YHWH a minor pagan god: Ugaritic Texts and the Sons of El

by DoomVoyager 129 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Crazyguy

  Hmmm2 not sure exactly what your getting at but notice this quote from many bibles,

  When Elyon gave the nations an inheritance, 2 When he scattered the sons of man,
  He established the borders of the nations,
  According to the number of the sons of Israel.
  But the portion of Yhwh is his people,
  Jacob is the scope of his inheritance.

  First this verse written this way doesnt make any sence "he established the borders of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel" if what is talked about is the nation of Israel. The NLT translates is this way "when the most high (EL) assigned lands to the nations, when he divided up the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number in his heavenly court. For the people of Israel belongs to the LORD, Jacob is his special people possession (or inheritance).

  Some thing to think about is if this passage is wrong and the one quoted in your artichle is correct then one has to ask what about this word Inheritance. Who would the most high god Yahweh get this inheritance from? This word is used agian at Isaiah 19:25 "for that jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, blessed be egypt my people, and assyria the work of my hands, and israel mine inheritance.asv

  So again who does the almighty god get an inhertance from if in fact he is the almighty god?
• 

  Hmmm.2

  Hmmm2 not sure exactly what your getting at but notice this quote from many bibles,

  When Elyon gave the nations an inheritance, 2 When he scattered the sons of man,
  He established the borders of the nations,
  According to the number of the sons of Israel.
  But the portion of Yhwh is his people,
  Jacob is the scope of his inheritance.

  First this verse written this way doesnt make any sence "he established the borders of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel" if what is talked about is the nation of Israel. The NLT translates is this way "when the most high (EL) assigned lands to the nations, when he divided up the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number in his heavenly court. For the people of Israel belongs to the LORD, Jacob is his special people possession (or inheritance).

  Hi, Crazyguy. Well, after going through the 'shields-up' article again, and after reading your post and looking over Leolaia's Post 11636 on page 1 again, I'm kind of not sure exactly what it is that I'm getting at. lol Sorry, but the 'shields-up' article is a bit confusing the way that it is written, but I think that the point that it is trying to make is that the DSS translation is only based upon a fragment, which only has the words:

  According to the number of the sons of God.

  Therefore, based on that, the author of that article expresses that the DSS manuscript does not support the claim that Deut 32:8 is referring to a Canaanite deity named El-Elyon who gave the nations their inheritence, since that part of the verse doesn't exist in the DSS manuscript.

  However, the more that I keep reading over all of this, the more that I am starting to understand a lot of the subtleties and nuances of these verses.

  For instances, I am now seeing that the article is being misleading by saying that there is no justification for thinking that the DSS manuscript for Deut 32:8 supports the idea of a Canaanite deity, when basically, no one really thinks that in the first place. Because from what I understand, the first part of Deut 32:8 is based upon the LXX manuscript, since that part of the DSS manuscript doesn't exist.

  However, I'm now seeing that the whole interpretation of El-Elyon being the head of the Canaanite patheon in verse 8 is actually based on the part of the DSS manuscript that was intact for verse 8.

  Also, Crazyguy, you made a very good and helpful point when you expressed how 'according to the number of the sons of Israel' doesn't make sense. Although actually, the LXX's 'according to the number of the angels of God' doesn't make sense either since there are currently 196 nations on earth(and obviously there were less than that when this scripture was written), even though the Bible mentions there being 100 million angels(myriad of myriads).

  But as far as what you asked about the word "inheritence," well, I had did a little bit of research on it, and there seemed to be some kind of 'Biblical' meaning for God having an inheritence. However, I didn't finish my research on that.

  P.S. How do you find this thread at this forum? Because if it wasn't for me either bookmarking this thread, or doing a search for it, I wouldn't know how to access this thread.
• 

  Crazyguy

  I say your post under active posts and yes the original thread would have to do a search. You can search under topic or by member. Anyway keep doing your research about the god of the canaanites being the god of the bible. There is a lot of evidence that was dug up out of the city called Ugarit that shows similarities in writings and discriptions of thier god El and thier lord Baal Hadod that are very similar to what's written in the bible. It my belief that the Hebrews worship El and in time Baal and then the atributes of the two were merged. This is not uncommon many cultures moved from one god to another or merged gods.
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  villagegirl

  There is lots of mention of other Gods, worshiped by the people of Egypt and various tribes in the area of what is now Palestine and Saudia Arabia , hundreds of Gods; there are many scriptures
  where Moses and later various Jewish prophets challenges the existance and power
  of the "foreign" "gods" there scriptures are a picture of a sort of battle of the gods.

  The Bible says there are gods many and lords many,

  Satan makes himself an Angel of Light, lots of other gods to

  claim to be the only one to follow, like the Governing Body's claims.

  A Psalm of Asaph.
  82 God has taken his place in the divine council;
 in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
  Psalm 82:1
  Wycliffe Bible (WYC)
  82 The psalm of Asaph. God stood in the synagogue of gods; forsooth he deemeth gods in the middle. (The song of Asaph. God standeth in the council of heaven; and he judgeth among the gods.)
  
