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OT Hints of Polytheism
Monotheism was cosidered atheism during Plato's time. It was punishable by death. This is what happened to Socrates, Plato's monotheistic teacher. So what Plato did to avoid the same fate, his creation account in Timeaus is: after the creator god - demiurge - created everything, he deligated the world to his sons and daughters - the other gods of the polytheist world. This to appease the polytheistic majority.Now in the Bible's narrative, this overshadows the mythology behind the strange creatures called Nephilim (KJV-giants), which is the result a union between human and angels (aka gods children) which is found in Genesis 6, which are very Hellenistic concepts. This also can provide explanation for God's seemingly evolving character and changing name (Elohim, Ba'al to YHWH), God having a wife named Asherah. Timeaus' narrative seems to be able to provide the missing details in the Bible that perplexed it's readers for centuries.
Fourth Day
Let there be lights… two great lights… — “description of heavenly bodies as lights or lamps (maor), a term also used for clay lamps and candlesticks (Ex 25:6; Num 4:9, 16; Ps 64:16). This indicates that the sun, moon and stars were viewed as vessels containing fire an idea also advocated by several noted philosophers (Anaxmines, Em****cles, Heraclitus), but contrary to the theory of Anaxagoras …” (p. 132) natural philosophers like Anaxagoras who understood the heavenly bodies to have been thrown into the upper regions because of their lighter nature and were ignited by clashing together, and such like. For Plato, there was nothing “natural” about the “design” of the orbits of these bodies: they were carefully set in their orbits by a divine intelligence for the benefit of humankind.Fifth Day
Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures — (science) an implicit endorsement of the Greek theory of panspermia, that the seeds of life were scattered throughout all primeval matter.So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind — (theology) Contradicts the scientific opening pointing to spontaneous generation of the sea life and water-birds from the ocean. Here God fashions the sea life and water birds.
God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply — (theology) The word for “blessed” is a command: God is commanding them to reproduce sexually after their initial emergence/fashioning.
If the opening statement depicts spontaneous generation the later sentence has God making the sea creatures. For RG, this contradiction arises from the author attempting to impose a theological account on top of what was understood to be the scientific process.
Sixth Day
Let the earth bring forth living creatures — (science) Spontaneous generation was a widespread Greek scientific notion for the origin of living creatures.Classification by air, water and land animals; four-footed and many-footed; domestic and wild animals and plants — scientific classifications comparable to those found in Plato. But Plato had four classifications: another one for heavenly life forms, that is, the gods or stars — omitted in Genesis.
....to be continued...
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[Part 3]
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