Bokovoy on the warpath again

[_Enuma Elish]

You will note that Enuma Elish has made several slipups in his attempts to address the Hebrew idiom, first claiming that it does always mean 'X' when it says 'son/s of X', but that was so swiftly and easily disproved that he had to drop that argument and switch tactics on the fly (just as he did with his exposition of the court room scene in 1 Kings 22). Unfortunately, acknowledging that the Hebrew 'son/s of X' idiom does not always mean 'X' means that he sold the farm. Given that it doesn't always mean that, he faces a serious difficulty asserting that it certainly means that in the specific case 'son/s of God'.

Do you honestly believe that I do not recognize that “son of X” can refer to a literal son?

More importantly, in suggesting that I claimed that the expression “always means X,” you have either misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented my views.

The only time I declared that “son of X” always means something is in the specific case of “sons of God,” which as I have illustrated represents the views espoused by mainstream biblical scholars. I have consistently tried to help you understand that "son of X" can denote both a literal son and the member of a group, class, or guild.

Then there's my question as to how post-exilic Babylonian Jews would be so remarkably familiar with the language, idioms, and especially religion of a society which was dispersed some 500 years ago. I've asked that a couple of questions, but it's still floating around there without an answer.

If you honestly believe that this question is “still floating around without an answer,” then you are clearly not reading my posts and I can see no reason to continue. I provided half of a page of detailed examples of studies that support a Canaanite influence upon Rabbinic and even New Testament traditions. You of course responded by quickly changing the subject.

Clearly, you believe that there are holes in the views espoused by mainstream Biblicists. I recognize that with the advance of biblical studies through comparative analysis and textual discoveries how distressing your position must be, and so, I’ve tried to remain sensitive, while at the same time illustrating how problematic your views are from my perspective.

Yes, you believe that there are holes in the mainstream position.

I have to wonder, however, is someone who does not recognize that Akkadian and Ugaritic are more valuable for Comparative Semitics than Umpa-Loompa, is someone who did not know that the current BDB is not a revised edition, but simply a reprint of the 1906 lexicon and therefore does not contain Ugaritic cognates, is someone who passes judgment on biblical studies published in important peer-reviewed journals that he has never read as “nonsense,” etc., etc., etc, etc. qualified on any level to identify these “holes” in the mainstream position?

Not from my perspective.

Still, I thank you for the fun conversation—even though I wish you would have read my posts—and wish you nothing but happiness.

Cheers,

David

[_Fortigurn]

Do you honestly believe that I do not recognize that “son of X” can refer to a literal son?

I have never said you do not recognise that 'son of X' can refer to a literal son'. This has absolutely nothing to do with my argument. It appears that once more you are not even reading my posts properly, as when you alleged that I was arguing that since the literal phrase 'son of Abraham' does not mean 'Abraham', then 'son of X' as an idiom does not mean 'X'. I had never made that argument either.

If you honestly believe that this question is “still floating around without an answer,” then you are clearly not reading my posts and I can see no reason to continue. I provided half of a page of detailed examples of studies that support a Canaanite influence upon Rabbinic and even New Testament traditions. You of course responded by quickly changing the subject.

Actually I didn't see your post. I've gone back and found it. Thanks for the information. Let's look at what you gave me:

I certainly don’t believe that the post-exilic authors were entirely well-stepped in the details concerning Ugaritic mythology.

That's a good start. So why all the detailed Ugarit mythology in texts which were allegedly written in the post-exilic era?

Though the tablets from Ugarit reflect an early Canaanite perspective, it is a fact that many of the latest texts preserved in the Hebrew Bible still reflect Canaanite imagery; see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

By what mechanism would 'the latest texts preserved in the Hebrew Bible still reflect Canaanite imagery'? Isn't the argument supposed to be that these vestigal elements were expunged by the post-exilic redactors? How would they have been preserved in any case? By oral tradition? Remember, these Old Testament texts aren't supposed to have been written prior to the exilic-era, according to the scholarship to which you are appealing. You have 5 centuries to cover by some mechanism or other.

The conflict between Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Son of Man depicted in the book of Daniel may reflect the Baal Cycle in which the younger god Baal empowered by the older god El defeats Yam (The Sea); see J.J. Collins, “Stirring up the Sea: The Religio-Historical Background of Daniel 7,” The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings; A.S. van der Woude, ed. (Levuven 1993): 121-126.

Goodness, what a stretch. Particularly because there's no conflict between the son of man and Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Daniel (the son of man does not appear in Daniel 8 or 11, where Antiochus IV Epiphanes appears, and even in Daniel 7 where we have the son of man, the son of man does not take part in any conflict, and only appears after the beast has been judged and destroyed).

