Question About El As The God Of The Exodus

[Hamilton Porter]

Question about Mark S. Smith's arguments for El, not Yahweh, as the God of the Exodus. He lists 4 reasons:

1. Two verses in Num 23-24 identify El as the one of freed Israelites from Egypt.

2. The name El appears 3x more frequently than Yahweh in the poems of Num 23-24

3. The older patriarchal narratives have a preponderance of El mentions.

4. Egyptian names like Moses and Phineas indicate there was a Levitical priesthood in Egypt.

Does anyone one know what (4) has to do with El being the God of the Exodus? I don't get it.

[volgadon]

Question about Mark S. Smith's arguments for El, not Yahweh, as the God of the Exodus. He lists 4 reasons:

1. Two verses in Num 23-24 identify El as the one of freed Israelites from Egypt.

2. The name El appears 3x more frequently than Yahweh in the poems of Num 23-24

3. The older patriarchal narratives have a preponderance of El mentions.

4. Egyptian names like Moses and Phineas indicate there was a Levitical priesthood in Egypt.

Does anyone one know what (4) has to do with El being the God of the Exodus? I don't get it.

Perhaps provide at least the title and page number.

[Questing Beast]

James Michener introduced me to "El" in "The Source". I had never noticed the frequency of the name before. Perhaps YHWH was a later name/title? The Abrahamic religions have been in a continual state of transformation....

[Hamilton Porter]

Perhaps provide at least the title and page number.

Origins of Biblical Monotheism, 146-148

[Robert F. Smith]

James Michener introduced me to "El" in "The Source". I had never noticed the frequency of the name before. Perhaps YHWH was a later name/title? The Abrahamic religions have been in a continual state of transformation....

El and Yahweh are really epithets which have become titles or names in the course of time. El like Arabic Allah means "God," while Yahweh means "He who creates (that which comes into existence)." In Hebraic tradition, even though El is head of the Canaanite pantheon, he is the preferred name of God in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Yahweh is the preferred name in Judah. The Documentary Hypothesis even uses those names as the indicator of the separate E and J documents (Elohist & Jahwist)) which have been discerned in the OT. Years ago in Dialogue, John Sorenson demonstrated that the Book of Mormon is an E document, which makes sense in light of Lehi being of Manasseh. The separate traditions are seen in stark relief in the duplicate E and J Psalms which differ only in their preference of god-terms.

[maklelan]

I disagree with Smith (and I'll get back to you on Moses and Phineas), but the issue can be quite complicated. In my opinion, the god of the original exodus tradition was YHWH, but el was also a generic term meaning "god," and it certainly could have been used in reference to YHWH (the name Israel, after all, was in use in the 13th century CE in the north). The imagery of the patriarchal tradition aligns much more with the divine profile of the Canaanite high god El. Saul's rise to the throne would have institutionalized Yahwism, but the two deities would not have been conflated until David, the Judahite El-worshipper, combined the two kingdoms. The exodus and patriarchal traditions themselves would not be combined into one linear history until P effected the first real Pentateuchal narrative. At SBL in Baltimore this year I am presenting the following paper:

YHWH and El: The Conceptual Blending of Their Divine Profiles

The point of departure for this paper is the theory that the patriarchal and exodus traditions represent originally independent traditions of Israel’s ethnogenesis. The most explicit—and perhaps original—attempt to link the two traditions and their concepts of God (Exod 6:3) acknowledges distinct divine names associated with the two traditions, namely YHWH and El Shaddai. Quite different theological profiles emerge from the disentangling of the traditions most closely connected with those names, but by the time of the composition of Exod 6:3, those profiles were fusing. Within the resulting composite view of Israel’s God, certain concepts associated with the earlier profiles were emphasized while others were marginalized. New concepts also developed out of the process and the socio-religious exigencies of the authors and editors. The complex and tensile conceptualization of YHWH found in the Hebrew Bible’s final form represents several centuries of conceptual blending and innovation against the backdrop of Israel’s scriptural heritage.

