(Note: Pardon length for any short attention span lurkers. It's a big and fascinating topic :)
Dave Pack says yes...
However...Not after the Israelite Priesthood got ahold of them, though winged Gods were the order of the day before the Priesthood of Israel clipped them.
No images or idols of El or YHVH sprouting wings exist. While El does have depictions in idols, YHVH does not being too sacred a god to depict, or whose name should even be spoken. Other names were substituted to address this problem such as "Lord" , "Adonai", "Yah" and "Jehovah".
"Yahweh" is the accepted way to pronounce it, if you dare, however.
The God YHVH
However, Dave Pack speculates...
Part 469 – September 14, 2023
@ 05:14 So, here’s my question: Is it possible God has wings? The Father has wings? Would that make it possible? Certainly, dudn’t say it outright, but would it be possible? Hmm.
@ 12:47 Does Christ have wings? Now, the world doesn’t know God or Christ have wings if they do. They are never depicted that way. Angels, yes. And sometimes saints. But not generally
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There is no depiction of the Israelite of El or his lesser, at the time, YHVH, a member of the Divine Council of the Gods having wings once El evolved into YHVH adopted by the Israelites.
Malachi 4 does intrigue using terminology he did however....
A most honest scripture about the nature of God as "The Sun". In this context, "His wings" are the sun rays represented by wings. The reference in Malachi is a memory of the Sun Gods of Egypt
"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves from the stall."
Malachi 4:2
Pharoah Akhenaten
The Pharoah, abandoned polytheism and declared Ra, the Sun God the only true God. After his brief and tumultuous reign, the Priestcraft of Egypt restored polytheism to Egypt.
Winged Hittite God
Winged God of Persia
Who Is El?
El was known as the supreme god of the Canaanites in the mythology of the ancient Near East. He was the father of gods and men and the creator deity. He is sometimes depicted as a bull and known for his tremendous power and strength.
Origins
El was an important god in Canaanite mythology. It is believed that he lived on Mount Saphon, close to the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. He was very respected and was considered by the people to be all-knowing and all-powerful. He was incredibly wise and compassionate to those that came to him for guidance, but not always.
Baal in human form
First, the name Israel is not a Yahwistic name. El is the name of the deity invoked in the name Israel, which translates: “May El persevere.”2
This suggests that El was seen as the chief god in the formative years of Israel’s religious practices. In fact, the etiological story explaining the origin of the name Israel occurs in Genesis 35:9-15, where Jacob obtains this name through the blessing of El Shaddai, that is “El of the Mountain.”
Second, there exist numerous parallels and similarities between descriptions and cultic terminology used for El in the Canaanite texts and those used for Yahweh in the biblical sources (see below). At some point, it is ascertained, the cultic worship of Yahweh must have absorbed that of El, through which means Yahweh assimilated both the imagery and epithets once used of El.
Finally, there is strong confirmation of this assimilation in the biblical record itself.
In the oldest literary traditions of the Pentateuch, it is El who regularly appears and not Yahweh, or Yahweh as El! The patriarchal narratives identify El as the deity to whom many of the early patriarchal shrines and altars were built. For example, we are informed in Genesis 33:20 that Jacob builds an altar in the old cultic center of the north, Shechem, and dedicates it to “El, god of Israel” (’el ’elohe yišra’el ). There is no ambiguity in the Hebrew here: ’el must be translated as a proper name, El.3 The textual tradition from which this text derives, the Elohist, ultimately remembers a time when El was the patron god of Israel.
That El was the deity worshiped at Shechem is also attested in Judges 9:46, which speaks of the shrine of “El of the covenant.” The god of the shrine at Bethel, which literally translates, “house of El,” is additionally El—”I am El of Bethel” (Gen 31:13; cf. 35:7)—and appears to Jacob as El Shaddai (35:11; cf. 48:3). Jacob has another encounter with El at Penuel, which is so named because Jacob sees El face-to-face (32:31).