As another example of Canaanite influence on late biblical texts, Simon Parker has argued that the depiction of El’s residence at Ugarit “at the springs of the Rivers among the streams of the Deeps” is “exploited in Ezekiel’s account of the presumptuousness of the king of Tyre, who, Ezekiel says, has claimed, ‘I am God (El), I sit in the seat of God in the midst of the seas’ (Ezek 28:2).” Simon B. Parker, “Ugaritic Literature and the Bible,” Near Eastern Archaeology 63:4 (2000): 231.

Surely it is more likely that Ezekiel has in mind the Phonecian myths contemporary with the king of Tyre, rather than the Canaanite myths? Although a number of the Canaanite myths found their way into the Phonecian mythos, do you really think that the Ugarit texts of the 12th century BC are the relevant proximate source for Ezekiel's imagery, rather than the Phonecian mythos with which he was contemporary? We shouldn't be looking at the Ugarit tablets to understand Ezekiel's imagery, we should be looking at the Phonecian records.

And all this to try and explain how on the one hand the post-exilic Old Testament texts should be interpreted according to 12th century BC Ugarit because they're apparently so close to those texts which predated them by 5 centuries, although of course when that closeness becomes inconvenient suddenly they're not that close after all, and only preserve bits and pieces of the Canaanite mythology.

Indeed, as André Caquot has suggested, imagery associated with early Canaanite mythology may even appear directly reflected within the New Testament:

Oh of course, because it's so obvious that, as he says 'The seven-headed best of the Apocalypse of John (12:3) does not come from the visions of Daniel'. No, there's no connection there at all. We're best interpreting the 1st century AD Apocalypse of John with the 12th century BC Ugarit texts. Really, even the Greek hydra myth is a more likely proximate source.

And this is a classic:

...in Matthew 6:30-52, Mark 14:13-33 and John 6:1-20, the story of the multiplication of the loaves is immediately followed by the scene describing Jesus walking on the waters as if deliberately recalling two events in the cycle of Baal wherein Baal gives men their nourishment and vanquishes the sea”...

This is parallelomania taken to new heights of extravagance.

None of this constitutes 'detailed examples of studies that support a Canaanite influence upon Rabbinic and even New Testament traditions', it's just people being very silly. I note that none of these examples you gave me even made any mention of 'Rabbinic literature'.

Clearly, you believe that there are holes in the views espoused by mainstream Biblicists.

Of course I do.

I recognize that with the advance of biblical studies through comparative analysis and textual discoveries how distressing your position must be, and so, I’ve tried to remain sensitive, while at the same time illustrating how problematic your views are from my perspective.

Key words 'from my perspective'. I don't experience any distress reading the latest mainstream Biblical scholarship, but thanks for the 'sensitivity'.

I have to wonder, however, is someone who does not recognize that Akkadian and Ugaritic are more valuable for Comparative Semitics than Umpa-Loompa, is someone who did not know that the current BDB is not a revised edition, but simply a reprint of the 1906 lexicon and therefore does not contain Ugaritic cognates, is someone who passes judgment on biblical studies published in important peer-reviewed journals that he has never read as “nonsense,” etc., etc., etc, etc. qualified on any level to identify these “holes” in the mainstream position?

This is an unfortunate mix of truth and error. It is utterly untrue to say that I do not recognize that 'Akkadian and Ugaritic are more valuable for Comparative Semitics than Umpa-Loompa', or that I do not know that the current BDB 'does not contain Ugarit cognates'. The BDB I have was indeed published in 1956 (I can copy the title page for you if you like), and does indeed claim to be corrected and updated, not simply 'a reprint of the 1906 edition' (it's called the 'Enhanced Brown, Driver and Briggs' for a reason).

But let's remember that you made the claim that BDB was accurate:

You should go back and read the first paragraph from the dictionary entry I provided which illustrates that the expression “son of X’ does mean “X.” It appears that you also have access to the Brown Driver and Briggs Lexicon. Under “ben” see entry 8, which defines examples such as “sons of wickedness” as “wicked men” and “sons of pledges” as “hostages”; etc.

Right here you claim that BDB does say that the expression 'son of X' actually means 'X'. And yet you would later say that BDB isn't accurate, because it was published prior to the discovery of the relevant Ugarit literature. Your entire case in this thread has been a patchwork of on the fly apologetics, with ad hoc arguments being invented and discarded as you went. You didn't even appear to realise that you'd contradicted yourself.

