What is the deity of Judaism?

Comments

• The documentary hypothesis was disproven over 30 years ago, though for some reasons it's still taught in US liberal seminaries and universities, but it's long been abandoned in Europe. Whatever the sources may have been, literary analysis proves the Pentateuch speaks with one voice, the work of a single author, who was an amazingly gifted artist and writer -- it was not some spliced together anthology by a compiler/editor. And form criticism dates Deuteronomy to the 15th century BC.

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  by Stormarm on October 10th, 2008

• LOL. disproven 30 years ago, you say? lol. Cute. Did you get that from Conservapedia?

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 10th, 2008

• No, Cambridge.

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  by Stormarm on October 10th, 2008

• Oh really, Cambridge University told you? Well I guess I can't stand up to that vague argument from authority.

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 10th, 2008

• Hey, I'm a Patristics scholar, 10,000 miles away from my library, and 14 years since I sat in an OT criticism class. But I well remember that the Documentary Hypothesis was in a shambles, and no new concensus had developed to replace it. From what I understand, that has not changed.

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  by Stormarm on October 10th, 2008

• If you have followed the source criticism debate in the SBL Forum, you should be aware the main trend in European scholarship has been to move more towards a tradition critical approach (following Rendtorff), and many of them think the "five main blocks of tradition" (patriarchs, exodus, wilderness, law, and conquest according to Noth) were drawn upon by the "Priestly" author - but in the same way Shakespeare drew on earlier stories in writing Hamlet, Lear, and Romeo & Juliet: in other words, it was no "cut-n-paste" job, but a single literary work by an author who made it completely his own. For a quick balanced survey of the issue, read: http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_pentateuch_wenham.html

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  by Stormarm on October 10th, 2008

• And as to sources on the Deuteronomic treaty and the early date of Deuteronomy (which completely blows Wellhausen out of the water) you might read, just for starters:
  Mendenhall, George E. Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Biblical Colloquium, 1955
  Merrill, Eugene H. Deuteronomy. Broadman and Holman, 1994
  McCarthy, Dennis J. Treaty and Covenant. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963
  Hillers, Delbert R. Covenant: The History of a Biblical Ideas. Johns Hopkins, 1969

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  by Stormarm on October 10th, 2008

• Wow, what a straw man. I mentioned compilations, and you said, "hey, you, believer of the documentary hypothesis, you are wrong," and then gave your own version in which an editor compiled the bible stories! LOL.
  YOU ARE THE ONE who brought the doc hypothesis into this thread, NOT ME. I can only assume that this was your attempt to straw-man me. I, being unfamiliar with this debate or the terminology, assumed that the "documentary hypothesis" was just a generic term for the idea that there were, as I said, editors who compiled the books.
  Attack Wellhausen all you want...YOU are the one who introduced him into the conversation, not me. Your Wellhausean hypothesis aside, my points stand:
  "Hebrew stories would be collected and at some point an editor would...compile the stories"
  .......The books of the Torah are still seen as composites today, and it is fairly evident that the behavior assigned to God in the Torah is radically inconsistent.
  Many sources, many gods, as I said.

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 11th, 2008

• You wrote: "One of the authors refers to god as Yahweh. One calls god Elohim. The two authors clearly have different ideas about what God is like..." I'm sorry you were completely ignorant of the fact that this is the essence (or rather 2/5ths of the essence) of the Documentary Hypothesis, and that that claim is synonymous with the Documentary Hypothesis (aka the Wellhausen Hypothesis). But even though you were unaware of it, you indeed were the one who brought it into the thread. I simply knew what to call it. Sorry, for thinking you knew that was it's name.
  Also, in my first comment, I described the Torah as a complete and seemless work of one author, though he may have drawn on/been inspired by earlier traditions, and you mocked the very idea of it. My latter comments simply defended it.

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  by Stormarm on October 11th, 2008

• -- and my original and final point are the same: that the Torah presents one complete, unified, and coherent view of God, and the author clearly believed Elohim and Yahweh to be one in the same. That doesn't mean, "The Torah is true and you must believe and follow it," but it does mean that the Torah is one work by one author with one faith in one God, and that author was very deliberate in his choice of every word. Consequently, there is no way to distinguish within the text separate sources with different ideas or beliefs, let alone determine what those ideas and beliefs were.

