Elohim And Heavenly Mother

[e=mc2]

Enemy Ace: (answering that Asherah wasn't associated with Elohim in any manner)

She was the mother of the Elohim.

Point, set, match.

Of course Kevin will disagree that she was the Mother of the Gods, but he disagrees a lot of things he apparently cannot fathom, or trys to make it far more difficult than it really is to comprehend.

[e=mc2]

Jason H:

QUOTE from E=mc:

Archaeologically we have been told there is NOTHING to account for ANYTHING in Mormonism, especially with the BofM. I am using archaeologically based texts which describe God as having a penis to show that archaeologically there is nothing showing God is a spirit as opposed to having a body.

Jason H:

What a lame argument.

It *IS* a lame argument because the criticism is lame. Are you beginning to fathom what I am doing? Is there hope yet in Israel that Kevin might start getting it?!? Hallelujah!

What makes it all the more ironic is seeing how totaly LAME the criticism is in the first place, and hence propounding the argument because it shows the utterly STUPIDITY of relying on archaeology (as many Christians do) to beat Mormonism with, as if it is the final answer. Kevin! I have hopes for ya man!

[cksalmon]

Jason H:

Kevin, do you really believe that the Bible included everything the ancient Israelites knew? Are you that totally naive about how the Old Testament was put together and what parts of it were and were not included, or even survived? It is MORE than enough to note that the ancient Israelites believed and WORSHIPPED a female deity, and what we Mormons label as a Heavenly Mother is also a female deity.

Is this the fabled argument from silence, wherein those things that are not present in OT become evidence of what should be there, per Mormon theology (a la a deployment of some aspects of Barker's research)?

It is MORE than enough to note that the ancient Israelites believed and WORSHIPPED a female deity, and what we Mormons label as a Heavenly Mother is also a female deity.

Okay, demonstrate this, Kerry. Document this.

CKS

[e=mc2]

Jason H:

I never said you mangled the translation. I said you mangled HIM. You use him to promote Mormon themes even though he doesnâ??t agree.

I never said he (Mark Smith) agreed with Mormon themes, now you are making some things up here Kevin and misrepresnting what I said about Smith's research. If he shows ancient texts which present El with a penis and says El was the basis of the Hebrew Elohim in the Hebrew Bible, and this El had two not just one, but two, El was a polgyamist) wives he loved to physically love with his well endowed body, and I note that archaeologically this "proves" (using this IRONICALLY, how many bloody times do I have to pound your head with this before you finally get it dude? I use the word PROVE ironically, because *I* don't believe its PROOF, but Christians usually say archaeology PROVES Mormonism wrong. I use their own wrong headed word of "prove" against them with the one science they think is their friend [in this case archaeology] It's IRONY Kevin, IRONY, can't you please quit thinking for a while and just get it yet?PLEASE? I explained all this in the article, and podcast, but true to form, you ignore it, which is THE context, but why allow the context to get in the way of your diatribe right? So much for care of context from you eh?) the ancient God who is the basis of the Ugaritic God El, is never depicted archaeologically as a Spirit, then why use archaeology as a final proof of anything as some Christians are wont to do against we Mormons? That is my entire point, and you still refuse to understand the context I already explained because you apparently like to argue more than you like to learn.

[Ron Beron]

Enemy Ace: (answering that Asherah wasn't associated with Elohim in any manner)

Point, set, match.

Of course Kevin will disagree that she was the Mother of the Gods, but he disagrees a lot of things he apparently cannot fathom, or trys to make it far more difficult than it really is to comprehend.

Hopefully, he will read some of the Ugaritic myths.

A little more of an edit here...

In review of Mark Smith's book on The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic

Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) the author states essentially what many of us here have stating ad nauseum. To wit...

Ugaritic polytheism is expressed as a monism through the concepts of the divine council or assembly and in the divine family. The two structures are essentially understood as a single entity with four levels: the chief god and his wife (El and Asherah); the seventy divine children (including Baal, Astarte, Anat, probably Resheph as well as the sun-goddess Shapshu and the moon-god Yerak) evidently characterized as the stars of El; the head helper of the divine household, Kothar wa-Hasis; and the servants of the divine household, who include what the Bible understands to be "angels" (in other words, messenger-gods).

As does most things human the model of the divine family and divine council went through a number of changes including the birthing of Yahweh as part of the children of El and Asherah. (see Deut. 32:8 where it states, "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." The Masoretic text changes the original meaning of "according to the number of the divine sons," to "according to the number of the children of Israel". Equally interesting is Psalm 82 which has been well represented by David B.

At some point, though,m El becomes identified with Yahweh as evidenced in Exodus, (I Am that I Am). It is here that Yahweh-El is the husband of Asherah. Of course this is later condemned and removed from the temples, but in early Israelite folk religion it was highly represented.

Please read the entire article here...http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/MSmith_BiblicalMonotheism.htm

[Jersey Girl]

Jason H:

Kevin, do you really believe that the Bible included everything the ancient Israelites knew? Are you that totally naive about how the Old Testament was put together and what parts of it were and were not included, or even survived? It is MORE than enough to note that the ancient Israelites believed and WORSHIPPED a female deity, and what we Mormons label as a Heavenly Mother is also a female deity. THAT simply is not nor was in Christianity in Joseph Smith's day, nor since even up into our day. THE point is that there IS a female deity period. The Why or where she came from is peripheral to the point that she is. She is in Ancient Israel, and she is in Mormonism. Simply because the Bible is silent about how the Israelites knew about the Mother is not proof they didn't have revelation. Surely one such as learned, logical, and powerfully argumentative knows the fallacy of argument from silence on this point yes?

Kerry....KERRY......that the ancients believed and worshipped a female deity does NOT constitute PROOF that a female deity EXISTS.

Still banging my head against the monitor....*bang* *bang* *bang*

Jersey Girl

[e=mc2]

CKS:

Okay, demonstrate this, Kerry. Document this.

That Israel believed and worshipped a female deity?

Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd Revised Enlarged edition, Wayne State Univerity, 1990.

