who gave isreal to Jehovah?

by peacefulpete 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

peacefulpete

I thought this was discssed before but I couldn't find it, so forgive if this is repetitious. At Deuteronomy 32:8-9, part of the "song of Moses" the text says the "most High" divvied up the nations to the gods he gave Judah to YHWH/Jehovah as his "allotment". This "song" is view for textural and language reasons to be one of the oldest portions of the Bible, an ancient song that was incorporated into the narrative and ascribed to the Moses character. This passage agrees with the findings that YHWH was worshipped in the near east as one of a pantheon under EL the chief god long before the Jews adopted him as their patron god. Comments?
City Fan

This verse actually shows that the gods El and Yahweh were two different gods. Deut 32:7-9 shows El Elyon as the head of a pantheon of gods who gives each one of his divine sons a people to govern Yahweh is portrayed as one of the 'sons of Elyon'.
Psalms 82 has El taking his place in the divine council judging in the midst of the gods. He then 'fires' his sons and makes them mortal as all the nations belong to him. Yahweh would be one of these sons.
Yahweh was a warrior god (Yahweh Saboath) from the deserts south of Palestine (Sier/Edom/Paran compare Deut 33:2). El was a mesopotamian diety and came to Israel through Aram. Jacob was called a 'wandering Aramean' Deut 26:5.
Canaanite and Aramaic mythology both had El as the head of the pantheon who gave nations to his various sons. This makes Baal and Yahweh brothers.
Yahweh and El only became the same god after centuries of political and religious alliances.
peacefulpete

thanks city fan for posting additional info.
Hamas

The British
OICU8it2

"and was Jerusalem builded here, on England's fair and pleasant land." Chariots of Fire
Kenneson

OICU8it2,
Isn't William Blake's poem great? Here's all of it:
http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=5803
seedy3

I have found it interesting to research this subject, of YHWH being a son of the Almighty El and the brother of Baal, but I have never found this topic as yet. I know most Christians do not know that their God is actually decended from a Canaanite pantheion, but the facts are there. Is there any other web recorces on this subject that you guys may have? I would be interested in reading it.
Let me know,
Seedy
peacefulpete

Seedy...It is unfortunate but what I found to be the case is that most of this type of research is either in scattered pieces on the web and books or included in compilartion type books that poorly document sources. Two books I suggest are Professor Frank Cross's "Cannanite Myth and Hebrew Epic". A landmark book that deals exclusively with the origins of the YHWH theophany (new word to me) from Baal and El. Another that traces some of this and also attempts to condense the whole discussion of Bible errancy into one book is "Mythology's Last Gods, Yahweh and Jesus". It surely has oversimplified many areas but is decent as a overview. I also would like to hear City Fan's recommendations.
ThiChi

