Obama Claims He is a Muslim and the Koran is holy.
Allah (Arabic: الله, Allāh, Turkish: Allah, IPA: [ʔalˤːɑːh] (
listen), Template:A) is the standard Arabic word for God.[1] While the term is best known in the West for its use by Muslims as a reference to God, it is used by Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, in reference to "God".[1][2][3] The term was also used by pagan Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.[4]
"It has traditionally been believed that monotheism was part of Israel's original covenant with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, and the idolatry criticized by the prophets was due to Israel's backsliding.[150] But during the 20th century it became increasingly recognised that the Bible's presentation raises a number of questions: Why do the Ten Commandments declare that there should be no other gods "before Me" (Yahweh), if there are no other gods at all? Why do the Israelites sing at the crossing of the Red Sea that "there is no god like you, O Yahweh",[Ex 15:11] implying that other gods exist? These observations eventually overthrew the belief that Israel had always worshipped no other god but Yahweh.[151]
Israelite gods other than Yahweh in fact appear frequently, both in the bible and the archaeological record. Respectful references to the goddess Asherah or her symbol, for example, as part of the worship of Yahweh, are found in the eighth century inscriptions from Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom, and the gods Resheph and Deber appear without criticism in Habakkuk 3:5 as part of the military retinue of Yahweh. Similarly, the "hosts of heaven" are mentioned without criticism in 1_Kings 22:19 and Zephaniah 1:5, and the god El is continually identified with Yahweh.[152]
Israel inherited polytheism from late first-millennium Canaan, and Canaanite religion in turn had its roots in the religion of second-millennium Ugarit.[153] In the 2nd millennium, polytheism was expressed through the concepts of the divine council and the divine family, a single entity with four levels: the chief god and his wife (El and Asherah); the seventy divine children or "stars of El" (including Baal, Astarte, Anat, probably Resheph, as well as the sun-goddess Shapshu and the moon-god Yerak); the head helper of the divine household, Kothar wa-Hasis; and the servants of the divine household, including the messenger-gods who would later appear as the "angels" of the Hebrew bible.[154]