Moreover, Isaac blesses Jacob through El Shaddai (28:3), and likewise Jacob blesses Joseph “by El of your fathers” (49:25). “El who sees” is given as the etymology of Beerlahai-roi in Genesis 16:13. And we are informed that Abraham journeys to the old cultic shrine at Beersheba, where he plants and worships a tree and calls on the name “El the eternal” and at the same time Yahweh (Gen 21:33). Contrary to Genesis 33:20, where the Shechemite El is presented unambiguously as the “god of Israel,” in Genesis 21:33, El is apparently already assimilated to Yahweh (see below). Finally, Genesis 14:18-22 speaks of “El the most high,” of whom the Canaanite Melchizedek is priest at Jerusalem.
This assimilation between Yahweh and El, or El into Yahweh, is present in much of the Priestly material as well. In fact, the Priestly source largely advocates this assimilation. In Genesis 17:1, the Priestly writer states that “Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him: ‘I am El Shaddai.’” And Exodus 6:2-3, in contradiction to J (#11), has Yahweh assert: “I am Yahweh. And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, and I was not known to them by the name Yahweh.” Although the verse suggests an identification between Yahweh and El “of the mountain,” the verse also subtly recognizes an ancient distinction between the god of the patriarchs (El) and the god of the Mosaic era (Yahweh). But the assimilation is clear here: the patriarchs who worshiped El in the past were actually worshiping Yahweh, claims the Priestly writer.
Perhaps it is necessary at this point to ask: Who was El? And why is he even mentioned in the Bible in the first place, let alone as the god of Israel in the older literary traditions of Genesis?
Our knowledge of El predominantly comes from an invaluable corpus of tablets discovered in 1929 in the ancient city of Ugarit, a major city-state of the second millennium BC located on the northern coast of Syria, modern day Ras Shamra.4 The Ugaritic tablets are the best available witness to Canaanite religion and religious practices, and thus also “to the background from which the religion of Israel emerged, and to the Canaanite beliefs that it shared, adopted, compromised with, and sometimes rejected.”5 The Ugaritic literature depicts El as the sovereign deity of the Canaanite pantheon. He is frequently referred to as “Father of the gods,” “the eternal King,” and “Creator of all living beings.” El’s other epithets include: “El the Kind, the Compassionate,” “the Bull,” “the Ageless One,” and “the Father of Years.” He is depicted as bearded, and residing in a tent or a tabernacle, whose throne rests on Cherubim. He is the god of blessings and of covenants.
Many of these epithets and images later become assimilated to Yahweh. For example, Yahweh is often depicted as bearded, as King of the gods, as Compassionate, and as residing in a tent, whose throne, like that of El, rests on Cherubim. There are, in addition to this, numerous El epithets in various strains of biblical tradition—epithets that through a process of assimilation and adoption later become associated with Yahweh. We have already encountered El Shaddai, “El of the Mountain.” Like Yahweh who is associated with the mountain of Sinai and later in eschatological traditions with Zion, so too El resides on a mountain. Other patriarchal narratives attest the use of El Olam, “El the Eternal” to whom Abraham plants and worships a tree at Beersheba, El Elyon, “El the Most High,” the god of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-24), and El Roi, “El who sees” (Gen 16:13).
These various El epithets are associated with different shrines: El Shaddai with Bethel, El the Most High, the creator of the heavens and the earth, with Jerusalem, El the Eternal with Beersheba, El who sees with Beerlahai-roi, and El the god of Israel with Shechem.6 Many of these shrines and altars to El were established by the patriarchs themselves (e.g., Gen 21:33, 28:18, 33:20, 35:14). It has also been suggested that the name Yahweh might have originally been a cultic epithet of El! The etymology of Yahweh, yhwh, is still unclear, but one proposal is to see it as the causitive imperfect of the Canaanite-Proto-Hebrew verb hwy, “to be.”7
It is propable therefore, as many commentators have contended, that the early Israelites actually worshiped El through his epithet ‘Yahweh.’ This process of assimilation is usually presented the other way around in the biblical literature: Yahweh is worshiped through the epithets of El: Shaddai, Olam, and Elyon.
Contrary to these biblical traditions that suggest an assimilation between Yahweh and El, there are other passages that seem to indicate that Yahweh was a separate and independent deity within El’s council. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is one of those rare biblical passages that seemingly preserves a vestige of an earlier period in proto-Israelite religion where El and Yahweh were still depicted as separate deities: Yahweh was merely one of the gods of El’s council! This tradition undeniably comes from older Canaanite lore.
