Idolatry
If Got takes it away from you tomorrow are you Okay? If not you found identity in it. If you found identity in it, it has become your idol.
Understanding the Golden Calf
The Golden Calf
32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden[a] calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
When Moses went up into Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12–18), he left the Israelites for forty days and nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "a god to go before them". Aaron gathered up the Israelites' golden earrings and ornaments, constructed a "molten calf" and they declared: "'This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 32:1–4).
Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed the next day to be a feast to the LORD. So they rose up early the next day and "offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." (Exodus 32:6) God told Moses what the Israelites were up to back in camp, that they had turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses. Moses besought and pleaded that they should be spared and "the LORD repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people." (Exodus 32:11–14)
Moses went down from the mountain, but upon seeing the calf, he became angry and threw down the two Tablets of Stone, breaking them. Moses burnt the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, and forced the Israelites to drink it. When Moses asked him, Aaron admitted to collecting the gold, and throwing it into the fire, and said it came out as a calf (Exodus 32:21–24).
Main article: Levite
The Bible records that the tribe of Levi did not worship the golden calf. "Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said: 'Whosoever is on the LORD's side, let him come unto me.' And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them: 'Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.' And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men."(Exodus 32:26–28)
English Standard Version Exodus 32-33
21 And Moses said to Aaron, y“What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. zYou know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For athey said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So bI said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, cto the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you dkill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’ ” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And Moses said, “Today you have been eordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, f“You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; gperhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, fthis people has sinned a great sin. They have hmade for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if iyou will forgive their sin—but if not, please jblot me out of kyour book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, l“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. 34 mBut now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; nbehold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”
35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.
The Command to Leave Sinai
33 The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you oand the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To pyour offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an qangel before you, rand I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 sGo up to a land flowing with milk and honey; tbut I will not go up among you, ulest I consume you on the way, for you are a vstiff-necked people.”
4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they wmourned, and xno one put on his ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a vstiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would yconsume you. So now xtake off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
The Covenant Renewed
10 And he said, “Behold, oI am making a covenant. Before all your people pI will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an qawesome thing that I will do with you.
11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, rI will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 sTake care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a tsnare in your midst. 13 You shall utear down their altars and vbreak their pillars and cut down their wAsherim 14 (for xyou shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 slest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they ywhore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and zyou are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of atheir daughters for your sons, and their daughters ywhore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.
17 b“You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
18 c“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in dthe month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 eAll that open the womb are mine, all your male2 livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The ffirstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And gnone shall appear before me empty-handed.
21 h“Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 iYou shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 jThree times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will kcast out nations before you and lenlarge your borders; mno one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
25 n“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, oor let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 pThe best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. qYou shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words rI have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 sSo he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he twrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.3
Exo 32:1 - And when the people H5971 saw H7200 that Moses H4872 delayed H954 to come down H3381 out of the mount, H2022 the people H5971 gathered themselves together H6950 unto Aaron, H175 and said H559 unto him, Up, H6965 make H6213 us gods, H430 which shall go H3212 before H6440 us; for as for this Moses, H4872 the man H376 that brought H5927 us up out of the land H776 of Egypt, H4714 we wot H3045 not what is become of him.
אֱלֹהִים
el-o-heem'
Robbers and other godless people live safely at home and say, "God is in our hands!"
Understanding the Torah
What the Bible says about Tselem
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The word "image" is translated from the Hebrew tselem, and it means "shape, resemblance, figure, shadow." There is nothing abstract in it. This same word appears in Genesis 5:3: "And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image [tselem], and named him Seth."
Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his likeness, after his shape, after his resemblance, after his figure, after his shadow. Absolutely no one argues anywhere about the meaning of "image" here. There is nothing abstract.
Even as the animals reproduced after their kind, so did Adam and Eve reproduce after their kind. What they reproduced was in the form and shape of Adam and Eve. It was in their image. Only when we apply this to God do people begin to question, all on the assumption that God really does not have any shape. They claim that a human-like appearance is something that He uses only when convenient. However, that is not what the Bible testifies.
If we desire to be accurate with the Scriptures, we must be consistent with the way the Bible's writers used these words. The same word is used of Adam and Eve as is used of God.
God uses this word in Exodus 20:4—right in the second commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image [tselem] . . .." This is the same word as in Genesis 1:26. Does anybody contend that these carved images do not look like eagles, dragons, snakes, or men or women? No, the image, the idol, looks like, resembles, the shape, the form, of what it is being copied from. We also find this word in Leviticus 26:1; Psalm 106:19; and Isaiah 40:18-20; 44:9-17.
