elohim [finished up game backstory ALMOST]

notes for memory triggers: Between the 10th century BC and the beginning of their exile in 586 polytheism was normal throughout Israel;[9] it was only after the exile that worship of Yahweh alone became established, and possibly only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC) that monotheism became universal among Jews.[10][11] Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshiped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel.[10] There are references to the worship of numerous Gods throughout Kings, Solomon builds temples to many Gods during his reign and Josiah is reported as cutting down the statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh. (Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, had erected this statue. 2 Kings 21:7) Further evidence includes, for example, an 8th-century combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrudin the northern Sinai desert[12] where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and an inscription that refers to “Yahweh … and his Asherah”.[13][14] The inscriptions found invoke not only Yahweh but El and Baal, and two include the phrases “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah.” [15] There is general agreement that Yahweh is being invoked in connection with Samaria (capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Teman (in Edom); this suggests that Yahweh had a temple in Samaria, and raises a question over the relationship between Yahweh and Kaus, the national god of Edom.[16] The “Asherah” is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object (a stylised tree perhaps) to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, consort of El, is unclear.[17] Further evidence includes the many female figurines unearthed in ancient Israel, supporting the view that Asherah functioned as a goddess and consort of Yahweh and was worshiped as the Queen of Heaven.[13]

 

9 thoughts on “elohim [finished up game backstory ALMOST]

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%60Ely%C3%B4n

    ʿElyōn standing alone[edit]
    The name ʿElyōn ‘Most High’ standing alone is found in many poetic passages, especially in the Psalms.
    It appears in Balaam’s verse oracle in Numbers 24.16 as a separate name parallel to Ēl.
    It appears in Moses’ final song in Deuteronomy 32.8 (a much discussed verse). A translation of the Masoretic text:
    When the Most High (ʿElyōn) divided nations,
    he separated the sons of man (Ādām);
    he set the bounds of the masses
    according to the number of the sons of Israel
    However many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of “sons of Israel”, angelōn theou ‘angels of God’ and a few have huiōn theou ‘sons of God’. The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4QDeutj reads bny ’lwhm ‘sons of God’, ‘sons of the gods’. The NRSV translates this as “he fixed the boundaries according to the number of the gods” Interestingly, the following verse speaks of God using the tetragrammaton:
    For God’s (yhwh) portion is his people;
    Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
    This passage appears to identify ʿElyōn with Elohim, but not necessarily with Yahweh. It can be read to mean that ʿElyōn separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons (the 70 sons of Ēl being mentioned in the Ugaritic texts), each of these sons to be the tutelary god over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the god of Israel, Yahweh. Alternatively, it may mean that ʿElyōn, having given the other nations to his sons, now takes Israel for himself under his name of God. Both interpretations have supporters.
    In Isaiah 14.13–14 ʿElyōn is used in a very mystical context in the passage providing the basis for later speculation on the fall of Satan where the rebellious prince of Babylon is pictured as boasting:
    I shall be enthroned in the mount of the council in the farthest north [or farthest Zaphon]
    I will ascend about the heights of the clouds;
    I will be like the Most High.
    In this context it would be natural to avoid the name Yahweh and use a more general term for the high God.
    But ’Elyōn is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22.14:
    God (yhwh) thundered from heaven,
    and the Most High (ʿelyōn) uttered his voice.
    Also Psalm 97.9:
    For you, God (yhwh), are Most High (ʿelyōn) over all the earth;
    you are raised high over all the gods.
    Elyon also appears in Iyov 19.26 ‘But I would see G-d [Elyon] while still in my flesh’.

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