Quote (Tummy @ Aug 22 2011 08:04pm)
If anyone here can explain Christian point of view on God's that existed before the birth of Christianity.
I want a good explanation along with proof of scripture and if you can, version of the bible.
God's like the Greek deities and Pagan Gods.
And if anyone can explain Mithra the Pagan God in the christian point of view. I would love that.
You know... I have sometimes though that perhaps some of the greek dieties were actually just the Nephilim that took leadership and people worshipped them as gods...
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Genesis 6:4, "the sons of God joined with the daughters of humankind, and they bore giants unto them - they were heroes of old, the men of renown"
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Amos 2:9, while not using the word "nephilim", Yahweh reminds the prophet that he "destroyed the Amorites before you, whose height was as the height of cedar trees".[8] Genesis 6:4 says "the nephilim were on the earth in those days (before the Flood), and also after", and most later compositions and translations, including the Septuagint, therefore understand the nephilim to be giants.
So as we can see they weren't gods at all, not divine, but in fact fallen angels that were worshipped as demi-gods by certain human tribes of the time. And the real God, Yahweh wiped them out in the flood.
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The story of the Nephilim is chronicled more fully in the Book of Enoch. The Greek, Aramaic, and main Ge'ez manuscripts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees obtained in the 19th century and held in the British Museum and Vatican Library, connect the origin of the Nephilim with the fallen angels, and in particular with the egrḗgoroi (watchers). Samyaza, an angel of high rank, is described as leading a rebel sect of angels in a descent to earth to have sexual intercourse with human females:
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it...
—[26]
According to these texts, the fallen angels who begat the Nephilim were cast into Tartarus (Greek Enoch 20:2),[27] a place of 'total darkness'. However, Jubilees also states that God granted ten percent of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim to remain after the flood, as demons, to try to lead the human race astray (through idolatry, the occult, etc.) until the final Judgment.
In addition to Enoch, the Book of Jubilees (7:21–25) also states that ridding the Earth of these Nephilim was one of God's purposes for flooding the Earth in Noah's time. These works describe the Nephilim as being evil giants.
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In the New Testament Epistle of Jude 14-15 cites from 1 Enoch 1:9, which many scholars believe is based on Deuteronomy 33:2.[29][30][31] To most commentators this confirms that the author of Jude regarded the Enochic interpretations of Genesis 6 as correct, however others[32] have questioned this.