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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] G-D vs. gods was Fwd: Re: YHWH
  • Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 11:27:11 -0500

Shoshanna and Jim:

Your arguments miss an important point, namely the
linguistic one.

Tanakh was written to be accessible to human readers, and as
such it uses speech that people understand. As a linguistic
principle, it acknowledges that many things are called "god",
to the point that when Elijah mocked the priests and prophets
of Baal he used the royal plural for Baal, a linguistic
practice that does not translate into the Biblical authors
accepting the theological claims for the other gods as being
valid. Tanakh could hardly be more clear in its rejection of
those theological claims.

Similarly, the English word "god" is possibly the most
undefined term in the language: its meaning ranges from
"everything" (to the pantheist) to "nothing" (to the atheist)
and almost everything between. So while I acknowledge only
the one God of Tanakh as having a valid claim, I have no
problem talking about the god(s) that other people worship as
this is consistent with linguistic use. I see the same
pattern in Tanakh.

Karl W. Randolph.

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  • Re: [b-hebrew] G-D vs. gods was Fwd: Re: YHWH, Karl Randolph, 07/27/2005

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