contracycle

Are you calling Jacob a liar?

CJD

The "us" refers to the "royal we"; this stupid thread should haved ended on page two.

Doctor X

CJD:

Yet you labor to keep it alive. As noted above, there is not "royal we" in Hebrew.

spin:

actually they gave the evidence. The "traditional" opinion was that it could be a "royal we" but apparently this was not supported by the evidence. The problem I have is with my pathetic knowledge of Hebrew I feel like I am describing a debate between Tipler and Hawking--have no idea what they are talking about specifically, but I can note that Hawking ran over Tipler's foot at one point.

I will see if I can get something "concrete."

More likely I am switching inscriptions . . . both tend to get discussed at the same time. This is what I get for not having the reference in front of me. The guy behind the "big book" catalogues just about every iconographic depiction of a deity linked to the area. I will have to check what he has to say about Khirbet el-Qom--I "switched" to the one with the two Bes figures . . . of course, I left the source at home.

Anyways, his caution is simply that we do not have clear depictions of a "Mr. and Mrs. YHWH" that we would expect. He does not deny or try to refute the prevailing opinion that Asherah was conceived of as a "Mrs. YHWH" and worshiped as such.

It is actually not all of Cross's--his book references an article on the subject I have yet to find--probably writen in Hebrew with footnotes in Etruscan. I am not sure how this "oldest information" challenges Cross. To my recollection, Cross does not give a "date" for "when" the verb becomes a god.

It is common for levels of deities to advance.

Relax spin, the hounds are merely trying to be friendly. I am not "shoving" Cross down or up any of your orifices. I am merely indicating what happens to be the reference. You can look at it and reject it if you wish. As far as I know, it is accepted--no "Cross Suck's YHWH is a Definite Article!" papers have come out.

Are you rejecting the documentary hypothesis? If anything, your second sentence supports it.

With your final paragraph, the references could, indeed, come from the Ugarit. There is a great distance, as others complain, but as the Iconography Book of Doom I referenced above shows--if you can stay awake reading it--iconography from many cultures such as Egypt spread about, and not because roving bands of invading Egyptians dropped them there. It appears that cultures were able to influence on another.

Did the Ugarit, Hebrew have a common start of a religion? I do not know, but you actually agree with Cross in that he points to many correspondences between Canaanite and "Hebrew" myth. The mere fact you have "prophets" getting their loin cloths in knots over Asherah and Baal demonstrates a lot of blending.

As for the Chronicler, yes, he is clearly post-exilic and you are probably correct that the significance of the names was lost on him.

--J.D.

nermal

Someone made a movie about him.

Sorry, tasteless.

Ed

Amos

There is a difference between meeting God face to face and seeing the face of God. Seeing the face of God is fornication and therefore death and meeting God face to face is the Beatific vision and therefore life eternal.

Jacob was bound to win without his 11 sons, two wives, two maidservants and all his possessions. The eleven sons were his shepherds, his two wives were love and hate and his maidservants were pleasure and pain. Jacob was bereft of all his belongings and the angel removed the main stronghold of his life here called his hip . . . which is the strongest muscle of the human body.

spin

Royal we:

Doctor X said, 'The "traditional" opinion was that it could be a "royal we" but apparently this was not supported by the evidence.'

This is a little repetitive stress. I have already pointed out that the writer of the first creation account is monotheistic. There is no direct evidence either way on the "royal we", as it appears only twice with God as the talker (that's the "concrete" info) so we don't have enough data, but it handily explains the apparent plural in a plainly monotheistic text. Unless you have anything to add, can we leave it at that?

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The text content of the phrase about blessings from YHWH and his Asherah are quite similar in the two major Kuntillet Ajrud texts and that of Khirbet el-Qom. One of the Kuntillet Ajrud texts is on an amphora which features a couple of drawings, one of a person playing a lyre and the other with the Bes-like appearance. I can't remember who the archaeologist was (he had a name like Meshel I think), but it is unjustified to make a connection between the inscription on that amphora and the images. There is no sign of a planned connection on the artefact.

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I said, " Kuntillet Ajrud texts mention "YHWH of Samaria" and "YHWH of Teiman". These are some of our oldest information about YHWH and they don't support Cross's guess."

Doctor X said: "It is actually not all of Cross's--his book references an article on the subject I have yet to find--probably writen in Hebrew with footnotes in Etruscan. I am not sure how this "oldest information" challenges Cross. To my recollection, Cross does not give a "date" for "when" the verb becomes a god."