  Psalm 82:1
  Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
  82 -- A Psalm of Asaph. God hath stood in the company of God, In the midst God doth judge.
• 

  LoisLane looking for Superman

  -----> Heliocentric and Hmmm.2

  Hello and Welcome to JWN.

  We are very happy to have you among us.

  We like bright people that are not afraid to question WT/GB authority.

  LoisLane

  PS The poster Leolaia has not been available for a while. She has several serious degrees and a boyfriend, which all take time.

  Try and leave her a PM in case she does come around and reads her messages.

  LL
• 

  bsmart

  Wonderful information here, I have to say I have read it before and always find it interesting. Some of the links dont work anymore. Bumping it to the top for anyone who missed it.
  
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  iXav

  the unfortunate thing about this thread is that majority of JW don't care about such details.
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  Phizzy

  "the unfortunate thing about this thread is that majority of JW don't care about such details."

  How strange that is ! When you think about it, these things are very powerful Evidence that their beliefs are WRONG !

  As I said elsewhere , they can't handle the TRUTH !

  
  
  It was Threads like this that helped me to expunge any JW beliefs, thoughts or feelings. Why oh why will they not examine their beliefs in the light of very strong evidence and the opinions of experts ?

  Because their Minds are Controlled and Locked Shut by the Org. They are in a sad mental Prison, where Light does not penetrate.
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  joey jojo

  I agree Phizzy, this is a really interesting topic.
• 

  Rocketman123

  What I find interesting is the the ancient Israelites practiced polytheism for a very long time, the bible even supports this but there has been an obvious attempt to kind of wash over this fact.

  In Israel and Judah[edit]

  Between the 10th century BC and the beginning of their exile in 586 BC, polytheism was normal throughout Israel;[25] it was only after the exile that worship of Yahweh alone became established, and possibly only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC) that monotheism became universal among the Jews.[26][27] Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshipped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel.[26][28][29] There are references to the worship of numerous gods throughout Kings: Solomon builds temples to many gods and Josiah is reported as cutting down the statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh (2 Kings 23:14). Josiah's grandfather Manasseh had erected one such statue (2 Kings 21:7).[30]

  Further evidence for Asherah-worship includes, for example, an 8th-century BC combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai desert[31] where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and several inscriptions.[32][33] The inscriptions found refer not only to Yahweh but to ʾEl and Baʿal, and two include the phrases "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah."[34] The references to Samaria (capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Teman (in Edom) suggest that Yahweh had a temple in Samaria, while raising questions about the relationship between Yahweh and Kaus, the national god of Edom.[35] The 'asherah' in question is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object (a stylised tree perhaps) to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, consort of ʾEl, is unclear.[36] It has been suggested that the Israelites may have considered Asherah as the consort of Baʿal, due to the anti-Asherah ideology which was influenced by the Deuteronomistic Historians, at the later period of the kingdom.[37] It has also been suggested by several scholars[38][39] that there is a relationship between the position of the gĕbîrâ in the royal court and the worship (orthodox or not) of Asherah.[40] In a potsherd inscription of blessings from "Yahweh and his Asherah", there appears a cow feeding its calf.[41] Numerous Canaanite amulets depict a woman wearing a bouffant wig similar to the Egyptian Hathor. If Asherah is then to be associated with Hathor/Qudshu, it can then be assumed that the cow is being referred to as Asherah.

  William Dever's book Did God Have a Wife? adduces further archaeological evidence—for instance, the many female figurines unearthed in ancient Israel, (known as pillar-base figurines)—as supporting the view that in Israelite folk religion of the monarchical period, Asherah functioned as a goddess and consort of Yahweh and was worshiped as the queen of heaven, for whose festival the Hebrews baked small cakes. Dever also points to the discovery of multiple shrines and temples within ancient Israel and Judah. The temple site at Arad is particularly interesting for the presence of two (possibly three) massebot, standing stones representing the presence of deities. Although the identity of the deities associated with the massebot is uncertain, Yahweh and Asherah or Asherah and Baal remain strong candidates, as Dever notes: "The only goddess whose name is well attested in the Hebrew Bible (or in ancient Israel generally) is Asherah."

  The name Asherah appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible, but it is much reduced in English translations. The word ʾăšērâ is translated in Greek as ἄλσος (grove; plural: ἄλση) in every instance apart from Isaiah 17:8; 27:9 and 2 Chronicles 15:16; 24:18, with δένδρα (trees) being used for the former, and, peculiarly, Ἀστάρτη (Astarte) for the latter. The Vulgate in Latin provided lucus or nemus, a grove or a wood. From the Vulgate, the King James translation of the Bible uses grove or groves instead of Asherah's name. Non-scholarly English language readers of the Bible would not have read about the figure for more than 400 years afterward.[42] The association of Asherah with trees in the Hebrew Bible is very strong. For example, she is found under trees (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10) and is made of wood by human beings (1 Kings 14:15, 2 Kings 16:3–4). Trees described as being an asherah or part of an asherah include grapevines, pomegranates, walnuts, myrtles, and willows.[43]