William G. Dever Did God Have a Wife? (2005)

Frank Moore Cross, Jr., Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Harvard University Press, 7th printing, 1998.

Eugene Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism, (195) 2nd revised and enlarged edition

Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest, T&T Clark, 2002.

Jersey Girl:

Kerry....KERRY......that the ancients believed and worshipped a female deity does NOT constitute PROOF that a female deity EXISTS.

Then them worshipping a male deity doesn't do so either does it?

[Jersey Girl]

Then them worshipping a male deity doesn't do so either does it?

No, it doesn't. What gods humans develop and worship (forms of worship, rites, ceremonies, claimed revelations, systems of theology) does not prove that the gods exist.

[e=mc2]

The gods may not exist, either male or female, but it is irrelevant to the *idea* of gods both male and female, something foreign to the majority of Christianity, that is, the idea of a wife ofGod. The idea is not lost in Mormonism however, and it certainly was in ancient Israel, whether she literally exists or not ......

[cksalmon]

CKS:

That Israel believed and worshipped a female deity?

Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd Revised Enlarged edition, Wayne State Univerity, 1990.

William G. Dever Did God Have a Wife? (2005)

Frank Moore Cross, Jr., Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Harvard University Press, 7th printing, 1998.

Eugene Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism, (195) 2nd revised and enlarged edition

Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest, T&T Clark, 2002.

Yes, Kerry, demonstration of that. How about contextualized quotations, Kerry. Otherwise, I'll continue to suspect we're being treated to the standard dog and pony show, sans the dogs and ponies. And, what about my questions from the other thread?

A personal opinion? Not something cobbled together from a mish-mash of sources? I can provide the link if you need me to do so.

CKS

[Jersey Girl]

The gods may not exist, either male or female, but it is irrelevant to the *idea* of gods both male and female, something foreign to the majority of Christianity, that is, the idea of a wife ofGod. The idea is not lost in Mormonism however, and it certainly was in ancient Israel, whether she literally exists or not ......

Kerry,

The belief in and worship of Asherah predated Israel. How does this align with the restoration of the primitive Christian church?

[e=mc2]

Enemy Ace:

Hopefully, he will read some of the Ugaritic myths.

He will, but he'll find a way to refute anyting to do with a Mormon apologetic is pure nonsense, because, of course, he is now a disgruntled Mormon, and for heavens sake nothing can be allowed in favor of Mormonism, esepcially if some backyard professor idiot propounds it!

Incidentally, Mark Smith (Early History of God) p. 7 says point blank that El was Israel's ORIGINAL deity. This is the El of Canaanite fame. They worshipped the Canaanite God El, he says on page 8. Fascinating...........

Hi Jersey Girl,

The restoration is much broader than simply truths from the Early Christian Church, as Joseph Smith demonstrated in many of his fascinating sermons on the ancient Biblical Patriarchs and prophets. True, we emphasize the "church" thingy, but I suspect it's much broader than just that.

[Ron Beron]

Kerry,

The belief in and worship of Asherah predated Israel. How does this align with the restoration of the primitive Christian church?

If I may. Many believe that the LOGOS in John was a reference to an older feminine deity known as hokma and developed into the more existential Wisdom/Sophia. The scriptural references, in short, are

I Cor 1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

I Cor 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:

Eph. 1:17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

Col. 2:3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

[Zakuska]

The restoration is much broader than simply truths from the Early Christian Church, as Joseph Smith demonstrated in many of his fascinating sermons on the ancient Biblical Patriarchs and prophets. True, we emphasize the "church" thingy, but I suspect it's much broader than just that.

Isn't this the dispensation of the fullness of times... when ALL shall be restored!

[Jersey Girl]

Kerry

Hi Jersey Girl,

The restoration is much broader than simply truths from the Early Christian Church, as Joseph Smith demonstrated in many of his fascinating sermons on the ancient Biblical Patriarchs and prophets. True, we emphasize the "church" thingy,

So what you're saying here, Kerry, is that the restoration also includes the restoration of admiration/worship/regard for a goddess directly linked to Baalism. Why would God allow that?

Isn't this the dispensation of the fullness of times... when ALL shall be restored!

Does the ALL include the restoration of Baalism? How do LDS square this ancient connection?

[e=mc2]

Jersey Girl:

So what you're saying here, Kerry, is that the restoration also includes the restoration of admiration/worship/regard for a goddess directly linked to Baalism. Why would God allow that?

Why does God allow transvestitism, murder, rape, and war?

The original God EL, the Head God of the pantheon, was the Father of Baal, so is earlier than Baalism. Baal was the son who eventually succeeded the Father. Baalism is not the original religion in Canaan or Ugaritic either.

And see? You wrote wrong on Shades board that we wouldn't discuss these things with you seriously here as Daniel Peterson is doing there with you guys. I am amazed at how BAD we are always made of here from over there on Shades boards. Sad really. Not unexpected however.

The Restoration is a restoration of all things, and I suspect will take a lot longerthan we have heretofore ever expected it...........after all, didn't God create ALL mankind?

[Ron Beron]

Kerry

So what you're saying here, Kerry, is that the restoration also includes the restoration of admiration/worship/regard for a goddess directly linked to Baalism. Why would God allow that?

Why should it? JS didn't include animal sacrifices, stoning, or any other myriad practices of ancient Israel. He obviously gleaned what was truth from that which was false. The concept of heavenly parents ala Divine Council was obviously a true concept, but not necessarily exercised accurately.

[e=mc2]

CKS:

Yes, Kerry, demonstration of that. How about contextualized quotations, Kerry. Otherwise, I'll continue to suspect we're being treated to the standard dog and pony show, sans the dogs and ponies.

Oh yes, please do suspect. Nothing I ever write is accurate, truthful, exempt from error, or just plain stupidly brainwashed. Just ask JasonH.......... he's always right aobut his characterizations of what I write, so believe him man! and if you ever run into Kevin Graham, weeeeeeeeeeell, he accurately understands what a doofus I always am in my writing and research.

