Was Polytheism Edited Out Of The Bible?
http://www.goatstar.org/was-polytheism-edited-out-of-the-old-testament/
An Unusual Guide To Scripture And More . . .
by Madame Quixote 11 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Deputy Dog
MQ
Was Polytheism Edited Out Of The Bible?
Capella says:
February 20th, 2006 at 3:55 amExcellent comment!
Sure would be interesting to lay hands on the missing texts?
About says it all!
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Justahuman24
No, it wasn't. Period!
justahuman - but super nonetheless
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Madame Quixote
DD, are you referring to the texts from Ugarit which correspond to the OT writings or to "missing" biblical texts?
"All of the tablets found at Ugarit were written in the last period of its life (around 1300- 1200 BCE). The kings of this last and greatest period were:
1349 ‘Ammittamru I 1325 Niqmaddu II 1315 Arhalba 1291 Niqmepa 2 1236 ‘Ammitt1193- Niqmaddu III 1185 ‘Ammurapi In the period 1200 - 1180 the city steeply declined and then mysteriously came to an end.
The texts which were discovered at Ugarit aroused interest because of their international flavor. That is, the texts were written in one of four languages; Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurritic and Ugaritic. The tablets were found in the royal palace, the house of the High Priest, and some private houses of evidently leading citizens.
These texts, as mentioned above, are very important for Old Testament study. The Ugaritic literature demonstrates that Israel and Ugarit shared a common literary heritage and a common linguistic lineage. They are, in short, related languages and literatures. We can thus learn very much about the one from the other. Our knowledge of the religion of Ancient Syria-Palestine and Canaan has been greatly increased by the Ugaritic materials and their significance cannot be overlooked. We have here, as it were, an open window on the culture and religion of Israel in its earliest period."(http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm)
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Madame Quixote
Justahuman24 - Are you familiar with the Gilgamesh epic or the history of Baal (from the Bible)? Just wondering . . .
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Leolaia
Polytheism is literally edited out here in Deuteronomy 32:8:
4QDeut j : "When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God (bny 'l[hym]). For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance".
LXX: "When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God (aggelón theou). And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance".
MT: "When Elyon gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel (bny yshr'l). For Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob was the lot of his inheritance".
The oldest form of the text in the Dead Sea Scrolls posits Yahweh as one of the "sons of God" who received Israel from El-Elyon as his own "inheritance". This accords with the Canaanite belief in Ugaritic texts that El fathered seventy sons through Asherah, and the number of the nations in Genesis 10 which add up to seventy. This henotheistic conceptualization of the tutelary gods of the nations can also be detected in such passages as Judges 11:24, 1 Kings 11:33, and Jeremiah 48:7, and in the scenario in Daniel 10 (in which each nation has its own angelic "prince") which has been assimilated to monotheism. These are also angels in the LXX, which reflects the original wording of bny 'lhym (as this is how this phrase is usually rendered in the LXX), and yet the reference to angels instead of "sons of God" similarly assimilates the scenario to monotheism. Moreover, the implication that Yahweh (= "the Lord" in the LXX) is himself a "son" or "angel of God" is precluded by the removal of a reference to allotments in the first clause. Finally, the latest form of the text in the MT displays other modifications that mitigate a polytheistic or henotheistic reading. The verb bhnchl in the first clause is pointed in a way that implies that inheritance is something received by the nations, rather than that the inheritance consists of the nations themselves. Second, "sons of Israel" occurs in place of "sons of God," which obscures the relationship being Yahweh inheriting his people and the division of the peoples according to the number of the "sons of God".
Nor is this an isolated example. In v. 43 we find another example of polytheism (or perhaps more accurately, henotheism) being airbrushed from the text:
4QDeut j : "Rejoice, O heavens, together with him, and bow down to him all you gods ('lym), for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and will render vengeance to his enemies, and will recompense those who hate him, and will atone for the land of his people".
LXX: "O heavens, rejoice with him, bow to him, all sons of God. O nations, rejoice with his people and let all the angels of God strengthen themselves in him. For he will avenge the blood of his sons. Be vengeful and render vengeance and recompense justice on his enemies, and recompense those who hate him, and the Lord will cleanse the land of his people".
MT: "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his enemies, and will atone for the land of his people".
The MT text is poetically defective in terms of parallelism, with a complete bicolon in the second and third clauses (avenge / render vengeance), without an accompanying clause in the first and fourth clauses to complete the two other bicolons (rejoice / ???, ??? / atone). The older form of the text in the Dead Sea Scrolls, on the other hand, has three well-balanced bicolons (rejoice / bow down, avenge / render vengeance, recompense / atone), and thus is probably closer to the original. The MT text replaces the personified or divinized "heavens" with "nations" and omits the "bow down" clause that makes reference to heavenly gods (i.e. "gods" in parallelism with "heavens"). The alteration of "heavens" to "nations" was apparently fairly early, for the LXX harmonizes the two readings by inserting an extra bicolon in the text that makes reference to "nations". It is also possible that this extra bicolon is original but the longer text is poetically less balanced.
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VM44
This is an important topic that deserves more attention.
--VM44
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Deputy Dog
MQ
That doesn't show who edited who.
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Madame Quixote
DD - As far as I know, from what research I did on it years ago, writing a paper on "Who Wrote The Bible," there were at least three known redactors who did the editing; these were likely Hebrew high priests who belonged to a separate, upper caste among the less educated tribes of Israiel, at least as far as OT, goes. I believe Elliott Friedman - (Who Wrote The Bible, among other works) - wrote some stuff about this that is studied and documented by a number of Hebrew scholars.
Friedman's ideas, along with those of some other biblical scholars of the Bible appear here:
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Madame Quixote
Leolia, what you posted is fascinating. Do you have more info and resources on this topic? I'd love to go buy a few more books on it . . . thanks for the insightful post!