You said 'The BDB (Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew) you are using reflects a concise version of the 1906 American version', noting my quote from the Abridged BDB (which is indeed a reprint of the 1906 BDB), but you skimmed through my post so superficially that you missed entirely my quote from the Enhanced BDB which was printed in 1956. You then tried to claim that I had only ever quoted the Concise BDB of 1906 vintage, having completely missed my quote from the Enhanced edition of 1956 (despite me bringing it to your attention twice). Even when corrected you still kept insisting that I had only quoted from the Concise edition. You just didn't read my posts properly. Then you try to use this as evidence that I'm unqualified for this discussion? You weren't even reading my posts.

You acknowledged my quote from Concise HALOT of 1970, but didn't explain why it wasn't relevant. You contented yourself with dismissing TWOT on the basis that it's not recognised as a lexical authority, whilst at the same time appealing to TDOT.

I do not 'pass judgment on biblical studies published in important peer-reviewed journals that [I have] never read as “nonsense,”', I made that comment regarding one particular work, which made one particular case which has been rejected by many mainstream Biblical scholars (a fact you omitted to mention).

I note you've decided to bow out without actually addressing my core argument. I knew that was eventually going to happen, but I didn't think it would happen quite this soon. I was also waiting for the character attacks, and I give you credit for holding them in until now. You're a lot more restrained than the average LDS apologist I've encountered.

[Guest]

Just to clarify, I do believe that Kevin misreads Joseph’s claims. As I illustrated, Joseph did not claim in the sermon to have learned the truth about a plurality of gods through his study of Hebrew.

You illustrated no such thing, but I see you are shifting your ground a bit. The original claim was that Smith's concept of the divine council in Gen 1 was indicative of his prophetic authority. It must have come to him via divine revelation. On the contrary, I illustrated that from Smith's own mouth we learn nothing of the sort. We see him justify his retranslation of Gen 1 by using those who did so before him. In other words, he merely borrowed it. He refers to "others" who had translated it in the plural, yet there are no contemporary translations that render it that way. This means either 1) Smith was lying or 2) he was referring to "others" from personal correspondence, most probably learned Jews.

Joseph specifically stated, “I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years. I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage and a spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods!” (Teachings, 370).

This is a slight of hand here which amounts to equivocation. We all know every well that the concept of plurality under question here is not the pluarlity of the Father and the Son. It is one thing to say the Father and Son represent two gods (plural) and it is another thing to refer to a multiplicity of gods, (i.e. the divine council). The latter was something Smith derived from his retranslation of Gen 1, which of course, we already know derived from his correspondences with Hebrew experts. The former was revealed to him in a vision, but again, Smith was hardly the only Christian who believed the Father and Son were separate beings.

Of course I believe that Joseph learned about the plurality of Gods through his experience in the sacred grove.

Of course, this is absurd since as I already explained, the plurality within the Trinity is a far cry different from the multiplicity of deities later described by Smith in 1842. This is why he had to give a sermon on it. Because people were falling into apostasy, leaving the Church because of it. A decade earlier he provided a JST version of GEnesis with no hint of plurality and then later when translating the Book of ABraham he completely turns the monotheistic doctrine on its head. Clearly he had not taught this "for fifteen years" or else you would be able to muster some kind of citation. The D&C example was not published until many decades after Smith was dead, so it won't help you.

Thank you for recognizing that I have never said that because Ugaritic means X, so does Hebrew. I have only used the Ugaritic examples to provide further support for what Hebrew does internally, namely, as a Semitic language, Hebrew uses the word “son” to denote the member of a class or guild.

But you clearly make the same conclusions as one who would rely on such a faulty argument. I guess it all depends on the presuppositions one brings to the table. As far as I can gather, your arguments seem to keep pointing in this direction even though you won't commit to it explicitly. Fortigurn believes the later Hebrew concept was a correction of the former, whereas you seem to believe the phrase couldn't, or at least wouldn't, have any significant change in theological meaning for monotheistic Jews. Of course there is plenty of textual ammunition from the Hebrew Bible that Fortigurn could use to forward his thesis, but as Mormons, we're told it is just a bunch of alterations and corruptions anyway, so it means more to us what was said at Ugarit than what is said in the Torah. At least for apologetic purposes. We have rigged the game from the start by designing a no fault system (as Vogel would cal it).

However, I have never denied that Joseph’s study of Hebrew contributed to his views concerning gods and the Divine Council. In fact, I specifically believe that it did. I maintain that Joseph’s studies were an integral part of the revelatory process.

Then you're strange concept of revelation makes modern scholars prophets too. Surely you can see this.

In addition to the fact that I have many years of formal training in Hebrew, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Northwest Semitics, and Comparative Semitics, I too read French, Spanish, and Portuguese. This is why I disagree. It's not a compelling point.