[Jersey Girl]

Jersey Girl:

Why does God allow transvestitism, murder, rape, and war?

The original God EL, the Head God of the pantheon, was the Father of Baal, so is earlier than Baalism. Baal was the son who eventually succeeded the Father. Baalism is not the original religion in Canaan or Ugaritic either.

And see? You wrote wrong on Shades board that we wouldn't discuss these things with you seriously here as Daniel Peterson is doing there with you guys. I am amazed at how BAD we are always made of here from over there on Shades boards. Sad really. Not unexpected however.

Kerry,

To my knowledge ( not that this is based on empirical evidence) God doesn't sanction transvestitism, murder, rape and war as forms of worship. My post to Daniel was based on at least four failed attempts to engage you on this board regarding Asherah and related topics. Daniel kindly replied to my inquiry.

"over there on Shades boards", indeed.

Jersey Girl

[JasonH]

Good morning guys,

I woke up early today. My son rolled off the bed and busted his mouth on the tile floor. We rushed him to the ER but he seems to be OK. Just a little banged up. My wife is upset because we are celebrating his 1 year birthday tomorrow. It seems like every time we get ready to take pictures during a special event, either my son or daughter hits his or her head on something leaving a nasty mark.

Anyway... I have time for one post this morning.

Since the activities in the temple are not canonical I am not sure that we see them as doctrinal.

They are doctrinal.

Having said that I can agree that Elohim is used as the proper name for God the Father

In Mormonism only. If you can admit that, then at least we are making progress.

but as I have previously stated the name itself has different connotations.

Actually it is more appropriate to say the word has different connotations. Name implies that it is actually a proper name. It isn't.

It can mean any deity, even sub-deity such as the divine council or the Supreme Deity which Mormons use.

This is the point I have reiterated at least four times now. Elohim is a general term, too general to be used to distinguish God the Father from any other deity. I recall someone mentioning Heiser as one who supports the idea that Asherah was a consort to a deity named elohim, but this is false. I always knew it was false but I decided to go ahead and reread his essay on this. Here is what he had to say:

"The reasons we can't quite wrap our minds around the flexibility of the word elohim is because we're used to thinking of that term as denoting a being who possesses unique, unshared attributes - the Elohim of Israel as it were. That just isn't true." (http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf)

The P on the F, while official never states that we have a "Heavenly Mother", per se, but Heaven Parents, which I agree with. Using a very earthbound word such as mother or father is probably inappropriate to express the relationship between these two.

Well, I think it is safe for me to assume that virtually all Mormons disagree with this, though I don't expect anyone to voice their disagreement here. The PoF simply stated what everyone had already known through more than a century of institutionalized indoctrination.

I hardly think God is play peekaboo with the prophets. More commonly this is an attempt to answer why there is a sudden shift in worship of southern tribal deity which has usurped authority over the proto-Israelite deity of El aka Elohim, Ba'al. Ea, and Enlil.

I'm not following you here. Are you suggesting Ex 6:3 was a corruption of some sort and that Yahweh didn't hide his name from them as he claimed

Nope! Downtown Bethlehem. Women as late as the 1970's were placing offerings at Rachel's Tomb to help them with their desire for children. I will rescind my earlier statement that they were offering to Asherah, but the implication is similar. Rachel has taken on the roll of Asherah in supporting women's cults in modern Israel.

I don't see a direct connection between ancient asherah temple worship and modern-day femenist Jews visiting the tomb of a revered biblical figure. But this is probably a moot point anyway.

She was the mother of the Elohim.

Yes, of course she was believed to be the mother of other deities (i.e. elohim) at Ugarit. But that isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not she was associated with a particular deity named Elohim (Capital E), as in the Mormon paradigm. The answer is no. She was consort to Yahweh, who is none other than the Mormon Jesus. This doesn't jive with the LDS paradigm whatsoever. The LDS Heavenly Mother is not the wife of Jesus. I have reiterated this numerous times.

It is also worth mentioning that asherah was the mother of elohim (gods) at Ugarit. The Bible simply doesn't give us that kind of information. That information is simply inferred by us. For all we know Asherah in Israel could have been a transformed concept just the same as Yahweh was, but everything written about her was essentially burned or destroyed. For all we know the concept of Asherah in Israel was vastly different from that at Ugarit. I would certainly hope so too, since the Asherah at Ugarit was a celestial slut who had intercourse with her husband's arch enemy Baal.

Elohim is a proper name although it is usually used alongside other connotations such as El Shadday etc. I posted it before and I'll do so again. Just because it reflects some age doesn't negate its message.

Again, this is an outdated apologetic. A theological attempt to downplay polytheistic overtones that are implied with the plural Elohim. Elohim cannot refer to a plurality of Gods since it is simply another way of saying Yahweh. This sounds like on of the commentaries anti-Mormons used to counter the LDS apologetic using elohim to prove a plurality of gods. You can find this kind of thing in many commentaries. But the fact is the evidence doesn't support it. It is simply illogical to say "The name Elohim stresses the fact that God, the Creator, is the absolute Lord over his creation and the sovereign of history." Even amateurs can see the silliness of this claim by recognizing the fact that elohim is used to denote dead humans and and even demons.

I think Heiser got it right above.

More later tonight.

[Benjamin McGuire]

JasonH writes:

Now, to say Yahweh is sometimes called Elohim, therefore it is OK to assert Asherah was consort to a god named Elohim, is nothing less than a stroke of equivocation since we both know that in Mormonism Yahweh and Elohim are different deities and elohim is not a proper name. It means gods, and this is why it is used to designate the gods â?? any of them. By your logic, Asherah was also a consort to Moses since elohim also refers to him.

I think I want to start here. Because this of all the stuff you have written in this thread is really illustrative of the issues here.

First, (and I will admit right up front that I am going to be picking at nits a bit here because, as we all know, semantics are at the heart of every argument, and if it is worth arguing about, it is worth trying to be accurate), Mormonism doesn't distinguish between Jehovah and Elohim until the turn of the century. In the first half century of Mormonism, there isn't any kind of concern for a technical differentiation between the two, nor does the notion of these terms as proper names come into play at all. This was a relatively late development in Mormon thought. And when it comes along, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Testament in terms of this discussion here. And I think you should be aware of this.