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  by Stormarm on October 11th, 2008

• Whoa...you did it again. You are trying to pin Wellhausen on me. He's YOUR man, not man. The Elohist author and the Yahwist author were identified long before Wellhausen came on the scene, and just because YOU are unable to separate Wellhausen from a hypothesis similar to the one I described, don't go trying to force feed it to me, too. That is YOUR limit, not mine.
  
  If the Torah is written by a single author who accurately describes his God (who is both Yahweh AND Elohim), then it would appear that his god is schizophrenic. The behavior is so inconsistent and erratic. I can only conclude that therefore his god was a woman.
  
  j/k.
  
  "the Torah is one work by one author with one faith in one God, and that author was very deliberate in his choice of every word. Consequently, there is no way to distinguish within the text separate sources with different ideas or beliefs, let alone determine what those ideas and beliefs were." Your conclusion is one of your premises. This is false.

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 11th, 2008

• I didn't ascribe the origins of the Yahwist/Elohimist contention to Wellhausen, merely that this was part and parcel with the hypothesis and school of thought of which he became the great champion, so much so that it now bears his name.
  And the claims that one can identify "Yahwist" passages from "Elohimist" ones are now pretty much considered laughable. God knows the assumptions behind such determinations are.
  And as to your last statement, I wasn't offering a syllogism, but merely expanding on what being "the work of ... one author ... [who] was very deliberate in his choice of every word" means.

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  by Stormarm on October 11th, 2008

• On that point, since you still don't seem to get it... by way of example, we know the story of Lear predates Shakespeare by centuries, and that there were many different versions of it. Did Shakespeare simply take pieces of some of them and put them together? No. He wrote a masterpiece that's 100% him. Only an idiot would try to figure out which parts came from a monarchist source, which from a feminist source, which from misogynist source, which from a patriarchal source, and which from a republican source, particularly when there's no evidence at all of any such sources ever actually existing.

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  by Stormarm on October 11th, 2008

• Nice to see the truth; that ultimately you are forced to fall back on the "God said so" defense: "God knows the assumptions behind such determinations are." lol.
  I'm glad you finally admittd that you mischaracterized my position in regard to plural bible authorship, but before we move forward there are some other things to clear up:
  1 - To your next point, if you throw out a few premises and draw a conclusion FROM them you have, in fact, created a syllogism. That's PRECISELY what you did, and in your case all you said was:
  "A, therefore A." I'll admit that it is remarkably circular, but uncompelling.

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 13th, 2008

• 2 - Shakespear is Shakespear, not the Redactor. Shakespear has nothing to do with the authorship of the scriptures in question. Regardless of what Shakespear may have, or may NOT have, done, it says nothing about what someone else DID do before him. What a patently absurd line of reasoning. "Jose Canseco used performance enhancing steroids, therefore we can conclude that Babe Ruth must have used performance enhancing steroids." ROFL
  Also absurd is your assertion that Shakespear rewrote an existing story and that the resulting story was 100% original. LMFAO. That is a mathematical impossibility. 100% original...lol, yeah EXCEPT for the plot line and characters! WOW! And then to claim that there were no other sources of the story for him to draw upon - how did the story predate him, then?
  BTW, every day scholars review Shakespear's (and other's) work and discuss what the influences. Every point you made in your second post is false and/or irrelevant, in most cases both.

