El and the Elohim. Plural Plural or Uni-Plural?

An Edit That Missed the Cut

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."

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/are-yahweh-and-el-the-same-god/

Are the problems in the COG the result of bad leaders or its theology?

A reader here responded to an earlier post claiming that the theology of the church is sound, once you throw out the majority of the doctrines of the church, and get rid of all the bad leaders. Really?  Of course this might mean they have to acknowledge that inconvenient dude they clam to follow and stop worshipping the law.

Anonymous said...

To all you abused haters of COG churches, the problem is the human leadership, like Pack and Flurry, not the basic theology I learned in WGC. There's no question of the sick leaders that destroy the story of God's loving Plan. If you throw out the stupid rulings on makeup, birthdays, Petra and the early rulings on D&R, you are left with truth not taught in mainstream Christianity. They are as you know, correcting the non-biblical immortal soul, Heaven and Hell, Sunday - Christmas - Easter traditions. I was taught to "worship" Mary, light candles, go to Mass and pray the rosary. Over a billion people think those things are ok with Christ.

Our understanding of the second resurrection is one the most important teachings which sets COG's apart. That fact that there is still hope for the majority of mankind, despite the appearance that humans are so evil and deceived, that only a few are given eternal life. Most of mainstream Christianity believe that most humans are going to burn forever in Hell by a "Loving" God. 

March 23, 2017 at 9:23 AM 

Chief Overseer Irritated At Connie's Comments

One would think that God's most important prophet ever (after Dave Pack, of course) would not be so thin skinned.  But no, the doubly blessed and self appointed false prophet and false teacher did not take too kindly to Connie's comments about his latest radio program.  All of you readers here are just soooooo bad!

Got an invitation Friday to be on the radio this past Monday. This was on The Andy Caldwell Show on 1440 am KUHL, Santa Maria, California. I wrote a post for COGwriter to announce it on Sunday, but it ended up posting on Saturday. This resulted in some anti-Church of God snide comments against me and the station on the internet. It was claimed:

Radio KUHL is a small 5000 watt AM radio station out of thinly populated Santa Maria. The signal only reaches some 20 miles and has no Arbitron Rating, because the market share , even in the San Luis Obispo area is so negligible.

Likely fewer than 50 people will hear the broadcast. In fact, he is getting more attention here at this website than he will get while being on air.

The anti-COG writers overstate their own importance and seem willing to post as ‘facts’ items that are inaccurate.