Yours is a disagreement based on a lack of knowledge. I don't know how much Portuguese and French you think you can "read", but you clearly don't know it well enough to make an informed assertion.

Fortigorn’s analogy with Romances languages is in fact completely off.

No it isn't.

I can’t think of anything comparable in the Romance languages for the mere fact that the use of son to denote a member of a class or guild in Semitic languages is not a mere idiomatic expression.

So you're telling me there are no idiomatic expressions in Portuguese that, when translated literally to English, speak of something entirely different? Then clearly you're operating with an elementary level of knowledge here.

For example, please tell us what "mão de vaca" means in Portuguese; then kindly tell us what it refers to in English.

Further, tell us how to say "I don't want anything" in Portuguese; then kindly tell us what that means when literally translated, word for word, to English.

The problem from your position, as I see it, is that you choose to remove theology from the equation here, when in fact the Hebrew authors were focused primarily on theology. Theology is an excellent motive for changing expressions. Again, it is difficult to overlook the plethora of "One God" passages in the Bible and pretend the authors are not proposing some kind of correction to a former belief system.

[_Fortigurn]

Just to clarify, I do believe that Kevin misreads Joseph’s claims. As I illustrated, Joseph did not claim in the sermon to have learned the truth about a plurality of gods through his study of Hebrew.

You illustrated no such thing, but I see you are shifting your ground a bit. The original claim was that Smith's concept of the divine council in Gen 1 was indicative of his prophetic authority. It must have come to him via divine revelation. On the contrary, I illustrated that from Smith's own mouth we learn nothing of the sort. We see him justify his retranslation of Gen 1 by using those who did so before him. In other words, he merely borrowed it. He refers to "others" who had translated it in the plural, yet there are no contemporary translations that render it that way. This means either 1) Smith was lying or 2) he was referring to "others" from personal correspondence, most probably learned Jews.

Very well articulated. You need to copy this and save it somewhere, because you're going to need to say it again more than once. I use the Firefox plugin 'Clippings' for this kind of thing. It's excellent.

Joseph specifically stated, “I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years. I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage and a spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods!” (Teachings, 370).

This is a slight of hand here which amounts to equivocation. We all know every well that the concept of plurality under question here is not the pluarlity of the Father and the Son. It is one thing to say the Father and Son represent two gods (plural) and it is another thing to refer to a multiplicity of gods, (I.e. the divine council). The latter was something Smith derived from his retranslation of Gen 1, which of course, we already know derived from his correspondences with Hebrew experts. The former was revealed to him in a vision, but again, Smith was hardly the only Christian who believed the Father and Son were separate beings.

Again, very well said. Please get 'Clippings'!

Of course I believe that Joseph learned about the plurality of Gods through his experience in the sacred grove.

Of course, this is absurd since as I already explained, the plurality within the Trinity is a far cry different from the multiplicity of deities later described by Smith in 1842. This is why he had to give a sermon on it. Because people were falling into apostasy, leaving the Church because of it. A decade earlier he provided a JST version of GEnesis with no hint of plurality and then later when translating the Book of ABraham he completely turns the monotheistic doctrine on its head. Clearly he had not taught this "for fifteen years" or else you would be able to muster some kind of citation. The D&C example was not published until many decades after Smith was dead, so it won't help you.

This is excellent history, and very pertinent. I should save this entire reply of yours.

Thank you for recognizing that I have never said that because Ugaritic means X, so does Hebrew. I have only used the Ugaritic examples to provide further support for what Hebrew does internally, namely, as a Semitic language, Hebrew uses the word “son” to denote the member of a class or guild.

But you clearly make the same conclusions as one who would rely on such a faulty argument.

Exactly!

I guess it all depends on the presuppositions one brings to the table. As far as I can gather, your arguments seem to keep pointing in this direction even though you won't commit to it explicitly.

Yes, it would be easier if he just came out and said it. I'm totally prepared to acknowledge my presuppositions.

Fortigurn believes the later Hebrew concept was a correction of the former, whereas you seem to believe the phrase couldn't, or at least wouldn't, have any significant change in theological meaning for monotheistic Jews. Of course there is plenty of textual ammunition from the Hebrew Bible that Fortigurn could use to forward his thesis, but as Mormons, we're told it is just a bunch of alterations and corruptions anyway, so it means more to us what was said at Ugarit than what is said in the Torah. At least for apologetic purposes.

