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  • From: Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Names of god
  • Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 12:05:21 -0400


At 11:20 PM 8/22/2002 -0500, Shoshanna Walker wrote:
>
>Jamiejohns AT aol.com wrote:
>>I believe that you will find "El" used as a proper name for "YHWH" at
>several
>>places in the Hebrew Bible. An interesting instance is in Psalm 16. There,
>>"El" is used along with "YHWH" and "Adonai."
>>
>Thank you, Jamie. Actually, in vs. 2 "YHWH Adonai", I don't think that
>"Adonai" is intended as a proper name. Rather it's "YHWH my lord", with the
>plural used for respect. As for "El", in the first verse, it could go
>either way. Which brings me to another thought: to a totally monotheistic
>mind, could "god" be anything but "God"? (In English of course we can use
>the capital to distinguish the generic noun from the proper name, but that
>distinction doesn't exist in Hebrew.)
>
>
>
>El is one of G-d's names, Adonai is also one of G-d's names.
>
>To a totally monotheistic mind, the one and only G-d, has many
>aspects which He/It reveals to us, in history, in our lives, in the
>Torah, in the spiritual worlds, and the different names are used to
>refer to different aspects, (ie, when Lovingkindness is in play, when
>Stern Judgement is in play, etc.) and this does not at all fragment
>the unity of G-d.
>
>Shoshanna
>

Exactly what I meant. However in "academic" scholarship the assumtion has
often been that the authors of (some of) the Bible were less "totally
monotheistic" than traditional exegesis has assumed. Living in a
polytheistic world, they were at once able to claim that YHWH is the only
True God, and at the same time picture YHWH as competing with other gods,
thereby assuming their existance. Of course, a lot of this has been edited
out, but Ps. 82, without rabbinic exegesis, seems to be a good example
(assuming that at least the first "Elohim", of vs. 1, is to be identified
with YHWH).

Yigal






Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.




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