Th e Father God named El
El from Religion of the Canaanites
El is the name by which the supreme Canaanite deity is known. This is also a name by which God is called in the Old Testament -- El, the God (Elohim) of Israel (el elohe yisrael: Gen. 33:20). In most prose it occurs more often with an adjunct: El Elyon (the most high God, Gen. 14:18), El Shaddai (traditionally, God Almighty, Gen. 17:1), El Hai (The living God, Josh. 3:10), and very commonly in the plural of majesty, Elohim. In Hebrew poetry El is much more frequent, where it stands quite often without any adjunct (Ps. 18:31, 33, 48; 68:21; Job 8:3).
The word El is a generic name for "god" in Northwest Semitic (Hebrew and Ugaritic) and as such it is also used in the Old Testament for heathen deities or idols (Ex. 34:14; Ps. 81:10; Is. 44:10). The original generic term was 'ilum; dropping the mimation and the nominative case ending (u) becomes 'el in Hebrew. It was almost certainly an adjectival formation (intransitive participle) from the root "to be strong, powerful" ('wl), meaning "The Strong (or Powerful) One."
In Canaanite paganism the el, par excelence, was the head of the pantheon. As the god, El was, in accordance with the general irrationality and moral grossness of Canaanite religion, a dim and shadowy figure, who, Philo says, had three wives, who were also his sisters, and who could readily step down from his eminence and become the hero of sordid escapades and crimes. The Ugaritic poems add the crime of uncontrolled lust to his character and the description of his seduction of two unnamed women is the most sensuous in ANE literature (much of Ugaritic literature is R rated at best).
Despite all this, El was considered the exalted "father of years" (abu shanima), the "father of man" (abu adami), and "father bull", that is, the progenitor of the gods, tacitly likened to a bull in the midst of a herd of cows. Like Homer's Zeus, he was "the father of men and gods."
Dr. Katia writes:
Don't be dismayed by the "bad things" the Canaanite version of El was said to have done. Canaanite and Phoenician society was depraved (child sacrifice, sex slavery, vicious torture and execution methods, etc.) and so they made their gods and goddesses as violent and sexually perverse as themselves. The true El later became or merged with the Hebrew god. He was a noble, fatherly, kingly figure. Contrary to modern fiction and fantasy, the societies of the past were not full of romantic "noble savages." We moderns must resist the urge to think wistfully, "religion was so much better, so much purer back then." No. It wasn't. Religions and societies evolved as humanity marched on into civilization. Only the fittest, most noble, honorable, loving-but-firm Gods survived. They exist on the heavenly and worldly planes, accessed by tapping deep into our human psyches. Our gods are in our DNA.
El
by Mark Raines
Sources:
1. Qadash Kinahnu, A Canaanite-Phoenician Temple
Jews, Christians, and Muslims usually lead adherents to believe that El simply translates to God, and is just one of the titles of the God they worship. They are right - to a point. El is simply a title, and it is one of the titles of the father god. But it is not only Jews, Christians, and Muslims who have worshiped Him. In fact, before Judaism ever existed (let alone Christianity or Islam), El was worshiped as the chief of the Canaanite pantheon. El has many intriguing titles such as Father of Humanity, the Creator of Creatures, and the King, the Father of Time. He is, without doubt, the god of the desert religions, since Abraham specifically called his god by this title: El Elyon. From the Bible, El also receives these titles: Eternal Father, El the Eternal One, and Ancient of Days.
But who is He? He is an ancient sky God, depicted as an old bearded man sitting upon His throne on the mountain between the two rivers which are the source of the world's oceans. As children, many of us pictured God as a bearded old man. You may never have heard the Ugaritic myths of El, but through genetic memory the truth of his elderliness rang out to you. However, this certainly does not mean that El is a powerless God. He is the undisputed leader of the pantheon, more powerful even than the great Ba'al (his son who died and was resurrected by El's daughter Anat). El is seen as unapproachable on His mountain, and the ancient Canaanite religion believed that a mediatrix, a go-between, was needed to send prayers to El.
This is true of the God of the desert religions as well. In Catholicism there is a tradition that Mary is the Mediatrix, who takes prayers before Yeshua and El. This continues an ancient tradition, in which Asherah (Lady of the Sea, who shares many similarities with Mary) takes petitions to El. Within all of Christianity, Yeshua himself is seen as the Mediatrix. Within Judaism, prayers are taken to El via the angels. But, according to the most ancient myths, He cannot hear them directly. This goes back to the ancient Canaanite myths, whether we knew it or not.
And let us not forget that our God, the God of the desert religions, is like this El in yet another significant way - He is constantly being spoken to on mountains and high places. Where did Moses commune with God? Mount Sinai. Where was the Temple built? Mount Moriah. Where did Yeshua give the beatitudes and pray frequently to His Father? Mount Olivet. What was seen as one of the most sacred places in Jerusalem? Mount Tsion. El, our God and their God, is a God of High Places! Perhaps that is why Melchizedek and Abraham gave him the title El Elyon, or God Most High.
But El has evolved over the years, or at least our vision of Him has evolved. He was originally seen as a distant God, always in need of a go-between to send prayers to Him. This tradition carried over into Judaism and Christianity to a lesser degree, but now it is almost gone. He was also not the only God, but the King of many Gods. This, too, carried over into Judaism until the time of the patriarchal prophets. Some of the prophets were allegedly able to defeat the prophets of Ba'al, but this is something any Canaanite priest could have predicted, and does not mean that Ba'al and the other Gods did not exist. El was the King of the Gods, more powerful even than Ba'al, so naturally His prophets would defeat Ba'al's. Indeed, Moses did not say that El commanded the Jews not to have any other Gods at all - the original translation says that there should be no other Gods before Him, implying that there were other Gods and that they could be worshiped as long as they were not worshiped more or as greater than El Himself. Remember that the apostates at Mount Sinai abandoned El completely for the golden calf - they were not worshiping El alongside the idol, but were worshiping the idol alone.
But, the reader may be wondering, what about Yah weh? Isn't he God the Father? No, "He" isn't, though that is a common misconception. Yahweh is the common mispronunciation of the Ineffable Name given to Moses, YHVH. YHVH is not the Father God, but represents the whole Godhead. El is but one aspect of that Godhead, the chief aspect, the Y. Sometimes he is called Yah, from the YH (first two letters of the tetragrammaton), but that's a rare name for him, hard to find although many mystical Jews today worship him as Yah.
El's Bride, or Consort, Asherah can be seen as the early form of the Goddess, the first H. His Foster-Son, Ba'al, can be seen as the early form of the Son God, the V, who later incarnated as Yeshua. [Again, remember that Ba'al was not necessarily a "fake" or "bad" because the prophets of El beat Ba'al's prophets - they had to beat Ba'al's prophets, because El was the King of the pantheon]. Finally, Ba'al's Sister-Consort, Anat, can be seen as the early form of the Daughter Goddess, the second H. Many similarities exist between the old Canaanite pantheon and the Judeo-Christian pantheon, and fragments of the old worship still exist today. Shekinah is the evolved form of Asherah, just as Matronit contains remnants of Anat. Yeshua does share similarities with Ba'al, including His subordinance to the Father, El, and the fact that he was killed and resurrected in Springtime.
To conclude, El has always been in Judeo-Christianity, but He existed long before that. He was known as El to all three of the patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - and to the twelve sons of Jacob. He was known to the Jews in captivity in Egypt, and to Moses who came to meet the full Godhead - YHVH - on the mountain. And now, El in His original form is known to us today, as the distant but still caring Chief of our Godhead. And we still speak to Him through our Mediatrix - who was known as Asherah to all six of the Israelite matriarchs - Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah - and to Dinah their daughter. Asherah was certainly known to the Jews in captivity in Egypt, and later evolved into Shekinah. Asherah in Her original form is known to us today in yet another incarnation, the form of Mary, our Mediatrix, who takes our prayers before El, King of the Gods.

