Page Content (OCR)
315 conjurers and seers," and emphatically prohibited was the "making of idols and graven images, and the erection of statues, or of a carved stone to bow upon it." "By these shall the Children of Israel be distinguished from the others—a holy nation, consecrated unto Yahweh," Moses was told. As the ensuing biblical books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Prophets reveal, it was the last prohibition that was the most difficult to maintain. For all around them the people could see the gods they were worshiping—sometimes in fact, otherwise (and most of the time) through their graven images. But Yahweh had asserted that no one could see his face and live, and now the Israelites were required to observe strictly a myriad of commandments and keep faith with a sole deity that could not even be represented by its statue—to worship an Unseen God! That it was a total departure from the practices everywhere else was readily admitted by Yahweh himself. "After the customs of the Land of Egypt, wherein ye have dwelt, and after the customs of the Land of Canaan whither I am bring- ing you, ye shalt not do, and their precepts ye shall not follow," Yahweh decreed; and He knew well what he was talking about. Egypt, whence the Children of Israel had come out—as ancient depictions and archaeological finds amply attest—was awash with images and statues of the gods of Egypt. Ptah, the patriarch of the pantheon (whom we have identified with Enki), Ra his son, head of the pantheon (whom we have identified with Marduk), and their offspring who had reigned over Egypt before the Pharaohs and who were worshiped thereafter, sometimes appeared to the kings in person in vari- ous Divine Encounters, some other times (and more fre- quently so) were represented by their images (Fig. 105). The more distant the gods became over time, the more did king and people turn to priests and magicians, seers and diviners to obtain and interpret the divine will. No wonder that Moses, endeavoring to impress the doubting Pharaoh with the powers of the Hebrews' God, had first to engage in magic to outper- form the Pharaoh's royal magicians. In the realms of the Enlilites, the notion of an Unseen Prophets of an Unseen God