In 1744 Akenside published his The Pleasures of Imagination. In it there is this poem:

Know then, the sovran spirit of the world,

Though self-collected from eternal time,

Within his own deep essence he beheld

The bounds of true felicity complete;

Yet by immense benignity inclin'd

To spread around him that primaeval joy

Which fill'd himself, he rais'd his plastic arm,

And sounded through the hollow depth of space

The strong, creative mandate.

Now, this is wonderful and all but, should we read the word "plastic" within a context of the most popular definition today? A thermosetting polymer? That the arm of the Creator was molded (perhaps he kept it in the closet while he wasn't waving it around)? As far as I can tell though, this is exactly what you are doing. It is true that Mormonism derives these terms (Jehovah and Elohim) from the Bible and Biblical scholarship (well scholarship of a certain era in any case). But then to suggest that the Old Testament can only be read by reintroducing the meaningings for these words (produced within the Mormon community a century ago) back onto the text can only result in misapprehension of the text. I know this. I suspect (quite frankly) that you know this too. And so your charges really seem out of place an inappropriate - in other words, as much as you are trying to disarm the apologetic argument by poisoning the well and labeling it "equivocation" - how are you not guilty of the same? You are raising nothing more than an opposing apologetic argument using essentially the same tactics. You write:

We all know that Elohim is the name of God the Father in Mormonism, so it is pointless to try mitigating this.

Why should we mitigate this? This is a rather modern affectation of Mormonism and shouldn't be used to re-read the Old Testament text (unless of course we are dead set on following Nephi's advice to liken the text unto ourselves - which of course means that we don't have any need or necessity to even worry about all the details that you are raising). No matter how we LDS engage this topic, the issues which you raise are always going to be irrelevant to our theology.

So we don't reasonably expect (knowing the publication date) that Akenside was talking about an arm made from a synthetic polymer (although perhaps we could infer exactly this from the same phrase if it were used to apply to Dr. Kimball's assailant in The Fugitive - and the parody in Wrongfully Accused- the Leslie Nielson movie with the one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed man ...).

Perhaps you will see my point, perhaps not, but I find your entire argument on these point to be specious, argumentative, and ultimately of no value in doing what you appear to be trying to do.

So moving on - I took some additional exceptions to the following comments you made:

First you make this comment:

Asherah is not associated with elohim in any text.

And then you limit the possible responses you want to take with this comment:

Now, to say Yahweh is sometimes called Elohim, therefore it is OK to assert Asherah was consort to a god named Elohim, is nothing less than a stroke of equivocation since we both know that in Mormonism Yahweh and Elohim are different deities and elohim is not a proper name.

Since I reject most of this last argument, I am in fact going to talk about it briefly in exactly this fashion. Deuteronomy talks about the Asherah in connection with YHWH Elohim. Now, how you want to read this is up to you. But it brings up a larger issue. One thing is patently clear - especially as we move into the rabbinic period, Elohim stops being used to refer to other things (people, objects, divinities) and becomes effectively a proper name of God. Part of this, of course, has to do with the ban on using the name YHWH. But in all of this discussion I don't think I have seen anyone referring to the Documentary Source Hypothesis. If there was an E, then that source didn't use YHWH to refer to God at all, but instead consistently used Elohim as a name/title for God. (Much the way that we use the word God as a proper name for God in English, don't we). Which brings me to the next issue - you wrote:

And as I said, elohim refers to any deity, which explains why it is used to designate everything divine from Baal to human spirits.

Strawson (1950), Quine (1955), and Eco (1976, 2000) go to some lengths to talk about what it means to refer to something. You can't refer, say Eco, to all cats, for example. Because reference is about denoting things. You can refer to this cat as opposed to that one. Elohim doesn't refer (and cannot refer) to "any deity". Whenever it is used, it can be used to refer to a specific deity. And, as Eco notes, there is a difference between designation and denotation. As he writes:

I think we can accept what has now become the established custom whereby general terms "denote" properties of class or genera, while singular terms or expressions that circumscribe precise portions of space-time "designate" individuals. ... I maintain therefore that we perform acts of referencing by using designative sentences like Look at that platypus, Go fetch me the stuffed platypus I left on the table, The Platypus in the Sydney Zoo is dead, while I maintain that sentences like Platypuses are mammals or Platypuses lay eggs do not refer to individuals but assert some properties that are attributed to genera, species, or classes of individuals.

In our English for example, we can use the term 'god'. We can actually apply this in a lot of different ways. We could use it to refer to Satan for example (as in "the god of this world"). But, the moment we start talking about 'god' as the object of our worship, we traditionally capitalize it and make it a proper noun. It is, in fact, a name that we use for deity. Hebrew runs into the same problem with the term 'El, which really hasn't come up in this discussion either. 'El (much like elohim) can be used to denote membership in a class of beings and not just a proper name for God. This is quite clear in the designation El Elyon (Most High God). But getting back to the point, the first verse of Psalm 82 proves quite interesting for this discussion. God (elohim) arises in the assembly of God (El). He judges among the gods (elohim). So here we have a test case. Do we really have to wonder what is meant by these words? And finally, as Judaism becomes more and more strict in its monotheism, does elohim get used to designate other divnities? Or does it only designate one since the others no longer exist (theologically). And would you agree or disagree with the notion that Asherah could be an elohim in the assembly of El?

Jumping around a bit, I wanted to address this point:

Mormon apologists generally follow this thesis held by Barker, Mettinger and others, but they also argue that the Book of Deuteronomy was just a creation of the monarchy. If this is true, one must wonder why Joseph Smith didnâ??t also exclude this book from the Bible. After all, Deuteronomy flatly rejects the former tradition of Godâ??s anthropomorphic form. And of course, there is no way this could amount to a correction to a former, primitive way of viewing God, is there? Incidentally, Jesusâ?? citation of Deuteronomy seems to cause problems for any Mormon to follow this argument.

