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The God of the Bible: An Investigation

Investigation by Eddy Pengelly. Copyright 2007

Monotheism refers to the belief in one supreme divine Being and has the perception that he is a perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing, self-existing being. Monotheist religions believe their adherents have an exclusive relationship with God, which culminates at the end of a linear progression of history.
Religions with this pattern of belief encompass the Hebrews, Christians (ie. all the various denominations and sects plus the Catholics and Mormons), and the Muslims.

So what brings a person to believe in the God of his or her own choice ?

Many contemporary scholars tend to consider belief in God as a natural human response to the glaring uncertainties of life. But when belief systems based upon a chosen God combine belief and behaviour into an integrated whole, religion is the result.

Dictionary meanings for Religion
a) belief in a superhuman power to be worshipped.
b) expression of this belief in conduct and ritual.
A Religion is a group of like-minded people who share the same belief…and thus share this expression via their customs, conduct and rituals - and often cite some form of authoritative ancient text.

It is these texts that are the source of the religious stories about their chosen God. But there are different Religions claiming this ‘one God’ as their own, so reading the individual religious texts does not help to identify GOD, as each group has a different opinion and/or has interpreted the texts in a different way.

So we need to go to the source of the first story about God.
As the Hebrew, Christian, Catholic, Mormon, and the Muslim religions acknowledge ‘the God of Abraham’ as being the one true God, then this is the GOD whom we need to study - the God of the Old Testament.

So starting at the beginning we find the religious Creation Myth
Old Testament - Genesis Chapter One, Verse One.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”

In Strong’s Concordance, the primary definition of Hebrew word 430 “God” (in the Lexicon section) is a plural word that means 'deities' - therefore where in the Bible the word GOD has been perceived and interpreted as a single GOD, it actually referred to plural deities.
Later the Christian Church rationalized this anomaly by introducing the idea of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost - 3 persons in one.

Conclusion:
The single religious “one true GOD” perception is no longer valid - as the original meaning was ‘deities’ (plural).

Therefore to which ‘deities’ does the Creation account in Genesis 1:1 refer ?

Earlier Egyptian or Babylonian Deities (ie. gods), or something else ?

NEXT TASK
Find the original source of the creation story concerning 'Deities' (ie. GOD) and this will answer (from an atheist's view) the question: "Is there actually a GOD (as religiously perceived) ?"

To do this we need to employ a scientific method of research. Observation will be the first step.

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You're making your statements based on references to beliefs in God as interpreted thru derived meanings of scripture. Not necessarily the understandings of the disciples of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus, or the direct experience of God as was referenced by Jesus, Yes?


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Are you only going to research the portrayal of god as in the bible?

Where does this leave other sincerely held religious beliefs-- for one example- the Hindu religion has heaps of gods that you could spend a life-time studying.

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Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
You're making your statements based on references to beliefs in God as interpreted thru derived meanings of scripture. Not necessarily the understandings of the disciples of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus, or the direct experience of God as was referenced by Jesus, Yes?

I employ the original root meanings of Hebrew and Greek words from the JKV Bible as documented in the Lexicons of Strong's Concordance.

RE: "Derived meanings of scripture"
The 'religious understandings' of which you speak may not necessarily be what was originally meant when the words were written down.

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Originally Posted By: Ellis
Are you only going to research the portrayal of god as in the bible?

Where does this leave other sincerely held religious beliefs-- for one example- the Hindu religion has heaps of gods that you could spend a life-time studying.