Scholars of early Israelite religion have dedicated a great deal of attention to the socio-religious impetuses for and results of the conflation of YHWH and El, but there is little that examines the cognitive processes that may have attended and influenced that conflation. This study seeks to fill that need. It will first isolate and schematize each tradition’s conceptualizations of its central deity, paying close attention to the centrality of the imagery to that deity’s representation. It will then evaluate the conceptual blending of the two schemas, highlighting the analogous and complementary concepts that facilitated that blending, as well as the conditions that contributed to the development of new divine conceptualizations. The fundamental goal is insight into why God was represented in the texts the way he was.

Edited May 10, 2013 by maklelan

[Robert F. Smith]

Question about Mark S. Smith's arguments for El, not Yahweh, as the God of the Exodus. He lists 4 reasons:

1. Two verses in Num 23-24 identify El as the one of freed Israelites from Egypt.

2. The name El appears 3x more frequently than Yahweh in the poems of Num 23-24

3. The older patriarchal narratives have a preponderance of El mentions.

4. Egyptian names like Moses and Phineas indicate there was a Levitical priesthood in Egypt.

Does anyone one know what (4) has to do with El being the God of the Exodus? I don't get it.

No, but there are quite a few Israelites with Egyptian names, and the priestly and cult terminology of the Israelites is very Egyptian (including the Egyptian design and terminology for the Tabernacle in the desert, and the cult equipment). However, when they arrive in Midian (which is in the Hijaz region of NW Jordan, not Sinai), they deal with both El and YHWH names for the same God. Indeed, the earliest occurrence of YHWH appears in 14th & 13th century B.C. lists of Edomite toponyms in Egyptian as yhw3, to be read as ya-h-wi, or the like.[1] YHWH is also found in the 9^th cent. B.C. Mesha Stele, line 18, in Moabite.[2]

[1] F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 60-75; cf. D. N. Freedman, “The Name of the God of Moses,” JBL, 79/3 (1960), 156.; cf. Holzapfel, Pike, and Seely, Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament, 16-18.

[2] G. Reynolds, Abraham, 47; André Lemaire, "'House of David' Restored in Moabite Inscription," BAR, 20/3 (May-June 1994):30-37.

[Damien the Leper]

This is why Robert, Mak, and Volg should be on my shelf.

[Questing Beast]

Okay, "this is what I am talking about". I see a reaching back into ancient history and imposing two distinct beings, "El(ohim)" and Jehovah upon that history that did not exist back then. Joseph Smith's Godhead is distinctly of separate beings, first two then three. And by the 1840's appears to be clearly Elohim, Jehovah and the Holy Ghost. Earlier, the Godhead was less clearly defined, for instance in the Kirtland temple dedication, which is addressed to "O Lord", "Holy Father, in the name of Jesus Christ the Son of they bosom", "Holy Father", "O Jehovah", "O Mighty God of Jacob" (separate from Jehovah whom Joseph Smith has "covenanted with"), and finally "O Lord God Almighty". Clearly JS, et al. had no specific concept of the Godhead in 1836, and their terminology was influenced by the common names of God extant in Christianity. If "El" and YHWH were known as the same monotheist "God" back in early biblical history then it is anachronistic to refer to two of them, which probably means that JS was more accurate in his 1832 version of the "first vision" (and in the BoM), and steadily got further away from that truth in subsequent versions as given. He "saw many angels on this occasion", so what's a few more "gods" present, more or less? The "first vision" isn't any clearing up of the "Godhead", but rather evidence of a powerful, metaphysical experience not clearly understood at the time, and subsequently with the passing of many years conflated with other metaphysical experiences when it came time to write down specific details. In any case, the Church's simplistic version of the "first vision" ignores any previous inconsistencies, in order to present a simple, clear declaration of the Godhead, a clarity that did not even exist during the early years of the Church's foundation. The clear "vision" of what/who God was, was had by the ancients, but subsequent religious evolution muddied the waters considerably, and here we are.

The "El" or YHWH of Genesis is clearly both spirit and physical being, at will. Only in our modern theology must GtF and Christ be specifically defined as to physicality, making them less omnipotent somehow. Nowhere in Mormon theology is it allowed that GtF ever "drops" his body for any reason whatsoever, yet he does so, takes up physicality and drops it at will, in the Old Testament.

[volgadon]

Egyptian names like Moses and Phineas indicate there was a Levitical priesthood in Egypt.

