This was well written, I’ll probably do my own research but not write out a full stack seeing as my other response flopped on engagement. You make some points that warrant further reading, and others I obviously reject.
Btw, the Smith quote is a screengrab from an Inspiring Philopsophy YouTube short, I didn’t deliberately edit a PDF or something. But it’s pretty clear that he explicitly rejects using Deuteronomy 32.8 as evidence for the polytheism theory
El isn't a generic title for a deity just like deity isn't generic because the etymology of both "El" and "deity" contain ethno specific conception of the source of divinity. El simultaneously means the "up high" and the "powerful," basically ascribing divine preeminence to mountain tops and to the sky, which is more in line with a polytheistic hierarchy of physical and earthly realms than with a monistic God who is not conceived of as occupying the tops of mountains or the heavens of the sky (a conception that would later become blasphemous) but a more abstract, essential and unknowable plane of existence. Pretty damning when the very language that describes the unknowability of the primordial essence of the Abrahamic god in terms such as a "higher" power has origins in the pagan focus on earthly dimensions.
This was well written, I’ll probably do my own research but not write out a full stack seeing as my other response flopped on engagement. You make some points that warrant further reading, and others I obviously reject.
Btw, the Smith quote is a screengrab from an Inspiring Philopsophy YouTube short, I didn’t deliberately edit a PDF or something. But it’s pretty clear that he explicitly rejects using Deuteronomy 32.8 as evidence for the polytheism theory
cockmogged made me lol
El isn't a generic title for a deity just like deity isn't generic because the etymology of both "El" and "deity" contain ethno specific conception of the source of divinity. El simultaneously means the "up high" and the "powerful," basically ascribing divine preeminence to mountain tops and to the sky, which is more in line with a polytheistic hierarchy of physical and earthly realms than with a monistic God who is not conceived of as occupying the tops of mountains or the heavens of the sky (a conception that would later become blasphemous) but a more abstract, essential and unknowable plane of existence. Pretty damning when the very language that describes the unknowability of the primordial essence of the Abrahamic god in terms such as a "higher" power has origins in the pagan focus on earthly dimensions.