Loomis

Elohim stands in the congregation of El; in the midst of the elohim he judges.

El is probably a proper name here, but it is also conceivable that the author was unaware of “El”. It’s conceivable that the author thought the phrase ‘congregation of el’ referred to a specific place or to a group of gods – but knew nothing about a specific father-god named El.

Elohim stands in the congregation of El; in the midst of the elohim he judges.

The first instance of Elohim is singular and synonymous the ‘God’. I bet it’s a gloss. I bet the original reading was Yahweh. The proof is in Psalm 14:2 vs. Psalm 53:2.

Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 are the same Psalm except that someone substituted ‘Elohim’ for ‘Yahweh’. You can’t tell which is the original just by comparing the two. But if you go back over to Psalm 82 you can see what’s going on:

Elohim stands in the congregation of El; in the midst of the elohim he judges.

The verse as it is, is obviously fucked up. Afaik this is the only place in the OT where these two usages of ‘elohim’ are in such close proximity. The best reconciliation for this (IMHO) is that someone systematically went through the Psalms and replaced all instances of ‘Yahweh’ with ‘Elohim’.

Loomis

There is no single unified definition, formula, or explanation that will reconcile everything and restore/ reveal the original meaning in all cases. These words obviously meant different things to different authors. They changed over time. And even then; once you keep that in mind; you have to deal with the sneaky bastards who inserted or changed things.

Genesis 14:20 is a good example:

Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have taken an oath to Yahweh the most high god, maker of heaven and earth

Fyi, the word Yahweh is a gloss. It was inserted later. The original author of Genesis 14 never heard of the god called Yahweh. His story was about El.

Loomis

Everyone has already mentioned Deuteronomy 32:8-9. That is the ‘poster child’ for demonstrating that Yahweh and El were once treated as separate gods. Yahweh and El are also treated as separate gods in Genesis 49.

If you read it carefully you will se that ‘Yahweh’ in verse 18 is not the same god in verses 25 or 26. Fyi some scholars argue that the 'gods' in verses 25 and 26 may actually be the goddesses Asherah and Rahmaya.

Loomis

In the Baal Epic Baal was a son of Dagon. He was adopted into El’s pantheon after he defeated Yam.

There is something similar to this in Psalm 89:5-10.

Also -

It looks to me like Baal also conflated with El. Yahweh seems more closely related to Baal than to El. If Yahweh conflated with El (and he certainly did) then it may be just because Baal did it first.

The evidence for this is in Isaiah 14:13-14 where the god who rules on the mountain of assembly (El) is described as hanging out on the slopes of Zaphon (Baal) and riding on the clouds (Baal).

That whole section is rich in Ugaritic imagery – and there is no immediate mention of Yahweh.

Loomis

No.

Malachi151

On Deut 8-9: In line 8 it says "When Elyon apportioned the nations..."

In line 9 I get "the Lord's own portion..."

Is "the Lord" in line 9 YHWH?

As for Genesis 49, I don't see the verses you are referring to. I see 18, 25 and 26, but that doesn't appear to be correct.

Loomis

Yes.

When a traditional Old Testament translation (like the King James Version) reads “the LORD” it always refers to Yahweh. When it reads “God” it is always referring to one of the ‘El’ variations (el, El, elohim, Elohim, or Eloah). The concordance at Blue Letter Bible might be useful. Scripture4All.org is even better.

Note that the Internet is full of weenies who want to argue about the ‘correct’ pronunciation of Yahweh. They will argue that it should be Jehovah, Yehovah , Yahveh, Jahveh, etc. Personally I think that subtopic is boring, but I’ve seen several good threads get derailed because of this; so I’m just warning you in advance before it actually happens.

As you can see I use Yahweh. But if you want YHWH I’ll type YHWH. It doesn’t make any difference to me.

Loomis

Fyi my source is Mark S. Smith.

Google {“Mark S. Smith” “Genesis 49”}

mg01

Is there no room to interpret what the original hymn here was as:

"The gods" stand in the congregation of El; in the midst of "the gods" he judges.

With the interpretation being that it is El himself chastizing the lesser elohim for not doing their jobs properly, and the opening as the elohim/gods standing in the presense of El. The Psalm does end with the elohim/gods being sent back out to their task. Though by reading (the first) Elohim as YHWH we get a nice scene where YHWH is doing the job of El.

I know the Hebrew text for "stands" indicates singular for Elohim, but could that not have been perhaps altered as YHWH (the) Elohim gained popularity and El faded in tha background?

HaRaAYaH

First of all, there is NO correct pronunciation of the word יהוה. The Hebrew letters are Yud, hay, vuv, hay. So of you were going to use am acronym it would be YHVH not YHWH. The Jews did attempt to pronounce the name so they placed vowel points under the letters to make it Adonai. The Orthodox will either only use it in prayers or not at all and replace it with hashem, The Name.
So if you are going to say it in English the word is Lord. If you wish to say it in Hebrew the word is Adonai or Hashem. The whole Yaweh, Jehovah crap es entirely a bunch of Christian crap that has no basis in anything....

Remember it's the name of God, like Zuess was the name of a God. It's just a name..