That is precisely the problem I have. Of course, I can array an arsenal of passages, as we all know, but the problem is that the Mormon has the stock defence of any conspiracy theorist, 'All the evidence was taken away by the conspirators, so now there's nothing left'. I did pre-empt that argument by asking why it is that the allegedly fastidious post-exilic redactors missed a number of significant passages, and the simple answer to that is that these passages weren't remotely any thread to their theology, because the language they used was understood by the Hebrews in a manner very different to the Ugarit people of some 500 years earlier (is this surprising?)

However, I have never denied that Joseph’s study of Hebrew contributed to his views concerning gods and the Divine Council. In fact, I specifically believe that it did. I maintain that Joseph’s studies were an integral part of the revelatory process.

Then you're strange concept of revelation makes modern scholars prophets too. Surely you can see this.

I can.

In addition to the fact that I have many years of formal training in Hebrew, Ugaritic, Akkadian, Northwest Semitics, and Comparative Semitics, I too read French, Spanish, and Portuguese. This is why I disagree. It's not a compelling point.

Yours is a disareement based on a lack of knowledge. I don't know how much Portuguese and French you think you can "read", but you clearly don't know it well enough to make this kind of assertion.

Where's my popcorn?

Fortigorn’s analogy with Romances languages is in fact completely off.

No it isn't.

Thanks. It would have helped if he had explained why it is 'completely off'.

So you're telling me there are no idiomatic expressions in Portuguese that, when translated literally to English, speaks of something entirely different? Then clearly you're operqating with an elementary level of knowledge here.

Please tell us what "mão de vaca" means in Portuguese; then kindly tell us what it refers to in English.

Further, tell us how to say "I don't want anything" in Portuguese; then kindly tell us what that means when literally translated, word for word, to English.

The problem from your position is that you choose to remove theology from the equation here, when in fact the Hebrew authors were focused primarily on theology. Theology is an excellent motive for changing expressions. Again, it is difficult to overlook the plethora of "One God" passages in the Bible and pretend the authors are not proposing some kind of correction to a former belief system.

Absolutely spot on! This post is a keeper.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Fortigurn writes:

No it is not 'clearly a problematic translation'. It may be a problematic translation in the opinion of some people, but it is not 'clearly a problematic translation'.

Yes, it is clearly a problematic translation. Some people may opt for a solution to this crux in one way or another, but, the clear reading of the text is not reflected in the traditional translation made by the KJV (and carried forward in other translations). The Hebrew is not ambiguous, and the only way that it can be made to read as the traditional translation reads is to make some unwarranted assumptions about the nature of the text itself. This has been recognized for the last millenia. As far as the relevance of Hamilton, he becomes relevant because (as an Evangelical) he recognizes the interpretive crux here. And discusses it in the kind of detail that it requries - unlike your own rather casual brushing away of the topic. I might assume that you simply aren't aware of the translational difficulties surrounding this verse, but there are mainstream translations which differ significantly from the one that you present.

Firstly, the idea that the earth and the darkness preceded the first recorded act of creation (the creation of light), has never been a problem for 'Orthodox theology', even though it hasn't been common.

Yes it is. And I will tell you why. Because, the text doesn't allow for a distinction between "the first recorded act of creation" and the first act of creation. This is, however, what Joseph Smith does to this text in the JST (the Book of Moses). He makes it clear that this is not an absolute "beginning". If something were to have been created prior to light, then that would mark the first act of creation, and thus move "the beginning" backwards. However, the notion of creation from pre-existing chaos is quite familiar to us from texts contemporary with ancient Israelite culture. So we really don't need to move the late notions of ex-nihilo creation back onto Genesis. Furthermore, the idea of pre-existing "stuff" doesn't conflict with the early Israelite notions of God not being along. It only conflicts with the much later, stricter monotheism, where something that pre-exists apart from God could, presumably, be outside of His domain.

Secondly, that the 'the desert, the wasteland, the earth, the darkness' exist prior to the first act of creation recorded in Genesis 1 does not necessarily mean that they have existed 'by definition from all eternity', even if we take the first recorded act of creation as the creation of light, and not the creation of the heavens and the earth.

You see, this distinction of "first recorded" doesn't work. It wouldn't be the beginning otherwise.

That is certainly excellent evidence that Smith wasn't translating Genesis 1:1 by inspiration, and that he was simply rehashing what he had learned from a period grammar. Perhaps this is what he meant when he implied that his idea wasn't original, but that he was simply following what others before him had said.

Of course, what did you expect? Did he claim that it was revealed to him? He was using this text to support his revelation, not to present it as the source of that revelation.

