judge

Yes, I misunderstood. Another good example.

spin

The modification of "god" to "Israel" is ancient. It was not until the DSS showed the original form and helped make sense of the LXX version ("angels of god") that the verse became clear. The DSS necessitates "sons of El" as the correct form. For a modern translator to maintain "sons of Israel" is now tendentious. Versions translated before the 1960s which feature "Israel" wouldn't have known the error. More recent versions are tendentious.

avi

I am not disputing your conclusion. I observe "Yahweh", not "El" in Deuteronomy 32:9.

Modern Hebrew
כי חלק יהוה עמו
יעקב חבל נחלתו׃

Yahweh is also observed in the Paleo-Hebrew (written before 585 B.C.)

Alternatively, have I simply misunderstood to which verse you had been referring, in citing the DSS, above:

Yes, I see now. You write that "El" is found in Isaiah 7:14 from DSS 1QIsaA, which then appears incorrectly in our text as "adonai".

It is interesting that the document from Qumran employs adonai, (or "El"), not yahweh, in the late text, Isaiah, suggesting that by 2nd century BCE, i.e. post invasion by Alexander, the written texts were eliminating reference to yahweh.

avi

manwithdream

If you are looking for tendentious translations, maybe you will find some on my site called http://www.messianicmistakes.com/

I analyze Christianity's Hebrew Bible proof quotes and I give my own alternative translations. I don't know if you will consider the translations in my ebook tendentious or not.

Kenneth Greifer

hjalti

The list seems to have the wrong veres, it's supposed to be Deu 32.8

This paleo-hebrew is just the use of another Hebrew font, this isn't some text we have from 585 bce.

avi

Thanks very much, hjalti. That helps!!!!

Seems very reasonable, to me. However, there may have been stone monuments, or wooden carvings, i.e. non-text methods of displaying the paleo hebrew characters, from ancient times....

My point was that at least in one verse, previously cited, DSS showed yahweh, spelled out.

Getting back to the business of analyzing Deu 32:8----

Modern Hebrew
בהנחל עליון גוים
בהפרידו בני אדם
יצב גבלת עמים
למספר בני ישראל

Please correct me, here, if I have erred....

a. It is my abc's approach to understanding Hebrew, (I am still at the letter a, of the abc's) that "aleph" represents both the first letter of the alphabet, AND, the word "El", translated as "Altissimus" in the Vulgate, so, I understand from this Latin version, that "El" is the biggie, from whom all other gods, including yahweh, are derived.....

b. If that is not in error, maybe this is: When I look for the letter "aleph" in this text from Deu 32:8, I observe only TWO letters, that my uneducated brain decodes as "aleph".
1. "adam"
2. "Israel"

So, two possibilities, emerge instantly: either I have missed another aleph in this passage, or Aleph is NOT the only way to represent "El" in Hebrew....
(One assumes that if spin writes that this verse contains reference to El, then, it does....)

conclusion: (ignoring my obvious lack of understanding of hebrew)
I don't find "El" in this text. I DO find yahweh, in the very next passage, and locate adonai in neither passage.....

avi

hjalti

Right, but you seemed to think that there was some text of Deu from 585 bce written in paleo-hebrew. That's not the case.

It's no wonder that you can't find El in the text, since you are looking at the Masoretic text. And the Masoretic text has "sons of Israel".

The Dead Sea Scrolls have "sons of El/god" instead of "sons of Israel".

avi

Thank you hjalti....

So, you write, then, that Deuteronomy 32:8 (in the dead sea scrolls, but not the Masoretic text) contains the word "El", or more precisely, the single letter, Aleph, whereas, the last word of the text I was examining, has Israel, i.e. Aleph plus four other letters.

May I inquire, where you have seen this text? I have just received DSS collection, on DVD, but have not yet examined it. I hope I will be able, with those three DVD's, since I have failed in an attempt to locate DSS online, to visualize this passage.....

I confess I haven't a clue about the theological distinction between "El" and "Israel". One is a god, the "highest", (or perhaps one notch lower than Alexander?,) indicated by a single character, and the other is a country, with requires five characters--is that a magic number perhaps? What about the daughters of El/Israel? Is it any wonder that there are so many conflicting interpretations of biblical passages, what with so much folderol emitted by these gossipy old storytellers?

avi

Vivisector

Spin,

One of the most obvious (and if I haven't read the thread carefully enough, apologies) is the Comma J. - but that raises the question, are you searching for self-serving translations of the accepted text, or self-searching choices of the variants to translate?

Cheers,

V.

judge

IIUC "sons of el" is seen to be an allusion to a cannanite or ugaritic style pantheon, and this a clue that the hebrews had a tradition of many gods rather than just one god. See here