Origins of Yahweh?

Zeus??

I thought the discussion was limited to monotheistic faiths. Do I understand, then, that you are identifying/equating the Christian God as being not only “the same God” as that of those embraced by other monotheistic religions, but that you are also affirming that the Christian God is “the same God” as certain individual polytheistic deities within the Greek/Roman Pantheon?

The reason I suggested the hypothetical about Hephaestus earlier was to limit the discussion to monotheistic beliefs - there are points of agreement I could identify with what I thought your position was, even if with many qualifications. But if you prefer the “real example” of Zeus to my hypothetical monotheism, I must absolutely demur at that point - I do not believe it correct in any sense to say that the Christian God can or should be identified as “the same God” as any particular polytheistic deity within a pagan pantheon.

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So then please answer my question I posed to you: was Paul wrong to quote a poem about Zeus in talking about the one God of Judaism to a Greek philosophical audience in Acts 17?

How is using a literary allusion and analogy going to be wrong? It doesn’t mean he was talking about Zeus. He was explicitly not because he was explaining the reality of [the] God who was unknown to them, and that sure wouldn’t be Zeus.

The Old Testament is understood by many to have co-opted a song toward Baal in Psalm 29 and redirecting those sentiments toward the only real and true God.

Paul similarly co-opted words that were written toward a false god, one non-eternal, non-omnipotent, non-omniscient, non-omnipresent, and one decidedly not-righteous, and showed how the words in fact only truly apply only to the one and true God. A masterful stroke, indeed.

If you think this means that Paul, in matter of fact, believed that polytheistic pantheon-believing Zeus-worshippers were in fact literally worshipping the very same God Paul met on the Road to Damascus…

You will forgive me if I demur.

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In Acts 17 Paul is quoting Aratus of Cilicia’s Phaenomena 1-5:

Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring…

The statement “in him we live and move and exist” is from Epimenides according to the Church Fathers and also referred to Zeus in its original context.

As I said, Paul disagreed with the way the Athenians worshipped God, and gods. But there were points of agreement and he was able to build on those. He was willing to say they worshipped in ignorance the one he would now clarify their understanding of. Some in this thread do not share Paul’s willingness even when referring to others who are closer to the Christian understanding, being monotheists as a result of the influence of the Jewish and Christian scriptures on Islam.

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And? That does not negate my point, nor @Daniel_Fisher’s.

“To an unknown God.” He was not clarifying their understanding of Zeus.

Why thank you! Where would I be without mansplaining?

Seriously, if someone is speaking of God, wouldn’t he automatically do that in the context of his own faith? That would be the default, I think. If someone is speaking of comparative religions, he would explain that up front.

That’s why context is important, as has been explained before. The context determines what is meant by either term.

But you were the first to bring paganism into the discussion,

Confused, apparently?

(though i would add, i don’t appreciate the sexist comment.)

I mentioned context in the comment right before yours.

@Daniel_Fisher uses the word contrast (of contexts) in his, earlier. Context was patently implicit but obviously not inferred by some, and even mentioned explicitly once but not understood, I guess, so reiteration can’t hurt. :slightly_smiling_face:

Phil, did God say. God or Allah? No! God said, YHWH or the God of the Jews and the God of the Christians. Jesus is a form of YHWH

How patronizing.

Jesus is the Greek for the Hebrew Y’shua. In English it’s Joshua. It means “God saves” or “God is deliverance” (But everyone knows that Jesus spoke Victorian English.)

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You guys know the special way that Muslims bow down on their prayer rugs, with their foreheads on the ground? (It has a name, but I don’t remember it.) Anyway, they adopted that posture from Christians!

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Salat :wink:

I remember Mark Lawrie saying he was pretty sure a guy named Jesus stole his bicycle.

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Interesting. I assumed they got it from Solomon saying to pray towards the temple and also being what Daniel was doing before his date with the lions in Daniel 6 : 10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

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The Muslims got it from Christians in the East, a vast kingdom that has largely vanished.

I always find that history very interesting

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