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<blockquote data-quote="wkmac" data-source="post: 1625350" data-attributes="member: 2189">Our concepts of what we call God are not recent ideals but rather trace back many, many millennia to cultures far removed from us.&nbsp; Our God today may hold a new name and face but this God still holds the same abilities, characteristics and power as the previous God(s) we might know under another, much older name. Or, that is assumed to be the case.Many of us, maybe most of us, hold a belief in a God that does not originate from within our own culture but rather is borrowed from another.&nbsp; We&#039;ve grown to accept the supremacy of this new and model God over and as opposed to what our ancient ancestors believed. And most of that is a result more of conquest than anything else.&nbsp; Take the Roman Empire out of the picture and it&#039;s very possible Northern Europe for example would still worship Odin, sing of Valhalla at sporting events and gather in groves of trees to worship some Celtic Mother goddess among other things.But it begs the question(s), in the Old Testament texts where we read the translated word &quot;god&quot; or &quot;gods&quot;, what did these ancient people believe and what can we glean from the native language (from which our translations arrive) and the definition it entails?&nbsp; And in the case of gods, how many and just who were they and what did they mean to these ancient peoples?&nbsp; Finally, does our ideal of God follow in the same manner as those of ancient times?&nbsp; Is our God today truly the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, thus Moses, Joshua or even David?&nbsp; What about the God of the earliest Christians whose writings were excluded from Orthodoxy such as the gnostic writings from the Library and Nag Hammadi?&nbsp; <a href="http://www.usbible.com/God/god_of_gods.htm" target="_blank">The God of Gods</a></blockquote>

[QUOTE="wkmac, post: 1625350, member: 2189"] Our concepts of what we call God are not recent ideals but rather trace back many, many millennia to cultures far removed from us. Our God today may hold a new name and face but this God still holds the same abilities, characteristics and power as the previous God(s) we might know under another, much older name. Or, that is assumed to be the case. Many of us, maybe most of us, hold a belief in a God that does not originate from within our own culture but rather is borrowed from another. We've grown to accept the supremacy of this new and model God over and as opposed to what our ancient ancestors believed. And most of that is a result more of conquest than anything else. Take the Roman Empire out of the picture and it's very possible Northern Europe for example would still worship Odin, sing of Valhalla at sporting events and gather in groves of trees to worship some Celtic Mother goddess among other things. But it begs the question(s), in the Old Testament texts where we read the translated word "god" or "gods", what did these ancient people believe and what can we glean from the native language (from which our translations arrive) and the definition it entails? And in the case of gods, how many and just who were they and what did they mean to these ancient peoples? Finally, does our ideal of God follow in the same manner as those of ancient times? Is our God today truly the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, thus Moses, Joshua or even David? What about the God of the earliest Christians whose writings were excluded from Orthodoxy such as the gnostic writings from the Library and Nag Hammadi? [URL='http://www.usbible.com/God/god_of_gods.htm'][COLOR=#ff0000][B]The God of Gods[/B][/COLOR][/URL] [/QUOTE]

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