No one argues that Deuteronomy was simply a creation of the monarchy. In fact, this seems a rather ludicrous suggestion since it (more than perhaps any other Old Testament text) puts limitations on the monarchy. On the other hand, most scholarship suggests that what we have in Deuteronomy (as it currently stands) was a composite text produced quite late using a Deuteronomic text which was significantly earlier. This proto-Deuteronomy has been explored a fair amount in current scholarship and I find that this scholarship seems to conform to the Book of Mormon's use of, quoting from, and reinscriptions of material in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Later we get this:

However, the biblical God is not a sexual being as Shirts likes to assume.

But this isn't entirely true is it. You are familiar with my arguments about Proverbs and the narrative discussing the origins of Wisdom? (This could be more or less relevant of course if you accept the idea - which I don't - that the Asherah was reabsorbed into Jewish belief in the form of Wisdom theology - my views are related but different). In Proverbs 8, for example, Wisdom says she was engendered, that she was poured out (the language is the same as an act of insemination), as the first of "his [God's] way" (the same Hebrew as the idea of a man having his way with a woman). Then she says, "I was born", and so on. This language is full of references that lead us back to this idea. Whether or not the Biblical God was a sexual being is superceded by the fact that in places the language used is very sexual in nature. And of course there wasn't this need (early on) to separate this out, to make it any different.

And of course, you are right, the Bible isn't concerned with this at all - but the Bible is a product of post-exilic Judaism and not Israelite religion. And in post-exilic Judaism we have a whole slew of different concerns and the whole polytheistic tendencies of earlier Israelite religion are being supressed and hidden away.

Then we get this gem:

If you want to claim a restoration from Ugarit, you cannot pick and choose some aspects you like while ignoring the whole.

Actually, I suspect that were we to claim a restoration from Ugarit, we could do exactly this. There isn't any reason not to. The whole notion that we can't be choosy comes from where? Certainly I wouldn't have a problem with it. Religion is inseparably connected to culture and language (even if it is also divinely revealed). The real issue though is that we don't argue for a restoration from Ugarit. We argue a restoration given by angels that isn't as much a restoration of anything as it is a new revelation. People who poke and prod the biblical text aren't going to find God in its pages. We find God on our knees. We may be fascinated with the text, and the history of the understanding of God, but knowledge of that history and knowledge of God are two entirely different creatures. And each approach is different. For Dan Peterson, understanding the implied theology which Nephi had helps him understand the Book of Mormon text. But it isn't necessary. As Nephi himself suggests, we should liken the text to ourselves - even if it means abandoning the author as irrelevant.

Later, you comment to me:

Of course. I was trying to note that worship of Asherah was eventually rejected in Israel.

No. The worship of Asherah was NEVER rejected in Israel. It was rejected eventually in Judah, but even then it seems to have successfully remained a part of the popular practice of religion at least up through the Babylonian exile. Israel maintained its worship of the Asherah right up through its annhiliation in the 8th century. You continue:

Well hindsight is always 20/20, and I suppose this was a natural complaint/assumption to make since none of them would have imagined God allowing the Babylonians to destroy his own Temple. They were probably trying to make sense of it all. But I never said the Israelites all agreed with the removal of asherah. Clearly they didnâ??t, and clearly they adored her. But the Israelites had a documented history of falling away into idolatry and vanity, and the sheer volume of asherah figurines alone testifies to their own apostasy.

The secondary issue here is that it isn't at all clear that we are talking about idolatry (and certainly many - perhaps most - of those in Palestine at the time of these reforms felt this way). When the high places were torn down (altars), most of them were not altars for Ba'al or some other non-Israelite divinity, they were devoted to the Worship of YHWH (and in places to YHWH's Asherah as well). This wasn't merely idolatry, it simply wasn't state sanctioned (or perhaps priesthood sanctioned) worship. Just as the cult of the Terraphim, while it used household gods (figurines), and we find references to them in the Law of Moses - they weren't necessarily idolatrous figurines in the sense of being figures of Ba'al or other Canaanite divinities, they were most likely representations of YHWH. So this distinction you make here isn't as clear I think as you want it to be. The reformations were reformations of Jewish religion, but they are changing Jewish religion not just getting rid of that which isn't Jewish religion.

Just because they said the removal of asherah was the cause of all their problems, doesnâ??t make it so.

But this wasn't the point. The point was that at this point in time (which postdates both Hezekiah's reform and Josiah's reform), the people were still engaged in the worship of the Queen of Heaven. That the Queen of Heaven figure was still seen as a vehicle of salvation, and that this represented the popular view (but not necessarily the view of the self-established authority structure). Which leads into a debate of exactly what Orthodox means. It also goes back the point which is being discussed in LDS circles that Lehi was probably a fan of Jeremiah and opposed to the Josian reform, and that Jeremiah (prior to the later Deuteronomist redaction of his work) was also opposed to these reforms in Jewish religion.

Yes, in popular religion, not official religion. I grant your point that she remained popular, in spite of the religious authorities rejecting her.

The winners get to write the texts.

This is argued by whom?

You should go back and look at my response to Holding. I reference a lot of it there. Off the top of my head, Hadley is one, Fiorenza (sp?) is another. There are quite a few who hold to a position that the female divine in Israelite tradition is more at home intrinsically than were it simply a group of Canaanite sympathizers in Israel.

Well, Israelite religion began around the first millennium B.C. and Asherah predates this by centuries. What other evidence need there be? Iâ??d be interested in any scholarâ??s argument to the contrary. Can you recommend one for me?

I don't think this can be demonstrated. So Israel had no religion prior to the first millenium BC? Exactly when in the first millenium BC does Israel get their religion? Does it start with David at the beginning? Does it start with return from the exile in the middle? Does it start with Jesus at the end? Is Moses then an imaginary figure created by the Deuteronomists to extend their control? Did Israel even exist as an autonomous group in the first millenium BC? Let's try and be very, very clear as to what you are saying here. Because your statement here is, as far as I am concerned completely useless in this discussion.

