When a crime is committed do detectives just go to the crime scene and say
"well, no one was there at the time. Case closed"???
No. They look for evidence and try to figure out what happened. I'm sorry you have a
problem with the evidence that's accumulated over the last 200 years in modern
scholarship but that's not my problem.
This is a red herring and a shifting of the burden of proof. It's off topic and the burden is on you to prove that someone rose from the dead not on the one who is unconvinced and making no counter claim. If you would like to start a new thread and debate the Resurrection I'll be happy to do so. Just create a post and show me the link.
Most importantly, if Yahweh is a false deity Jesus' divinity is also false because Jesus supposedly was
the God of the OT (Yahweh) right? There's no way around this. The evidence I've presented clearly
shows Yahweh was just one of many gods worshipped in the Ancient Near East.
Yahweh became the
national god of Israel because he was Saul's favorite.
"Though circumstantial, the converging pieces of evidence suggest that Saul's choice of Yahweh as the
patron god of his state was based on his Edomite background. Once Yahweh was the national god, his
worship was spread over the territory of the Saulide state. The reign of Saul, then, must be regarded
as a turning point in both the political and the religious history of Israel. The Israelite worship of
Yahweh - a "foreign" deity, after all - was a concomitant effect of the formation of the Israelite state:
because Israel's first king was a devotee of Yahweh - and not unnaturally so, in view of his Edomite
background - Yahweh became the official god of Israel. Henceforth, the Israelites would be the
"people of Yahweh" - even if many of them remained long attached to gods other than Yahweh."
- Van Der Toorn pg. 286
Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in ... - K. Van Der Toorn - Google Books
I see your point. Your saying that there were other gods sense mans beginning. Some favored others and some favored Jehovah which is Yahweh in Hebrew. If I think I understand you correctly, there could have been a time in Man's past history, even leading to our day. Where Before or even after abraham and others when all the tribe from Adam and Eve were lost and at time God did not revile him self to them. To where they may have served both gods at the same time? Which in this case it would be true.
The most prominent of the Canaanite gods was Baal. Each locality in Canaan and in other lands where Baalism existed had its own Baal or, as the name “Baal” signifies, its own “lord,” “master” or “owner.” The local Baal was often given a name denoting his being attached to a specific locality. One example of this is the “Baal of Peor.” This deity took his name from Mount Peor. Although there were many of such local Baals, the Canaanites and neighboring peoples understood that the local Baals were all merely manifestations of the one god Baal.
Ancient texts discovered at Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast reveal that Baalism was a fertility cult centered around agriculture. Baal worshipers attributed the changes in the seasons and their effects to the warring of the deities. They believed that the end of the rainy season and the death of vegetation marked the god Mot’s triumph over Baal, forcing Baal to withdraw to the depths of the earth. But when the rainy season started, Baal worshipers took this to mean that Baal was again alive, his sister Anath having defeated Mot. They thought that Baal's mating with his wife Ashtoreth at this time ensured fertility in crops, flocks and herds for the coming year.
Baal worshipers believed that their engaging in prescribed rituals at their religious festivals would serve to stimulate the gods to follow the same pattern. Hence, to celebrate Baal's awakening to life, to be mated with Ashtoreth, they engaged in sexual orgies of unrestrained debauchery. This was a sort of sympathetic magic, carried out in the hope that the gods would imitate their worshipers and thereby guarantee a fertile and prosperous agricultural year.
Throughout Canaan could be found sanctuaries in honor of Baal, where male and female prostitutes served and priests officiated. Near the altars outside the sanctuaries there were stone pillars, sacred poles (representing the goddess Asherah) and incense stands. Both the sacred pillars and the sacred poles were sex symbols.
References in the Ras Shamra texts and archaeological discoveries show that Baalism was a most degrading form of worship. The goddesses Ashtoreth, Anath and Asherah symbolized both sexual lust and sadistic violence and warfare. Figurines of Ashtoreth found in the Middle East depict her as a nude woman with rudely exaggerated sex organs. In one of the Ras Shamra texts, when Anath's father refuses a request of hers, Anath is portrayed as responding with the words: I'll truly smash your pate, make your gray hair flow with blood, the gray hair of your beard with gore. Of her lust for bloodshed, we read: Much battle she does and beholds, her fighting contemplates Anath: Her liver swells with laughter, her heart fills up with joy, Anath's liver exults, for she plunges knee deep in knights blood, hip deep in the gore of heroes.