When the Most High (’elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated humanity, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings. For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
There are two points to take away from this passage. First, the passage presents an apparently older mythic theme that describes when the divine beings, that is each deity in the divine counsel, were assigned and allotted their own nation. Israel was the nation that Yahweh received. Second, Yahweh received his divine portion, Israel, through an action initiated by the god El, here identifiable through his epithet “the Most High.” In other words, the passage depicts two gods: one, the Most High (El), is seen as assigning nations to the divine beings or gods (the Hebrew word is elohim, plural “gods”) in his council; the other, Yahweh, is depicted as receiving from the first god, the Most High, his particular allotment, namely the people of Israel. Similarly, in another older tradition now preserved in Numbers 21:29, the god Chemosh is assigned to the people of Moab.
Other biblical passages reaffirm this archaic view of Yahweh as a god in El’s council. Psalm 82:1 speaks of the “assembly of El,” Psalm 29:1 enjoins “the sons of El” to worship Yahweh, and Psalm 89:6-7 lists Yahweh among El’s divine council.
Thus there seems to be ample evidence in the biblical record to support the claim that as Yahweh become the supreme national deity of the Israelites, he began to usurp the imagery, epithets, and old cultic centers of the god El. This process of assimilation even morphed the linguistic meaning of the name El, which later came to mean simply “god,” so that Yahweh was then directly identified as ’el—thus Joshua 22:22: “the god of gods is Yahweh” (’el ’elohim yhwh).
Noteworthy also is the fact that unlike the god Baal, there is no polemic in the Bible against El, and all the old cultic centers of El, those in Jerusalem, Shechem, and Beersheba, were later accredited to Yahweh. Since the large majority of patriarchal narratives that speak of shrines and altars to El are found in the northern kingdom, such as Bethel and Shechem, and, on the other hand, many biblical texts seem to accredit Yahweh’s origin to the southern Negeb, current scholarly hypothesis is that the worship of El in the north and of Yahweh in the south eventually merged. This thesis finds further support in the incident of Jeroboam, who may have acted to reestablish the cult of Yahweh-El at Dan and Bethel via his “golden bulls” (#155). In sum, the biblical literature, spanning as it does hundreds of centuries of cultural and the cultic traditions, preserves divergent views, portraits, theologies, and origins of its god Yahweh. We will come across others.
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So apart from a personal view of no gods with or without wings, I suspect David C Pack is just spinning more time killing foolishness which one, as "The Foolish Shephard" would, of course be expected to do to fit the title, as he does.
18 comments:
Yeah, Dennis has truly gone off the deep end.
There is a graffito depicting "YHWH and his asherah". While it has some odd features, no wings. Though of course there are references to wings and feathers in Psalms IIRC.
Also, Akhenaten didnt declare Ra the sole god. His cult was devoted to the sun disc itself, the Aten. Hence the name he took.
Twenty years or more ago, I had done some similar research to what is contained in this article. But, I never shared it. As a seeker of the truth, I couldn't share it in clear conscience. In review, and in taking my own introspection, I realized several things about my work, and methodology. First of all, I had been deliberately searching for evidence that the God of the OT was derived from the pagans. Secondly, I had used the similarity of words from different completely unrelated languages to establish connections, just as HWA had done in "identifying" the lost ten tribes amongst current European nations. Finally, I had made a number of Hisloppian jumps to conclusions when there were other equally valid conclusions to be drawn.
There had been other times when I actually did share my research, one of which had involved the Phoenician temples which looked almost exactly like Solomon's temple, but were dated centuries prior to the first temple. One old forum guy, obviously still a COGger, suggested that the pagans, and paganism had come from perversions of what God had created and originally given to Adam and Eve, and not the other way around. So, I knew that even if I had shared my research, the people still in Armstrongism whom I was trying to help, would not buy into it. Further, I could not go back and redo my research because I was not neutral on the topic. I had also used exactly the same bogus techniques and processes that HWA had used (and in so doing, had taught us!) in all of his research and proofs, corrupting and dooming it from the very beginning.
