References to YHWH in ancient documents

by Doug Mason 110 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Doug Mason

  Thank you for your kind offer Ruby. i will keep you in mind, and if I need help in the future we would need to communicate via email.

  Right at this moment I am extracting material from "Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority" by Bernhard Lang and then I will be doing the same with "Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel" by Saul Olyan.

  There are others I have yet to consider, including works dealing with the Judahite Pillar Figurines.

  I have worked my way through several other sources, such as "The Birth of Monotheism" by Andre Lemaire, "The Female Goddess", Patai, "When God was a woman", Stone, the books by Mark Smith, by John Day, and by William Dever. and so on.

  My intention is to focus on the Israelites, in other words up to and including the Neo-Babylonian Era. I plan to consider the subsequent era from about 550 BCE (round figure) up to 100 CE as Jewish (not Israelite). I then see Christianity evolving from the second century.

  So that's where I am at. It's the stage we called the "brown paper bag" stage, where all sorts of potential ideas are collected.

  There are books I would like to access but the prices are exorbitant and I wonder whether they would have added to the picture.

  Doug
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  Ruby456

  Wow - I am reading Patai,s book at the moment - and am reminded so much of leoleaia and her posts

  also reading Jan Assman the Egyptologist

  edit: I have some access to exorbitantly priced books and articles and also have somewhat of a background in religious studies and of course the process of historiography
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  truthseeker

  Enjoyed reading this Doug, please keep the posts coming.
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  Crazyguy

  I think one thing that needs to be considered is the fact that the Jewish gods name was being written as ywh or something similar way before the massorites. This idea that the massorites said gods name is to holy to write down and substituted his name for yhwh is crap. The partial spelling of the Tetragrammaton is found in older writings.

  There is a writing found of Jews stating gods name as ywh I believe and then has a picture a old Egyptian god Bes. Some believe an old Egyptian moon deity with a similar name and spelling as ywh is the god of the Jews and over time he morphed or absorbed some of the other Egyptian gods and was himself absorbed into the god Osiris. There is a statue of the god El wearing a hat that looks similar to that of the hat of Osiris.

  The Egyptians traded and heavily influenced the Canaanites all the way up to the ancient city of Ugarit where they worshipped El . The Hittites just north of there also had a pantheon of gods very similar to that of the Egyptians.

  Moses name and that of Solomon are Egyptian. Maybe the story of Moses was to help push the influence of an Egyptian deity over the more Canaanite Baal ?
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  Earnest

  Doug, last July I attended a seminar on Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology where one of the speakers, Professor K. Lawson Younger, Jr, spoke on "The gods of Aram' (Judges 10:6) in Light of Recent Research'. It was a fascinating talk on a subject I knew little about, but you might find his writings useful in your research. He has recently written a book on A Political History of the Arameans and writes about it here.

  One thing I found most interesting from his talk and subsequently chatting with him, was that although some nations did have gods such as El, the Israelites did not and used 'el' in the same way they used 'elohim' viz. as a noun meaning 'god', not as a name of a god. This is obviously relevant to any proposed evolution of the worship of Jehovah.
  
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  Crazyguy

  Earnest, your guy maybe an expert in the Arameans but what he says about the Hebrews is just popular propaganda. The Hebrew alphabet starts with the Alef a bulls head. The god El was depicted as a bull and so is Jehovah. Most of the descriptions about the god El are also descriptions of Jehovah .
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  Doug Mason

  If you do not have ready access to "Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority" by Bernhard Lang, I have made Chapter 1 temporarily available at:

  http://www.jwstudies.com/Monotheism__Minority__Lang__chapt_1.pdf
  

  Apologies for the quality of the scan, but my intention to make it was purely personal.

  Doug
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  Doug Mason

  crazyguy,

  The Masoretes are from relatively recent history. If you want to read about their influence, "Textual Criticism Of The Hebrew Bible" by Emanuel Tov includes interesting insights -- as well as on many many other things. It is a very thorough and technical book.

  For instance, he says that when the Masoretes created their version -- and destroyed all previous ones -- they set in concrete all the previous errors.

  Doug
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  Doug Mason

  crazyguy,

  My understanding is that the northern nation of Israel were early adopters of EL and his pantheon of gods. After all, they are called IsraEL, not Israyhwh.

  Moses obtained his knowledge of YHWH from the Kenites, who I understand lived in Midian. His father-in-law was a priest and Moses' wife had to teach Moses that YHWH required male circumcision. Moses brought YHWH up with him, where the people were worshiping EL (shaddai).

  The Kenites remained alongside the Israelites and they continued to support one another.

  I have a suspicion that Judah and Israel were different people speaking different languages, but I am open to correction on that (and on anything). The two nations were united only under three kings.

  The northern scribes produced documents promoting their perspectives (E) while the scribes in the south, at Jerusalem, produced not only their version (J) but also their demand that worship become centralised in Jerusalem.

  During the Neo-Babylonian era, scribes created their self-serving history (D) now known as the Deuteronomic History (DH) -- Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.

  About 200 to 300 years later, someone who was not satisfied with the political slant of Kings, wrote Chronicles.

  The truism states that secular politics is sometimes dirty but religious politics is always dirty.

  Apologies for the digressions.

  Doug
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  Doug Mason

  ruby,

  I am impressed at your qualifications. Let me tell you mine:

  I am a graduate of the University of Life from the faculty of Hard Knocks.

  My expertise is in the metallurgy associated with hand soldering, although I also taught and trained in the areas of electronics and telecommunications.

  I have no axe to grind, no religion to promote. My only hope is to make people open their eyes to the human creation of the supernatural. I suppose my only advantage is that I inherited Jewish genes, but which never saw the light of being manifested religiously at any stage. I am told that my maternal grandfather (gassed by the Nazis) was an avowed atheist.

  Doug