She is the wife of the Ugarit God El who later became the wife of the Israelite God El-Yahweh, mainly because worship of her was too popular to overcome. She had to be assimilated into the new religious culture in order for it to survive.

This seems overly speculative don't you think?

Are we a faith based on the Bible or archeology?

We aren't either. And that is part of the issue here.

Her removal and rejection represent a poignant fact that should not go ignored. For Mormons to dismiss this as an act of unrighteous kings is to really dismiss huge chunks of the Bible which overwhelming speaks negatively of Asherah than vice versa.

So what? The problem is that these part are almost universally recognized to be the hand of later editors. If Joseph can say that he accepts it as scripture as originally written, then doesn't this allow us to follow his example and simply write it off as not having any validity? Or to do what Nephi did and simply ignore the context of the things he didn't like as he taught his people to liken the scriptures to themselves while he refused to provide them with the context as he was taught it? I don't mind dismissing huge chunks of the Bible. I don't for a moment think that God ordered Israel to kill women and children in a burnt offering as an act of human sacrifice to him during the conquest. Do you?

Part of all of this is that you seem to be arguing on some level just to argue - and I know that it is a past time of yours to debate apologists. But what we only ever see rarely from you is anything positive in terms of better ways to treat this material. What is your suggestion? Should we abandon the Bible? Should we continue to try and understand it within its original context? Should we just go with modern revelation? Obviously people are interested in these topics - myself, I am too. But don't mistake this interest as a justification for belief.

As I said before, if Deuteronomy was a creation of the priests of Josiah, and the rejection of Asherah was not God working through him, then how do we reconcile this with the fact that Jesus cites Deuteronomy as scripture?

Why do we have to? Do you think that Jesus couldn't quote it as scripture? (This is apart from my position that Deuteronomy had proto-Deuteronomist origins). It seems that part of your argument here has absoltuely nothing to do with the nature of scripture and a lot to do with your preconceptions about what Jesus would or wouldn't do. How does that play into the argument? Are you willing to lay all of those assumptions on the table as well?

This is where apologists cross the line. You can use archeology to determine popular religion, OK. But biblical religion is that which is written in the Bible. There is simply no means by which you can twist the adjective â??biblicalâ? to refer to anything else except that which the Bible condones. The Bible vehemently rejects Asherah; one would think this should count for something.

Why should it need to count for something? The Bible also talks about how God appointed the stars of the sky and the moon and so on to be the objects of worship for non-Israelites (Dt. 4 - go figure its right smack in the middle of your Deuteronomist text). What do we make of that? I think that in the long run, the Bible as it stands represents a single slice of revealed religion. And it doesn't represent all of it, or even the best of it. So why should it count for something - defend your premise. What if the Deuteronomists were in fact as much a part of the apostacy as anyone else. What if their push to make the Law of Moses the strict focus of salvation and to move salvation apart from the Law of Moses elsewhere - clearly that was a part of the Old Testament that the New Testament flatly contradicts. Salvation isn't just through the Law. I could continue, but it's getting long and you get my point. (I hope).

Finally -

Even amateurs can see the silliness of this claim by recognizing the fact that elohim is used to denote dead humans and and even demons.

And Ba'al was used in the same way, and even 'El. So, I am not sure that you are making a valid point here.

Ben

edit: I need to fix the coding but it may be a bit.

[cksalmon]

CKS:

Oh yes, please do suspect. Nothing I ever write is accurate, truthful, exempt from error, or just plain stupidly brainwashed. Just ask JasonH.......... he's always right aobut his characterizations of what I write, so believe him man! and if you ever run into Kevin Graham, weeeeeeeeeeell, he accurately understands what a doofus I always am in my writing and research.

I was just frustrated, Kerry. Sorry about that.

[JasonH]

Hey Ben, good to see you fired up again.

Mormonism doesn't distinguish between Jehovah and Elohim until the turn of the century.

Ben, what evidence do you have to support this? Because if this were true, then I probably never would have raised the issue. But I have reason to believe Elohim has been considered the name of God the Father since Joseph Smith. As I have recently mentioned in the previous threads related to this topic, Heber C. Kimball's journal entry dated 13 December 1845, mentions the gods in the Temple Endowment as Elohim, Jehovah and Michael. That trio has stood the test of time and it is fair to assume this was implemented by the Prophet.- this was just one year after he died.

Now, this is wonderful and all but, should we read the word "plastic" within a context of the most popular definition today? A thermosetting polymer?

Of course not. Are you suggesting Elohim was identified as God the Father not because it is really the divine name, but because it was just a popular term in Joseph's day? Elohim is an ancient term and I am applying its ancient meaning. However people want to redefine it today is really irrelevant to what I am saying.

Mormonism claims to be biblical. We hear this left and right from the apologetic front, especially in the face of Evangelical criticisms. Mormonism claims to reveal secret truths through its prophets. Joseph Smith said Elohim was the name of God the Father. It is revealed to us in the temple over a century ago and it hasn't changed. I think it is safe to assume this was divine revelation. Is it really unreasonable for us to expect these claims to be testable at all? It seems clear to me that we can believe this is true based on faith, but we cannot argue our faith is the "most biblical" as apologists often do. One of my friends here, bcspace asserts this quite frequently on my forum.

That the arm of the Creator was molded (perhaps he kept it in the closet while he wasn't waving it around)? As far as I can tell though, this is exactly what you are doing. It is true that Mormonism derives these terms (Jehovah and Elohim) from the Bible and Biblical scholarship (well scholarship of a certain era in any case). But then to suggest that the Old Testament can only be read by reintroducing the meaningings for these words (produced within the Mormon community a century ago) back onto the text can only result in misapprehension of the text.

