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The Family of Baal: The Elohim  of Canaan

Stavrinides goes on to say:  “I Kings 11:5 is perhaps
one of the clearest examples of the singular use of elohim in which it
cannot possibly be construed to refer to a family of divine beings.
After all, it is plainly obvious that  ‘Ashtoreth the goddess
(elohim) of the Sidonians’ was but one deity, not a family of such
beings.”

As we shall see, however, although Ashtoreth the goddess
(elohim) is used in the singular in I Kings 11:5, she was actually
part of an elohim family!  Notice:

“The priests of Baal declared that the great god first
appeared when a primal universal force called El, the elemental
god, and Athirate, the goddess of the earth, who holds the ocean in her
womb, became the parents of the gods.  Baal was their firtborn and
was given the sun for his throne.  Soon the priests decreed that Baal
and El were one and the same, and that Baal’s consort was Astarte
or Ashtoreth.  She was known as Aphrodite to the Greeks, Ishtar to
the Babylonians, Nana to the Sumerians, and Venus to her devotees in Rome,
but regardless of her name or place, she was the wife of Baal, the virgin
queen of heaven who bore fruit although she never conceived (the Virgin
Ashtoreth)” (Bach, Strange Sects and Curious Cults, p.
12).

“Among the religious
texts found at Ugarit there is a ‘Pantheon [family] of Ugarit’ (found in
three texts, two Ugaritic and one Akkadian) in which the chief gods of
Ugarit are listed.  The first item in the Akkadian version (lines
1-2) is DINGIR (the determinative for god [elohim]),
followed by a-bi ilum; the fragmentory Ugaritic probably reads il
ib.  The word il, ilu (m), or el is common to all the Semitic
languages; in the broadest sense it can have the general appellative
meaning of ‘god,’ but it can also be the proper name of a specific
deity.  The word ib or ab means ‘father.’  Here the
text   can be read   as a reference to ‘the god of the
[or, my] father’ and be reminiscent of the concept of ‘the god of the
fathers’ noted in chapter 1 (p.30); or the reading can be, ‘god the
father,’ referring to the god El, one of whose titles is Father, or
to a god so designated but distinct from El.

“At any rate, as
known throughout the religious texts of Ugarit, El is the first of
the major gods and the head of the pantheon.  In the epithets that
are applied to him, he is seen as the father of the gods and human beings,
and as the creator of heaven and earth.  The totality of the gods
constitutes his family, and he presides over the assembly of the gods [E.
Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew
Literature].  The title ‘Bull’ is frequently given to him,
presumably to signify his power and/or procreative ability, and he is
called king, wise, holy, and everlasting or eternal (olam) [Pope,
El in the Ugaritic Texts, pp. 27, 35, 42-43]” (Finegan, Myth
& Mystery, p. 138).

The Family of Zeus: The Elohim of Greece

Zeus’
Children

Zeus’
Wife

Daughter/Son of

Ares

Hera

Kronos

Hephaistos

Hera

Kronos

Athena

Metis

Okeanos and
Tethys

Aphrodite

Dione

Nereus

Apollo

Leto

Tritan Koios

Artemis

Leto

Tritan Koios

Pollux

Leda

Thestios

Hermes

Maia

Atlas

Dionysos

Semele

Kadmos

Kleio

Mnemosyne

Ouranos and Gaia

Euterpe

“

“

Thaleia

“

“

Melpomene

“

“

Terpsichore

“

“

Erato

“

“

Polyhymnia

“

“

Ourania

“

“

Kalliope

“

“

Orpheus

Kalliope

Zeus

(Finegan, Myth &
Mystery, p. 161)

Equivalences
Chart

Egyptian

Greek

Roman

Isis

Hera

Juno

Osiris

Dionysos

Baccus

Horus

Apollo

Apollo

Hathor

Aphrodite

Venus

Ptah

Hephaistos

Vulcan

Herishef

Herakles

Thoth

Hermes

Mercury

Anubis

Kronos

Seth

Typhon

Amun

Zeus

Jupiter

“Dionysos (Latin, Bacchus; god of wine, [was] worshiped in
the frenzied exercises of the Maenads [”mad women”; Latin, Bacchae])”
(Finegan, Myth & Mystery, p. 165 & p.
192).