As I read his argument, Mark Smith claims that the presence of Egyptian names among a certain group of lveitical priests indicates their ties to Egypt, and that going by a presumed original connotation of the name Gershom, Moses fulfilled the role of a landless priest at either an Egyptian sanctuary, or a sanctuary in Egypt. He then connects it to a different study to support the idea of the god of Shiloh being El. If their God was El, and they also preserved signs of Egyptian influence, once can then suppose that their god in the Exodus was El. At least to me that seems to be Smith's argument. Mak will hopefully weigh in, and correct me if I'm wrong.

[Nevo]

He then connects it to a different study to support the idea of the god of Shiloh being El. If their God was El, and they also preserved signs of Egyptian influence, once can then suppose that their god in the Exodus was El.

That looks correct to me. Smith writes: "Because of Seow's study [noting "El language and characteristics reflected in aspects of the cult of Shiloh"—see p. 140] and the Egyptian names [of Levites at Shiloh], one could claim that the god of the putative figure Moses and the Levitical priesthood in Shiloh was El" (p. 147). In this connection, Smith also remarks that "it is probably no accident that Psalm 78 repeatedly uses El names and epithets in describing the rise and fall of the sanctuary at Shiloh" (p. 140).

As an aside, I noticed that Smith devotes most of a page in the endnotes to discussing Margaret Barker's The Great Angel (see p. 274n61). He didn't endorse it exactly, but it's rare to see Barker's work discussed at all in a major scholarly monograph much less receive sustained attention.

[Calm]

As an aside, I noticed that Smith devotes most of a page in the endnotes to discussing Margaret Barker's The Great Angel (see p. 274n61). He didn't endorse it exactly, but it's rare to see Barker's work discussed at all in a major scholarly monograph much less receive sustained attention.

So Barker tends to remain on the fringes of scholarly work?

[BCSpace]

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is a good one that differentiates between El and YHWH. From the NEB:

"When the Most High [EL] parceled out the nations, when he dispersed all mankind, he laid down the boundaries of every people according to the number of the sons of God; but the LORD's [YHWH's] share was his own people, Jacob was his allotted portion.

[volgadon]

So Barker tends to remain on the fringes of scholarly work?

Yes.

[Nevo]

.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Nevo

[Calm]

I'd say so. She tends to be appreciated more by non-scholars, particularly Eastern Orthodox and LDS. Barker is prolific but, as far as I can tell, seldom makes it into her colleagues' bibliographies or indexes.

Barker herself regularly laments this fact in reviewing other scholars' work:

• "The author seems unaware of my own extensive work on this over many years..." (review of Jesus the Temple by Nicholas Perrin, in Novum Testamentum 53 [2011]: 403).
  

• "This would make a useful book for people embarking on study in this area, provided they were made aware that several important aspects of the discussion are not covered; that some scholars are dismissed out of hand, such as Simon Gathercole’s work on Jesus’ pre-existence in the Synoptic Gospels (123-26), . . . and some (such as myself) who have published extensively in this area for many years are not mentioned even to be dismissed" (review of King and Messiah as Son of God by John J. Collins and Adela Yarbro Collins, in Evangelical Quarterly 82, no. 2 [2010]: 166).
  

• "My hypothesis is not considered anywhere in the collection..." (review of Enoch and Qumran Origins edited by Gabriele Boccaccini, in Journal of Theological Studies 58, no. 2 [2007]: 618).
  

So do you consider her complaints valid? That her work should be paid attention to where it is currently not?

[Robert F. Smith]

So do you consider her complaints valid? That her work should be paid attention to where it is currently not?

At the 2011 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco, I asked Bernard Levinson (arguably the world's expert on Deuteronomy*) what he thought of the ideas of Margaret Barker. He hadn't heard of her. However, his work specifically details the innovations of the Deuteronomists, thus agreeing with Barker to that degree. The nature and theological content of the types of redaction might differ in each of their accounts.

* Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).

