The Backyard Professor

Assessing the Bible: The Broadness of the Ancient Near Eastern Context

 Some interesting ideas on the Ancient Near Eastern context of the antiquity of the Bible. It shows us all just how extensive the need is for broadening and deepening our looking into the Bible's culture, religion, and history. While intimidating, without question, it is also exhilirating to see so much to do and learn and share.... Below is an excerpt from a new book (actually a series of 4 volumes that are simply staggering and stunning in their scope. ( W. W. Hallo, &  K. L. Younger (1997). The Context of Scripture (xxvi). Leiden; New York: Brill.) I have recently acquired and eagerly dipping into its pages. I have kept the footnote pagination beginning at number 45. Why rework the numbers when they are already in place anyway right? I know they are highlighted, but don't click on them. I have put all the sources at the end in endnotes. The numbers look like they link, but they don't. I have given the references below however. I have better things to do with my time right now than renumber footnotes beginning at 1 - GRIN! Enjoy, I think there are insights by the millions awaiting the students of the ancient scriptures.

The Akkadian Sargon Legend is sometimes cited as a possible source of the Moses birth legend, though with little justification.⁴⁵ It is in Sumerian, a product most likely of the neo–Sumerian period (ca. 2100–1800 BCE in linguistic terms), while the later text is in Akkadian, quite possibly commissioned by Sargon II of Assyria (722–705 BCE; KAS says - This was Isaiah's era if that helps give some context) or at least intended to celebrate his earlier namesake. The Sumerian text is, of course,

The Incomparable Yahweh, Even Among All the Other Gods

 

 

THE MYTHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF PSALM 82

Juliann Morgenstern, Hebrew Union College Annual, 14 1939: 66-68,  noted some interesting things about the Council of the Gods that is worth understanding.  

 

In the Psalms we come across this picture of Yahweh in the midst of the assembly of the gods again and again. In Ps. 89.6-9 we read:

 

The heavens praise Thy wondrousness, O Yahweh, Likewise Thy trustworthiness in the assembly of the gods.

For who in the skies can be compared with Yahweh; Who among the gods is like unto Yahweh?

A god who inspires awe in the council of the gods, Who is great and fearful beyond all those who surround Him.

 

Ps. 29.1-2 summons these same gods to do homage before Yahweh, to bow down before Him and praise His name, while Ps. 97.7b likewise bids all the gods to bow down before Yahweh and Ps. 148.2 commands His angels, all those who constitute His host, to praise Him. Ps. 97.9b records that Yahweh is supreme over all the gods, Ps. 96.4 ( = 1 Chron. 16.25) that Yahweh is to be feared over all the gods, and Ps. 95.3 that Yahweh is a great king over all the gods. Yahweh's throne is in heaven; it exists from of old, i. e. from before creation. Upon this throne He sits as a king and righteous judge, who judges all the universe justly.

 

The Gods, They are Many, The One Who is Worshipped, He is One

In Cyrus Gordon's Ugaritic Handbook I found this in browsing tonight.

dr il . lmšknthm ‘the gods bless, they go; the gods go to their tents, the generation of ʾIl to their tabernacles’, (117:7) ilm (8) tǵrk . tšlmk ‘may the gods guard thee and give thee peace’. (1)

I thought this was interesting in light of the Hebrew Bible conception of the Council of Gods, and the "Tent of Meeting" (the mobile temple in the desert) wherein God meets with the human council to work through their problems in the desert, whether of fending off starvation, or helping the Israelites defeat their enemies. Every major decision was made through the Council of the Gods. The earthly tent of meeting reflecting the heavenly tent of assembly as well. This conceptualization was truly understood far better once the Ugaritic Texts were begun to be translated and analyzed. They reflect the Ancient Near Eastern ideas which the Bible certainly picked up. 

 1. Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook Grammar, Texts in Transliteration, Cuneiform Selections, Glossary, Indices. Rome : Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1998 (Analecta Orientalia, 38), p. 75

Christ-bearers of God as gods in Early Christian Exegesis of Psalm 82

Ten years ago, Mark D. Nispel wrote “Christian Deification and the Early Testimonia,” an article in Vigiliae Christianae, 53 (1999): 289-304, where in he noted a peculiarity that Western Christendom virtually ignored the early Christian conception of mankind’s potential as becoming gods, and in fact, being gods. Easter Christianity’s main theological diet was, in fact, this very doctrine. And the main scripture used was Psalm 82, usually against the Jewish contenders against the fledgling Christian faith.

 Bishop Alexandria, in point of very fact, noted that the theology of Christ and the incarnation more than made it certain that “the description of salvation as ‘becoming god’ as a logical...

The Beginning of the Book of Hebrews Analyzed - Excellent on Prophets!

In one of my newly acquired sources, I found this discussion of the first verse of Hebrews and thought it was ....... well........ just very stimulating!

