Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [55]
[T]his finally and very late evolved monotheism is neither a tardy divine revelation to the Jews, nor a novel invention by them; it was a thousand years antedated by Amenhotep IV and Tutankh-amen in Egypt-nor were even they pioneers. We have seen the [Catholic] admission that the Zoroastrian Mithra religion was "a divinely revealed Monotheism" (CE. ii, 156).1
The monotheism of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, in fact, is virtually identical to that of Judaism, or Yahwism, which is, in part, an offshoot of Zoroastrianism:
Ormuzd says to Zoroaster, in the Boundehesch: "I am he who holds the Star-Spangled Heaven in ethereal space; who makes this sphere, which once was buried in darkness, a flood of light. Through me the Earth became a world firm and lasting-the earth on which walks the Lord of the world. I am he who makes the light of Sun, Moon, and Stars pierce the clouds. I make the corn seed, which perishing in the ground sprouts anew . . . . I created man, whose eye is light, whose life is the breath of his nostrils. I placed within him life's unextinguishable power."2
Prior to the intrusion of monotheistic Yahwism, the Hebrews were not monotheists separate and apart from their polytheistic "Gentile" neighbors, either before or after Moses. This Hebrew polytheism is why in the Old Testament "the chosen" are constantly depicted as "going after" other gods and why "the LORD God" himself changes from hero to hero, king to king and book to book. As to the polytheism of the Hebrews and the supposed superiority of monotheism, Robertson says:
There is overwhelming testimony to the boundless polytheism of the mass of people even in Jerusalem, the special seat of Yahweh, just before the Captivity. Monotheism did not really gain a hold in the sacred city until a long series of political pressures and convulsions had built up a special fanaticism for one cult. . . . Monotheism of this type is in any case morally lower than polytheism since those who held it lacked sympathy for their neighbors. Most of the Jewish kings were polytheists. What I am concerned to challenge is the assumption-due to the influence of Christianity-that Jewish monotheism is essentially higher than polytheism, and constitutes a great advance in the progress of religion.... If the mere affirmation of a Supreme Creator God is taken to be a mark of superiority, certain primitive tribes who hold this doctrine and yet practice human sacrifice must be considered to have a "higher" religion than the late Greeks and Romans.3
The Hebrew polytheism is reflected in the various biblical names for "God," the oldest of which were the plural Elohim, Baalim and Adonai, representing both male and female deities. In order to make the Hebrews appear monotheistic, the biblical writers and translators obfuscated these various terms and translated them as the singular "God" (Elohim), "the Lord" (Adonai), "the LORD God" (Elohim YHWH) or "the LORD" (YHWH/IEUE). As Higgins states:
In the original, God is called by a variety of names, often the same as that which the Heathens gave to their Gods. To disguise this, the translators have availed themselves of a contrivance adopted by the Jews in rendering the Hebrew into Greek, which is to render the word . . . Ieue 1YHWH1, and several of the other names by which God is called in the Bible, by the word ... Lord ... The fact of the names of God being disguised in all the translations tends to prove that no dependence can be placed on any of them. The fact shows very clearly the temper or state of mind with which the translators have undertaken their task. God is called by several names. How is the reader of a translation to discover this, if he find them all rendered by one name? He is evidently deceived. It is no justification of a translator to say it is of little consequence. Little