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Shema’ Yisrael The God is One

‘God is One’: It wasn’t always like this in Christianity

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Today followers of Christianity and Judaism have the belief that there is one God. And not only that, but the One of Christianity is the better than the One of other religions like Muslims for example. However the truth is that it wasn’t always like this. In the Early years of Judaism the existence of different Gods of different religious groups was accepted as a fact.

In an ancient cemetery near the village of Halbturn in Austria a small silver capsule was found buried with a child. Inside that capsule there was a small gold scroll which had written in Hebrew (but with the use of Greek characters) the Judaism confession text known as Shema’ Yisrael which says “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord Is one”. That was a protection against all evil amulet that was common to Hebrew people. It was apparently a ‘magic’ amulet, probably created by a magician who didn’t know how to write Hebrew. And this reference to Shema’Yisrael is one of the oldest ever found.

The Shema’Yisrael was supposed to be a strong protective device and was used at every Jewish house fixed to the doorpost, jewels etc. The text that is referred in the Shema’Yisrael is originated in Deuteronomy (6:4) where it is mentioned as “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone”. And here it is clear that it wasn’t mentioned as a statement of monotheism. At that period of time others like the Egyptians worshipped multiple gods but for Hebrews, only Yahweh was recognized as their God. And further on in the Deuteronomy it doesn’t deny the existence of other deities worshipped by other people. And so Ammonites had god Milcom, Edomites, god Qos and so on. That means that originally the Shema’Yisrael did not deny the existence of other gods.

It was later on the Jews decided that their God was not only ‘their’ God but also the only God of the World and of the Universe. Scholars haven’t decided when exactly this change happened but Andre Lemaire suggests that it happened over a period of time after the Babylonian exile while other scholars believe that it may have occurred later.

It is clear therefore to see that the belief amongst millions of people worldwide today that God is one was just a late interpretation of the Hieratic circles of the Jews which was then transferred to Christian texts too.  Why this happened and how, is still to be answered.

By John Black

References

Eshel, Esther, Lange, Armin. ““The Lord Is One”: How Its Meaning Changed.” Biblical Archaeology Review, May/Jun 2013, 58-63, 69.

 

Comments

The Israelites were not the only group to do this. The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten claimed that only Aten was the true god, among the Babylonians Marduk slowly began to take the attributes of more and more gods, and even among the Hindus certain gods take the attributes of others saying that the other is simply a variation or incarnation of the first

Thoth101's picture

They were only labeled demonic and heathens by the Christians only after the Christians stole the stories. In other words The New Teste is assembled from patterns related to stories taken from earlier sources, such as Zoroastrian, Mithrain, Krishna, Buddhism, and Egyptian, and others, in which many verses are literally paraphrasing earlier writings, and many of the stories attributed to the story of Jesus, were lifted directly out of these other writings.

Entities should realize the origins of the Bible did not come from the pen of God, but came from the earlier writings in different cultures and nations at the time these Hebrew priests for the Old Teste also.
These countries who were plagiarized then became labeled as heathen and or demons, - nations whose philosophies were heathenistic, but this was only after their stories had been stolen. 

And as Teste is short for Tesatement it is all a load of balls. Just like Script is short for Scripture it is just a play or a script that people believe to be true.

The problem is in the translation of the word "god". Christianity today still believes that there are many "gods" in this world. From our point of view, a "god" is that which is worshiped or followed by a particular individual or group. Thus, we capitalize "God" when writing about our God known by many names in the original Hebrew, most often YHWH which in the English version of the Bible is "the Lord" wing to the Jewish tradition of reading YHWH as "Adonai" or literally "MY Lord" out of respect. Many Christian Theologians give the translation of "The Name" for YHWH.
We as Christians still believe there are many "gods" but we consider them to be demonic entities who live in the spiritual realm referred to as "god" by a mislead person or group of people.

johnblack's picture

John Black

Dr John (Ioannis) Syrigos initially began writing on Ancient Origins under the pen name John Black. He is both a co-owner and co-founder of Ancient Origins.

John is a computer & electrical engineer with a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, a... Read More

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