The word tselem appears seventeen times in the Old Testament, and even the liberal Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, which goes to great lengths to avoid saying it, admits that concrete form and physical resemblance must be considered for Genesis 1:26-27: "Perhaps we may conclude that, while much of the thought that there is an external resemblance between God and man may be present, Ezekiel, who was a priest, has it" (vol. II, p. 684).
Scripture cannot be broken; it does not contradict itself. The editors of the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible have to admit that tselem carries the meaning of concrete form and physical resemblance. Man looks like God. Continuing the quote: "However cautiously he states it, P [P stands for 'Priestly,' one of the four groups whom critical scholars believe edited the Bible] seems to have reached a measure of abstraction."
The editors of the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible are sneaky. "Well, maybe there is a concrete resemblance, and we know that Ezekiel has it, yet the fellow who wrote Genesis 1, perhaps he reached a measure of abstraction." How hard they find it to give up their assumption!
The same internal consistency happens with the word "likeness," which translates the Hebrew word demooth, meaning, "model, shape, fasten, similitude, and bodily resemblance." Notice Genesis 5:1, 3:
This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness [demooth] of God. . . . And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness [demooth], after his image, and named him Seth.
If demooth is used for God's creation of man in His image in Genesis 1:26, and then it appears in Genesis 5:1, 3, do we not have to apply the same discernment about what God intends? Demooth also appears in Isaiah 40:18; Ezekiel 1:5, 10, 13, 16, 22, 26, 28; 10:1, 22.
When we study the whole subject, we begin to understand why Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible had to write that Ezekiel showed man in physical resemblance to God.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part One)
Related Topics: Creation | Creation, Physical | Creation, Spiritual | God's Image | Image | Image of God | Physical Resemblance to God | Spiritual Creation
At the same time, Christian thought has insisted upon the principle of mediation and has rejected the charge that attachment to a mediating agency is automatically idolatrous. The Christian scriptures are called “the Holy Bible” not because they have an intrinsic holiness or are themselves the source of such holiness but because the God who alone is holy is mediated and disclosed to humans through the words of the Bible. Christians are not in agreement about the agents of mediation—e.g., about the role of the Virgin Mary and of the other saints. But where such mediation is acknowledged to be present, it is also acknowledged that reverence shown toward it applies not to the agent of mediation in and of himself but to the one for whom the agent stands. A special instance is the human nature of Jesus Christ (which is worthy of divine worship because of its inseparable union with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity) and the consecrated Host in the Eucharist (which may properly be adored because it has been changed into the very body of Christ). Although the accusation of idolatry is thus a part of the polemic of Christian against Christian, so that Protestants are accused of bibliolatry and Roman Catholics of Mariolatry, the fundamental meaning of the term is the direct moral corollary of the Jewish-Christian avowal of the oneness of God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.”
What Are You Idolizing?
How can we tell if we love something too much? I love drinking coffee. Coffee is a gift from God to be enjoyed. It defibrillates my body into working properly each morning. My workday orbits around coffee breaks. Sometimes I daydream about the coffee I’m going to drink after dinner. Sometimes I dream about brownies too. Big, fat, chocolate brownies that are still slightly warm. Coffee plus brownies almost equals heaven. Not really, but you know what I mean.
Do I love coffee too much? Am I a coffee idolater? How can I know if I love coffee or brownies or work or children or anything too much?
Here are several symptoms of idolatry:
You’re crushed when you don’t get what you want.
You stake your happiness on getting what you want.
You grumble and complain when you don’t have what you want.
You demand what you want.
We know we’ve become idolaters when a good thing has become a supreme thing. And the result of idol worship is always discontentment.
Idols are terrible masters. They demand our love, thoughts, affections, time, dreams, and desires. But they never satisfy, never deliver as promised. Idols always leave us in a state of dizzy discontentment.
We know we’ve become idolaters when a good thing has become a supreme thing.
A few different ways the word Idol and God is used
אֱלִיל ʼĕlîyl, el-eel'; apparently from H408; good for nothing, by analogy vain or vanity; specifically an idol:—idol, no value, thing of nought.
