Cesc

John Kesler, thank you very much. Got it.

HaRaAYaH

Here is what you want from a Jewish point of view. This may also be useful.

Malachi151

Thanks for all the info in the thread, but I'm still not sure about one thing. In which texts are these names found? In a modern Hebrew Bible written in Hebrew are all of these various names found, or have they all been changed to a more generic "God", "Lord", etc., just as they are in Christian Bibles?

Have these names always been in all Hebrew texts of the Hebrew Bible? Were these names used in the Septuagint in some Greek translation, or in the Greek was everything changed to Greek generic words for God, Lord, etc.?

I guess what I'm getting at is, regardless of language, exactly in which texts would these names be found throughout history?

mg01

All the titles and names are in the Hebrew. In Greek YHWH Elohim (YHWH the Elohim) became "Kryios Theos" (Lord God). Not sure about the other titles but I would guess they may have been rendered simply Theos. All the varieties that exist in Hebrew dissappear in Greek and English in translation.

Thanks to John for the alternative to the link I set up. ATT took over the Bellsouth personal web page I had and I'm sure I don't have something right when I tried to redo it. I'm on vacation but will try to straighten it out when I return.

HaRaAYaH

They all appear in standard Hebrew version. If you want to learn Hebrew, it's not hard. Get a workbook and learn the aleph-bet (alphabet). Once you know the letters and can sound out the words. Get a concordance that has the Hebrew and the English side by side. It's really easy to pick to the basics..... You won't be a scholar, but it's always better to go back to the original or what you are looking at is a commentary as well as translation.

For the closest English version, get a copy by the Jewish Publication Society, it's closest to the original Hebrew text

HaRaAYaH

The file is great, however the vowel points would really be helpful....

HaRaAYaH

The version I have is 1967....

mg01

That's from the 1904 JPS I found online. I stripped the vowel points to make the highlighting macros easier after finding so many variations that looked to me like electronic transcription errors. See if there is a hidden column to the left of the Hebrew, it may still be there. If not I probably still have an older version with them and can get it to you after next week. Send me a PM if you like to remind me.

HaRaAYaH

Will do.....

neilgodfrey

You've prompted me to tidy up some old notes I took from Margaret Barker's book, The Great Angel, A Study of Israel's Second God, and post them up on my blog at last -- a task I have been wanting to get around to for a long time now. She does see a difference in usage throughout the Hebrew Bible, and other places, in how Yahweh and El are used.

In sum, sons of El/Elyon/ (Most High) are divine angelic figures, though in human form (Yahweh being a son of El too); while the sons of Yahweh are always mortal earthlings. She concludes that this difference in terminology has to go back to a time when Yahweh and El were distinct divinities.

Thomas L. Thompson has a good discussion of the adoption of Yahweh as Israel's god, too, in The Bible in History or The Mythic Past (same book, one a UK title, the other a US one, I think). Unfortunately I am nowhere near my copy of that book and unable to offer details myself now.

Neil