None of this rescues Smiths' 'translation' of Genesis 1:1, which even Mormon apologists have acknowledged is wrong. It is so far wrong that the most incredible attempts have been made to extricate him from it. Thus the attempts on the one hand to claim that all accounts we have of his 'translation' are somehow inaccurate in various ways (misrepresenting the argument he apparently really made, though since no record of that argument exists we are left guessing how it could possibly be known), or on the other hand that he wasn't translating it but interpreting it in Kabbalistic style (a view unconvincing even to other Mormon apologists).

But what it does do is lend a fair amount of support to Kevin Barney's arguments on what Joseph Smith was saying in the KFD. Whether or not we think that what Joseph said was accurate or not (which is hardly the point - we all know that he wasn't an expert in Hebrew - there were others in the LDS community who were (at least eventually) far better than he was.

Why not? Unless you have contemporary Hebrew texts for the eras under discussion (Samuel to Babylon), these are the relevant proximate Hebrew texts.

No, they aren't. Since we can demonstrate editing has occured (particularly late editing between the production of the LXX - and the Hebrew originals found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic texts), we can in fact eliminate late theologies as being just that - and not reflective of early Israelite beliefs. It is that simple. And to suggest that the late Biblical texts should be taken as being representative of early Israelite belief seems rather inane doesn't it?

In your opinion.

Sure in my opinion. Now, do you want a list of scholars who share that opinion? Can I respond to you in the same way? Simply dismiss everything you have said so far as being merely your opinion? One of the difficulties you will run into in a forum like this, is that despite my not being a regular poster here, a great many of the participants are familiar with who I am, and recognize that my opinion is based on a wide ranging awareness of the subject matter.

Both the Pharisees and Saducees saw themselves and each other as orthodox, the Essenes were more exclusive. But that's not particularly relevant since Christ identified all of them as unorthodox.

Do you realize how incoherent this is? Perhaps you don't. Orthodoxy has absolute nothing to do with being "True". Take this definition from Merriam-Webster of the word 'orthodox':

1 a : conforming to established doctrine especially in religion b : CONVENTIONAL
2 capitalized : of, relating to, or constituting any of various conservative religious or political groups: as a : EASTERN ORTHODOX b : of or relating to Orthodox Judaism

By any of these definitions, what Jesus taught could NOT be considered orthodox. He was a Jew, and what he taught was very unjewish - at least by comparison to those sects of Judaism which were established and held recognized places in the community. Whether or not the Pharisees or Sadducees were right has no bearing ont he question of whether or not they were orthodox. But this makes it hard to take your comments in any kind of positive light. The community determines what is orthodox, and so you want to dictate orthodoxy - but you don't even want to do so in a way that reflects a communities established values - rather you want to establish orthodoxy based on your own flawed model of Truth.

Can you show me the earliest example of Jewish orthodoxy teaching that the gods of the Jewish orthodoxy die? Please use the Biblical texts.

Would you define what you mean first by "jewish orthodoxy"? You have just suggested, of course, that the Pharisees and the Saducees and the Essenes are not orthodox, and you seem to be suggesting that you think that Orthodoxy really amounts to what you interpret Jesus as having taught, so I need some clarity from you on this point first. (Obviously, I would include Psalm 82 as a good example).

I can define orthodox Israelite religion, and I can demonstrate to what extent the popular religion as practiced by most Israelites resembled or differed from my understanding of orthodoxy.

Then please do so - because I don't think you are equipped to do this.

In your opinion.

Not in my opinion. It is in the Bible. You are welcome to provide a counter example.

Except Abraham. Oops.

Hmmm. Does an Israelite/non-Israelite distinction apply to Abraham? And then there is Deuteronomy 32. Where YHWH finds Israel wandering in the desert and becomes their God.

In your opinion.

No, not JUST my opinion (although it is my opinion). I do love how you keep throwing around that phrase. It becomes meaningless pretty quick you know. Tigay suggest that the implication here is that God "ordained that it [mankind] should worship idols and the heavenly bodies." (See his commentary, Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Jewish Publication Society, 1996], 49-50). Aren't opinions wonderful things? Who should I see as more reliable? You? Or Jeffrey Tigay (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtigay/)

Again, you're simply assuming that these are gods, and then assuming that they are the 'can die' type of gods. You have to make one assumption, and then stack another assumption on top of it.