To me it sound revolting. Understandably Jehovah God, as a loving Father, wanted to protect his people, the Israelites, from abominable Baal worship. His Law given through Moses made idolatry an offense worthy of death. (Deut. 13:6-10) Jehovah God commanded the Israelites to destroy every appendage of false worship and to keep free from alliances with idolaters. (Deut. 7:2-5) He instructed the Israelites not even to “mention the name of other gods,” that is, not to mention them with worshipful regard or in such a way as to credit any existence to them.Ex. 23:13.
But the Israelites disobeyed and were allured by the worship of Baal, Ashtoreth and Asherah.
Like all other forms of idolatry, Baalism was a work of the “flesh.” (Gal. 5:19-21) As such it appealed to the sinful inclinations of imperfect humans. The Israelites were not immune to the allurements of idolatry and other works of the flesh associated therewith.
Once settled in the Promised Land, the Israelites may have observed that their Canaanite neighbors were having generally good success with the land, perhaps bringing in a fine harvest. Since the Israelites had not had much experience in cultivating the soil, it would not have been unusual for an Israelite to ask a Canaanite about agriculture. As far as the Canaanite was concerned, Baal had to be appeased in order to enjoy a prosperous agricultural year. If the Israelite was disturbed by the suggestion that he should also appease the local Baal, the Canaanite could have calmed his neighbor’s fears by saying that there was no objection to the Israelite's continuing to worship Jehovah. It was merely a matter of acknowledging and pleasing the local Baal also.
Not recognizing that experience and knowledge of the land were the real reasons for whatever success the Canaanites had, an Israelite may have allowed his desire for material gain to become a snare to him. Wanting to get the best yield from his land, he may have justified erecting an altar to Baal in his field and placing a sacred pillar and a sacred pole alongside it. Why he may have reasoned, I'm still worshiping Jehovah.
Another factor responsible for involvement with false gods was marriage to nonworshipers of Jehovah. Even wise King Solomon deviated from true worship because of marrying women who served false gods and goddesses. (1 Ki. 11:1-8) There is no indication that Solomon wholly abandoned the worship of Jehovah and the sacrifices at the temple on Mount Moriah. He apparently practiced a sort of interfaith to please his foreign wives, but this displeased Jehovah.
The unrestrained sexual indulgence associated with false worship ensnared still others. At Shittim, on the plains of Moab, thousands of Israelites yielded to this temptation and engaged in false worship. The Bible reports: “The people started to have immoral relations with the daughters of Moab. And the women came calling the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people began to eat and to bow down to their gods.” Num. 25:1, 2
Then too, the religious festivals, with their extensive feasting and drinking, appealed to lovers of pleasure. At Amos 2:8 we read: “On garments seized as a pledge they stretch themselves out beside every altar; and the wine of those who have been fined they drink at the house of their gods.” Of a religious festival at Shechem, the Bible tells us: “They went out as usual into the field and engaged in gathering the grapes of their vineyards and in treading them and in carrying on a festal exultation, after which they went into the house of their god and ate and drank.” Judg. 9:27.
Furthermore, uncertainty about the future on account of a lack of faith or a guilty conscience toward Jehovah prompted many to seek help through false religion, hoping that they might get some assurance that things would go well for them. A case in point is Israelite King Ahaziah, the son of Ahab and Jezebel. Injured in an accident, he sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron, to find out whether he would recover. 2 Ki. 1:2, 3.
You said:Yahweh became the national god of Israel because he was Saul's favorite. That's not true Jehovah made a covenant with Isreal way before saul came into exsistance through Abraham seed and Moses. God chose Isreal, Isreal did not chose Jehovah. I'm sure he would have abandon them if he didnt promise the seed to come through them. Since Sarah continued to be barren, it appeared that Eliezer the faithful house steward from Damascus would receive Abraham’s inheritance. Nevertheless, Jehovah again reassured Abraham that his own offspring would become uncountable, as the stars of heaven, and so Abraham “put faith in Jehovah; and he proceeded to count it to him as righteousness,” even though this occurred years before Abraham was circumcised. (Ge 15:1-6; Ro 4:9, 10) Jehovah then concluded a formal covenant over animal sacrifices with Abraham, and at the same time, he revealed that Abraham’s offspring would be afflicted for a period of 400 years, even being taken into slavery.Ge 15:7-21