[Hamilton Porter]

As I read his argument, Mark Smith claims that the presence of Egyptian names among a certain group of lveitical priests indicates their ties to Egypt, and that going by a presumed original connotation of the name Gershom, Moses fulfilled the role of a landless priest at either an Egyptian sanctuary, or a sanctuary in Egypt. He then connects it to a different study to support the idea of the god of Shiloh being El. If their God was El, and they also preserved signs of Egyptian influence, once can then suppose that their god in the Exodus was El. At least to me that seems to be Smith's argument. Mak will hopefully weigh in, and correct me if I'm wrong.

That looks correct to me. Smith writes: "Because of Seow's study [noting "El language and characteristics reflected in aspects of the cult of Shiloh"—see p. 140] and the Egyptian names [of Levites at Shiloh], one could claim that the god of the putative figure Moses and the Levitical priesthood in Shiloh was El" (p. 147). In this connection, Smith also remarks that "it is probably no accident that Psalm 78 repeatedly uses El names and epithets in describing the rise and fall of the sanctuary at Shiloh" (p. 140).

As an aside, I noticed that Smith devotes most of a page in the endnotes to discussing Margaret Barker's The Great Angel (see p. 274n61). He didn't endorse it exactly, but it's rare to see Barker's work discussed at all in a major scholarly monograph much less receive sustained attention.

Ah...there we go. Thank you both.

[Robert F. Smith]

............................................

The "El" or YHWH of Genesis is clearly both spirit and physical being, at will. Only in our modern theology must GtF and Christ be specifically defined as to physicality, making them less omnipotent somehow. Nowhere in Mormon theology is it allowed that GtF ever "drops" his body for any reason whatsoever, yet he does so, takes up physicality and drops it at will, in the Old Testament.

Aside from your off the wall rejection of two (or more) divine beings, I don't understand you here, Beast. Where and when does God "drop his body" (Vedic or Buddha style?) in the OT? Can you cite sources on this supposed ability of God to take up physicality and drop it at will? Moreover, how does "physicality" reduce the power of God?

[J Green]

* Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).

One of the better and more convincing books I've read. Both his study and Gabriele Boccaccini's work tracing the Enoch corpus back from Qumran through various priestly splinter groups are partial reasons why I think Barker's work has some merit to it, even if many other scholars aren't aware of her.

[Questing Beast]

Aside from your off the wall rejection of two (or more) divine beings, I don't understand you here, Beast. Where and when does God "drop his body" (Vedic or Buddha style?) in the OT? Can you cite sources on this supposed ability of God to take up physicality and drop it at will? Moreover, how does "physicality" reduce the power of God?

The burning bush, no body present. Physical angels wrestle with Patriarchs, yet "God" has no body at the same time? What gives? It's a muddle, not made more clear by asserting that Jesus had no body before he was born, or that the Bom God had no body until he "condescended" to be born of a mortal woman. Jesus eats with his disciples after his resurrection, yet can pass through walls and ceilings and tombs at will. Obviously, "body" to a god is not the same thing as the Mormon concept of the resurrection, which only asserts "glory" added to physical (flesh and bones) immortality. Where is the doctrine that we will be incapable of an incorporeal state if we choose? As far as I can tell the Bible does not address anything like this question. Taken altogether, it seems obvious that God can do as he pleases and be physical/corporeal/incarnate or spirit at will....

Edited May 12, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Tacenda]

The burning bush, no body present. Physical angels wrestle with Patriarchs, yet "God" has no body at the same time? What gives? It's a muddle, not made more clear by asserting that Jesus had no body before he was born, or that the Bom God had no body until he "condescended" to be born of a mortal woman. Jesus eats with his disciples after his resurrection, yet can pass through walls and ceilings and tombs at will. Obviously, "body" to a god is not the same thing as the Mormon concept of the resurrection, which only asserts "glory" added to physical (flesh and bones) immortality. Where is the doctrine that we will be incapable of an incorporeal state if we choose? As far as I can tell the Bible does not address anything like this question. Taken altogether, it seems obvious that God can do as he pleases and be physical/corporeal/incarnate or spirit at will....

QB, I think some LDS underestimate what God is capable of, he isn't anywhere near the being that some put him as. Thanks for you post here.

