Sheshbazzar

Then it IS Mr. Winkler's personal 'inventing' of -"magical"- 'rituals' that forms the only basis of your conjecture that 'Yah' and 'weh' were two separate names for "two separate deities conjoined".
What is lacking in your reply is ANY evidence that;

(1) A word, 'weh' even exists in Hebrew, and IF it does, then,

(2) that this 'word' can be proved to have anciently had the meaning that you are attempting to assign to it, "..female, i.e. mother earth", and that,

(3) It was ever separately employed as the name of a "female..mother earth" deitiy by the ancient Hebrews, to be "conjoined" with anything.

And even if all of the above could in some wise be proven, such a 'teaching' or 'explanation' would require approval by Levitical "Decision" (Deut. 17:12-13, 21:5, 25:1-2) that is also proved to be the accepted and formal teaching of the authorized Levitical Priesthood.
Personally, I have no doubt at all as to what manner of 'Decision' they would reach upon being presented with a 'teaching' of this type.

Anat

Dharma, your interpretations of Abraham's nature are from midrashim and later literature. And you take them at face value, which isn't necessarily how the stories were intended to be taken. Midrashim are often very imaginative and if you follow a series of them on a certain topic they sometimes look like a contest of 'who can come up with the most exaggerated interpretation of this phrase?' The midrashim about Abraham are intended to portray him as someone who discovered monotheism early on despite being surrounded by a polytheistic society, and as someone who was prepared to take risks and make personal sacrifices for his loyalty to his faith. They fill in those missing 75 years in his life before he made it to Canaan and describe how his faith might have developed. The midrash about being saved from fire doesn't show Abraham's divine nature, but the fact that God was taking care of him and protecting him, and Abraham's confidence in such protection (somewhat different from Abraham's behavior in Egypt, in Genesis 12).

Dharma

Yah supposedly means "I am" and weh supposedly makes it mean "I am who I am."

Now, getting back to the fact that the Jews do hold dear not only the name of Yahweh, but the letters or the Tetragrammaton that forms his name YHWH
Yod Heh Wav Heh

In other words, it's not the words, but the letters themselves and their sounds, which would make Mr. Winkler's assertion correct.

Dharma

Again, your assumption is that the older interpretations are correct and the "newer" or mystical ones are incorrect? Again I would disagree with preistly interpretation. Why would the Torah call Abraham an "Elohim", as the word Elohim was used in "Let their be light", this term is not to be taken lightly.

Elohim of course is probably the polytheistic pantheon term, servants of El or the God Ila (later Allah), which is why Moses, Abraham, host of angels, divine Judges, etc. are all called Elohim.

Also, Abraham was not the first monotheist, since Abraham himself worshipped El and later Yahweh, a different God was attributed to him.

Again, the I can give you quotes from the Egyptians as well as other religions that say there is only one universal force...so monotheism is nothing new.

Anat

What do you mean by correct or incorrect? Are you asking about the correct depiction of a person named Abraham who made a journey from mesopotamia to Canaan? I am talking about correct reflection of the intent of the author. The intent of the authors of the Abraham stories in Genesis is to portray him as an earthly human with a personal relationship with his deity. Due to multiple sources and editing I can't say whether the stories are about one deity with different names or several deities. I agree that even if the stories are about one deity with several names they could have originated as stories about different deities. So either one deity wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and the other saved Isaac at the last moment, or one deity was playing both parts, or there were 2 independent stories, one in which Isaac died and one in which he was saved, that got edited together.

The midrashim were written much later, by different people with a strict monotheistic theology (but they also believed in angels and demons - beings with supernatural powers that act in the world, though neither can act against the wishes of the one deity) and portray Abraham as one who follows their theology. Hence the storied about Abraham trying to figure out whom to worship (should he worship fire? or the water that puts the fire out? or the clouds that bring the water? etc until he decides there must be one deity that runs the show.) And the story about Abraham breaking his father's idols. Also, since they were surrounded by members of other religions they reflect their own conflicts in their interpretations of Abraham's life.

From my POV as an atheist, myths and legends do not tell me about the world as I see it, but about how the author saw the world, what hir concerns were and what answers s/he found.

The origins of monotheism in other cultures are irrelevant - what is important is that those who composed stories about a legendary founder named Abraham depicted him as discovering a monotheistic belief system on his own.

Chris Weimer

Abraham was called an elohim, but so were judges and angels, in fact, by the time we get to deuteronomistic history, El simply means Power. (Which is why Gospel of Peter is still being debated about to this day.)

Anat

Actually he was called 'nsi elohim' a prince of God, but never mind. Judges indeed were called elohim.

Chris Weimer

Ah good catch, I didn't even bother looking up the passage. And it wasn't even the narrator who called Abraham a nasi elohim, but the sons of Chet (Hittites, IIRC).

Sorry Dharma, you now lose ALL credibility.

Clivedurdle

I am not sure I agree with you Chris, Dharma is making some very intersting arguments. Polytheism is the norm, but we have been very conditioned to read the Bible as monotheistic.

The thread here has some interesting links.

Which God?

spin

It's not other people's interpretations which are important, it's what the text means. Citing people's interpretations won't necessarily get you anywhere.

You've been told why and you have chosen not to respond. You start with the text, not the interpreters.

When Abraham worships El or Yahweh, you are trying to make him a god? This doesn't make sense. Either you are god or you are not; either you are worshipped or you are not.

How do you distinguish the work of a redactor from that of a historian?


spin