I am not saying the OT can only be read by reintroducing the Mormon definitions of these words. I am not saying anything close to that. Biblical scholarship tells us one thing about elohim and Mormon revelation tells us another. So why are we trying to pretend biblical scholarship is backing us up? You make a good point with the poem above, only if Joseph Smith revealed the name of God as it was in early 19th century. It was never qualified then and it isn't today. The creation of the world, as its reenactment is presented in the temple, took place long before the 19th century. Smith intended us to know this was God's name as it has always been understood. It is ancient. As a prophet that is what he does. He restores ancient truths. But scholarship doesn't support this. This isn't to say our faith should be based on scholarship. I am not talking about faith at all really. I am talking about bad apologetics. The only thing we can do really is to say Israel and Ugarit got it wrong. At some point the generations between Adam and the Ugaritic kings, decided to apostatize and corrupt the real name of God the Father.

And so your charges really seem out of place an inappropriate - in other words, as much as you are trying to disarm the apologetic argument by poisoning the well and labeling it "equivocation" - how are you not guilty of the same?

Please show me how I am. I really don't see it. Your example above is invalid because I am not doing what you thought I was doing. And I'm quite confused why you would think that I was. I can only assume you have not read the two previous threads from which this one was born.

No matter how we LDS engage this topic, the issues which you raise are always going to be irrelevant to our theology.

Not if we want to keep claiming to be the most biblical Church on earth. I remember Brigham Young and another fellow named Joseph, make some pretty bold statements about the Bible being the foundation of the Church. In what sense are we biblical at all? In the sense that Mormonism teaches unverifiable truths that would have been in the Bible, only if it hadn't been so corrupted by royal priests looking out for their own interests?

First you make this comment:...And then you limit the possible responses you want to take with this comment:

Ben, if you read the previous threads I had been more precise saying Asherah had never been the consort of a deity named Elohim. I quoted Margaret Barker who said Asherah is always associated with Yahweh. All of this was in the context of discussing the Elohim, Jehovah, Michael trio in Mormonism. In Mormonism it is Elohim who is married to the Queen of Heaven, not Jesus. This is no minor point. It is huge for those who want to talk about how biblical scholarship is boosting Mormon doctrine at this point. I was pointing out that this means the Asherah/Yahweh connection in scholarship doesn't support the LDS concept. All of the necessary familial roles are there, but all the characters are rearranged in a manner that simply doesn't work in the Mormon paradigm.

Further, I was repeating my point for about the fifth time with the same poster. Had I expected others to jump in the middle of the discussion as you and others have done, I would have been more precise. Of course asherah is "associated" with elohim, but only because her husband Yahweh is an elohim. But it isn't his name, which is my entire point.

I wasn't just limiting possible responses I wanted to take. I was limiting the responses based on relevancy. It is as if I said my Mother was not married to a man named Human. After the fifth try, I say she is never associated with human. And someone responds with, "Ah ha, but she is associated with human is because she is a human and so is her husband!" Then Kerry walks in with "Point, set match!"

In our English for example, we can use the term 'god'. We can actually apply this in a lot of different ways. We could use it to refer to Satan for example (as in "the god of this world"). But, the moment we start talking about 'god' as the object of our worship, we traditionally capitalize it and make it a proper noun. It is, in fact, a name that we use for deity.

I agree completely. If you read some of the recent threads you might see this. That is precisely how elohim is used, but I think it is clear that is not how it is used in Mormon theology. If there is no real meaning in calling God Elohim, then why not just call him God? Why do Jesus and Adam not refer to him as God in the Temple? The answer seems obvious to me. In the Temple we have three main characters. God the Father, Jesus and Adam.

But Jesus isn't called Jesus. He is called Jehovah. And Adam isn't called Adam, he is called Michael. When speaking to the Father he is called Elohim. We know for a fact the first two are proper names in Mormon doctrine, so it only seems logical that the latter is as well.

And would you agree or disagree with the notion that Asherah could be an elohim in the assembly of El?

Absolutely I agree.

I think you and Shirts are really way off on what I assume. He just said I would have problems with asherah as mother of the gods. Why would I have a problem with that? Of course she was - at Ugarit. But it has nothing to do with what I am saying.

BTW, I am convinced that El is actually Yahweh in the Bible, even in Psalm 82. You can blame that on Heiser. I suppose.

OK, lunch is over. I have to get back to work now, but I will try to get back to this later tonight.

[Doctor Steuss]

Hey Ben, good to see you fired up again.

Ben, what evidence do you have to support this?

Ben probably will be able to provide something more definitive. But, before the 1916 FP Statement on "The Father and the Son," I don't think there was anything necessarily "in stone" per se to use Elohim and Jehovah as only names. Although we have D&C 109:4 (praying to the Father) and then verse 34 utilizes the name/title Jehovah to address the Father, we also have 110:3-4 where it seems pretty evident that Jesus is Jehovah.

We also have such things from Joseph as:

"Thou eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Jehovahâ??Godâ??Thou Eloheim, that sittest, as saith the Psalmist, 'enthroned in heaven,' look down upon Thy servant Joseph at this time; and let faith on the name of Thy Son Jesus Christ . . . be conferred upon him."

History of the Church, 5:127

Then we have Brigham saying things such as:

"It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael."

Journal of Discourses, 1:51

And then we have him saying:

"We obey the Lord, Him who is called Jehovah, the Great I AM, I am a man of war, Eloheim, etc."

Journal of Discourses, 12:99

Jehovah and Elohim seemed to be used as both titles and names by leaders for quite a period of time.

Even as late as 1961, we can stumble upon David O. McKay stating:

"Jehovah and His Son, Jesus Christ."

David O. McKay, Church News, 1 July 1961, 14.

I gleened these little snippets from a FARMS review, but unfortunately I didn't think to save the title of it when I added these to my mini-archive of easy-access quotes.

Edit:

Groovy, I found the review: Of Simplicity, Oversimplification, and Monotheism . Go to the section "The Names of God"

[Ron Beron]

JasonH writes,

I woke up early today. My son rolled off the bed and busted his mouth on the tile floor. We rushed him to the ER but he seems to be OK. Just a little banged up. My wife is upset because we are celebrating his 1 year birthday tomorrow. It seems like every time we get ready to take pictures during a special event, either my son or daughter hits his or her head on something leaving a nasty mark.

Ouch! Sorry about that. Been there done that X 2.

