Polytheism and Christianity

[Improved October 5, 2010]

What is polytheism?

There are basically four forms of theism:

• polytheism is the belief in multiple gods, usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses.
• monotheism is the belief that only one god exists.
• henotheism means worshipping a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other gods or deities.
• monolatrism or monolatry is the recognition of the existence of several gods, but with the consistent worship of only one god or deity.

A “radical” polytheism would involve that there would be no highest god, but a pantheon of gods with more or less equal powers. Such concepts seem to be quite rare in humanity. The common idea is rather that of a highest god and prime creator, who created other deities which more or less cooperate with him. Thus the borders between the polytheism, henotheism and monolatry become a bit blurred, since one would usually worship the one who is regarded to be the highest god, and who worships another would usually know that he is worshipping a “representative” of the highest god. If, however, there are also “fallen deities”, who separate themselves off from higher “colleagues” and who want to be worshipped with disregard of higher gods above them, the situation becomes (to say the least) quite complicated…

Is Christianity truly monotheistic?

Christian dogmatism claims that there is only one god. At the same time, it claims that there is a “triunity” or trinity of three deities: God the creator, Christ and the Holy Spirit (regarded as female by the Gnostic Christians). And then there is a host of angels and, furthermore, in the Catholic church a large number of saints, who were “elevated” (by human dogma) to a kind of pseudo-deities after there death. Jesus’ mother Mary has also been effectively declared to be a deity and the highest saint. So is then Christianity truly and purely monotheistic?

This certainly is to quite some extent paralleled by, e.g., the Indian pantheon, which also knows a trinity called Trimurti, being Brahma, Viśņu and Śiva. Furthermore, there are many other and more or less “lower-level” deities, which are usually regarded as incarnations or representatives of one of the three main deities. Brahma is the highest god and creator in the manifested form, whereas he in his highest and unmanifested form is called Brahman. (Brahman is grammatically neuter and Brahma male.)

The Jewish religion also knows angels and in the Old Testament also other gods are mentioned, albeit as such that are false and should not be believed in. The latter are usually mentioned in a way that gives the impression that they do exist, but we should have nothing to do with them. Then there is also Shekinah, who could be compared with the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit and is deified in some Christian theologies as Sophia.

Then one may question if a belief in a negative “deity”, called devil, Satan, in Hinduism Mara, or the like, isn’t also a kind of polytheism, not the least if that one also has a host of dark angels.

It seems that there hardly is a religion that doesn’t state that there is one highest god and creator, even if they admit various other deities that are created by him. Top-level deities such as the two others in a trinity are usually described as emanations from him, rather than actual creations. This one highest god may, though, appear in a dual form that has both a male and a female appearance, such as Apsû and Ti’âmat in the Sumerian mythology – a creator pair or the male and female side of one god, the female side being a kind of creative force of the highest god or creator. The earlier Hebrew religion also mentions a divine pair: Yahweh and his consort ’Asherah, even though the latter has become suppressed in later developments.

That several texts, like The Book of Jasher, condemn veneration of “gods of wood and stone” is a different matter, since they are images and idols and not real living entities. Several books mention “fallen angels”, like the Books of Enoch (there are four of them) but not the above-mentioned Book of Jasher. They quite obviously belong to a dark region, in which some entity has proclaimed himself to be god and creator – but who are they? Obviously that one, who wants to be regarded as god in the dark region, has made his own creations only within that region and he cannot by any means be the creator of the universe.

New discoveries in academic research in the history of religion

Recent discoveries of ancient texts and inscriptions[1] show that the archaic Hebrew religion knew a highest god ’El ’Elyon[2], who had 70 sons. One of his sons was Yahweh, who had a consort ’Asherah, i.e., a goddess. Her name is mentioned some 40 times in the Old Testament but it is almost always translated as “grove” or “tree”. This is because her symbol is a tree or and upright wooden pole. So when the Old Testament states that it is forbidden to plant a tree at the altar of Yahweh it really means that it is forbidden to place a symbol of ’Asherah there (Deut 16:21 – and what sense would it otherwise have to forbid planting a tree there?).

