The Origins of the Christian God
Let’s explore the prequel to Judaism
The Origins of the Christian God
Let’s explore the prequel to Judaism
Both Christianity and Islam branched off from Judaism with the Christians adding their New Testament to the Tanakh and translating it with various accuracy to numerous languages. The Muslims on the other hand kept some stories from both of these books, with various changes, then rewrote the whole thing adding in the stories of Muhammed and compiling all of this into the Quran.
If you read the Quran Allah is basically the same God from the Old Testament, even if Christians and Jews don’t want to admit this fact. Both Christians and Jews stand by the accuracy of their religions, and the lack of errors in their books for the most part.
The thing is Judaism wasn’t the original religion as most of us likely believed it to be.
Judaism arose from Yahwism, a more primitive religion centered on the worship of Yahweh, the Old Testament god.
Initially, he was worshipped by a small group of people who likely came from Midian or Edom an area south of Canaan. I say likely because the earliest records we have of this god are from Egyptian texts from around 2,000 BC that linked him to Shasu nomads, a group sometimes used as mercenaries by the Egyptians.
From this time until the time of King Josiah around 700BC (So around 1300 years) the people of this region worshipped Yahweh as a primary god but they believed in numerous gods including Yahweh’s wife Asherah.
People during this time worshipped Yahweh along with his brother Baal, his wife Asherah, and his father El who was the chief god of their pantheon. As a side note, Asherah was actually Yahweh’s mother but later became his wife when they decided to have him absorb his father’s characteristics and traits.
El was a sky god, and likely the Levant version of Anu from Sumerian mythology that predates this religion by another 2,000 years, back to ~4,000 BC.
There have been numerous inscriptions referencing Yahweh and his Asherah in temples around Palestine, normally found in ruins of temples since King Josiah ordered them all destroyed. During this time there were numerous shrines, altars, and temples all around the region and some groups decided to worship some of Yahweh’s siblings or family members alongside him.