Eloah vs. Elohim

[David Bokovoy]

I just received an email from a highly learned Christian poster who contributes here on the FAIR board. Since his email raises such an interesting issue that we

[caudicus]

Is there a distinction between the jewish Elohim and Yahweh?

Eloah, is that like Allah?

[Ron Beron]

I

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Caudicus,

==Is there a distinction between the jewish Elohim and Yahweh?

It depends upon which form of Judaism we

[Theophilus]

Is there a distinction between the jewish Elohim and Yahweh?

Yes.

"Yahweh" (or "YHWH", or "Jehovah") is His name.

"Elohim" is what He is. (It means, "god", or "deity".)

We say "Caudicus is human".

We say "Fido is canine."

We say "Yahweh" is elohim.

Theophilus

[caudicus]

I seem to recall reading, once upon a time, that El was not necessarily of Israelite, or Semitic origins. Is there any truth to this? Did they adopt in from another culture in the spirit of religious syncretism?

[Ron Beron]

Yahweh" (or "YHWH", or "Jehovah") is His name.

"Elohim" is what He is. (It means, "god", or "deity".)

It certainly is a bit more complex than this. Yahwah/Yah or Ya (Semitic)/Ea (Sumerian)/and Enki all share characteristics of a tribal deity including YHWH which has its roots a southern Israel origin. El/Enlil etc., all share again a common root in a Sumerian god as well. Two gods, two different names.

[Warship]

This is slightly off topic but I heard Jehova mentioned so I was wondering if anybody knows if Y'shua is Jehova.

I've seen around on web sites like http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/i.../14_6/messenger

that Yshua, the Angel of the Lord's presence, is Jesus, which sounds an awful lot like

Abraham1:

15 And as they lifted up their hands upon me, that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord ahearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands;

16 And his voice was unto me: aAbraham, Abraham, behold, my name is Jehovah, and I have heard thee, and have come down to deliver thee, and to take thee away from thy cfather

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Ace,

Great questions!

===Is there any question as to Eloah being the consort of El and the two being called Eloheim?

No. I

[Ron Beron]

I have a hard time grammatically and/or conceptually seeing the connection with the Sumerian deity. Perhaps you could share with us a few of the reasons you see a connection. I always enjoy reading what you have to say.

Thanks for the compliment, but I will have to agree that linguistically there is little to cite that connect the two. Culturally, in Sumerian Enlil was the creator god as well as the god of the wind, land, and the sea while in Canaanite culture El assumed that responsibility. I may be wrong, but I have always believed that Canaanite culture was highly influenced by Sumerian. I believe that in Sumerian the prefix is gender determinative, meaning that in Enlil the En determines his masculinity. The same would be true for Ninlil who is the female counterpart. The prefix EN determines the gender leaving LIL which is the name. It is not a far stretch to see that LIL and El are very similar. In Arabic it is even more determinative. Remove the gender determinative which leaves LIL, add the Semitic or Arabic gender suffix AH which gives us ILAH, now add the definite article AL and we get AL-ILAH. Finally, contract the Semitic form and we end up with AL'LAH. To be fair I should also include the connection with Ba'al. Now, it becomes even more fascinating when we do the same thing for the feminine genderization of the word which gives us ALLAT, or the consort to ALLAH. In Semitic Anat (Anatu, Anath, Anata, Anta, Antu, Anant, Anit, Antit)and Asherah are connected, while not linguistically, certain culturally. And, it is difficult to ignore the similarities with An-at and Al-lat.

[trim]

I read somewhere that Elohim is a cohortative plural (they did not specifiy a plural of what) which seems to imply a plurality of beings. Waltke and O'Connor use the term 'honorific' plural which makes more sense to me. In veiw of other Semitic languages I can see that Eloah is a logical root.

David,

You mention that the view of El as the singular root is outdated. Is the discussion in Koehler and Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament the most current view?

[Ron Beron]

I read somewhere that Elohim is a cohortative plural (they did not specifiy a plural of what) which seems to imply a plurality of beings. Waltke and O'Connor use the term 'honorific' plural which makes more sense to me. In veiw of other Semitic languages I can see that Eloah is a logical root.

I am more familiar with Japanese and English grammar than Hebrew, but isn't cohortative a situation where a single person commands a second single person to do someone which often includes himself, as in "Let us...."?

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Trim,

I read somewhere that Elohim is a cohortative plural (they did not specifiy a plural of what) which seems to imply a plurality of beings. Waltke and O'Connor use the term 'honorific' plural which makes more sense to me.

The cohortative is a first person volitional form, translated as

[David Bokovoy]

Hello Ace,

I may be wrong, but I have always believed that Canaanite culture was highly influenced by Sumerian.

I don

[Ron Beron]

As a Semitic name, Enlil, of course, appears in Akkadian as Ellil. Have you read any articles that have made a connection between Ellil and El?

Off hand, I think that Cross makes some reference to it as well as Smith's "The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel" makes some mention of it, esp. the connection between Ba'al and El. There are also countless websites that reference this as well, but with those you get what you find. You got me interested in it now, so I guess I should do some more reading and depend less on my notes.

[Ron Beron]

As a Semitic name, Enlil, of course, appears in Akkadian as Ellil. Have you read any articles that have made a connection between Ellil and El?

Hi David,

I found this, of all places, on a law dictionary site...

EL or El may mean:

    * El (god), a Semitic word for 'god' and the name of a particular northwest Semitic father god who was head of many pantheons and identified with God in the Tanakh.

El was the once the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon until El's son Adad, or Hadad came into favor. The early Hebrews were Canaanites that continued to worship El is the primary god. Most likely, the Cult of El was originally transported to Canaan from Babylonia, where El was known as Ellil, derived from the Sumerian Enlil, who was notorious for forbidding his followers from worshipping any other gods (research the Curse of Agade for Enlil's cursing of a city of his followers who continued to worship Inanna).

http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/El

While it is certainly an obtuse setting it nonetheless makes sense. Strangly, I have used this as a source before and it always as good responses although it lacks sources. More on sources later.

Ron Beron