The importance of the dating is that Kuntillet Ajrud is one of the earliest epigraphic remains of the name of YHWH. The only I other I seem to recall is one from Egypt which could be a YHW. These names are stand-alones, which is the point I was making. Cross, or whoever, has no earlier evidence than this, which doesn't support him. (Forget Cross, huh? I've had people trying to feed me Cross for too long. He's helped make scrolls research the mess it is today.)

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Doctor X: "Are you rejecting the documentary hypothesis?"

As it stands, yes. It's too simplistic as usually bandied about and when it becomes more complex then you get what I call the alphabet soup, which is in no way verifiable (or falsifiable).

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Doctor X: "With your final paragraph, the references could, indeed, come from the Ugarit."

Well, I think there's a thousand years between the time of Daniel and Ugarit (which was destroyed about 1180 BCE and Daniel was finished about 165 BCE and Isaiah at the most optimistic was over 400 years later than Ugarit). There isn't a hope in hell that they are directly related. With similar cultic tropes available within the Hebrew culture as well as that at Ugarit, we have a shared common source, call it Semitic or Canaanite. (This way I don't need to remember the complexities of Ugaritic syncretisms with other materials.) What this cashes out to is that the Hebrew culture preserved polytheistic traditons for much longer than usually credited. "Cultures were able to influence on another." True, but in our case, the easiest trajectory was from a common source into each rather than from one to the other with a hiatus of 1000 years.

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Doctor X: 'you actually agree with Cross in that he points to many correspondences between Canaanite and "Hebrew" myth.'

Cross is a reputed scholar. He can't mess everything up.

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Doctor X: "As for the Chronicler, yes, he is clearly post-exilic and you are probably correct that the significance of the names was lost on him."

Especially if Chronicles was complied around 100 CE.


spin

Doctor X

Not necessarily. The P writer does not seem to have a problem with more than one god, just that his god becomes primary compared to the others.

Certainly. I have to ask smarter people than I [They are legion.--Ed.]. If they come up with something substantial either way, I will add it in.

Whilst writing that, I found this quote from the web-page below:

Right, here was what I was looking for:

Kuntillet 'Ajrud, Khirbet el-Qom and "Yahweh's Ashera":

. . . excavations at Kuntillet 'Ajrud . . . uncovered remains of a caravanserai that can be dated to the first half of the eight century. . . . [Source then describes the pithoi--or pottery shards--one of which has two Bes figures mentioned and the inscription in question.--Ed.]

Hey . . . here is a picture of the Kuntillet 'Ajrud:



The webpage linked to the picture has an extensive description of it, using Keel & Uelinger as a source. It actually does most of my work from me--quoting Keel & Uelinger--so I will merely link it.

Yahweh of Samaria and His Asherah[/i]

[At this point the text of the summary became obliterated and he put his fist through the keyboard.--Ed.]

Right, here is the summary from Uelinger and Keel:

What is of greatest interest to us in this study, however, is the interpretation of the phrase "Yahweh . . . and his ashera," since it is a stereotypical refrain in the blessing formulas . . . in all three cited inscriptions; in particular, what is meant by 'srth "his asherah," in other words, *'srt yhwh "Yahweh's asherah." The debate has continued for over a decade, and we highlight the following hypotheses:

(a)'srth refers to the goddess Asherah, who is known in Ugaritic texts as the consort of El and is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in conjunction with Baal, and she is the female partner of Yahweh. . . . Authors adopting this point of view face the problem that there is not clear evidence for the goddess Asherah in Canaanite/Phoenician inscriptions that date to the first millennium. . . .[Lists a recent discovery and reinterpretation of a text that may suggest otherwise.--Ed.] They rely on the fact that '(a)serah clearly refers to a goddess in certain passages in the Hebrew Bible, with the "clearest" texts being 1 Kgs 15:13 // 2 Chr 15:16; 1 Kgs 18:19, gloss; 2 Kgs 21:7, 23:4, 6f. . . . But in all those cases it reads ha = '(a)serah . . . or else la = '(a)serah, . . with the article. Since Hebrew never uses double determination (article + proper name), '(a)serah cannot strictly be treated as a proper name. But the determination, with the article, that gives the nomen its quality as a proper name, is perhaps to be understood as the deuteronomistic technique for slandering "Canaanite" deities (analogous to ha = ba'al). [Footnote here notes that a scholar Hadley feels this represent a shift from a goddess to a cult symbol.--Ed.] But even if asherah is supposed to refer to a goddess in the cited passages . . . [they] are not particularly helpful for interpreting 'srth "his [i.e. Yahweh's] asherah" in the texts of Kuntillet 'Ajrud because, without exception, these are essentially later, deuteronomistically redacted texts. . . . these texts make no mention of Yahweh's asherah in Samaria or Teman. . . . The issue concerning "Yahweh's asherah" in Samaria and Teman in the early eighth century is independent of this question about cultic image in seventh century Jerusalem. . . .