 (1:1) In the Greek text, the order of the words is, “At sundry times and in divers manners God spake.” The Greek places his words at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis. Therefore, the main idea in the writer’s mind here is not that God spake, but

The Title Deed to Prayer - About the Timing of Answered Prayers

I have been reading in Wuest's exegetical materials of the Greek New Testament and finding many gems and items worth knowing. Here is one that I have seen some folks ask about, why hasn't God answered my prayers yet? Obviously our time table is not His. Perhaps this might help us come to a new understanding.

The Title Deed to Answered Prayer

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1). The Greek word translated “substance” had a technical meaning in the business world of the first century. It referred to one’s property or effects. It was used in such expressions as “Out of this estate I declare that

Yahweh was the Son of El, the Ugaritic Head God of the Gods

RUN across this little interesting item and thought it was worth sharing.

Dussaud: Yw should be identified with יהוה¹  Moreover, certain biblical passages (e.g., Deut 32:8ff.) depict Yahweh as El’s son.

Murtonen: Yw is a variant or epithet of Ym/ים. The interchangeable personal names אביה and אבים (on which see below, 15 zz) “would seem to show that among the Israelites … there were people who regarded these two deities as identical.”

MacLaurin: ים was the original form of the DN which developed via Yw to יהוה. Also, אלהים is a composite formed of אלוה+ים, “the god Yam.”

Rummel, Stan: Ras Shamra Parallels. The Texts from Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible, Volume III. Rome : Pontificium institutum biblicum, 1981 (Analecta Orientalia, 51), S. RSP 3, 4 §13.d

Babel, Temple, and Atonement

My good friend J Green posted some ideas I think are worth entertaining and pondering. He says he is making more extensive notes. I hope so!

Despite the play on babel as confusion (from heb. balel), the real reference here is to babilu or bab el ('gate of the gods' or 'gate of god'), which very much has gatekeeper connotations, and definitely puts us into the realm of Jacob's vision of the ladder (a kind of tower). But there's a parallel to another Book of Mormon story here. In short, the tower at Babel has temple connotations and is built to make a name for those involved. If you look closely at the 'make a name' terminology throughout the Hebrew Bible, you find it connected to redemption from bondage over and over. It is a temple theme of atonement, with associations to the divine name used once a year by the High Priest at the temple. When congregated Israel hears the pronunciation of the word in the context of their release from bondage, they fall to the earth. (See the "I am He" in John for parallels as the Savior pronounces his own divine name after the atonement of Gethesemane to the soldiers who come to arrest him, and they fall to the earth.) But back to Babel . . . The result of this mess is a scattering and confusion of tongues. It is additionally associated with Nimrod's start of the kingdom of Babylon (a kingship rite), soon after warfare with the nations.

Compare this to King Benjamin as the "Anti Nimrod". Soon after a huge war with the Lamanites, right after he encounters another remnant of scattered Israel who experienced their own confusion of tongues, soon after he has read the large stone that gives the account of the Jaredites and their scattering and confusion of tongues at the tower . . .

He builds a tower at the temple to give his people a name. The context is making his son a king and proclaiming atonement to his people (after which they fall to the earth).

What Does Timothy in the NT Mean by the Greek "Theopneustos" - "God Breathed"?

A very good question has shown up on a message board I inhabit from time to time, and the answers given by BYU scholar Bill Hamblin are truly worth putting up for more people to see. I thought this was a rather down to earth, good understanding of a logical situation.

“Sargon” asked about the scripture - 2 Tim 3:16

All Scripture is God-breathed (theopneustos) and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness
What does this mean? Evangelicals believe it means that the text is "inerrantly" communicated from God to man. LDS tend to interpret it to mean something more along the lines of "inspired".
Is the LDS view of scripture compatible with such strong wording by the apostle Paul? What does Paul mean by "God-breathed"?

As others noted, Paul could not have had the New Testament in mind, since it was not in existence at his day. So, the question is what is the meaning of "theopneustos"? Here is where Dr. Hamblin stepped in. “It means literally "god-breathed" = Theos + pneuma. The phrase "inspired by God" is a good way to translate it, since "in-spiration" means literally "breathed in" (as in re-spiration). There is nothing in the term that implies inerrancy. Evangelicals assume inspired means inerrant, so if scripture is inspired it is must be inerrant. However, this is, of course begging the question, which is: is inspiration inerrant.”

 

Discussion of Text Types From Which the Bible Originated

 Note on Western Non-Interpolations

One of the features of the Western text is the occasional omission of words and passages that are present in other types of text, including the Alexandrian. How should one evaluate such omissions from a form of text which is generally much fuller than other text-types? According to one theory, popularized at the close of the last century by Westcott and Hort¹ such readings, despite their being supported by the generally inferior Western witnesses, ought to be preferred rather than the longer readings, though the latter are attested by the generally superior manuscripts, B and א. Nine such readings were designated by Westcott and Hort as “Western non-interpolations,”² on the assumption that all extant witnesses except the Western (or, in some cases, some of the Western witnesses) have in these passages suffered interpolation.