The Romans were supposedly in the habit of executing prisoners with captured lions in their arenas. When Christianity was still a minor cult it was at one point technically treason to deny the Emperor was a god, and so being a Christian was technically a crime against the state by default. In these arena matches you’d throw some ill-equipped criminals against something they had no hope of beating and call it justice when they get mauled to death in the “trial by combat.”
Anyways, the Christians with persecution complexes really like focusing on these few centuries of history with their millennias old church. This is a joke about both sets of prisoners signing up for the for “match” like it was a casual sporting event.
The Old Testament does makes it fairly clear that there are other gods, because it started as a polytheistic religion, Jehovah is just supposed to be your favorite (or he’ll kill you).
It’s the modern interpretations that decided to interpret that as monotheism, but that includes Christianity.
The first commandment is literally “you shall have no other gods before me.” If you look at different historical translations and viewpoints, it is well accepted that Judaism experienced a shift from polytheism to monotheism, and there is more evidence of that in the Old Testament. Passages referring to Yahwehs wife, waging war to defeat other gods, etc.
It’s talking about concepts, and the false gods existing as a concept. You could even have something like money, etc, be your god. What’s your source on “Yahweh’s wife” apart from the Church itself being His bride? (Which still doesn’t make the Church a god)
There’s verses in Kings, Judges, and I’ll look back over my Jewish Studies course notes from last semester for more academic sources tomorrow. Notably the worship of Baal and Asherah are present, and iirc Asherah was associated with some Israelites to be Yahwehs wife. We’re talking pre-Greek and Roman time periods where Gods were considered much more physical - as we see with Genesis with Yahweh referred to as walking in the garden.
The concepts of gods being more etherial didn’t come about for a few more centuries after, maybe by the time Christianity started popping off (again, gotta go to sleep but will check dates if ya need tomorrow). See also the Cyprus Cylinder for comparison and reference to conquering of the Israelites, orders that allowed them to continue to worship as they pleased, while still essentially talking shit and saying “Our God is stronger than yours.”
May be worth asking chatgpt. The Bible has been rewritten so many times to adjust for major cultural shifts, but there’s definitely evidence within it and other historical writings.
Their claim does have support in so far that the early testament contains a lot of work written by polytheistic people that later in would become the monolatrists and even later monotheists that we know as Jews, further branching off into what today are Christians.
This does not mean that Christians in any sense are not purely monotheistic. Not only are they so, it’s one of the most critical parts of their beliefs, to the point where even believing that their one god has in any way shape or form some kind of tangible division is considered strict heresy from trinitarian churches which form the mainstream of Christianity and have done so for hundreds of years.
Can someone explain the joke?
The Romans were supposedly in the habit of executing prisoners with captured lions in their arenas. When Christianity was still a minor cult it was at one point technically treason to deny the Emperor was a god, and so being a Christian was technically a crime against the state by default. In these arena matches you’d throw some ill-equipped criminals against something they had no hope of beating and call it justice when they get mauled to death in the “trial by combat.”
Anyways, the Christians with persecution complexes really like focusing on these few centuries of history with their millennias old church. This is a joke about both sets of prisoners signing up for the for “match” like it was a casual sporting event.
You can be a Christian and still believe in other gods. Those people chose to deny the emperor’s kintype, if they really did so at all.
No. The Bible makes it clear that you can only believe in one God and the first line of the Nicene creed is “We believe in one God”
The Old Testament does makes it fairly clear that there are other gods, because it started as a polytheistic religion, Jehovah is just supposed to be your favorite (or he’ll kill you).
It’s the modern interpretations that decided to interpret that as monotheism, but that includes Christianity.
There’s no evidence for your claim. And the old testament does not. Yes, it refers to other gods as concepts but not as literal Gods
The first commandment is literally “you shall have no other gods before me.” If you look at different historical translations and viewpoints, it is well accepted that Judaism experienced a shift from polytheism to monotheism, and there is more evidence of that in the Old Testament. Passages referring to Yahwehs wife, waging war to defeat other gods, etc.
It’s talking about concepts, and the false gods existing as a concept. You could even have something like money, etc, be your god. What’s your source on “Yahweh’s wife” apart from the Church itself being His bride? (Which still doesn’t make the Church a god)
There’s verses in Kings, Judges, and I’ll look back over my Jewish Studies course notes from last semester for more academic sources tomorrow. Notably the worship of Baal and Asherah are present, and iirc Asherah was associated with some Israelites to be Yahwehs wife. We’re talking pre-Greek and Roman time periods where Gods were considered much more physical - as we see with Genesis with Yahweh referred to as walking in the garden.
The concepts of gods being more etherial didn’t come about for a few more centuries after, maybe by the time Christianity started popping off (again, gotta go to sleep but will check dates if ya need tomorrow). See also the Cyprus Cylinder for comparison and reference to conquering of the Israelites, orders that allowed them to continue to worship as they pleased, while still essentially talking shit and saying “Our God is stronger than yours.”
May be worth asking chatgpt. The Bible has been rewritten so many times to adjust for major cultural shifts, but there’s definitely evidence within it and other historical writings.
Their claim does have support in so far that the early testament contains a lot of work written by polytheistic people that later in would become the monolatrists and even later monotheists that we know as Jews, further branching off into what today are Christians.
This does not mean that Christians in any sense are not purely monotheistic. Not only are they so, it’s one of the most critical parts of their beliefs, to the point where even believing that their one god has in any way shape or form some kind of tangible division is considered strict heresy from trinitarian churches which form the mainstream of Christianity and have done so for hundreds of years.
Edit: There is a great video by Alex O’Connor interviewing Esoterica on that topic in particular and they talk about the evidence that supports the viewpoints.