>>Having said that I can agree that Elohim is used as the proper name for God the Father<<

In Mormonism only. If you can admit that, then at least we are making progress.

Sorry, can't help you. F.F. Bruce states that while in Gen 1 it uses Elohim to express God, later it uses it in Gen.2:4 i.e., "Lord God" or YHWH Elohim. Why the discrepancy? Bruce states that,

First of all, the name Yahweh, "LORD," (notice the English translation convention of rendering this name in large and small capital letters, as opposed to "Lord," which renders another word meaning something like "master") is a proper noun used exclusively of the God of Israel. Elohim, on the other hand, is a generic term for "God" or "gods" that only subsequently became a proper name.

Something I and others have already mentioned.

Bruce continues...

Yahweh is used wherever the Bible stresses God's personal relationship with his people and the ethical aspect of his nature. Elohim, on the other hand, refers to God as the Creator of the whole universe of people and things, and especially of the material world: he was the ruler of nature, the source of all life.

Again, something we have already mentioned.

In direct answer to one of your earlier comments...

A further complication occurs because Exodus 6:3 notes that God says, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them." The resolution to this apparent contradiction to some 150 uses of the name Yahweh during the patriarchal period is to be found in a technical point of Hebrew grammar, known as beth essentiae, in the phrase "by my name." This phrase meant that while Abraham, Isaac and Jacob heard and used the name Yahweh, it was only in Moses' day that the realization of the character, nature and essence of what that name meant became clear. "By the name" is better translated "in the character [or nature] of Yahweh [was I not known]."

Bruce concludes...

Elohim occurs when the Scriptures are referring to God as a transcendent Being who is the author of the material world, yet One who stands above it. Elohim conveys the more philosophically oriented concept that connects deity with the existence of the world and humanity. But for those who seek the more direct, personal and ethically oriented view of God, the term Yahweh was more appropriate.

Accordingly, Genesis 1 correctly used the name Elohim, for God's role as Creator of the whole universe and of all living things and all mortals is what the chapter teaches. The subject narrows immediately in Genesis 2-3, however; there it describes God's very intimate and personal relationship with the first human pair, Adam and Eve. God is depicted as walking and talking with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Therefore Yahweh is appropriately joined to Elohim to indicate that the Elohim of all creation is now the Yahweh who is intimately concerned to maintain a personal relationship with those who will walk and talk with him.

This is the point I have reiterated at least four times now. Elohim is a general term, too general to be used to distinguish God the Father from any other deity. I recall someone mentioning Heiser as one who supports the idea that Asherah was a consort to a deity named elohim, but this is false. I always knew it was false but I decided to go ahead and reread his essay on this. Here is what he had to say:

"The reasons we can't quite wrap our minds around the flexibility of the word elohim is because we're used to thinking of that term as denoting a being who possesses unique, unshared attributes - the Elohim of Israel as it were. That just isn't true." (http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf)

That doesn't necessarily contradict the previous statement he made in the vast majority of instances of the usage of Elohim in the OT. He states in a separate paper, "Most of these

instances are due to the status of אֱלֹהִים as a proper name for the God of Israel."(http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/pluralelohimpluralpredicate.pdf)

I wrote...>>I hardly think God is play peekaboo with the prophets. More commonly this is an attempt to answer why there is a sudden shift in worship of southern tribal deity which has usurped authority over the proto-Israelite deity of El aka Elohim, Ba'al. Ea, and Enlil.<<

I'm not following you here. Are you suggesting Ex 6:3 was a corruption of some sort and that Yahweh didn't hide his name from them as he claimed

I was simply stating that a shift in power brings with it a means of explaining away the old in the acceptance of the new. Also see Bruce above.

I don't see a direct connection between ancient asherah temple worship and modern-day femenist Jews visiting the tomb of a revered biblical figure. But this is probably a moot point anyway.

It is not at all a moot point since it underscores the need even in modernity to accommodate their own religious longings. Anciently, women would pray to the Asherah, the mother symbol, for fecundity. They are still doing it. Rachel has replaced Asherah, at least in the eyes of some.

Yes, of course she was believed to be the mother of other deities (i.e. elohim) at Ugarit. But that isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not she was associated with a particular deity named Elohim (Capital E), as in the Mormon paradigm. The answer is no. She was consort to Yahweh, who is none other than the Mormon Jesus. This doesn't jive with the LDS paradigm whatsoever. The LDS Heavenly Mother is not the wife of Jesus. I have reiterated this numerous times.

The point is that the Bible refers to YHWH as Elohim in the term used in Genesis 2:4 where it states,"These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens," or in Hebrew, "yahweh/elohim"

It is also worth mentioning that asherah was the mother of elohim (gods) at Ugarit. The Bible simply doesn't give us that kind of information.

I never said it did. The Ugaritic texts do. Are you implying that these texts had nothing to do with the formation and redaction of the later Biblical texts?

For all we know Asherah in Israel could have been a transformed concept just the same as Yahweh was, but everything written about her was essentially burned or destroyed. For all we know the concept of Asherah in Israel was vastly different from that at Ugarit.

Not according to the vast amounts of archaeological artifacts we have. In fact, we wouldn't even be having this argument if the fresco at Kuntillet`Ajrud wasn't found. See also, Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis. Fortress Press. 1998

I would certainly hope so too, since the Asherah at Ugarit was a celestial slut who had intercourse with her husband's arch enemy Baal.

To be sure I wouldn't have taken her home to meet mom, but I think there is a lot more to her than meets the eye. Sex is used as a euphemism here for the transfer of power and implies nothing romantic.

Again, this is an outdated apologetic. A theological attempt to downplay polytheistic overtones that are implied with the plural Elohim. Elohim cannot refer to a plurality of Gods since it is simply another way of saying Yahweh..

You must be kidding!? At one point above you quote Heisner and now you ignore his message in the rest of the work that states Elohim are any being that inhabits a celestial sphere, "An Elohim is a divine being, in that an Elohim is an inhabitant of the spiritual plane of reality."

That said, I hope your son feels better for his B-day tomorrow.