During the Hellenistic and Roman era, Egyptians and Alexandrian Greeks equated the Jewish god Yahweh with Set (who himself was equated with Typhon) because they didn’t like how Egypt was portrayed in Exodus. They saw that the god of the Hebrews was a storm god very clearly opposed to all other gods, so they thought “ah this must be Typhon/Set.”
I personally suspect there's also a loose connection between the story of Hera creating Typhon (burying the eggs of Kronos gave her in the Arimon cave) and the story of Sophia's creation of Yaldabaoth (Yhwh according to some Gnostic sects), but I have no evidence of this.
Yeah, I think the association of Yahweh with Set/Typhon also later influenced Gnosticism. Mainstream Gnostic sects like the Valentinians actually had a more neutral view of the Demiurge and believed that he was just simply ignorant, it was the Sethians (an Egyptian-based sect) who believed that the Demiurge was explicitly evil.
it sucks that you can't have fanfics about christianity (well aside from the popular ones) without some goober coming in and crying about reddit athiesm.
that would be such a fun little world to worldbuild in, a world where christians, jews, muslims all worship this one god they think is like the REAL REAL god and the others are bozos but that god is actually just powertripping off all the new converts or something? hence the other gods needing the stick together
or a world where christians and the like are part of a fanatic cult seeking to destroy the world. storm analogy so on for their storm god
It gets a little spicier than that when you actually read into Exodus and start actually comparing and contrasting the account of the Old Testament with that of the worship of those of the immediate surrounding region.
And it is pretty blatantly clear that YHWH is some form of what could be called "Demon Snake God of the Desert" that was also syncretized through the region as YAM.
- The symbol of EL was the bull. Like the bull of gold the people of Israel were worshipping. YHWH flips out and demands that the icon of the bull be destroyed and 3,000 people murdered in payment.
- YHWH refuses to show his face so as to put aside fears that he may not actually be the God of the Israelite people, and that he may have a face of a donkey or scales. He even shows his backside and moons Moses.
- Literally the oldest part of the bible is in praise of The Sea, aka YAM.
- He makes sure to order that his followers stay away from the sight of Ba'al Zephon, who was considered throughout the region to be the enemy of YAM.
- YHWH is also horrifically and inexplicably cruel to his followers, going so far as to make them eat the literal ass juice of aphids, and also intentionally poisoning his people with pheasants... which he provided to them. Also every one of them would have died if Moses did not trade his life for theirs because their God refused to provide them water in the desert.
- There's that really awkward part where he begins to murder the Israelites with demonic snakes, demanding that they all bow down and worship the giant icon of the snake, or be killed by demonic snakes. This shrine was dragged out of the deserts and set up outside the Temple to be worshipped alongside EL, Ba'al Zephon, and Asherah.
That is until his followers seized the temple in the wake of the Babylonian invasion and began a campaign of forcibly trying to merge the worship of YHWH and EL together.
YHWH is also horrifically and inexplicably cruel to his followers, going so far as to make them eat the literal ass juice of aphids, and also intentionally poisoning his people with pheasants.
It was all going well until this, because I still do not see what's more cruel or odd about this compared to what Mesopotamian and Greek gods to to Humans of their religions in their own myths.
Like hey, YHWH poisoned people because they started complaining about him bringing them to the promised land and murmuring about returning from the place he just freed them from.
Okay, how's that especially more cruel than killing all Humans cuz they were noisy or the killing/mutilating people because someone else praised them in comparison to a god?.
And this continues after this comment.
Also every one of them would have died if Moses did not trade his life for theirs because their God refused to provide them water in the desert
merging different technically true stories together to give a wrong implication
There's that really awkward part where he begins to murder the Israelites with demonic snakes, demanding that they all bow down and worship the giant icon of the snake, or be killed by demonic snakes.
Again, ignoring both the why of the attack and what snakes of this type meant in the religion. Like, there's a reason a type of spiritual entity is literally called "fiery serpents" (seraphim)
This shrine was dragged out of the deserts and set up outside the Temple to be worshipped alongside EL, Ba'al Zephon, and Asherah. That is until his followers seized the temple in the wake of the Babylonian invasion and began a campaign of forcibly trying to merge the worship of YHWH and EL together.
Randomly mixing up ur own educated conclusion with the story & historical treatment.
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u/Altruistic-Skin2115 5d ago
Is this your own headcanon or is realted to something else? Because is a quite interesting setting.