The true creator god, the prime creator, was therefore not Yahweh, but ’El ’Elyon. He has obviously created a number of secondary gods as his “sons” – better: deities – of which Yahweh is one (and, of course, also the “daughter” ’Asherah). Hence, Yahweh is not the prime creator he wants us to believe that he would be, even though he has also produced certain creations. We recognize a noticeable parallel to the Sumerian creation story Enûma Elish (I here simply use the notation “Sumerian” generally without dividing texts up in a more exact ethnological manner as “Sumerian”, “Acadian”, “Assyrian”, etc.). This tells us about a prime creator pair Apsû and Ti’âmat (cf. above.), who created a number of deities, from which further deity races arose. One such deity race is the one of the Anunnaki (so called because their ruler and leader has the name Anu). They separated themselves off from the prime creators and wanted to live and act without them. Enûma Elish tells about a murder of the highest gods. The Anunnaki are told to have killed first Apsû and then Ti’âmat! Is it possible to kill the prime creators? Of course not! This merely symbolizes that they turned away from them and didn’t want to have anything to do with them, as if they were dead – that was the fall, the plunge out of the divine light into a relative darkness. Therefore, the Anunnaki are fallen deities. The one who is said to have murdered Ti’âmat is Marduk who also became the lord of the Earth. The Anunnaki have under his rule produced new human beings on our Earth by means of genetic manipulation, and from them to-day’s humanity arose.

Correspondences with the Bible
The first sentence in the Bible reads, in the common translation: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). The Hebrew word that is here translated as God is ’Elohim. It is a linguistic fact that cannot be denied that this word is a plural and hence means “gods”. It has been tried to explain this away through declaring it as pluralis majestatis, which actually doesn’t seem to be common in Hebrew. It rather looks as if one is trying to sweep an embarrassing question under the carpet.

In Hebrew, the sentence is Bere’shit bara’ ’Elohim ’et ha shamayim ve-’et ha ’aretz. Therefore, some want to translate it as: “In the beginning the gods created the heaven and the earth”, but this doesn’t fit, since the word bara’ = “create” is in singular. Furthermore, the word for “heaven”, shamay, is also in plural: shamayim. But the problem has a solution.

According to cabbalistic sources, the word bere’shit means not only “beginning”, but also “the first one”, the “original one”, the first entity that was, the highest God. The word ’et can also be translated as “with” (in ve-‘et the word ve means “and”, hence: “and with”). We now arrive at the following translation, which fits grammatically: “The first one created the gods [together] with the heavens [cosmic worlds] and with the Earth”. This translation, therefore, refers to a prime creator, who first created “gods” and cosmic worlds, of which one is the Earth. According to Gen 2, Yahweh is one of these gods, one of the ’Elohim (since the Bible here calls him “Yahweh ’Elohim” in the Hebrew text, and not simply “Yahweh”). Some regard the ’Elohim as creator gods, who (themselves created) in their turn created other entities – human beings, animals and plants, like Yahweh did.

Creation in the Gnostic Christian view

Mainly based on a German scholar translation of The Apokryphon of John[3]. Every translation is also an interpretation in the way the translator sees it (and, even if unconsciously, wants to see it). On top of that the following text in part is my own interpretation.

God, the creator, the “unknown father”, the first one that ever was, creates with his thought. He thinks – and then it is there. The creative power of his thought is Barbelo, the invisible virginal spirit, the supreme female (bearing = creating) principle. She became the womb of everything (that would come to be). Out of her the Holy Spirit appeared (who the Gnostics regarded as female), the mother of the living. Her collaborator is reason (intelligence). Out of these two Christ appeared, the divine Autogenes (Emerged-Out-Of-Himself, i.e.: not procreated).

On a lower level, Sophia (Wisdom) appeared as an Emanation of Barbelo. She wanted to create a male entity to appear out of herself, but without approval of the Spirit and without letting her consort know it (consorts are mentioned in connection with entities; hence they are actually androgynous, but either the female or male part comes in appearance). It was her own idea. She actually had just a thought, but on that level thoughts are creative: you think it, and then it is there. Therefore this entity came to be in ignorance and was imperfect. Sophia realized this and regretted it, cast the entity away from her and surrounded it with a luminous cloud, so that no one might see it but the Holy Spirit. She called it Yaldabaoth.

Yaldabaoth created further entities, which became his powers. They are called the Archons. He was himself the “first Archon”. The apokryphon tells about him: “…he is ignorant darkness. And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim. …And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, ‘I am God and there is no other God beside me,’ for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.”

Sophia recognized her mistake when the shining of her light became less and she became darker. She saw how bad her son was and wept for a long time.