The grammatical rule just mentioned, that double determination is excluded and therefore that a proper name cannot also be furnished with a possessive suffix, argues as well against the assumption that 'srth "his [Yahweh's] asherah" might refer to a personal, independent goddess and partner of Yahweh in the inscriptions found at Kuntillet 'Ajrud.

(b) This frequently cited grammatical objection [Footnote lists many references.--Ed.] has led to other interpretations, treating *'srh as a generic indicator for "goddess" or as an appellation meaning "consort" . . . . Neither translation is convincing based in fact.

(c) [Objects to trying to make it "YHWH's shrine."--Ed.]

(d) In the Old Testament the term '(a)serah (plural '(a)serim) refers to a cultic object as a rule. The biblical texts never actually describe this object, except to say that it was made of wood, that it was "made" or "set up" which suggests that it is an artifact. . . . For this reason, this cultic object is usually conceived of as being in the shape of a stylized tree, . . just as it is pictured, among other places, on Pithos A from Kuntillet 'Ajrud. . . . [Unfortunately, that is not on the part shown in the picture. In Uelinger and Keel it is, indeed, a tree.--Ed.] The frequently discussed connection between the goddess and the stylized tree in the history of the traditions supports this idea. . . . [References previous discussions of goddess and tree depictions.--Ed.]

The controversial reference to 'srth in the inscriptio from Kuntillet 'Arjud thus most likely refers to such a cultic object. Among other passages, Deut 16:21 and 2 Kgs 23:4,6, 15 make it clear that asherah could be found very close to Yahweh or to his alter.
. . . .
The iconographically important evidence, referring transparently to the goddess by means of a stylized tree, but which even more frequently represents a gender-neutral symbol of numinous power, can best be understood if we interpret the Iron Age IIB asherah as a mediating entity associated with Yahweh, rather than as a personal, independently active, female deity. . . .

A slightly more recent Judahite inscription (second half of the eighth century), scratched on bedrock in a tomb at Kirbet el-Qom, about 13 km west of Hebron, apparently confirms this understanding of "Yahweh and his asherah" in the sense of a deity and an entity that is subordinate. . . . It was written above a drawing of a large hand pointing downward. The hand should be perhaps interpreted apotropaically. . . . [Has picture which does not seem to be available.--Ed.]

[Translates the inscription.--Ed.]

Line 1 "Uriyahu, the honorable, has written [this] (or: this is his inscription)
Line 2 Blessed is/be Uriyahu by Yahweh
Line 3 And [because?] from his oppressors,
by his asherah, he has saved him
Line 4 [written?] by Oniyahu."
Line i ". . . by his asherah . . .
Line ii . . . and by his asherah

Uelinger and Keel argue that the fact that Line 3 is formulated in the singular, only one divine power, YHWH, is the active agent and Asherah ". . . is the medium or entity through which it happens."

Uelinger and Keel's book is, as I noted, thorough and often tediously so. However, relevant to the discussion they note:

they then note representations of El and "his asherah."

Right:

I have just given you a potentially earlier one--700--that links YHWH to El. Your objection is not really relevant at all to Cross. Cross wrote about those particular inscriptions prior to the publication of the book I recommended to you. Methinks you should check out his argument and critique it directly. After all of this, I am loath to write-out a summary of his chapter! Incidentally, whether or not he has fucked up scroll research has no relevance to his conclusions on the name YHWH. As I noted above, to my knowledge, no one has an alternative. Uelinger and Keel use both of Cross' works and do not seem to feel the inscriptions at all challenge his conclusions.

Then I have to send you to Friedman and his Who Wrote the Bible?. He eschews the "alphabet soup" and notes, frankly, if one does not like the Documentary Hypothesis, they have to argue against it. Perhaps this is better for another topic.

Indeed.

Analysis that tries to force monotheism on the Pentateuch authors tries to preserve the religious tradition scholars grew up with in Sunday School or at Temple--Jews always worshipped one god and he happens to be the one at this church.

As above, the "monotheism" preserved seems to be more of a "my god is better than yours." Of course, what is preserved in the OT is not necessarily what people did. As in other topics on child sacrifice, it is generally accepted that this was, once, a part of the cult . . . exactly when and all of that is another subject. OT writers try to "apologize" for this in some interesting ways.

Similarly, whether or not Uelinger and Keel's caution is valid--that we should not use these inscriptions to conclude as fact that we have a "Mrs. YHWH"--it does seem clear that at some time YHWH was connected with a goddess then probably later a cult-symbol and it was popular enough for certain OT writers to condemn.

--J.D.