I haven't read this, but how does he depict God as two beings? It's a more and more popular theory (at least at my school - University of Arizona) that the Jewish people used to worship a God and his Wife, which was later denounced as society became more patriarchal. I don't agree with it, but it could have been what he was going for.
Also, a recent Biblical comic I loved was David: The Shepherd's Song. I'm sure it takes some liberties for the sake of storytelling (and space) but I haven't read Samuel in a long time, so I couldn't tell you exactly what.
Having not read the two subsequent issues, I can't say for certain what Rushkoff's meaning is, but it's not the 'God's wife' motif.
In the first issue, three deities were presented, at least two of which took on the Biblical role of YHWH. It's the bull-headed 'Moloch' who instructs Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but it's the more grandfatherly 'Melchizidek' who stops him. The issue ends with Moloch and a blue-skinned goddess named Astarte talking about what they should do about Melchizidek.
Good points, Loren.
BTW - I didn't interpret the "Melchizedek" figure as equating with "God" but rather an agent of "God", albeit a spiritual one.
I agree Rushkoff has some axes to grind with Scripture that I don't care for and are going to make a lot of his inaccuracies difficult to argue with. Are you planning on picking up this whole series and working through it, Loren?
Not to defend Rushkoff but to be fair, In Joshua God specifically says that Terah was a worshipper of other gods. Abraham would have been surrounded by idol worship all his life even if he didn't take part. Unless there's Scripture I'm forgetting, it wouldn't scandalize me too much to think that Abram worshipped his father's gods until the LORD revealed Himself to him.
Okay, I have to read this.
In traditional Torah lore, Melchizedek (Mal-ki-tzedek) is the kind of Salem, which wille ventually become Jerusalem.
It is kind of an intresting take really,however some of the scholarship seems to point to the idea that, despite tradion, Terah prehaps didnt worship many gods but possiably only the Moon god of the Chaldeans. This identifacation comes from the fact that Ur, where Abrahm and Terah may have travaled from was a center of moon worship and the name "Terah" is related to the Hebrew root for moon (y-r-h).
This is all pretty sketchy given, but if Abraham was going to run to another god, it would make sence for him to run to the god of hisd ancesters. I suspect that this was an attempt on Rushkoff's part to provide himself a villan to set in oppisition to YHWH.
Now mabey I should go and pick up testement and actually read it.
It is interesting, though, that he portrays the G-d of Abraham as part-bull -- one of the epithets for G-d in Torah is "Bull of Jacob." But of Jacob, not of Abraham.
With all of these inconsistencies, it sounds as though he may be setting up a behind-the-scenes "true story" of how Torah came to be -- i.e., there will be some explanation of how scribes got it "wrong" when they identified Melchizedek as King of Salem, Moloch as an idol unconnected to elohim, and so forth. I'll pass.
Oh, well, at least he didn't make Abraham actually sacrifice Isaac and pass the birthright to Ishmael...
Moloch might not be named in the Bible, but it seems like a reasonable choice for someone to turn to, given the local culture of the time and place. Even before Moloch was worshipped as Moloch, there were probably similar practices, perhaps for a differently-named deity.
It'd be far worse if it had been written as if he was a druid, or sacrificing at a volcano.
I've also read somewhere that Moloch was not even a god.
It could be a root which means "sacrifice" (mlk) and it was wrongly interpreted as the name of the deity instead of the act of sacrifice itself.
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