Lexicon :: Strong's H430 - 'ĕlōhîmאֱלֹהִים
Transliteration
'ĕlōhîm
Pronunciation
el-o-heem'
Part of Speech
masculine noun
Root Word (Etymology)
And when Sarah saw the son of Hagar (the) Egyptian, playing, or doing idolatry, with Isaac her son, (And when Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, mocking her son Isaac,)
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
And they rose (up) early, and offered burnt sacrifices, and peaceable sacrifices (and peace offerings); and the people sat (down) to eat and to drink, and (then) they rose up to play, or to scorn, for idolatry is (the) scorning of God.
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
ye shall not make to you an idol, and a graven image (nor a carved image), neither ye shall raise up titles, that is, altars for idolatry, neither ye shall set (up) a noble stone in your land, that ye worship it; for I am your Lord God.
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
but they would not hear them, and they did fornication, that is, idolatry, with alien gods, and worshipped them. Soon they forsook the way, by which their fathers entered; and they heard the commandments of the Lord, and did all things contrary. (but they would not listen to them, and they did fornication, that is, idolatry, with foreign, or other, gods, and worshipped them. And soon they deserted the way, by which their fathers went; and they heard the commandments of the Lord, but they did all things to the contrary.)
"A soul that turns away from You therefore lapses into sexual immorality when it seeks apart from You what it can never find in pure and serene form except by returning to You. All those who wander far away and set themselves up against You are imitating You, but in a perverse way; yet by this very mimicry they proclaim that you are the Creator of the whole of nature, and that in consequence there is no place whatever where we can hide from Your presence." − Augustine
The Song of Moses
¶
Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
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My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
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Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
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He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
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They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
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He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
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Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
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But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
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They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
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They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
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Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
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And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
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And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
Stiff Necked People
God Himself gave us the label of a stiff necked people, in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. The meaning since then has involved antagonism, stubbornness, argumentative, and going into minute detail in order to distinguish our point of view from others.
The latter trait fits the conception of pilpul (פלפול), which has intrigued confused, and annoyed Talmudic scholars for more than two millennia concerned with following the convoluted arguments of those who came before them.
God's accusation of our being stiff necked occurs in one of several stories where Israelites are portrayed as anything but unified.
It concerns the people's demands for idols, and Moses having to persuade God not to destroy His people.
To be stiff-necked is to be obstinate and difficult to lead. The Bible often uses this figure of speech when describing the attitude of Israel toward God (e.g., Exodus 33:3; Deuteronomy 9:13; Nehemiah 9:16; Acts 7:51). The term was originally used to describe an ox that refused to be directed by the farmer’s ox goad. When a farmer harnessed a team of oxen to a plow, he directed them by poking them lightly with a sharp spike on the heels or the neck to make them pick up speed or turn. An ox that refused to be directed in such a way by the farmer was referred to as “stiff-necked.” A stiff-necked animal (or person) refuses to turn the head in order to take a different path.
The Israelites were familiar with the term stiff-necked, so when the Lord used it to describe them, they got the message. Every farmer well understood the frustration of trying to plow a field or transport a cart when an ox was being stiff-necked. An ox that refused to be guided was useless for any real work. A stiff-necked ox was a disappointment in that it was not performing the task it was intended to perform. When God’s chosen people refused to love Him, honor Him, and obey Him, they were not living the purpose for which God chose them as His own (see Isaiah 41:8–9; Jeremiah 7:23–24; Exodus 19:5–6). God made His will clear to the Israelites, and their disobedience was rightly referred to as being stiff-necked and hard-hearted. As Israel rebelled against God, they ignored the “goads” that God used to try to redirect them.
Stephen, the first Christian martyr, used the term stiff-necked when he told the Jews they had murdered their Messiah. He said, “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him” (Acts 7:51–52). For his truth-telling, Stephen was stoned to death.
All human beings were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) for the purpose of reflecting His glory as we walk in fellowship with Him. But, since Adam’s sin in the Garden, we want to go our own way (Romans 5:12). God sent His Son to pay the penalty for that rebellion, and yet millions continue to reject His offer (2 Corinthians 5:21; John 3:16–18). Those who have the opportunity to know God but serve themselves instead are following the example of Israel in being “stiff-necked” (Hebrews 3:7–12).
God promises to guide His loved ones, and He pleads with them to not be stiff-necked:
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you” (Psalm 32:8–9).
Flee From Idolatry
The Plain Truth About Easter
by Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
1973
The Resurrection was not on Easter Sunday! Easter is not a Christian name, but the title of the idolatrous "queen of heaven." Here's an explanation of the true origin and meaning of Lent, Easter eggs, and sunrise services!