Judge for yourself if Stavrinides’ conclusion is
warranted:

“I Kings 11:5 is perhaps one of the clearest examples of the
singular use of elohim in which it cannot possibly be construed to refer
to a family of divine beings.  After all, it is plainly obvious that
‘Ashtoreth the goddess (elohim) of the Sidonians’ was but one deity, not a
family of such beings.”

Stavrinides, history proves your statement
false!

Trinitarianism Not Found in the New
Testament

“In the New Testament we do not find the doctrine of the
Trinity in anything like its developed [philosophic] form, not even in the
Pauline and Johannine theology, although ample witness is borne to the
religious experience from which the doctrine springs [i.e. the writings of
the Catholic Church Fathers for four hundred or so years from the Apostle
John to the theology of St. Augustine]...when the early Christians would
describe their conception of God, all the three elements—God, Christ, and
the Spirit—enter into the description, and the one God is found to be
revealed in a threefold way.  This is seen in the baptismal formula,
... [and] is also seen in the familiar words of St. Paul [2 Cor 13:14],
‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost.’  This last has been called, and justly
so, the great Trinitarian text of the NT, as being one of the few
NT passages, and the earliest of them, in which the three elements of the
Trinity are set alongside of each other in a single sentence.  If the
passage contains no formulated expression of the Trinity, it is yet
of great significance as showing that, less than thirty years after the
death of Christ, His name and the name of the Holy Spirit could be
employed in conjunction with the name of God Himself.  Truly, if the
doctrine of the Trinity appeared somewhat late in theology, it must have
lived very early in devotion” (Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, pp. 458-459).

Does Early New
Testament “Monotheism” Preclude a Plurality of Divine
Beings?

The Concept of
Unity

“When the Christian fathers began to formulate their
doctrines, the Greek philosophical tradition could offer them several
theoretical discussions of the notion of unity [the One], some of which
came to have a certain influence on Christian thought.  But I do not
find that such analyses were applied to theology in any clear, consistent,
and methodical fashion.  Christian thinking on the unity of God
remained largely intuitive [i.e. perceived by the mind immediately without
the intervention of reasoning, especially that of Philosophy].  Where
certain axioms were accepted (as for instance that God is ‘simple’,) their
content was not precisely defined; and where certain important
distinctions were clearly grasped (as I think they were by Tertullian and
Novatian) they failed to find a permanent foothold in
theology.

“One can gain some idea of this loosely formulated concept
of divine unity by employing a group of terms first known to me from M.J.
Rouet de Journel’s Enchirdion Patristicum.  There is only one
God (though no doubt his influence may be conferred upon, and found in,
other beings); he is undivided (for if one finds in him distinctions of
powers [as opposed to ‘an inner principle of distinction or
individuation’] , or persons, these are not thought to infringe
his wholeness or ‘simplicity’ [as opposed to no separateness]; and he is
not subject to change (at least, not to moral change, nor to change
imposed from without, though he may in some sense respond to changing
human needs).   It seems that these three great claims were
clearly distinguished at least by Novatian who writes (in his de
Trinitate, 4-5) that God is ‘always self-same...one, without a
rival...simple, without any corporeal structure [of the nature of the
physical body; bodily; of the nature of matter; material; tangible;
pertaining to material things] ‘ (Hic ergo semper sui est similis...et
unus pronuntiatus est, dum parem non habet...est enim simplex, et sine
ulla corporea concretione); and Tertullian, according to R. Braun (pp.
67-8), used the two Latin words unitas and unio to distinguish between
God’s simplicity and his uniqueness.  Unitas excludes division; unio
excludes rivals [i.e. the concept of THE ONE God who has no rival; Deut 6,
John 13-18 and Heb 2] “  (Stead, Divine Substance, pp.
181-182).

