BIBLE THREAD STARTS HERE: I had totally forgotten how mind bendingly specific Genesis is. I’m in Genesis 15 and it is fascinating how context heavy God’s words to Abraham are.
@janecoaston Most awkward part of the Ten Commandments is when Moses’ snake eats the Egyptian clerics’ snakes, implying there are a bunch of gods that transform sticks into snakes, but Moses’ is the GOAT god.
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston In the movie Yul Brynner calls it a “trick,” implying that the Egyptian feat, at least, was an illusion.
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston I don't know if it's in the film, but I appreciate in the 10 commandments story when, after sharing the "don't kill" commandment, Moses uses a magic potion to see who worshipped other gods and kill them.
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston I thought it was canon that those snakes came from the guys’ sleeves
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston Huh. Hadn't thought about it, but shouldn't there be massive theological implications if you take that literally? Are there any other Biblical allusions to other tribal gods actually existing?
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston Also a problem with the notion that witches and sorcerers are real and draw actual power from Satan, honestly.
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston This is one of the big tells that prior to the Babylon captivity, the Israelites were Canaanite monolatrists. They believed in Ba’al and El and Asherah (and the whole Canaanite pantheon) but thought Yahweh, son of El, was stronger than all others.
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston I was taught that they were straight up using magic, something that exists and is separate from holiness and miracles, but that was basically banned because people misused it blasphemously chabad.org/library/articl…
@FrankBednarz @janecoaston As I understand it, this is actually increasingly the scholarly consensus on early Judaism, it was henotheistic, meaning they acknowledged the existence of of other gods, but Yahweh was the GOAT and the only one you were allowed to worship webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/henothei…