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  by TheicidalManiac on October 13th, 2008

• @TheicidalManiac. The Hebrew word ’elo·him′ (gods) appears to be from a root meaning “be strong.” ’Elo·him′ is the plural of ’eloh′ah (god). Sometimes this plural refers to a number of gods (Ge 31:30, 32; 35:2), but more often it is used as a plural of majesty, dignity, or excellence. ’Elo·him′ is used in the Scriptures with reference to Yahweh himself, to angels, to idol gods (singular and plural), and to men. So this is a title more so than a personal name.
  When applying to Yahweh, ’Elo·him′ is used as a plural of majesty, dignity, or excellence. (Ge 1:1) Regarding this, Aaron Ember wrote: “That the language of the O[ld] T[estament] has entirely given up the idea of plurality in . . . [’Elo·him′] (as applied to the God of Israel) is especially shown by the fact that it is almost invariably construed with a singular verbal predicate, and takes a singular adjectival attribute. . . . [’Elo·him′] must rather be explained as an intensive plural, denoting greatness and majesty, being...

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  by no_one_special on November 27th, 2008

• equal to The Great God.”—The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. XXI, 1905, p. 208.
  
  The title ’Elo·him′ draws attention to Yahweh's strength as the Creator. It appears 35 times by itself in the account of creation, and every time the verb describing what he said and did is in the singular number. (Ge 1:1–2:4) In him resides the sum and substance of infinite forces.
  At Psalm 8:5, the angels are also referred to as ’elo·him′, as is confirmed by Paul’s quotation of the passage at Hebrews 2:6-8. They are called beneh′ ha·’Elo·him′, “sons of God” (KJ)at Genesis 6:2, 4; Job 1:6; 2:1. Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, by Koehler and Baumgartner (1958), page 134, says: “(individual) divine beings, gods.” And page 51 says: “the (single) gods,” and it cites Genesis 6:2; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7. Hence, at Psalm 8:5 ’elo·him′ is rendered “angels” (LXX)

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  by no_one_special on November 27th, 2008

• The word ’elo·him′ is also used when referring to idol gods. Sometimes this plural form means simply “gods.” (Ex 12:12; 20:23) At other times it is the plural of excellence and only one god (or goddess) is referred to. However, these gods were clearly not trinities.—1Sa 5:7b (Dagon); 1Ki 11:5 (“goddess” Ashtoreth); Da 1:2b (Marduk).
  At Psalm 82:1, 6, ’elo·him′ is used of men, human judges in Israel. Jesus quoted from this Psalm at John 10:34, 35. They were gods in their capacity as representatives of and spokesmen for Jehovah. Similarly Moses was told that he was to serve as “God” to Aaron and to Pharaoh.—Ex 4:16, ftn; 7:1.
  In many places in the Scriptures ’Elo·him′ is also found preceded by the definite article ha. (Ge 5:22) Concerning the use of ha·’Elo·him′, F. Zorell says: “In the Holy Scriptures especially the one true God, Jahve, is designated by this word; . . . ‘Jahve is the [one true] God’ De 4:35; 4:39; Jos 22:34; 2Sa 7:28; 1Ki 8:60 etc.”—Lexicon Hebraicum Veteris Testamenti,

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  by no_one_special on November 27th, 2008

• Rome, 1984, p. 54. So the use of Elohim and Yahweh does not therefore mean or indicate two authors nor separate deities.

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  by no_one_special on November 27th, 2008

• Thanks for sharing, although I am aware of this issue with Elohim being plural and also being an honorific. If one picks up an English translation of the Holy Qur'an, one might find that the translators seem to have had a taste of this problem, since this is not a distinction that makes sense in English. Allah keeps referring to Itself as "We."
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  That, said, my argument of polytheism is not based on semantics. It is quite well documented that the Early Jews were polytheists, hence the need for a commandment prohibiting the worship of any other gods. It is also well established that different authors used different name.
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  As an aside, if you find instances in the Bible where, as you say, "’elo·him′ is used of men, human judges in Israel (Psalm 82:1)" then one might wonder how you would support your claim that Elohim is always meant to refer to Yahweh. Clearly you lose the support for that argument, and can no longer claim, on those grounds, that Elohim and Yahweh are the same.