No.
Other research conducted by myself has encompassed and included
Akkadian Mythology - Enuma Elish poem
Atlantis Legend - Its Source and Origin Revealed
Book of Mormon 1 Nephi 1:6-10, 4:38 Plates of Brass
Book of Daniel Chapters 1-3, 5, 7-12
Book of Ezekiel Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 40, 41
Egyptian Book of the Dead
Egyptian Hieroglyphics - What they are really saying
Egyptian Mythological Gods - Their Origins Exposed
Hebrew Sepher Yetzirah - The Book of Formation
Nostradamus Letter to Henry, Centuries of Quatrains, Sestets, Letter to Cesar
Papyrus of Ani - Visions of a Modern cd-rom
Qur'an 52:1 At-Tur 18:54, 67-92 Al-Kalf
Book of Mark Selected verses
Biblical Prophecies
Book with 7 Seals
Brasen Serpent of Moses
Creation Myth Genesis 1:1 to 2:3
Daniel Time Lines
Egyptian Vignette
End Times Prophecized Events Joel 2:31; Malachi 4:5; Daniel 9:25; Daniel 10:13, 21; Daniel 12:1, 6-7, 10-12; Jude 1:9; Revelations 11:1-4; Revelations 12:7; Revelations 20:1-7
End Time War Daniel 11:40 Revelations Chapter 9
Ezekiel's Wheels within Wheels 1:13-21
Ezekiel's Temple Measured Chapters 40 & 41
Four Beasts of Daniel 7:2-8
Four Beasts of Ezekiel 1:4-10
Four Beasts of Revelations 4:6-7
Four Horses of Revelations 6:1-8
Heaven's Ladder
Hebrew Oracle
Hindu Understanding
Israeli Census Numbers 1:1 to 3:50
Lamb of God
Lehi's Dream
Mark - 666 - Beast
Moses and the Burning Bush
Mountainous Ship (Qur'an)
Passover Exodus 12:2-19
Plague of Lice Exodus 8:16
Scroll with Seven Seals Revelations 5:1
Seer Stones
Seven Kingdoms
Seven Signs of Jesus
Tabernacle Contents
The Smith Encounter
The Teacher prophecized by Nostradamus
Time Storms by Jenny Randless; RE: Joseph Smith Jnr
Two Stone Tablets of Moses
Wonders in Heaven Revelations 12:1-4
Writing on the Wall

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Originally Posted By: Eddy Pengelly
Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
You're making your statements based on references to beliefs in God as interpreted thru derived meanings of scripture. Not necessarily the understandings of the disciples of Jesus or the teachings of Jesus, or the direct experience of God as was referenced by Jesus, Yes?

I employ the original root meanings of Hebrew and Greek words from the JKV Bible as documented in the Lexicons of Strong's Concordance.

RE: "Derived meanings of scripture"
The 'religious understandings' of which you speak may not necessarily be what was originally meant when the words were written down.


Then, the scientific approach would be to gain the experience of the originators of scripture, rather than the less conscious translators who might have used words that do not necessarily capture the meaning of what was behind the words but rather point in a direction. Jesus was well versed in the Eastern spiritual sciences, meaning the direct experience of God.

That was what his teaching was all about.


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Would it be possible that the "God of the Bible" may in fact, like so many of the gods of other religions, mirror the desire of humans to worship something? What they worship is then decided by the group to which they belong- thus animists, christians, muslims, hindus, cargo cultists, deists, pantheists etc. revere the manifestation of the divine which they themselves perceive as fulfilling their own needs, social needs as well as religious ones.

It seems it may actually be necessary for us to either believe that god created humanity to His/Her/Its choice-- or that we created god to our choice. I think it was the latter, and all those texts you quoted (plus the millions more you did not) help prove my point!

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Originally Posted By: Ellis
Would it be possible that the "God of the Bible" may in fact, like so many of the gods of other religions, mirror the desire of humans to worship something? What they worship is then decided by the group to which they belong- thus animists, christians, muslims, hindus, cargo cultists, deists, pantheists etc. revere the manifestation of the divine which they themselves perceive as fulfilling their own needs, social needs as well as religious ones.

No that idea does not mirror the teachings of Jesus which inspired the scripture derived from the experience of the disciples. Jesus never asked his disciples to worship him or a God outside of themselves, but rather to seek the highest aspect of themselves within themselves. That being the essence of everyone and everything. One would have to find commonality in all the religions of the world, or seek the source of each, rather than to focus on the diluted beliefs or interpretations of what could be the meaning based on the imagination of the personality or ego to know this.
Originally Posted By: Ellis

It seems it may actually be necessary for us to either believe that god created humanity to His/Her/Its choice-- or that we created god to our choice. I think it was the latter, and all those texts you quoted (plus the millions more you did not) help prove my point!
Not answering for the one you are referencing as the one who posted those texts but still addressing this idea, I would say that it is not necessary for anyone to believe anything. People create their beliefs because they want to not because they have to. There is no belief genome within the human structure but there is a propensity toward habit and idealization as the ego creates an identification with structure. The rather obvious reflection of this is that it is inconsistent in that no two individuals think exactly alike regardless of the fact there may be similarities in belief. The reality of free will within personality allows everyone to make their own choice rather than being sucked into an experience that binds one to another in exactly the same thought patterns, attachments and beliefs.
Without the direct experience of God, God is imagined or ignored, but still not experienced.
The nature of growth and evolution is to expand towards the inevitable. Unless one truly believes their present experience of reality is all that there is to experience, they will intuit the more, or the potential within themselves and humanity, and they will intuit that the good or the highest point of evolution within the structure of human development and experience of the Universe is tangible.
There might be within the projections of human pride the idealization that no human could know or experience more than what has been standardized thru the social democracy of scientific acknowledgment. But then when someone experiences something greater than what has been documented in scientific texts as normal or real, one has an opportunity to acknowledge their senses and their experience, or deny it in favor of some outside authority that they would surrender themselves to as the voice of determination. Creating a God that will tell them what is real and in doing so deny what they know and experience as true to themselves is not much different than imagining a God of the highest level. The fear and doubt that exists as the foundation of the ego creates lemmings that will follow the leader to whatever ends, even death.
There is within each individual a greater awareness of reality than that of blind surrender to something they do not experience. And in the experience of fear and doubt, or even belief and imagination, an understanding that changing beliefs or fear and imagination derived from changing beliefs or lack of greater experience, is not the destiny or highest evolutionary reflection of the human as an individual, or as a race.

