bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes ) (01/16/84)
Sorry Ed, the Bible is at best ambivalent about this. The question of other god and their status as presented in the Bible is one that has been up for debate since before Christianity. There is a strong impli- cation in the commandment "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your G-d am a jealous god..." that there may be other valid gods. If Yaweh is the one-and-only god, than what has He to be jealous of? The early christian Gnostics developed quite a cosmology around this statement which helped account to them for the differences between the OT and NT Deities. Some believe that the references to, and role of, the serpent in the Garden of Eden are direct references to the Sumarian god Ningizzida, "Lord of the Tree of Truth." (sound familiar?) The Tree of Truth, or the "World Tree" was believed to be at the pivotal center of the world, from which flowed the four rivers to the four quarters of the world (sound familiar again?) -- Byron Howes UNC - Chapel Hill (decvax!duke!unc!bch)