WHY DO you believe the things you believe, do the things you do?
The chances are you never stopped to ask yourself that question. You have been taught since childhood to accept Easter as the chief of the Christian holidays.
You have supposed it is part of the true Christian religion to observe Lent, "Holy Week," "Good Friday," to buy hot cross buns at the bakery, to have colored Easter eggs, to dress up and go to church Easter Sunday—perhaps to attend an Easter sunrise service!
Because of the "sheep" instinct in humans, most of us believe a lot of things that are not true. Most of us do a lot of things that are wrong, supposing these things to be right, or even sacred!
Ishtar the Pagan Goddess
What is the meaning of the name "Easter"? You have been led to suppose the word means "resurrection of Christ." For 1600 years the Western world has been taught that Christ rose from the dead on Sunday morning. But that is merely one of the fables the Apostle Paul warned readers of the New Testament to expect. The resurrection did not occur on Sunday!
The name "Easter," which is merely the slightly changed English spelling of the name of the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian goddess Ishtar, comes to us from old Teutonic mythology where it is known as Ostern. The Phoenician name of this goddess was Astarte, consort of Baal, the sun god, whose worship is denounced by the Almighty in the Bible as the most abominable of all pagan idolatry.
Look up the word "Easter" in Webster's dictionary. You will find it clearly reveals the pagan origin of the name.
In the large five-volume Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, only six brief lines are given to the name "Easter," because it occurs only once in the Bible—and that only in the Authorized King James translation. Says Hastings: "Easter, used in Authorized Version as the translation of 'Pascha' in Acts 12:4, 'Intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.' Revised Standard Version has substituted correctly 'the Passover.'"
What does the Dictionary Say?
Dictionary
i·dol·a·try
/īˈdälətrē/
noun
the worship of idols.
ORIGIN OF IDOLATRY
Middle English idolatrie from Old French from Latin īdōlolatrīa from Greek eidōlolatreiā eidōlon idol idol latreiā service
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th EditionFrom Old French idolatrie, ydolatrie, from Late Latin īdōlatrīa, from Ecclesiastical Latin īdōlolatrīa, from Ancient Greek εἰδωλολατρία (eidōlolatria, “worship of idols”), back-formation from εἰδωλολάτρης (eidōlolatrēs) (īdōlatra in Latin), from εἴδωλον (eidōlon, “idol”) + λάτρις (latris, “worshipper”) or λατρεύω (latreuō, “I worship”), from λάτρον (latron, “payment”); cognate with modern French idolâtrie, Italian idolatria, Occitan ydolatria, and Spanish idolatria.
In ancient Greek literature, an eidolon is a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form. The concept of Helen of Troy's eidolon was explored both by Homer and Euripides. Wikipedia
idolatry, in Judaism and Christianity, the worship of someone or something other than God as though it were God. The first of the biblical Ten Commandments prohibits idolatry: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Several forms of idolatry have been distinguished. Gross, or overt, idolatry consists of explicit acts of reverence addressed to a person or an object—the sun, the king, an animal, a statue. This may exist alongside the acknowledgment of a supreme being; e.g., Israel worshiped the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai, where it had encamped to receive the Law and the covenant of the one true God.
A person becomes guilty of a more subtle idolatry, however, when, although overt acts of adoration are avoided, he attaches to a creature the confidence, loyalty, and devotion that properly belong only to the Creator. Thus, the nation is a good creature of God, but it is to be loved and served with an affection appropriate to it, not with the ultimate devotion that must be reserved for the Lord of all nations. Even true doctrine (e.g., true doctrine about idolatry) may become an idol if it fails to point beyond itself to God alone.
Other Places Idolatry is Mentioned in the Bible
What does the Archeology say?
The eyes are fully intentional. The current understanding is that they were made like that because they were used as offerings to gods begging for mercy from natural disaster or for good harvests. It’s like when your a kid and would act cuter when asking your parents for something
I will begin my review of the Sumerian religion with the following assumptions: that the Bible is a correct and true record of the history of man; that the posterity of Noah formed the first civilization following the flood; that the land of Shinar mentioned in the Bible is equivalent to the land of Sumer; and that Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, was the first king following the flood, and the first king of the Sumerians.
If the above assumptions are correct, then the original and true religion, passed down through Noah after the flood, was taught in its purity to his posterity, and any deviation from these principles was a result of apostasy and false doctrines.