here. Amoun is the
creator of all, and was associated/ twinned with Ra from earliest
times - Old Kingdom. The Jews, let alone YHVH, didn’t occur in any
records until Amoun-Re the creator was already very ancient. It is
difficult to see how they could have been created RETROSPECTIVELY
(think about it, they already existed before VHVH appeared).

If you want to argue it cosmologically, then the Sun clearly predates
the earth and any religious concepts invented by inhabitants of said
earth. But Nut (the sky) also exists as a creator god in Aegypt, and
Ptah. So take your choice … they all predate YHVH (as I said in a
recent post, even in the Jewish history there are earlier gods, twin
male and female in fact before the Josian revision).

As a matter of fact today I was reading about the creation of the
notion of “Supreme Being” (greek Hypsistos, the highest one).
Interestingly Isis might have been the prototype for later claimants.
Certainly the Jewish Iao’s claim to the title is somewhat down the
pecking order, and the source version of the same deity was mentioned
first in lists of “Supreme deities”, usually Zeus, Serapis, Helios and
Iao = VHVH. [Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, book 5].

And from the Oracles of Serapis, “One Zeus, one Hades, one Helios, One
Dionysus, One God in All Gods.” [John Spencer 1630 - 1693, De Legibus,
vol 3, p. 220].

I quote from Prof Assmann (1997) “Where Iao, the god of the Jews, is
elevated to the rank of One-and-Supreme Being, he has to give up his
transcendent other-worldliness in order to become an imminent cosmic
entity. In one of these oracles he is proclaimed the god of time
(Olam-Aion) appearing as Hades in the Winter, Zeus in the Springtime,
Helios in Summer, and Abros Iao in autumn. [Macrobius, Saturnalia,
1.18.17).

The belief in the "Supreme Being" (Hypsistos) has a distinctly
cosmopolitan character. Typical of this conception is the combination
of nam,es from different languages and religions.

A consecration text in Papyrus Leiden 1, 384, addresses the Supreme
God Iao(= YHWH)-Sabaoth- Abrasax in the following words:

I invoke you as do the Egyptians: "Phno eai Iabok,"
As do the Jews: Adonaie Sabaoth,
As do the Greeks: king, ruling as monarch over all,
As do the High Priests: hidden one, invisible one, who looks upon all,
As do the Parthians: OYERTO almighty.

[Steve] The fact that the Egyptian takes precedence is important here.

There are plenty more examples of these lists from late antiquity, and
Varro, who knew abou the Jews from Poseidonis, was unwilling to see
any difference between Jove and Yahweh. [DE Legibus, vol 1, 153].

So to conclude …. YHWH cannot possibly be claimed as the creator of
everything. He himself is a creation of a particular culture at a time
in history, and is quite late in the string of claimed “Supreme Beings”.