Yaldabaoth said to his Archons: “Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness…” They created a being after the image of the first complete man (like a model for humans who would come to be) and said: “Let us call him Adam…” The being so created wasn’t yet alive. Messengers of God said to Yaldabaoth “'Blow into his face something of your spirit…” He did that ignorantly, because he didn’t himself really know what he was doing. And the being became alive. Adam was luminous and had a better intelligence then the Archons, and he was free from wickedness. [So far he wasn’t the physical Adam but an archetype of the human being.] Therefore they threw him out on the lower side of matter (on a level within the dark region of Yaldabaoth).

God had pity and sent a helper to Adam, the Epinoia (insight through divine inspiration) of light that is called Life [Hebrew: Heva = Eva]. She assists all creation. This Epinoia became hidden in Adam, so that the Archons would not know her and she might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother (Sophia), as an emanation out of her. [Eva, too, was so far archetypal.]

The Archons saw that Adam’s intelligence was higher and brought him into the shadow of death to recreate his body out of matter that is the ignorance of the darkness. He became a mortal human [and now the physical Adam], who the Archons put in a “paradise” [a harmonic and timeless place]. There, he should eat from the “tree of life”, from the trees of godlessness [and live without God].

The “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, however, is the Epinoia of light (v.s.) that in disobedience to Yaldabaoth improved Adam’s intelligence. [The Hebrew name in Gen 2 is more correctly translated as “tree of wisdom”!] Therefore Yaldabaoth put him to sleep: “'I will make their hearts heavy, that they may not pay attention and may not see.” Then the Epinoia of light went to hide inside Adam. Yaldabaoth wanted to extract her through one of Adam’s ribs, but couldn’t. He therefore made another appearance in the shape of a woman, as an image of the Epinoia, into which he brought the part of Adam’s power that was all he managed to extract. Adam became awake and saw the woman. Then the Epinoia of light appeared and uncovered the veil that had been put over Adam’s intelligence. [Hence, eating from that tree has nothing to do with sexuality, but with wanting to know more than Yaldabaoth would allow…]

It wasn’t a snake (an entity in the shape of a snake) that made Eve eat from the “tree of knowledge [wisdom!], but it was Christ in the shape of an eagle who told her to do that, in order to “teach them and awaken them out of the depth of sleep.” That happened against the will of Yaldabaoth.

Sophia had come down as this Epinoia in order to correct her mistake, and for that reason she was then called Life [Heva, Eve], the mother of the living. Through her, they could taste full insight [they ate from the “tree of knowledge”, better: “tree of wisdom”]. Yaldabaoth saw that they were drifting away from him and cursed his Earth. He threw them out of his paradise and clothed them in darkness. He then raped Eve and through her begot two sons, who he called Cain and Abel. Later Adam begot Seth with Eve.

Yaldabaoth wanted to control the thinking of the humans and brought fate (Greek: heimarmene) into the world. Hence his whole creating became blind and couldn’t see God. [Heimarmene comes from meiromai that means something like “acquire one’s part”, which may lead the thought to karma…]

The identity Yaldabaoth = Yahweh is obvious… and as far as the Archons are concerned, one may think of the Anunnaki, and Barbelo may remind us of Ti’âmat.

According to all this we can postulate an extension of the Gnostic world concept that has three regions:

1. God the Prime Creator in the prime energy, which is described as a world of light
2. An angelic region with subdivisions in several kinds of angelic beings (which may be 3∙3 = 9 according to Dionysios Areopagita)

3. A region of darkness, which may be subdivided as:

• The level of Yaldabaoth and his Archons (dark angels)

• The physical world in which the humans live

• A level of demons and adversaries.

It will obvious that all texts of yahwistic religions will be biased to the world of the 3^rd of these regions… and that they will, therefore, claim that Yahweh/Yaldabaoth is the only god and true creator, in order to keep us under the power of the Archons in the dark region and that we not seek higher truths beyond (above) it, which we are not supposed to not know. Accordingly, they will as their policy condemn any knowledge of such truths as false and even evil.

Conclusion

The so called monotheistic religions are, after all, not as monotheistic as is claimed, but rather what may be called “denialistic” (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism), since they officially deny the existence of created deities between a highest creator god and us humans, even though they actually admit them in disguise (in a way through “the back door”): the two others in a trinity, angels and “man-made” saints…