No, actually, I don't. The text says that they are gods. It calles them elohim. What is interesting about the text of Psalm 82 (and this is quite clear in the Hebrew) is that the term isn't just being misused. It starts off Elohim (God) stands in the Assembly of El (God), he judges among the elohim (gods). So what you are trying to suggest is that the first instance of elohim means God, the next instance of El means ... we aren't quite sure what, and the second instance of elohim means something other than gods? This makes no sense from the perspective of an author. There is no reason to suggest that elohim (the first one) isn't substantially like the other elohim who are all participants in the assembly of El. So to have these elohim (who are participants in the divine assembly - and it uses a term which is considered a technical designation for this assembly elsewhere) who are going to die like men (indicating that they cannot be men) isn't simply applying one assumption to another. It is called reading the text. You on the other hand are trying to create a series of unlikely readings based not even on assumption within the text, but on theological presuppositions which dictate how you read the text and are entirely modern in origin.

Ok, so you haven't actually shown me any textual evidence that the original text in Deuteronomy 32 'was manipulated to remove such references'. All you've done is claim (without evidence), that the 'sons of God passage seems to have existed at least prior to the LXX'. Which Hebrew text preceding to the LXX contains the unredacted text? Please cite it. Do bear in mind the LXX reading 'angels of God'.

You can find a detailed discussion here: www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf - this is a pre-edited version of the final published article. Although I have the original, and there isn't any significant difference related to the question that you raise. The LXX doesn't read 'angels of God'. Which of course is an english translation. The greek text in the LXX (based on the consistent way in which the words were translated into Greek) translates either the Hebrew bene elohim or bene elim. 4QDtQ has bene El[....] with a hole in the manuscript the length of 4 characters (bene El is not a feasibe option based on the Greek). But 4QDtJ clearly reads bene elohim - "the sons of God". The LXX translation is interpretive. Furthermore, it seems obvious that there is an issue with having the number of pagan nations determined by the number of the sons of Israel (who wouldn't exist for quite some time following this division ....). And so on. Read the paper. The evidence is put forward there.

Key words here are 'in Ugaritic texts', and 'outside of the Biblical text'. On the one hand you argue that the Masoretic text cannot be trusted because it post-dates the time when the Israelite religion allegedly became strictly monotheistic, but on the other hand you want to tell me that the most relevant proximate texts for understanding the post-exilic Hebrew writings are not the LXX and the Hebrew vorlage (separated from the post-exilic texts by a couple of centuries), but the 12th century BC Ugarit texts (separated from the post-exilic writings by some 500 years, in a completely different society).

No. You are misrepresenting my position. What we have in the Ugaritic texts are the texts which provide us with Canaanite theology (their scriptures so to speak). Israelites were almost certainly familiar with these traditions (after all Isaiah uses them regularly to illustrate his points). But, those Israelites who worshipped Canaanite divinities would have been familiar with these traditions. And so they almost certainly had an impact on the beliefs and practices of ancient Israelites. Further, despite the fact that the Bible reaches its final form in a post exilic setting, parts of it are much earlier (as in Deuteronomy 32), and so the Ugaritic texts are much closer in terms of date to these older strands of the Bible than your suggestion makes them out to be.

Why?

Syntactically it isn't allowed by the text. Haven't I made that clear? You are welcome to present the Hebrew and explain how I am wrong.

Tell that to Jesus (John 10:34-15).

John 10:34-35 makes no impact on this question. I refer you to my position paper which was linked earlier discussing the connection between those two texts: http://www.fairlds.org/Bible/Reconsider ... _82_6.html

What is really funny about your claim here is the damage that it does to Jesus's comments. If Psalm 82 only refers to men, then it doesn't help Jesus's claim to be divine. Jesus would essentially be playing a semantic game in which he says, what is wrong with my being the Son of God (and by extension, as the text notes, equal to God). These other MEN (according to your interpretation) were also called Gods - but then there would be no sense in Jesus claiming any kind of divine status. And yet this is exactly what Jesus was doing. So you have Jesus playing little word games to get off of the charge on a technicality that does nothing to express his own claims to divinity which is expressed in the Johannine text. Your suggestion doesn't do much for me (or for most scholars). It is a rather unstatisfying apologetic appeal that breaks down under examination.

Thanks, but I've already read plenty. I've read many articles from JBL and BibSac, as well as pages and pages of Heise.

Then there must be a comprehension problem - because it should be patently clear that what I am saying is not merely my opinion.

Now back to my question that you didn't answer, but to which we are dying to learn - when the phrase Son of X is used, how do you determine when it is an idiom and when it is supposed to be read literally?

Ben

[_Fortigurn]

Then there must be a comprehension problem - because it should be patently clear that what I am saying is not merely my opinion.

I recognise that it is not simply your opinion. But the fact that it is an opinion shared by others doesn't change the fact that it's still an opinion.

Now back to my question that you didn't answer, but to which we are dying to learn - when the phrase Son of X is used, how do you determine when it is an idiom and when it is supposed to be read literally?

