benja burns

Looking on this site (http://www.cygnus-study.com/) I found this:

El was originally the main god and Yahweh a god subordinate to him, right? If this is true then when the Hebrews became monotheistic the word 'el' could plausibly become simply 'God' in meaning, referring to any god but specifically Yahweh, couldn't it? If so, then Jesus was really saying 'My God' and not the name of an actual god. Is this a good possible explanation?

Thomas II

This has been taken out of context.
Jesus is actually making reference to Psalm 22. Look how it starts...

Aspirin99

It's also interesting that Matthew corrects Marks spelling.

Mark wrote: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani

Matthew corrected: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani

Of course, Matthew corrected Mark on several occasions.

Loomis

I think that for Yahwists, Yahweh was always the ‘main god.’ (Yahweh had his own religion.) But some Yahwists combined their religion with Baalism (El, Asherah, etc). Some of them pretended Yahweh was one of El’s 70 sons, and others just insisted that Yahweh was El.

I’m no expert, but I think the word ‘El’ is like Coke™ or Jell-O™. It began life as a proper noun and over time became generic. Ditto ‘Baal.’

Consider the possibility that the various stories involving the El and Yahweh characters were written by authors with different religious viewpoints. What I mean is; consider the possibility that the ancient Hebrews/ Israelites never ‘became’ monotheistic. Maybe some Hebrews/ Israelites were monotheistic, while others were polytheistic.

Where is there any evidence that the ancient Hebrews/ Israelites evolved from polytheism to monotheism?

It’s obviously Psalm 22.

Maybe the author(s) were trying to portray their Jesus character as Yahweh incarnate; and that they were playing along with the theme that Yahweh was one of El’s 70 sons.

That would explain a lot of things. Wouldn’t it?

I think the modern Christian ‘son of God’ idea is a direct descendent from El and Baal, and the Canaanites and Ugarits. In a sense, Jesus is the son of El, not the son of Yahweh.

Chris Weimer

You might want to check out the conversation between myself and Eric Bone here at Ebla.

judge

Matthew doesn't correct Marks spelling he just gives one dialect of aramaic.


In the Aramaic of mark we have the two different dialects for us.

See here.

Mark 15 in Aramaic

The greek translator only kept one of the two dialects Mark had in the original aramaic version.

Aspirin99

Thanks, I'll look into it.

judge

No worries. here is Matthew 27 in Aramaic .

Matthew is said to have been Judean and may have written in Judean dialect. Whilst Mark is said to have been Gallilean so perhaps he includes the words in the Gallilean dialect also.

There are a couple of other occasions in the aramaic versions where we see two different dialects, or one dialect explained into another dialect.

yalla

Judge,
Does that mean that at least one of them is wrong?
It seems that if an earwitness had heard the words of JC then the gospel writers, basing their material on that, should agree no matter what it "is said'' their dialects were. If they were reporting accurately.
Or is it that somehow, because their alleged Aramaic dialects are "said" to be different, that this leads to them somehow getting the translation from Psalm 22 into 2 versions?
Can you explain the mechanics as to how either of these scenarios could come about?
I thought one of them said that it had something to do with Elijah?
What is the process there?

Not having another language I don't understand how any of the above works.

judge

A possible scenario would be.

1. Jesus cries out in Galilean Aramaic.
2.Those from Judea do not understand and think he is crying out for Elijah.
3. Mark , being Galilean, records the actual dialect, but also includes the more common dialect so as not to confuse his readers.
4. Matthew being Judean, just writes out the words in Judean Aramaic, for his audience, so as they don't get confused.

5.The greek translator of Mark, includes the galilean words and instead of translating into judean Aramaic translates it into greek.

6.The greek translator of Matthew leaves in the Aramaic words but gives a translation (?) possibly a mistranslation, in greek.