actually the early cult of YAWEH also worshipped ASHARA, his mate.

karlydee,

actually the early cult of YAWEH also worshipped ASHARA, his mate.

References?

By the way, I enojoy your linguistic posts. Good job.

-Pompous Bastard

ASHERAH , sorry for the spelling

also, the fertile crescent gods all seem to mix together

you have El Elion as in Elohiym
known sometimes as "BAAL of the EARTH"

funny how Baal becomes evil a few chapters later ...

anyway, ONE [there are many] of the stories has it that YAWEH defeated EL (father of Baal, others,[including Heylel [the morningstar] and head god of the Canaanite/Phoenecian pantheon] and took Asherah as his consort[from el], during that time, heyl[el] [the morningstar] jumped in to help dad - hence we have the heylel/Lucifer character as the antagonist to Yaweh.

Gen 14:20
And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

hmm.... funny how the phrase "most high god" is used.

If there was only one god, there would be NO NEED to spout off that this god is the most high. 'Most high god' implicitly makes the argument that there must have been other gods that were not 'most high' rather thay were; 'sort of high', 'not quite high', 'sort of middling', 'barely capable', and 'abjectly low'.

karlydee: "actually the early cult of YAWEH also worshipped ASHARA, his mate."

Did Not...(did too)...Did Not...(did too)...Absolutely DID NOT! There! Solidly refuted! heh...

Actually, I do disagree, but don't care to get into the above mess on this topic.

Anyway, to the real point of the thread:

SingleDad: "How often is "god" referred to in the OT as "Elohim"? Doesn't that mean "the gods" (plural) or "King of the gods" (again plural)?"

"Elohim" is used quite often in the Pentateuch and although plural in form, is occasionally singular in meaning.

For instance, the first verse of the Hebrew bible (I use the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), uses "Elohim" to refer to "God". This becomes clear when you look at the word "created" or "bara". In Classical Hebrew, the verb must agree with the noun and since "bara" is 3rd person singular, so also is the meaning of "Elohim".

There are other Hebrew words that are similar such as "water(s)" - "mayim" and "heaven(s)" - "shamayim". Sometimes we use the English word "water" this way - "The waters flowed peacefully by me." Can water be purely singular or purely plural? Can God be purely singular or purely plural?

As to whether there is any external evidence of "Elohim" used in the singular sense outside the Bible, I believe there is, but I'm not sure. When I find time, I'll look.

Ish

Interesting! Thanks, Ish!

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[This message has been edited by karlydee (edited January 03, 2001).]

You're welcome SingleDad.

If anyone's interested, Classical Hebrew is not incredibly difficult to learn (unlike Greek). P.S. - a little Hebrew will give you a slight understanding of modern Hebrew as well as other semitic languages which have words in common like "Ab" or "father". Cool!

A great book to start with is "Biblical Hebrew - Step By Step by Menahem Mansoor" (don't forget to buy the tape and answer book). I've used other author's books, but I learned best with his and enjoyed them both.

The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia is sort of like the OT equivalent of the Nestle-Aland or UBS Greek NTs. In other words, it is the original language plus apparatus (which list extant manuscripts w/ variant readings).

If you want to learn more about the Greek NT, I suggest any of Bruce Metzger's books.

You can find all of these right on any book sites like christianbook.com or amazon.com (got my stuff at amazon although christianbook has lower prices on some things).

Oh well, probably more information than anyone wanted or needed. However, I believe everyone should learn for themselves if the truth is important to them!

Respectfully,
Ish

yes, but the hebrew for "in the beginning" [re'shiyth] can also be translated as

"chief" or "best"

so [re'shiyth elohiym bara' 'eth shamayim 'eth 'erets] could easily be translated to say

" And the Chief of the Gods formed the air and the land "

and bara' would still refer to a 3rd deity singular, while an argument for pantheism [elohiym] can be maintained

combine that with the oft repeated "most high god" and the translation of

[re'shiyth elohiym] to mean Chief of the GODS is quite plausible

also

Num 15:21

Of the first of your dough ye shall give unto the LORD an heave offering in your generations.


the word "first" in this context would be more correctly translated as "best" concerning an offering to GOD

the hebrew for 'first' in this passage is

[re'shiyth]

and also


Job 40:19He [is] the chief [RE'SHIYTH] of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach [unto him].

karlydee:

"yes, but the hebrew for "in the beginning" [re'shiyth] can also be translated as "chief" or "best""

"re'shiyth" is derived from "rosh" meaning "head" (like the body part), "beginning", "chief", etc.

However,

"bere'shiyth", which is the true spelling of the word has the prefix "b" (meaning "in") attached. Unfortunately, just looking the words up in a hebrew lexicon will not always yield the true meaning of the word (context is needed).

karlydee:

"so [re'shiyth elohiym bara' 'eth shamayim 'eth 'erets]"

Actually, your Hebrew is incorrect. If you'll forgive my horrible transliteration skills, the Hebrew goes something like this:

"bere'shiyth bara elohim eth ha-shamayim ve'eth ha-aretz"

Your transliteration left off the "in" ("b" prefix), reversed the verb-noun order (should be "created God" not "God created"...), left off the definite articles ("the"), left out the "and" (or "v" before 2nd eth), and missed the transliteration of "earth" (should be ha-"a"retz, not the grammatically incorrect ha-"e"retz - but this might be an oversight). "eth", by the way, for those interested does not translate to english. It "sets off" the direct object in the sentence.

karlydee:

"...could easily be translated to say "And the Chief of the Gods formed the air and the land""

This would be an incorrect translation. To start with, there is no "And" at the begining of the sentence. The rest I mentioned above.

karlydee:

"and bara' would still refer to a 3rd deity singular, while an argument for pantheism [elohiym] can be maintained combine that with the oft repeated "most high god" and the translation of [re'shiyth elohiym] to mean Chief of the GODS is quite plausible"

Interesting thoughts, but I don't believe there are many scholars who would translate it that way. If you have a reference that does, would you post it so that I can investigate? Thanks.

I believe some, maybe all, translations of the Hebrew Bible (Jewish version - Torah) do translate it somewhat differently. Their version assumes that "bere'shiyth" is in the construct form and goes something like this:

"In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth..."

Check it out for yourself!

Respectfully,
Ish