[Robert F. Smith]

The burning bush, no body present. Physical angels wrestle with Patriarchs, yet "God" has no body at the same time? What gives? It's a muddle, not made more clear by asserting that Jesus had no body before he was born, or that the Bom God had no body until he "condescended" to be born of a mortal woman. Jesus eats with his disciples after his resurrection, yet can pass through walls and ceilings and tombs at will. Obviously, "body" to a god is not the same thing as the Mormon concept of the resurrection, which only asserts "glory" added to physical (flesh and bones) immortality. Where is the doctrine that we will be incapable of an incorporeal state if we choose? As far as I can tell the Bible does not address anything like this question. Taken altogether, it seems obvious that God can do as he pleases and be physical/corporeal/incarnate or spirit at will....

Tacenda said:

QB, I think some LDS underestimate what God is capable of, he isn't anywhere near the being that some put him as. Thanks for you post here.

As usual, Tacenda, the Beast spoke without knowledge, and it is he who underestimated the nature of God by placing God on a Procrustean Bed and lopping off whatever attribute of God gets in the way of his limited understanding of reality.

According to the Beast, it is not possible for God to have a bush burning that is not consumed by the fire, and it is not possible for Moses' face to be burning and not be consumed and badly burned. He also suggests that someone with a glorified body (angels, Jesus, etc.) cannot walk through walls while still being embodied, just as they cannot read minds, or do any one of a number of amazing things, only because the Beast doesn't know how to do those things himself!! How odd and absurd to limit God according to one's own level of ignorance -- making God in his own image.

How does the Lord and two angels come to Abraham on the Plain of Mamre and eat and drink like normal men, and then the two angels go on to see Lot in Sodom and also eat there (Genesis 18 - 19)? Has the Beast really given this much thought?

All this aside from the fact that the Beast is unable to distinguish between embodied God the Father and the unembodied Son in the OT. The "muddle" is in the Beast's head.

[Tacenda]

As usual, Tacenda, the Beast spoke without knowledge, and it is he who underestimated the nature of God by placing God on a Procrustean Bed and lopping off whatever attribute of God gets in the way of his limited understanding of reality.

According to the Beast, it is not possible for God to have a bush burning that is not consumed by the fire, and it is not possible for Moses' face to be burning and not be consumed and badly burned. He also suggests that someone with a glorified body (angels, Jesus, etc.) cannot walk through walls while still being embodied, just as they cannot read minds, or do any one of a number of amazing things, only because the Beast doesn't know how to do those things himself!! How odd and absurd to limit God according to one's own level of ignorance -- making God in his own image.

How does the Lord and two angels come to Abraham on the Plain of Mamre and eat and drink like normal men, and then the two angels go on to see Lot in Sodom and also eat there (Genesis 18 - 19)? Has the Beast really given this much thought?

All this aside from the fact that the Beast is unable to distinguish between embodied God the Father and the unembodied Son in the OT. The "muddle" is in the Beast's head.

Well, I must have read his post wrong then. I'll reread it. Are you sure you read it right, without a bias? Also read the last statement in the quote you quoted, that's what I was going by. Sometimes I think we put God in a box, and don't understand he is so great, he's incomprehensible. Edited May 12, 2013 by Tacenda

[Questing Beast]

As usual, Tacenda, ...

... the Beast is unable to distinguish between embodied God the Father and the unembodied Son in the OT. The "muddle" is in the Beast's head.

Tacenda has it right, you are now in the habit of disagreeing with me for whatever complex of reasons. I said the precise opposite of what you went on about. There is a "muddle" in the scriptures and doctrine as taken by Mormonism, when they assert that GtF has a body but Jesus Christ does not yet an angel of the Lord has a body and can wrestle with Patriarchs and even lame their thigh with a trick blow, etc. Trying to "clarify" this by further asserting that Jesus only got his physical body upon being born as a mortal furthers the muddle and adds more limitations upon God, unless we individually come up with speculations to offer as explanations. The "gospel of Christ" is simple, the speculations are legion, welcome to man-made dogma.

God Is Infinite. What part of that is hard to understand? I did not say "comprehend". I understand the concept of Infinite, I apprehend it, I do not comprehend it. So demanding that strict, finite, dogmatic definitions of "God" are exclusively true is denial of an Infinity of added concepts, i.e. moving yourself in the opposite direction of greater truth....

Edited May 12, 2013 by Questing Beast