Formulation of Trinitarian
Doctrine (Circa 100-500 A.D.)

If Trinitarian doctrine did not come from either the Old or
New Testaments, from whence did it come?  The answer is that it was
philosophically derived from the imaginations of men!  The basic
structure of this doctrine was formulated over a period of several hundred
years beginning shortly after the death of the Apostle John and continuing
down into and through the time of St. Augustine.  It was formulated
from five great philosophic axioms or constructs that have roots deeply
embedded in the soil of Neoplatonic philosophy.  We will also see,
however, that some of these Trinitarian roots grew from the seeds of a
totally new syncretistic religious philosophy!

Dogmatic Development
One:

Association Christ with Logos of Greek Philosophy

(Circa 100-165
A.D.)

“(1) The formal identification of the pre-existent Christ
(of the Pauline and Johannine theology) with the Logos of Greek
philosophy.

“In the NT the identification is in the practical rather
than speculative interest, but in Justin Martyr and the apologists it may
be regarded as the first step in the logical process whereby the
historical figure of Jesus Christ was caught up into the purely
speculative [philosophic] sphere” (Trinity, Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, p. 459).

Justin Martyr played a key role in the association of Jesus
with the Logos of Greek philosophy.  Finding that this
philosophic connection was unacceptable by Scriptural standards, he boldly
altered the true New Testament text.

Justin Martyr the
Corruptor of the Ephesian Text

“Conditions during the second and third centuries [100
through 200 A.D.] were not favorable to the accurate transmission of the
New Testament text.  During this early period there were in the
Christian Church many unspiritual persons who did not recognize the books
of the New Testament as Holy Scripture, or at least did not accord such
recognition to all the New Testament books.

“In addition to the variant readings which crept into the
New Testament text through careless blunders, there were many others which
were purposely introduced by editors and revisers (many of whom were
heretics)” (Clark & Ropes, The Beginnings of Christianity, vol.
3, as quoted by Hills in The King James Version Defended, p.
50).

Ephesian
Text Corrupted at Rome

“The Western text, [the early official Greek text of Rome]
[was] the deliberate creation of one man [Justin Martyr, ca. 100-165
A.D.], as an intentional re-writing [at Rome] of the original New
Testament text, ‘made before, and perhaps long before, the year 150, by a
Greek-speaking Christian (of Syria or Palestine) who knew something of
Hebrew, ...’ “ (Clark & Ropes, The Beginnings of Christianity,
vol. 3, as quoted by Hills in The King James Version
Defended,  p. 50).

The
Corrupt Greek Western Text

Early Church Fathers of the West who used the Greek
text:

Irenaeus
130-200 A.D.

Tertullian          150-220
A.D.

Cyprian
200-258 A.D.

Augustine          354-430
A.D.

Extant Western texts among Greek
manuscripts:

D  -- sixth century Greek manuscript containing Gospels
and Acts

D2 -- sixth century Greek manuscript containing Pauline
Epistles

The Western text is also extant among the Old Latin
manuscripts.

The Western text is also extant among the Old Syriac
manuscripts.

“This reviser was probably an influential teacher at Rome, a
predecessor of the heretic Marcion [c. 140, a Christian from Asia Minor],
who also taught at Rome around the middle of the second century and made
even more drastic changes in the New Testament text [as Hills illustrates
in his work The King James Version Defended, many of these drastic
changes concerned the removal of all references of Christ as the Son of
God!].  But, unlike Marcion, the Western reviser not only managed to
avoid excommunication but even prevailed upon the Roman Church to accept
his adulterated text, in which many additions were made to the sacred
narrative, especially in the Gospels and Acts.  And when once this
text had secured the support of the Roman Church, it was readily received
everywhere, in Gaul, in Africa, in Syria and even in Egypt [but not in the
province of Asia].  As the Western text began to circulate throughout
the length and breadth of the empire, it underwent further changes in form
due to the mistaken desires of subsequent editors [early church fathers
with philosophic and or mystery religion backgrounds] to include
additional material in it.  And so special varieties of the Western
text developed in Africa, Syria, and Egypt” (Clark & Ropes, The
Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 3, as quoted by Hills in The King
James Version Defended, p. 52).

