Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Chavoux Luyt <chavoux AT gmail.com>]

Hi all

> From: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
> Kristian, I'm not sure your analogy works here. The noun אל is indeed 
> common, but it often functions as a proper noun.
> Certainly that's the case outside the biblical literature.
I know that my original question was about the possible differences
between the Hebrew usage and the pagan usage. I would also like to
know, however, (if this is not too far outside the scope of this
group) how certain archaeologists can be that "El" on its own was used
as a proper noun/name and not simply as a generic common noun? I
framed my original question to address the Hebrew usage only to try
and keep on topic for the list.
<snip

> From: Yigal Levin <Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il>
> A similar case is "Baal", which is both a common noun meaning "lord/master" 
> and a proper name of a deity, known from both
> the Bible and a wide range of ANE inscriptions.
And here you seem to have a fairly convincing argument that it is very
possible that "El" could function as both common and proper name. Is
it possible, however, that "Baal" on its own (i.e. not compound names
such as Baal-berit etc.) was also used only as a common name and that
part of the prophetic dispute was that the baalim could not be
considered equal to the (one) "El".

Regards
Chavoux Luyt