The idea that Yahweh started out as an Edomite, Midianite, or Canaanite deity is a modern myth promoted by secular scholars. The starting point for these theorists is an anti-scholarly bias against the possibility that God is who the Bible says He is, namely, the one-and-only Creator, Author of life, Judge, and Savior of the world (Genesis 1:1; 18:25; Acts 3:15; John 3:16). Rather than acknowledge that God made man in God’s image (Genesis 1:26–27), they assume that man made God in man’s image. And when you begin with a premise that is an error, you’re guaranteed an invalid conclusion.[…]
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God is who the Bible says He is
Baal Yaveh went down a slow transformation path between 450 BCE and 330 BCE before finally becoming YHWH, and even later Jehovah/Allah. If God is exactly who the bible says he is, then either he retroactively became creator of the universe after destroying his father El, or King Josiah (who started the Yehudites, the forerunners of the Jews, down the path to monotheism) lied about a lot of things. I mean, people like this would probably choose the latter, and they might even have a point (Josiah claimed to have found a bunch of ancient scrolls sealed in a magical box¹, and no you can’t look at them) (though a truly omnipotent being can in theory rewrite their own past², but if that happened, why would we still have records of the original past). But in reality the Bible was a living document, constantly changing, up until around 400 CE. Even then, there have still been minor changes since then in the form of errors and bias on the part of translators. This is something which historians and bible scholars have to acknowledge, regardless of whatever “truth” the modern version may or may not contain.
¹The Ark of the Covenant. Also, doesn’t that sound like what Joseph Smith pulled…
You’re not only misrepresenting that hypothesis but you’re also telling us that you haven’t read the Bible without actually saying that. Because guess what, at no point does it actually claim to be written by your god in any of the texts that compose it!
The hypothesis you reference also says that Yahweh and El were Canaanite deities which 13 Canaanite tribes came together as a common nation and began conflating their attributes into a single god and generations later took that to mean that was the only god. Guess what, the fingerprints of that hypothesis are all over many of the texts that make up the Bible.
Ultrafundamentalist attack of science and knowledge to promote mythology and a particular deity. Despite the lack of evidence for the existence of said deity or for any deity. Denial of the fact that religion is human culture and tradition development, something even theologians cannot deny. Ignorance and denial of the strong evidence that humans had other and older deities, some much older than Yahweh and older than Abrahamic movements, even older than agriculture, cities and patriarchy.
"They assume that man made God in man’s image": it's not an assumption, but an obvious fact. The very reason every cult has its own version with its own doctrines and attributed rules, as well the rejection of those they don't like. There also is ample evidence of hypocrisy involved in that mining and interpretation. It's not for nothing that even kids ask their elders or priests why they impose man's rules without scriptural basis, or why they falsely claim that it's divine law, or why they support and practice injustice of the sort Jesus denounced, like I did.
You need strong evidence to pretend that your own doctrines and dogmas and the texts you use are somehow of divine origin. You have none, so you frivolously attack those who know better.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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