The Bible is a testimony to one who had an experience of human greatness, and to a lineage of others who have achieved greater levels of awareness in the relationship of humanity to the universe.
The superstitious are still fabricating Gods and demons of love and destruction, hoping to be relieved of their personal suffering by some authority outside of themselves.

Just as a side note regarding the idea that the Hindu had many Gods: The reflection of Hindu Gods represents the direct experience of God being in many faces or personalities. All connected together by a common Consciousness moving as does the Universe itself moves. As ONE in harmony. The many faces/Gods reflect the idea that God cannot be contained behind a single face, or idea of force and that each human can rise to perfection in reflection of the One consciousness. This was the same root behind the Teachings of Jesus, where man has within his self the potential to be more than what he/she currently experiences to be, and that there are no limits to the human condition other than those artificially imposed.


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In my OP I introduced the idea to explore Genesis Chapter 1, from the original Hebrew meanings and context of circa 1230BCE - including the associated contemporary Egyptian connections.

Why then, have some people brought into this context, and wish to include concepts from a different "God" (ie. a son of God) from a different country (and language) from a different time period - some 1,200 years after the original Hebrew words were written by 'Moses' ?

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Originally Posted By: Eddy Pengelly
In my OP I introduced the idea to explore Genesis Chapter 1, from the original Hebrew meanings and context of circa 1230BCE - including the associated contemporary Egyptian connections.

Why then, have some people brought into this context, and wish to include concepts from a different "God" (ie. a son of God) from a different country (and language) from a different time period - some 1,200 years after the original Hebrew words were written by 'Moses' ?

What makes you assume/believe, these people are talking about a different God or that the Son of God references a different God than that of Moses?


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Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
What makes you assume/believe, these people are talking about a different God or that the Son of God references a different God than that of Moses?

I am conducting a review of the original source/origins of the stories about the various gods.
The purpose is to identify the actual original source of the story/legend thus chronologically revealing the primary origin of specific gods or GOD.
Were they divine – or were they part of something else ?

eg. Chronologically:
Akkadian / Babylonian
Egyptian (1) gods (2) the Aten
Hebrew GOD YHWH
Christian son of GOD
Muslim GOD ALLAH
Mormon son of GOD

All these deities come to us via stories/legends which were first oral then written down at some time after the original story was told.
(Who had the first encounter ? Who next told the story ? Who then wrote it down ? Did they tell it correctly ?)

The Akkadian and Egyptian gods came to us via legends. So what was the origin of the stories about the said ‘gods’ ?

Someone given the name Moses is said to have written about the Hebrew GOD. So what was the origin of the story about GOD ?
(This was the reference to Genesis Chapter 1. This also crosses over into the general set of contemporary world-wide ‘Creation Stories’.)

Paul (Saul) first wrote stories about the ‘Christ Jesus’ followed by Mark then the other gospel writers. So what was the origin of the stories about Jesus (the man) ?
Checking history books, it wasn’t until 3 centuries later that the Roman’s finally decided that Jesus was the ‘son of the Hebrew GOD’ and that this Jesus was part of the ‘Spirit’.
By this, as history shows, they selected and added some of the writings from the Hebrew Old Testament with those from the Greek ‘Jesus the man’ stories (ie. the New Testament) and called this The Bible, thus the Roman version of Christianity arose.

Mohammed had an encounter with the “angel” Gabriel. This person was the source of the stories about the Muslim GOD ALLAH.

All these legends / stories / encounters have a fixed date in our history.
It is from those times I seek the original source of those stories in order to identify chronologically who or to what the specific ‘gods’ or ‘GOD’ refer.

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Religion developed from one single creative force, like the universe developed from the Big Bang. The diversity of religion comes as humans move farther and farther apart from that original spark of "creation."