From that research, I did learn a lot about myself, about how to evaluate and judge the research of others, but mostly about the importance of me being totally honest in my efforts to rehabilitate myself from Armstrongism, and to help others. I don't mean to insinuate anything about Dennis by sharing my own experience. For all I know, he may well have switched his mind into neutral, and totally allowed the facts to lead him to his conclusions. What I am saying is that with our common deeply flawed background, we all need to approach these matters with a great deal of caution. We point out the confirmation bias of Armstrongites, but it's really a phenomenon that can work either way.
No, 7:30, the content is well known. He just used too much of it.
On the day of atonement, Dennis writes an article which shifts the focus on something very different. Oh, what a surprise? Expect more such articles during the FOT.
RSK said...
No, 7:30, the content is well known. He just used too much of it.
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Cliff Notes;
Dave Pack says God and Jesus have wings
Most pagan gods had wings
Biblical El and YHVH/Lord/Jesus to come are not depicted with wings .
Therefore, neither Biblical God the Father, EL nor Gospel Jesus have wings as Dave Pack surmises no matter how he spins his delusions.
There are, however, a small number of Israelite depictions of winged beings, showing heavy Egyptian characteristics but apparently made from local materials. Exactly what they may represent is not known.
Pack , Flurry, Pack , Weinland , Cox etc. should be known as...
EL STUPIDO !!
Atheists run to and fro like chickens with their heads cut off. Those grounded in the TRUTH of God as Mr. Herbert Armstrong taught us will never fall prey to these people.
Anonymous said...
Atheists run to and fro like chickens with their heads cut off. Those grounded in the TRUTH of God as Mr. Herbert Armstrong taught us will never fall prey to these people.
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Actually, as a non-believer we don't run to and fro with our heads cut off. We use our minds, critical thinking and readily available historical information to explain the actual origins and evolution of religious beliefs and practices.
They, however, rarely if ever match the Sunday School version or that of Herbert W Armstrong, who was not trained in theological and historical church realities.. Whether sincere or no, HWA was a Bible literalist who never even got "There were two trees...." correctly interpreted.
Being grounded in HWA or any of the split and splinter debris of WCG is not the same as "the truth" of much of anything.
Pious convictions based on marginal information at best...
Dennis is on fairly solid ground in the outlines of the historic context of EL and YHWH, but I also like the comments of Anonymous Sunday, September 24, 2023 at 8:59:00 AM PDT about conclusions based on this data.
I also like some of the points John Oakes makes in his answer to the questions: "Is the Hebrew god El just borrowed from Canaanite deities? Is Yahweh derived from the Caananite God El?"
He wrote:
People have used this issue for various purposes, but we should be careful to separate the etymology of a word (the history of how a word came to have its current meaning) and the actual meaning of a word. etymology can lead us in bad directions. The only essential question is what did the word mean to the people using it in the context where they used it. The fact is that the Jews used words for God which came from their culture. What else were they to do? Were they to simply make up a name out of nothing? Should they have called God something like Bill? The Jews used a generic word for a god to name their God. This generic word was el. Therefore, one of the words used for God in the Hebrew Bible is El or Elohim (plural).
Similarly, the word Baal had a generic meaning of “lord.” It should not surprise us, therefore, if God came to be called Baal in certain contexts. To assume that because the Jews used the word Baal for the one true, omnipresent and omnipotent God should not be used to prove that they saw their God as just another of many local gods. This would be circular reasoning. It would be an argument like this. We know that Baal was used as the name for a generic “god”. The Israelites used the word Baal for their God. Therefore this proves that the saw their God as merely a local god.
The Jews also used the word Adonai for the one true God. Somewhat similar to Baal, this world meant “lord” in the context of Canaan in the second millennium BC. As with the use of Baal, we should not assume that they saw the Lord God Adonai as somehow equal to the more generic use of the word adonai.
As for the other name for God used in the Hebrew Bible, Yaweh (YHWH), this name has a very different origin than Adonai, El or Baal. This word, as far as I know, was not used by any other peoples to describe their deities. This is the only word we know that God used as a direct “name” for himself. This word simply means “I am.” Like I already said, no deity was referred to by this name (unlike el, adonai or baal). Apparently, you heard that this word developed from the generic Canaanite word for god El. I am confident that this is not true. The two words have nothing in common. Besides, we know exactly where the word came from. It came to the Jews from Moses. Its use was not an adaption of a generic word for a deity in Canaan.