ThiChi

From Michael T. Griffith:

...Further proof that variant readings affect important passages comes from Deuteronomy 32:8-9.

In the Masoretic Text (MT), as it is translated in the KJV, the passage reads as follows:

"When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD's [Yahweh's] portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance."

However, it has long been known from the Septuagint , and more recently from the Dead Sea Scrolls , that the phrase "according to the number of the children of Israel" used to read "according to the number of the sons of God." In the RSV , which takes into account the confirming evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the passage reads like this:

"When the Most High [El Elyon] gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the LORD's [Yahweh's] portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance."

The significance of this variation is that in ancient times the term "sons of God" frequently referred to members of a divine assembly of gods. The ancient Hebrews believed in a divine council of deities headed by the supreme father-god El (also called Elohim or El Elyon), and they often referred to the members of this council as "the sons of God." There is considerable disagreement among scholars over the council's composition, but there is no serious question that a belief in a divine assembly of heavenly deities was an important doctrine in ancient Hebrew theology (Eissfeldt; Mullen; Hayman; Morgenstern; Hanson 39; Clifford; Ackerman; Ackroyd; Seaich 1983:9-23).

By changing "the sons of God" to "the children of Israel," someone was deliberately trying to eliminate the reference to the divine council.

The LXX (Septuagint) and Dead Sea Scroll versions of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 portray Yahweh as separate from El and as a member of the divine assembly subordinate to Him. As Niels Lemche says, "the Greek version apparently ranges Yahweh among the sons of the Most High, that is, treats him as a member of the pantheon of gods who are SUBORDINATE to the supreme God, El Elyon" (226, emphasis added). According to Harvard University's Paul Hanson, "This verse no doubt preserves early Israel's view of her place within the family of nations. The high god "Elyon" originally apportioned the nations to the members of the divine assembly. . . . Israel was allotted to Yahweh"

As the RSV puts it, Israel was Yahweh's "allotted inheritance," given (or "allotted") to Him by His Father, El.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint prove that in the original Hebrew of Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Yahweh was portrayed as a member of the divine council under El. Therefore, those who subsequently tampered with the Hebrew text were probably Yahweh-only editors who wanted to erase the original distinction between El and Yahweh and to depict Yahweh as the one and only God.

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who gave isreal to Jehovah?

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