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I would suggest, anyone having a direct experience of the Supreme Being would have experienced the same God. Any descriptions of a God not experienced is one of imagination.
A good story has a title, a direction of interest (to those that are attuned to the story in commonality) and an author who speaks from direct experience.
A book on American history is only as good as the critic who finds either an interest or a need that is to be fulfilled.

Chances are if you have no interest in God anything you find will be subject to your own beliefs and any experience you might have or not have with God. Obviously when translating scripture from a place where experience is void, interpretation will vary from person to person like a subject in a game of Chinese Whispers.

Spiritual science has a rich history of weeding out Gods of the imagination and finding evidence in the experience of God as being the experience of the same God


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TT- I am going to have to unignore you! Your posts on this topic are really thoughtful, especially this last one.

I do not think that the actual god of each persons' imagining would be identical, but the need for belief in the supernatural that many people have would be similar. The actual teachings of the various religions comply with the needs of the various societies they reflect. For instance the Bible, as adopted by christians, has both moulded and been moulded by the people who interpret it.

The OP seems to be upset that we are questioning other religions and texts-- a fair enough comment, but the god of Genesis had an existence before the first telling of the biblical creation myth. And before that myth there were others. Eventually there would have been myths told about 'the gods' which we can never research as they would have been oral traditional tales the existence of which we can only assume not verify. Written language is only very recent in our human history. The early tales of gods were told by story tellers and eased the harsh existence of our ancestors-- and some of whom had made the stories up!

So I do think that all gods are the gods of our human individual and collective imaginations.

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From a conversation eleswhere regarding Genesis and the Rig Veda

Hymn of Origin, part 1

The Law of Heaven and Truth were born
Of conscious fervor set on fire.
From this came stillness of the night,
From this the ocean with its waves.


Truth follows the Law of Heaven in the verse. My mind wants to make the association of Truth with the Holy Spirit, that aspect of the Divine that moves out into Creation: God immanent in all things emanating from God transcendent to all things. The Creatrix, Maya, our Goddess Mother who brings us into being and nurtures us eternally.

"Conscious fervor": "This is a desire universe." It seems to be the desire of the Unmanifest for experience that stimulates creation. This is a great Mystery, of course, known only to the Unmanifest. But the verse tells us that God is Consciousness (Chit) and that God has Desire ("fervor").

Interesting that out of the "fervor" of desire, like a "fire," comes "stillness of the night," the Void, Silence, the "waters" of Genesis. But then, out of Stillness comes Movement: the "ocean with its waves." So, first Stillness, then Movement.
This also is a great Mystery: How does the Absolutely Still and Silent become the cosmic dance of Movement - and constant noise! - which is the Universe?

Hymn of Origin, part 2

From the ocean and its waves
Then the year was generated --
Appointer of the days and nights,
Ruler of all mortal beings.


"From the ocean and its waves": Continues on from the previous verse, and at the same time, reminds one of contemporary physics with its perspective that all things reduce to energy, and energy moves in waves. I suspect that soon, physics will embrace the notion that the ultimate "energy" which they study is, in fact, Consciousness and that this Consciousness is what we call God - though physicists may find a less-charged word for it, much as mystics have done for centuries, or longer: Ground of Being, Field of Pure Consciousness, Source of All That Is, Unified Field, Field of Pure Potential, and so on.

"Then the year was generated --": With the advent of the Creation - "space" - necessarily also comes "time." Of course, this presentation is somewhat anthropomorphized, for at the beginning of Creation, what would constitute a "year"? And for whom? Reminds me of the fundamentalists who adhere to the belief that the Universe was literally made in seven of our days: one rotation of the Earth, one rising and setting of the Sun. I think the Vedic scholars speak of a "day" and a "year" of Brahman, and it's a far more expansive concept. But even that sets artificial limits on the Infinite.

"Appointer of the days and nights,": Seems to say that the Universe is an orderly creation, for in our experience, days and nights pass with regularity and reliability. We can take some comfort in this and can believe that though all things are possible, it is unlikely we will wake up one morning and attempt to put our feet on the ground only to find that gravity no longer applies, and we are floating toward the ceiling of the room. The Universe is orderly, and Lord Time - among others - makes it so.

"Ruler of all mortal beings.": Indeed, all of us who are mortal are subject to Time, to the Buddha's four evils: birth, sickness, old age, and death. We are "ruled" by Time. Having experienced the four evils and seen their foundation in Time, then arises the motivation to transcend Time, to become immortal - which is to say, to seat our own individuated awareness in that essence of ourselves which is, in fact, already and eternally immortal.

