"If in five thousand years someone tried to claim that England's monarchy REALLY consisted of a junta who remained behind closed doors, and used as evidence "we are not amused," they'd be making the same argument as you…"

Not quite. As you say, "early Judaism isn't really clear on the question of whether other gods even exist. Even in the ten commandments it says "no other gods BEFORE ME," suggesting that other gods might be okay, as long as they were subservient to God. And the bible does use "elohim" to refer to the many pagan gods that other peoples believed in." But early English history isn't so ambiguous about the junta & the King.

However, don't get the idea that I believe any of this stuff I'm saying. As I said 'I would _suspect_ that originally the "gods" created the world…' but I have no background in Hebrew, Judaism or sociolinguistics. I'm just sillying around (as my kids used to say) with ideas in a rather silly thread.

Silly because, for one thing, the Pope, my Pentecostal grandmother and the late Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations are/were all Christians; they all accepted Christ as their savior and admit/admitted to following Him. Which one of them are we to prove or disprove?

clint

What does sociolinguistics say about the idea that a sentence should not end with a preposition? And all that grafting Latin of grammar on English. Speaking of revisionists.