Loomis

That point was made before – a couple of times. Afaik, there is no disagreement about this.

Be honest: did you read the earlier posts?

Loomis

Thought #3

Go read Isaiah 14 again and look at where all the “Yahweh”s are. The are packed in at the top and at the end.

The purpose of the chapter is to hold the poem that begins in the middle of verse 7 and ends at verse 22 (exclusive).

I bet that the author of the poem never heard of the word “Yahweh.”

Notice that the (inner / older) poem makes no mention of “Babylon” either.

Loomis

Yes. It's the same thing. Sheshbazzar worships Baal.

Scholars like Mark S. Smith are arguing that Baal was a much bigger influence on Yahweh than El. I think he’s right.

There is a popular model that says that Yahweh was the new god on the block who first appeared as a son of El, but eventually morphed with El. He retained the name Yahweh and also took on the title “Elohim.”

But I think there is another model that might be more accurate:

Baal (not exactly Yahweh) was the god who began as a son of El, who overcame El in popularity, and who took on most of El’s characteristics. Over time Baal was the Elohim like we find in Psalm 82. But as the stories about Baal were growing and evolving, another change was taking place too: Baal was gradually changing his name to Yahweh.

The two models are very similar – but the second one does a better job of explaining verses like Psalm 82 – where Yahweh is notably absent.

Fwiw, the link below an easy read and packed with great information.

http://www.usbible.com/God/evolution_of_god.htm

As you can see – this shit drives me nuts. Loomis has to go back to real life now. :wave:

Naphtali Jones

Interesting theory. It would account for why Yahweh's priests were so hostile to Baal's and why there was the need for the big showdown with Elijah bringing fire down from heaven. Very similar to how the early roman church had to fight so hard against the mystery cults that were impinging on their territory.

I think that's it for me as well. It was a fascinating discussion though and I feel like I learned a lot. Thanks everyone who chipped in with something insightful; especially Loomis, Sheshbazzar and Pervy.

Phlox Pyros

Not sure I understand the hostility here, but I suppose I thought it was common scholarly knowledge that Yahweh was pronounced by few if any.

All one has to do is look at the actual Hebrew text of the Dead Sea scrolls to see what respect and reverence the name held as it was often written in Paleo-Hebrew to set it off from the rest of the text. When Hebrew vowel pointing was introduced, Yahweh was originally pointed with the vowels from the word "adonai" (or Lord) because the name was not pronounced (which of course led to the inaccurate name Jehovah). Come to think of it, I do not believe that the true vowels in "Yahweh" were transmitted down through history to us. Those vowels we insert are, I believe, an educated guess.

Anyway, this practice can still be seen with many Jews today when they write G-d instead of God.

"Lord" was a title used of men as well as Gods. I'm not sure what point you are making here. Can you point out the specific verse(s) you are referring to and why you are referring to them. (And, yes, you are correct. I did not read the rest of the thread...)

Steven Avery

Hi Phlox, nice to have you on forum.

These Yahweh theories for Tetragram pronounciation, which essentially date to late 19th century German scholarship, has been very stongly disputed in recent years, including the standard vowel point understanding.

The book by Gerard Gertoux is an excellent work (50 pages are on the web), Thomas Strouse and Carl Franklin have excellent articles, and there is some under-the-radar material from Nehemiah Gordon that focuses specifically on the Masoretic vowel points of the Tetragram.

They all offer excellent explanations of why the three syllable Jehovah (or Yehovah/Yehowah) is accurate while the 'Yahweh' theories really go under a cloud.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

No Robots

It was Moses who introduced the word "Yahweh":

Moses conceived the Deity as a Being Who has always existed, does exist, and always will exist, and for this cause he calls Him by the name Jehovah, which in Hebrew signifies these three phases of existence.

Spinoza, TTP.

To make the significance of this more clear, Constantin Brunner corrects the translation of the Shema (Deut. 2-4), from "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only God;" to "Hear, O Israel, Being is our God, Being is One."

In other words, Jahve is not a god. It is the term for the wholly abstract principle of the absolute unity of beingness.

Diogenes the Cynic

Moses is a purely mythological character. Mythological explanations really have no application to this discussion.

No Robots

You provide no evidence for that contention. Nor do you address the substantive etymological fact.


See no Moses, hear no Moses, speak no Moses.

Diogenes the Cynic

The evidence is as follows:

The Israelite people were never enslaved in Egypt.
There was no Exodus.
There was no period of sojourn in the Sinai Peninsula.


All of the above is conclusively proven by the archaeological evidence in Israel, in Egypt and in the Sinai. The Israelites were an indigeonous Canaanite people who never left the region. Since they never went to Egypt, since there was no exodus and since they were never in the Sinai, there is no room in history for a Moses.

Having said that, you should also be advised that the burden rests with you to prove that Moses was historical, not mine to disprove it. Can you prove that Hercules never existed?