Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Two extracts from Lloyd Barre's posting: "a notion given classical 
expression in P, especially in Ex 6:3, who learned this teaching from 
the Elohist in Ex 3:13-15.  Here the war god Yahweh Sabaoth, under the 
influence of ontological thought, is transformed into Yihwah, an 
emanation of Divine Becoming as taught by Mose, who learned it from 
Ptah... The dominant and enduring theological influence upon the Old 
Testament was not a product of Hellenism, but of a form of Egyptian 
Ontology that was extant in the 28th century in Memphis.  In this 
sense, the OT is not fundamentally young and Hellenistic but old and 
Egyptian."

An interesting idea. What dating are you suggesting, Lloyd, for your 
proposed synthesis? Your web site dates Ex 6:3 as 6th century, by 
which time Egypt and its thought was in decline. But surely it makes 
more sense within your paradigm for this synthesis to have come about 
much earlier and to be expressed in P dated early as by Kaufmann. How 
do you know Ex 3:13-15 came from the Elohist? (Who was he anyway? You 
date this to 14th century on your web site!). I would of course accept 
that this Levitical theology was that of a minority group within 
Judah, which perhaps gradually gained in influence during the monarchy 
and became dominant only at the time of Josiah's reform. Meanwhile 
Yahweh Sabaoth was the more popular view, not actually in 
contradiction to the Levitical one but rather in tension with it.

Peter Kirk