Justin
Marytr a Philosopher from Samaria

“This Simon [Magus] mentioned in the Acts was not properly a
Jew, but a Samaritan, of the town of Gittae, in the country of Samaria, as
the Apostolical Constitutions, VI.7, the Recognitions of
Clement, II.6, and Justin Martyr, himself born in the country of Samaria,
Apology, I.34 inform us” (footnote in Josephus, p.
594).

“Tertullian denominates him, ‘philosopher and martyr’
(Adversus Valentinianus 5).  In the first chapter of I
Apologia, Justin introduces himself as ‘Justin, the son of Priscus
and grandson of Bacchius, of the city of Flavia Neapolis in
Syria-Palestine [Samaria]’; ch. Eusebius, HE 4,11,8”
(Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday, p. 223).

Justin Martyr who was of Greek culture and extraction, was a
professional philosopher born and reared in the region of
Samaria.

Corruption of the True
New Testament Text Led to Trinitarian Formulation

“It is barely possible that before the middle of the second
century the Western text was brought to Asia Minor from Rome.... The
Quartodeciman controversy, a bitter dispute which arose during the last
half of the second century between the Churches of Asia Minor and the
Church of Rome over the date of Easter, makes this very improbable.
This controversy no doubt induced in the minds of the Christians of Asia
Minor a violent prejudice against the Western text, which they knew to
have emanated from Rome.  And the fact that the Alexandrian Church
had sided with Rome in this controversy would combine with their
traditional jealousy of that great Egyptian city to create in them a
similar aversion to the Alexandrian text.

“Thus, throughout the second and third centuries [100
through 200 A.D.] and down into the middle of the fourth century [300s
A.D.] , the rank and file of the Christians of Asia Minor, and probably
also of Antioch, remained loyal to the true New Testament text [the
Ephesian text, now called the Byzantine text], which had become the
traditional text of their native region, and resolute in their rejection
of the Western and Alexandrian texts.

“It was in this way, no doubt, that the true text was
preserved [by God’s faithful servants of Asia Minor] by the providence of
God during these early, troubled years.  Toward the end of the fourth
century [300s A.D.] , the true New Testament text emerged from the
relative obscurity into which it had been thrust.  The great fourth
century conflict with the Arian heresy had brought orthodox [Greek
Orthodox] Christians to a theological maturity, which enabled them to
perceive the superior doctrinal richness of the true text.  In ever
increasing numbers they abandoned the corrupt Western and Alexandrian text
types and turned with eagerness to those ancient manuscripts which
contained this true text”  (Clark & Ropes, The Beginnings of
Christianity, vol. 3, as quoted by Hills in The King James Version
Defended, pp. 55-56).

Although the true New Testament text was preserved, the
corrupted texts were the prevailing influence in the formulation of early
church doctrine.  These corrupted texts were instrumental in shifting
early church teaching concerning the true nature of God to the false
doctrine of Trinitarianism.  The removal of references to Jesus as
the Son of God from the text was soon followed by the association of Jesus
with the Logos of Greek philosophy.  Once this philosophic connection
was embraced by the early church, it was only a matter of time before the
complete philosophy of the Trinity became the basis of Christian
theology.

The Logos of Greek Philosophy Placed in the
Trinitarian Formulation

“There are then (as the statement may run) three Persons
(Hypostases) or real distinctions in the unity of the divine Nature or
Substance, which is Love.  The Persons are co-equal, inasmuch as in
each of them the divine Nature is one and undivided, and by each the
collective divine attributes are shared.  As a ‘person’ in
Trinitarian usage is more than a mere aspect of being, being a real ground
of experience and function, each divine Person, while less than a separate
individuality, possesses His own hypostatic character or characteristic
property (...).  The hypostatic characters of the Persons may be
viewed from an internal and an external standpoint, i.e. with reference to
the inner constitution of the Godhead or to the Godhead as related to
the cosmos or world of manifestation.

Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic [i.e. essence or
essential] character of the Father is ingeneration (...), of the Son
filiation, of the Spirit procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none,
neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the
Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’
[Westminster Confession, ii, 3].  Viewed ab extra (for Love
functions externally as well as internally, is centrifugal as well as
centripetal [Cf. S.A. McDowall, Evolution and the Doctrine of the
Trinity, Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.], the hypostatic character of the
Father is made manifest in creation, whereby a world is provided for
beings who should be capable of experiencing fellowship with the divine
Love; the hypostatic character of the Son in redemption, whereby the
alienating power of sin is overcome; and the hypostatic character of the
Spirit in sanctification, whereby human nature is quickened and renewed
and shaped to the divine likeness.  Yet, while this is said, as there
is no separation in the unity of the Godhead, so the one God is manifested
in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification;
moreover, each of the Persons as sharing the divine attributes is active
in the threefold work, if with varying stress of function.  Verily
the doctrine of the Trinity exit in mysterium”  (Fulton,
Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, pp.
459-460).

Dogmatic Development
Two:

Origen and Eternal Generation of the
Logos
(Circa 185-254
A.D.)

“(2) The doctrine of the eternal generation of the Logos or
Son (hitherto regarded primarily as the cosmological principle of
revelation [the visible universe] and not therefore co-eternal with
God).

“This doctrine, due to Origen [ca. 185-254 A.D., Alexandria,
Egypt], which may be expressed in other words as the eternal Fatherhood of
God, entered into Athanasian theology.  Formulated in the interests
of the divinity of Christ, it conserved also—as against Sabellian views
[the Sabellians taught that there were three beings in the godhead but
that they were not distinct] -- the distinction between the Father and the
Son.  On the other hand, the subordinationism it implied and
acknowledged, while countering dyotheistic [we would be classified as
dyotheistic] and tritheistic tendencies, lent support to the Arian
conception of the Son as a creature, especially after the Origenist theory
of eternal creation [which enabled Origen himself to regard the Son as
still primarily a cosmological principle] had been abandoned” (Fulton,
Trinity, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, p.
459).

The Eternal Generation of the Logos in the Trinitarian
Formulation

“Viewed ab intra, the hypostatic character of the Father
is ingeneration (...), of the Son filiation, of the Spirit
procession; wherefore, ‘the Father is of none, neither begotten nor
proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy
Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.’ [Westminster
Confession, ii, 3].  Viewed ab extra (for Love functions
externally as well as internally, is centrifugal as well as centripetal
[Cf. S.A. McDowall, Evolution and the Doctrine of the Trinity,
Cambridge, 1918, p. 53 f.], the hypostatic character of the Father is made
manifest in creation, whereby a world is provided for beings who should be
capable of experiencing fellowship with the divine Love; the hypostatic
character of the Son in redemption, whereby the alienating power of sin is
overcome; and the hypostatic character of the Spirit in sanctification,
whereby human nature is quickened and renewed and shaped to the divine
likeness.  Yet, while this is said, as there is no separation in the
unity of the Godhead, so the one God is manifested in the threefold work
of creation, redemption, and sanctification; moreover, each of the Persons
as sharing the divine attributes is active in the threefold work, if with
varying stress of function.  Verily the doctrine of the Trinity
exit in mysterium”  (Fulton, Trinity, Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, pp. 459-460).

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