Many have tried to use the fact that El, Adonai and Baal were generic names for local deities as proof that the Jews considered their God such a local deity. This is a logical fallacy. We should decide how the Jews conceived of their God by reading what they said about their God. Unless scholars can show actual evidence that the Jews ever considered YHWH anything other than the one true, universal Creator of the universe (which they cannot do) we should reject their arguments based on the etymology of the word.
https://evidenceforchristianity.org/is-the-hebrew-god-el-just-borrowed-from-canaanite-deities-is-yahweh-derived-from-the-caananite-god-el/
they probably represent tesseract beings who regularly traverse the multiverse dimensions along black hole space-folding rapid transit system
The question we have to resolve is whether the god El as understood by the ancient Israelites had theological and ontological continuity with the deity known by this same name among the Canaanites. The Canaanite El lived in the desert, had two wives and a bunch of kids. He fathered Baal and a bunch of other gods. In short, he is nothing like the God of the ancient Israelites.
The continuity between El of Canaan and El of Israel is neither theological nor ontological. It is simply semantic. El became a generic term that could be used for any god like our word “god”. It is a term that can be traced through linguistic sources but the term does not always refer to the same being. The Elohists who contributed to the formation of the Pentateuch were not worshippers of the Canaanite deity. We know this because they wrote up their understanding of God completely differently from the Canaanite deity.
A point to consider here is whether everything that the ancient Hebrews wrote about God was accurate. For instance, it is clear that ancient Hebrews believed in monolatry – that God was the most powerful among many gods. Yet, later they were monotheistic. It is as if their understanding of the ontology of God evolved. They believed in a Deuteronomistic god earlier on and later that god was shot down by the Book of Job. Interestingly, the Hebrew in the Book of Job indicates that it is one of the earliest books of the Old Testament. The ancient Hebrews claimed that God told them to exterminate the Canaanites. Yet, God came to earth and brought the message that he was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets and he brought a message of “love thy neighbor”. We are led to a conclusion. God let his children tell the story (quoth Dr. Peter Enns).
Scout
Note: As regards wings, God does not have a body in his essence so how can he have wings? God doesn't need wings to transport himself around. He has absolute control of time and space. Only people who believe that the anthropomorphisms of the OT characterize God in his eternal essence could speculate on such nonsense. If God always had wings, why? Was there an already existing atomosphere that he lived in. Where did the atmosphere come from? Did he create it so he could have something for those strange, mysterious extensions on his back to do? The old Armstrongist dodge: Maybe there was a spirit atomsphere? No, God created everything, including those things spirit. Still the same set of problems. God can have wings in a theophany but not in his essence. He transcends wings.
As long as you don't let the Sunday promoters drag you off course with their lies you will be on safer ground. Don't worship those feeble people. Your god is whoever controls you. That's why they get a kick out of dragging people off course.
Dennis Deihl has some good points. But why should that mean atheism? I've learned some similar things.
The Elohim are a group (family) from another planet in the galaxy. They are currently in contact with the Raelian church. What kind of reputation do the Raelians have among COG people? The Raeliens don't think anything about HWA COG.
YHWH is the God specifically of this planet. Not the Creator.
The Father is a third being, with the plan of grace and salvation.
Ra was an alien also known as Marduk.
The COG was to prepare kings and priests to rule in the Millenium, given particular cities or nations like YHWH was given a territory.
This article contains lots of assertions which collide with the Bible and mainstream Christianity, not just the Sabbath-keeping churches. The assertions are made without quoting references, and the writer fails to explain his overall epistemological framework. As far as high school essays go, I wouldn't give it a good mark.
Maybe God does not have wings...but if He freely passes through black holes, antimatter, higgs bosons, or multi-dimensions, etc., it may simply "appear" to a human's eye that a jittery aura is "wing-like". Ezekiel's strange visions involved hard-to-explain wing effects of some sort?
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