Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Peter Kirk wrote:



>
> How do you justify the rendering of ):ELIYLIYM in Psalm 96:5 as
> "godlets"? Surely it is clear, at least in Isaiah 2 and Leviticus,
> that this word means idols made by hand from precious metals, rather
> than any kind of spiritual or supernatural entity. Thus this verse is
> a strong statement of monotheism. The previous verse of course looks
> like henotheism when taken out of context, but verse 5 makes clear how
> it was meant by the psalmist.

Vs. 5 reads: "For YHWH is great and very praiseworthy, and more awesome than 
all the
gods." Vs. 6 goes on to say: "For all the Gods of the nations are but 
godlets, while

YHWH has made the heavens"

If this were a true monotheistic statement, it would have to have more punch 
than
"YHWH is great...and more awesome thane all the gods". We would expect a flat 
denial
of their divinity, as we find in Deut. 4:35 or Is. 44:6. Saying that YHWH is 
"more
awesome" than all the (other) gods simply means that there ARE other gods, 
but they
just don't measure up to YHWH. Hence my translation "godlets" in the following
verse.
You might want to compare Mitchell Dahood (Anchor Bible) and Artur Weiser (Old
Testament Library), both of whom admit to the non-monotheistic background of 
this
verse. Mitchell, incidentally, translates 'elilyim as "rags". His Ugaritic
mythologies are a;ways intriguing, though not always acceptable.

> And Jephthah was very likely not an Israelite at all, and so cannot be
> taken as an argument for Israelite religion.

On what do you base this statement? That he was the son of a concubine? 
Still, he is
called a Gileadite, and he leads the Israelites against the Ammonites, which 
makes
him an Israelite in my book.

>
> None of your evidence has any bearing on the religion of Moses' time,
> which was the point of my posting - except for the monotheism of the
> Ten Commandments which (unlike much of the historical record I grant)
> are explicitly stated as having been written down by Moses (Exodus
> 34:28). Surely if anything survived from that early time, it would
> have been those tablet of ten words.

Peter, we don't know anything about the religion of Moses' time. We don't 
even know
if there was a Moses or an Exodus (though I would say there wwere both, in 
one form
or another).
The Ten Commandments, outside of the Torah, first show up in various prophets 
(cf.
Jer. 7). They are part of the covenant theology, which, like Weinfeld, Mc 
Carthy,
and Hillers, I think to be early, but who can say really when they date from? 
In any
case, there's no monotheism in them, as I have already written on this thread.
Yours,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel