Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>]

> Subject: Translating Elohim
> From: lmbarre AT earthlink.net
> Date: 29 Jun 2000 01:54:46 -0800

> The most common Hebrew word for a deity is 'elohim whose various
> connotations are difficult to render in English translation.
> 'elohim is a plural noun that is regularly used as the subject of
> singular verbs.  Its singular form is 'el.

Actually, the singular of _'elohim_ is _'eloah_ ('aleph, h.at.eph-
s@ghol, lamedh, h.olem-waw, pathah.-furtivum, he-mappiq), while the
plural of _'el_ is _'elim_ ('aleph, lamedh, h.iriq-yodh, mem).

> to account for the anomaly, I would suggest that the plural form
> 'elohim is actually an elision or contraction of the formulaic
> phrase, 'el 'elohim

Since there's not much specific evidence for this, it remains pretty
much just a hypothetical speculation on your part -- and even if this
were true, you would still have to provide further specific evidence
for a "construct state" relation between the parts of _'el 'elohim_,
as opposed to an appositional reading.  Anyway, even under the
construct-state interpretation, if _'el 'elohim_ has a meaning
analogous to "Shahanshah", or "Song of songs", etc., then this already
seems to imply a more clearly henotheistic state of affairs than the
Greeks, Romans, or Akkadians ever arrived at in their mythologies...

> The historical meaning of the word is almost completely obscured by
> Bible translations who incorrectly and unconsciously ascribe to it a
> monotheistic meaning by consistently translating it as "God."

In the text as it has been handed down to us it has been given a
monotheistic meaning, so that translating _'elohim_ in a
non-monotheistic way would be indulging in hypothetical speculative
historical reconstructions, rather than translating the text as we
find it.  Did you see my previous posting? --

>> Subject: Miscellaneous minor points (El vs. YHWH, etc...)
>> From: "Henry Churchyard" <churchh AT usa.net>
>> Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2000 13:11:39 -0600 (CST)

>> I'm not sure what the point of positing a strong opposition between
>> "El" and YHWH is.  In Canaanite languages, "El" is both a general
>> word for "a god", and also the proper name of the god who is
>> vaguely conceived of as the highest god, or overall ruler of the
>> pantheon (without any particularly close approach to a monotheistic
>> theology).  YHWH is the name of the god of Israel.  As the god of
>> Israel comes to be considered the highest (or even only) god, some
>> of the "El" high-god terminology naturally becomes associated with
>> YHWH (though in the Bible "El" standing by itself is not as
>> frequently used to refer to YHWH as is "El" in special compounds
>> and phrases -- and of course the related but different "Elohim" is
>> more common by far).  I don't know of much evidence in the Bible
>> for any El vs. YHWH religious conflict, and I'm not sure that
>> Hebrew prophets would have had much objection to worshiping YHWH
>> under the name of "El" (as long as Canaanite rituals and
>> mythologies concerning the Canaanite "El" were not dragged in) --
>> while they would have had the most violent antipathy towards
>> worshipping YHWH under the names Baal, Asherah, Anath, etc.

--
Henry Churchyard   churchh AT usa.net   http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/