Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Kevin,

>  I was asked by one of my students why during the time
>  of Eli was the high priestly line transferred from the
>  descendents of Eleazar to the line of Ithamar, since
>  it is obvious that the line of Eleazar continued to
>  have descendents according to 1 Chronicles 6:3-8?

HH: God transferred the priesthood from the line 
of Ithamar to the line of Eleazar, not visa 
versa. God did not make the transfer immediately 
but waited until the time of Solomon:

1Kings 2:26 ¶ To Abiathar the priest the king 
said,  "Go back to your fields in Anathoth. You 
deserve to die, but I will not put you to death 
now, because you carried the ark of the Sovereign 
LORD before my father David and shared all my 
father's hardships."
1Kings 2:27 So Solomon removed Abiathar from the 
priesthood of the LORD, fulfilling the word the 
LORD had spoken at Shiloh about the house of Eli.

HH: The genealogy in 1 Chronicles 6 contains only 
the line of Eleazar, indicating that this was the 
legitimate line.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard
> From uhurwitz AT yahoo.com  Sun Jul 18 12:18:25 2004
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From: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaten and Hebrew religion
To: Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>, b-hebrew 
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
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 Your first point: correct, I too don't remember Aten mentioned in the Canaan 
EA letters. But the issue, as I understand it, is diffrerent. Both  Aten 
worship and Yahwism share an important aspect , that is intolerance of other 
deities. And since by biblical tradition this intolerance started in the 
Egyptian sojourn  - a tradition that can be fully accepted in outline -- 
there would be a clear connection between the two.
 To observe that the intolerance of other gods starts in the Egyptian 
narratives, one need only to take a look at the very different picture of 
this aspect in the Patriarchs outline history in Genesis (with one brief 
exception -- Gen. 35: 2-4 -- that would underscore  this, and deserves more 
discusssion).
 As for the second point: yes, Atenism was brief, but its influence and 
reverberations continued long after its demise according to De Moor and 
Kitchen's works I'd mentioned before. That is a 'theological'  push toward a 
single overriding deity continued. Both authors provide  examples.
 Monotheism can be approached frrom quite a few perspectives. From my point 
of view the intolerance of other gods is the connecting thread between it and 
 and its various manifestations such as monolatry, henotheism and so forth. 
Atenisn would certainly fit within its framewrok.

Kol Tuv

Uri




Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> wrote:
I'll have to have a look at these. The way I see it is this:
1.Even during Akhenaten's reign, his "special" views don't seem to have been well know in Canaan. 
As far as I remember (please correct me if I'm wrong here), the Canaanite vassals refer to Akhenaten as 
"the Sun", "the Bull" and Horus - no references to Aten.
2. Very soon after the death of Akhenaten and his immediate successors, the "Amarna revolution" 
was pretty much erased from Egyptian history, including the abandonment of the capital at El-Amarna itself. 
Manetho, for instance, does not mention the whole episode and its re-discovery in the late 19th century was 
quite a surprise. So the possibility of "Atenism" having any real influence on much later 
Judahite/Israelite monotheism is very slight. Besides, it seems that "Atenism" was quite far from 
real monotheism.

Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: Uri Hurwitz
To: Yigal Levin ; b-hebrew
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaten and Hebrew religion


For an opposing position one may consult J.C. De Moor The Rise of Yahwism, and 
especially the aptly titled chapter 3.: " The Crisis of Polytheism";
or W. Propp's article in Ugarit Forschung 31;
or,briefly, in Kitchen's recent On The Reliability of the OT, pp. 330-332.
I think their views deserve serious consideration and, in fact a 
re-examination of the subject which is exactly what Propp has done in his 
paper (shades of Kaufmann and Albright and even Freud!)

Uri


Yigal Levin wrote:

....the
question is, what influence did the short lived "Amarna Revolution" have on
the eventual development of monotheism in Israel/Judah. My position would
be - none.

Yigal

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> From patrina AT bestmail.us  Sun Jul 18 20:38:38 2004
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaten and Hebrew religion
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G'day Uri

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 09:18:24 -0700 (PDT), "Uri Hurwitz"
<uhurwitz AT yahoo.com> said:
>   Your first point: correct, I too don't remember Aten mentioned in the
>   Canaan EA letters. But the issue, as I understand it, is diffrerent.
>   Both  Aten worship and Yahwism share an important aspect , that is
>   intolerance of other deities. And since by biblical tradition this
>   intolerance started in the Egyptian sojourn  - a tradition that can be
>   fully accepted in outline -- there would be a clear connection between
>   the two.

That is such an important point I feel - usually people were very aware
of not displeasing deities of other peoples, a view supported in
biblical texts.  Such intolerance must have been thought foolhardy by
the majority.

>   To observe that the intolerance of other gods starts in the Egyptian
>   narratives, one need only to take a look at the very different picture
>   of this aspect in the Patriarchs outline history in Genesis (with one
>   brief exception -- Gen. 35: 2-4 -- that would underscore  this, and
>   deserves more discusssion).

Yes, although the ironic part to me of the Genesis 35 passage is that it
is a putting away of foreign gods from a Canaanitic point of view.
Jacob is honouring the deity of the land by building an altar to El
(v.3).  This can be verified by the fact that Jacob also set up a
massebah there and anointed it to the El of Beth-El (Gen 28:18, 31:13),
a practice which was anathema to YHWH (Deut 16:22), and, even though
considerable effort is made throughout the Tenach to blur any
distinctions between El and YHWH, a few hints like this remain within
the texts.

>   As for the second point: yes, Atenism was brief, but its influence and
>   reverberations continued long after its demise according to De Moor and
>   Kitchen's works I'd mentioned before. That is a 'theological'  push
>   toward a single overriding deity continued. Both authors provide
>   examples.
>   Monotheism can be approached frrom quite a few perspectives. From my
>   point of view the intolerance of other gods is the connecting thread
>   between it and  and its various manifestations such as monolatry,
>   henotheism and so forth. Atenisn would certainly fit within its
>   framewrok.
>
> Kol Tuv
>
> Uri

Thanks for the references - I would certainly like to read 'The rise of
Yahwism' and will try to get hold of a copy.

Patrina Nuske Small
Adelaide, South Australia
--
 Patrina
 patrina AT bestmail.us