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  • From: Lloyd Barre <barre AT c-zone.net>
  • To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Unloading the Burden
  • Date: 10 Feb 99 11:15:48 -0800


Dear Fellow List Members:

Please permit me to be perhaps unjustifiably triumphant as I attempt finally
to unload my "burden" with regard to my current research interests. In
short, I am calling for an assessment of my proposition that El and Yahweh
are historically the two gods of two distinct peoples.

This proposition has one peculiar feature. Upon inspection, it is
self-evident. Its discovery emerges as one of detecting an academic blind
spot. Simply no one has given the issue much thought. The undetected
assumption that was in place comes for the Elohist's and Priestly Writer's
tales that Yahweh did not tell patriarchs his "real" name, but that he and El
are the same god under different names. What has happened is that this view
seems to have been uncritically adopted that presumes that Yahweh was no
mythological god like the other ancient Near Eastern deities, but in fact a
real historical agent.

As I see it, these traditions show that the two religions were distinct
because the intention of the text is syncretistic. The two religions are
here being deliberately identified with one another. Interpreted from a
literary point of view, these traditions demonstrate the historic existence
of two religions, of two peoples, whose religious identities were being
fused. Thus, the driving syncretistic intention behind these traditions
establishes the presence of a religion of El, and of a religion of Yahweh.

Thus, the very texts that has informed the consensus turn out to virtually
demonstrate that its premise rests upon a very weak case. It appears to have
simply accept the traditions are historically factual, and with Yahweh as an
real agent.

Otherwise there is much evidence that Elism and Yahwism once were distinct
religions. First of all, they have different names, and the distinctive
features of the two religions may be described and compared. There are also
the El sanctuaries, Bethel and Peniel, in whose structures who would
certainly be worshipping El perhaps among others. The names of the
sanctuaries alone should convince us that El was the high god of Israel. It
seems to me that the Israelite version of El worship was, like Canaanite
mythology, a cultural variation of Mesopotamian religion. In two texts (Deut
32:8-9; Psalm 82), El is seen to be presiding over his divine sons, who are
assign a portion of the world to administrate. Each son is to become the god
of a separate nation. Together under the administration of El, this divine
family administrates their world rule. It appears to have ultimately arrived
with the Jacob tribe who had migrated from Aram. Yahwism, on the other hand,
has local associ!
ations with Edom and the surrounding desert regions. Sinai was apparently a
pilgrimage shrine (cf. Elijah). Yahweh was essentially a war god. His name,
his deeds and his cultus are dominated by a military theme. Yahwism was
apparently an ancient Bedouin religion that were extremely warlike. They
made their god a warrior. This is not the religion of El.

Thus, the adoption of my proposition has some far-reaching ramifications
which I have here tried to illustrate. It is these considerations that would
have me challenge the academic community to consider the basic proposition
that El is not Yahweh.

Discuss it among your friends.

Thank you very much,





Lloyd M. Barre, Ph.D.

barre AT c-zone.net
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael

"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?"

T.S. Eliot from, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." (1917)





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