I didn't answer it because I haven't managed to get around to catching up with this entire thread yet (I'm leaving the rest of this post of yours until tomorrow, for the same reason). I believe there's still at least one post of yours I haven't answered, and possibly one of EE's (I found an unanswered post of his just today, and I suspect there may be others). The answer is 'context'. But you knew this.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dartagnan writes:

He refers to "others" who had translated it in the plural, yet there are no contemporary translations that render it that way.

I am not sure I agree with you on this. My challenge here goes back to the whole KFD interpretation. It comes right out of the Seixas Grammars. Take berosheit. The Seixas Grammar (the other one, not the one Zucker used) is very specific as to how it should be read first -

www.cromis.com/85enlarge.jpg

See the break down of the word - exactly as Joseph does in his sermon. In fact, if we go to section 11, we get:

www.cromis.com/21selection.jpg

Notice that here, one of the examples is this specific word from Genesis 1:1. And also notice that Joseph has adopted the Seixas terminology of a grammatical "termination". The notion of elohim as plural comes out the same way in these grammars. There isn't any need to suppose that there was some additional contact with others to come to these conclusions.

And once more, on the issue of idioms - how do we distinguish between what is intended as idiom and what is intended to be read literally?

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Fortigurn writes:

I recognise that it is not simply your opinion. But the fact that it is an opinion shared by others doesn't change the fact that it's still an opinion.

Yes, and the same can be said abiout everything you have written (which ought to be clear) - so your repeating this mantra doesn't add anything to the discussion - it serves only as a distarction. Perhaps you should preface every one of your claims with "It is my opinion ...." - you think?

The answer is 'context'. But you knew this.

But then we get back to the interpretive issue which is - whose interpretation of context is right? And your argument becomes circular if you use your opinion of it being and idiom to determine what the context is saying.

Ben

[_dartagnan]

Before we get started, let me first say hello, Ben. It has been a while since I have seen you online anywhere, and I miss our phone chats. I was thinking of you when this subject of Gen 1:1 came up because you always had a particular interest in it, but I remember your explanation on the phone had more to do with ex nihilo implications than a plurality of gods.

Anyway, if you say there were contemporary translations as Smith indicated, I believe you. My point was simply that he had borrowed it from somewhere; whether the "others" represented contemporary translations or his Hebrew speaking cohorts.

And once more, on the issue of idioms - how do we distinguish between what is intended as idiom and what is intended to be read literally?

An excellent question, which I suspect is the heart of the issue. I'm skeptical of the notion that sons of God must have meant to the early Jews, precisely what it meant to the Canaanites. It seems many scholars got excited to see it at Ugarit and leapt to illicit conclusions for the sake of rocking the boat. After all, we know the Hebrew word for God was already established at Ugarit just the same. Yet, "El" at Ugarit was an altogether different deity; he was a god of flesh and blood who was married, for example. If the Jews changed the concept of El, why not the concept of "sons of God"?

[_Benjamin McGuire]

You are right, Kevin - it did change - but its the lateness of the change. At the time of Jeremiah (contemporary with the alleged time of departure of Lehi), we have, according to the Bible, Jews who were complaining that it was the dismantling of the worship of Asherah (YHWH's consort) that was leading to the destruction of Jerusalem. YHWH is seen as having a consort in the archaeological record (kuntillit'Ajrud comes to mind), and so despite the fact that there is a change, the change is not a sudden one but a gradual change with elements of these beliefs lasting at least up until the exile. And so it isn't a stretch by any means to talk about God, the son of God within an Israelite context into (and perhaps even after) the exile. (And this, by the way, is the type of language we see in the Book of Mormon before its first editing). So we have a "married" YHWH at some point, we have Canaanite traditions with multiple divinities with a divine Father in a literal sense, we have whole lines of divinities in these myths (the shining ones), and so on. And what it amounts to is that at some point a production like Psalm 82 would have been easily understood in just such a context, while later, it might be seen as idiomatic. To make matters worse, we have the enthronement issues where the king is adopted the son of divinity, and so on. So we can't simply point to the Bible and say this is idiomatic - because if it is early, then those contemporary with its authorship would have felt no need to understand it in an idiomatic fashion. Their theology is quite comfortable with the notion. Also remember that in Ugaritic texts, while it is Ba'al who creates the universe in defeating Yam, in the Old Testament it is YHWH who crushes leviathon, and defeats the dragon - and so creates the universe. The remnants of these stories exist and are not that ambiguous. So it isn't so simple to simply dismiss the Canaanite connections. And more than this, we have to remember that early Israelites aren't that distinguishable from Canaanites - at least not most of them ....