The hymn will eventually be shown against Genesis 1, wherein the luminaries are also the first “objects,” and also the basis against which mind marks the passage of time. In Genesis, light is the first principle brought into being, well before any of the luminaries: So, what was light, before light was? In the Vedas, light and sound are qualities of the same principle; would the First Light be the First Sound -- AUM, The Word -- the universal principle of manifestation, of “I Can,” of RITAM.

Yes, the parallel with Genesis is interesting though, as you say, the parallel is not exact. In Genesis, we learn that "darkness was upon the face of the deep" and that the "Spirit [some say "Breath," I think, consistent with Aramaic dimensions of the concept] of God moved upon the face of the waters." This is roughly parallel to the Hymn of Origin. Then we have, "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." So, in the Judaic tradition, Light was the first evidence of God beginning the work of creation, coming out of Stillness into Movement.

Then the mind jumps in and says, "But what about John?" At the very beginning of the Gospel of John, we read, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This treatment suggests that Sound was the first manifestation. Perhaps both are true, as you say the Vedas teach. Or, maybe the original vibration - "AUM" - immediately split into the two forms. This might be one way of looking at the beginning of duality - though the very first line of Genesis sort of jumps the gun by saying that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" - clearly a duality, though the writer then goes back to fill in the blanks, somewhat.

The use of "Word," of course, does more than suggest sound, though we think of "AUM" as being an equivalent to "the Word." The Word is the first movement of the Unmanifest - God the Father, in Christian terms - or the first emanation into the Manifest. That step from one to the other still strikes me as a Great Mystery, and contemplation of that Mystery will take one's awareness there! John goes on to equate that first emanation, that first movement, that Word, with Christ - God the Son, in Christian theology, the Second Person.

This is the core of the doctrine of the triune God, and we can see how it arises and is consistent with the Vedic model. God does not create like a mechanic, assembling materials into mechanisms and then setting them off like little juggernauts into a distant space. No, God creates by emanation - extending Itself in a way which is also mysterious and which we can call Maya, or the Mother. Thus, the Universe is God. All things are Brahman, One without a second, as Shankara taught! And so, whatever we do unto the least of these His/Her children - and to any particle of the Universe - we do unto Divinity Itself, as Yeshua taught.


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Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
Obviously when translating scripture from a place where experience is void, interpretation will vary from person to person like a subject in a game of Chinese Whispers.

Yes, and this is what has happened to the ancient stories about gods and GOD, and the son of GOD.

To remove such “interpretations” from my study, I utilize the lexicons from Strong’s Concordance - and utilize the original root meanings, and NOT the given or guessed secondary religious meanings.

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Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
I would suggest, anyone having a direct experience of the Supreme Being would have experienced the same God.

A comment such as this already assumes that there is a GOD, and that there is only one God.

My study is searching for evidence (from the original accounts regarding gods and GOD) to prove or disprove the existence of such a perceived GOD and/or gods.

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Originally Posted By: Eddy Pengelly
Originally Posted By: Tutor Turtle
I would suggest, anyone having a direct experience of the Supreme Being would have experienced the same God.

A comment such as this already assumes that there is a GOD, and that there is only one God.

Or it must come from the Experience of God rather than an assumption.
Originally Posted By: Eddy Pengelly

My study is searching for evidence (from the original accounts regarding gods and GOD) to prove or disprove the existence of such a perceived GOD and/or gods.
How do you do that if you do not know what God is and what to look for?

Are you assuming God will be contained within the words and that without knowing what God is, that you will be able to recognize God if God exists?

Or will you, after some studying and are unable to gain the experience of God, assume God is non-existent?

Where will you go or what will you do differently in this approach, that hundreds of thousands of men have gone and done before you, having failed to prove or disprove the existence of God within written texts?


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I reckon whatever proof exists, you like Jesus or anyone else having to face the voice of the majority with your story, will have to prove himself before those others without being crucified.


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"the original accounts" ..... these would not in fact be the original stories as those stories would have not been recorded in permanent form, instead they would have been part of an oral tradition.

Here in Australia we have ample evidence of this loss of lore, culture and religion being a result of lack of permanent records. It was assumed that the indigenous people had no 'real' (as in European) culture as there were no writings and the sacred drawings were deemed to be primitive and worthless.

I'm not sure we are much more enlightened now, but much has been lost of indigenous belief, not least because christians insisted it be destroyed or ignored.

I suggest the original stories on which Genesis was based would reach back further than permanent recording can go and they have survived because at some remote time (well before the writing of the bible) some scribe preserved the traditional tales by writing them down.

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