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  by TheicidalManiac on November 29th, 2008

• Even given all of that there is still another point to be made. Your last post: "the use of Elohim and Yahweh does not therefore mean or indicate two authors nor separate deities." I agree, as stated above, that it is not inherent in the use of multiple names that there are therefore multiple gods, however taken into consideration with the independent facts that they DID worship multiple gods, and that there WERE multiple authors it becomes a lot more plausible doesn't it? That's not even the bulk of the argument, just a semantical point.
  .
  But the point I intended to make is this: use by two or more believers of a COMMON name OR title for a deity does not necessarily mean or indicate that the two believers share the same deity. For ex., Allah and Elohim are close linguistic relatives, but clearly denote distinct and separate entities. Further, if you take Einstein's idea of what "God" is and compare it to a Christian's or English speaking Hindu's "God," you clearly see that they are NOT the same, despite the identical title.

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  by TheicidalManiac on November 29th, 2008

• @TheicidalManiac. The point of mentioning Elohim being plural and honorific was not to inform you of the use alone. But to show that the use in this manner and its application in other areas of the bible, not written by Moses, shows how that partcialr word was used. NOt as the divine and personal name of God but merely a title and the fact that it is applied to false God's and men supports this.
  
  Whether the Jews were polytheist or not does not therefore negate that Yahweh was a singular God.
  
  Also I never claimed Elohim was Gods name, this is in response to your third paragraph of comment, Nov, 29 2008 at 10:31 AM. This in fact supports my claim. Elohim title, Yahweh personal name. Yahweh only applied to the most high, Elohim applied liberally.

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  by no_one_special on November 30th, 2008

• I do see what you are saying in your last comment. You are correct, the use of any title does not therefore mean they are in agreement as to how they define God. Point taken. Yet there is still a way to determine what they meant. And although your point is well taken, it alone does not negate anything else. More would have to be shown to support your reasoning further. One could argue that although you point is valid it is speculative at best.
  
  And yes the Jews deviated from one God worship at times. And the bible fully acknowledges this. And this is why punishment was dealt to them. No one has made a claim that the Jews always served Yahweh. So pointing out that they did not always serve Yahweh is not evidence of anything else, other than that they deviated at certain points. With all due respect. And thank you for engaging me.

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  by no_one_special on November 30th, 2008

• Yeah, I will concede your point about the usage of Elohim...in fact I endorse it. But, with all due respect, I do not think that it supports the conclusion that you were trying to use to support. Unless I am mistaken, you were attempting to say that, because Elohim is not the NAME of a god, that Elohim in the bible is not, therefore, a rival god of Yahweh, and that in fact it is used to refer TO Yahweh. I have two rebuttals to this (which you may disregard if I misunderstood your argument)
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  1) You have still left open the possibility that Elohim may have been used to refer to a god that is NOT Yahweh, but still the god of the author in question. (actually you seemed to acknowledge this point in you latest series of posts, so I am a bit confused about what you are trying to say.)
  2) "God" is also a title, as is "Lord." We may use these terms to indicate a god generically, or a specific god, and lord may be used to denote THE god, A god, or a human feudal lord...or even a Sith :P

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  by TheicidalManiac on December 2nd, 2008

• I did actually write that last post before I read YOUR last post, so do forgive me for treading over the point that you yourself admitted to, and for redoubling your use of "with all due respect," which was not, in fact, meant to be sarcastic. That said, I would never rest my entire case on just the semantic argument about the words for this or that deity, as you seem to suggest that I would. It was merely the current point of conversation. As to your assertion that Elohim is never used as anything more than a title, I doubt that, but would have to do a little research to argue that point. I think it is quite plausible, to say the least, that the title could come to be used a lot more like a proper name (like Caeser, or Buddha, or God, or [arguably] Christ) and less like a title. I point out polytheism to illustrate that "god almighty" might have been very different for one author than for another..that is the case even for MONOTHEISTS, often even within particular sects.

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  by TheicidalManiac on December 2nd, 2008

• Your logic is flawed because the name could be the same diety translated to another language, in other words two differnt sounding names one is "German" on is in "French", but both the German and the Frenchman are talkin about the same "God", your idea is possible but not absolute. And it is not likely not probable due to the multitudenous translatations

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  by oracle999 on November 22nd, 2010

• Who are you directing your comment towards oracle?

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  by no_one_special on November 25th, 2010