Formal Debate Peanut Gallery- El and Yahweh Are Separate Gods Redacted Into One

[Ken Rank]

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[Usus Vox Tractus]

El, or, God, is the name of no one. Our God's personal name is Yahwah. El is a general term for any being thought to be, or will be, immortal. It's a non-starter.

Here is what I have found

El is short for El Elyon: God in the Highest. This is the Infinite Almighty Eternal that exists outside and between the spaces of all the infinite universes. His chief priest in antiquity was Melchizedek.

YHWH is the finite, singular, individuated expression of the Infinite One as the Holy One, God the Son, the Lord of all creation inside the universe. A singular Man being that we can relate to.


They both exist and YHWH is the door to El Elyon. Remember, Jesus was made a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

This is the place for all member to discuss both the one on one formal debate as well as subject of the debate.

All of the normal rules of this forum apply to this thread.

Happy posting!

Mark
Staff Supervisor.

• Title: Formal Debate - El and Yahweh Are Separate Gods Redacted Into One
• Topic: The truth of Christianity is dependent on the literal historicity of the Torah.
• The Formal Debate thread can be found here: El and Yahweh Are Separate Gods Redacted Into One

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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Formal Debate Peanut Gallery- El and Yahweh Are Separate Gods Redacted Into One
Originally Posted by BlueLightningTN

And yet Christianity kinfa depends on that not being the case.
​

Although I am curious as to why you think Christianity needs it not to be the case? I can see SOME Christians who see YHWH in the Tanach (OT) as an angry blood thirsty ogre, but they are simply in need of better teaching, as God does not change! If He is a God of love, peace, and joy today, He always has been! The FEW who don't see that, simply need better teachers. They certainly don't need a debate!

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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<Staff Edit> ... if you can't see that "El" can be used in more than one Semitic language and believe that somehow that acts as a cause to stumble for Christians, a debate with you on this topic would be fruitless. Be well!
Last edited by MarkRohfrietsch; 5th August 2014 at 07:16 PM.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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I still don't think there's much to debate. Sure, El was the chief in some religions. There's little doubt that the OT uses terms that were used by various religious traditions around them, applying them all to the One God. But that would seem to be one way to make the Israelite claim for monotheism.

Was Yahweh originally in some prehistory a subsidiary Canaanite God? If Wikipedia is right, this is all guesswork, so you're not likely to find much evidence to cite. Subsidiary is, of course, a matter of viewpoint. If Yahweh was associated with Israel, as seems to be the case, other groups would have considered him subsidiary to their own chief God, just at the OT considers other gods to be subsidiary to Yahweh (or other names for God).

So I'm not quite sure what we'd be debating. Would it be whether El and other terms were actually used by surrounding religions? Would it be that other tribes considered their own chief God to be superior to Yahweh, if indeed they acknowledged Yahweh? These would seem to be short discussions. Would it be that the multiple Canaanite gods actually exist? Perhaps you could find some kind of neo-pagan for that.

One theory cited by Wikipedia is that the name Yahweh developed in some way out of Canaanite religion. But unless they're misrepresenting the evidence, this seems like enough guesswork that it would be hard to debate. It's certainly not impossible that Israel would have used a name somehow related to existing names for God, nor do I see why it would be any particular problem. But i doubt we have enough people here who are expert in early Semitic religion to debate this. If we do, I'd love to watch the debate.
Last edited by hedrick; 2nd August 2014 at 08:36 AM.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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El, or, God, is the name of no one. Our God's personal name is Yahwah. El is a general term for any being thought to be, or will be, immortal. It's a non-starter.
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And Elohiym called the Earth, heaven.
Last edited by MarkRohfrietsch; 5th August 2014 at 07:16 PM.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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Exodus 6:3
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name Yahwah I did not make myself fully known to them.

From the beginning Yah was known as the only God. Not until after the flood did people begin to create man made gods, many of them trinities.
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And Elohiym called the Earth, heaven.
Last edited by MarkRohfrietsch; 5th August 2014 at 07:16 PM.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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This has been an interesting subject for me and I've read enough to have some familiarity with it. And I do think an orthodox case can be defended. But while I know enough to discuss it, my knowledge isn't deep enough for debate. Sorry.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

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I would actually like to learn more about the ugaritic texts. I would also like to see how much there is to support the idea that seems to be gaining popularity with scholars that the ancient Hebrew religion evolved out of the Canaanite people. I believe there is a fair amount of evidence, both archaeological and textual, that this is not so. This would also open the debate to more fields of expertise. And while I am anything but expert, I have familiarized myself somewhat with some of the archaeological evidence. But to try to prove either assertion from purely a textual standpoint, I feel is a somewhat fruitless endeavor. I have studied biblical redaction of the NT texts, and eventually came to the conclusion that it was all rather pointless by itself, and that other factors needed to be considered in determining what texts are the most reliable or "most original."

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Mod Hat...

The above posts were off topic to the Formal Debate Thread so have been moved here.

Enjoy the discussion.

Mark
Staff Supervisor

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Figure I would subscribe here, too. Might help me remember to make my first post soon.

 

[BL2KTN]

I'm extremely strapped for time, so prepare for this to go at a snail's pace.

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

Here's something I wrote in another thread when asked about "Yahweh"


YHVH I approach in a number of ways: First I strip the idea of all anthropomorphism. Then I look at its meaning most often translated "I am that I am" as a statement of God's complete self determination.

It's hieroglyphic expression is "Hand/Work/Throw/Worship (Y), Behold/Look/Reveal/Breathe (H), Add/Secure/Hook/Peg/Nail (V), Behold/Look/Reveal/Breathe (H).

Stacked vertically in Hebrew it makes head, arms, body, legs.

It's numerical expression is 10,5,6,5. Your DNA is a super conductive 10 point rotating spiral crystal antennae that fire photons in all directions. It is only 10 atoms wide.

If you read sideways counting the atoms of the ring molecules that make up each complete horizontal rung in your DNA, it would read 55665 or 56655.


This next one is a mind stretcher:

Consider the universe as a whole as a "10" and as a single sphere within an ABC repeating sphere stack (infinite spheres packed together as a vector equilibrium, look up FCC sphere packing): Where a single sphere is touched by the sphere planes above and below is at 1.618ish the way from the pole of the sphere to the equator.

1.618 is phi found in the perfect harmony of cross sections in a pentagram. 5 point star.

When you get to the next contact point of other universes traveling downward, you are at the equator of a single universe. 6 spheres pack in horizon perfectly around a central 7th equal sized sphere. The next contact point is the lower orbital plane at 1.618 from equator to pole. Last is the bottom pole (10) that spins off towards the next universe 3 levels downwards in the stack.

So reading as a vertical line down the stack of infinite universe and "smearing" around a single sphere I read a repeating vertical patterning influence of 10,5,6,5,10,5,6,5,10,5,6,5 etc repeating forever. (Because sphere planes are continuously being created at the bottom of the stack by The Word.)



Those are some of my appreciations for that Name of God.


If you like that, you're gonna love this: Another Name for The God is ALL AWE.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I'm extremely strapped for time, so prepare for this to go at a snail's pace.

Totally fair. Since you're the one with the time constraints, do you want to go first or should I?

 

[he-man]

Here is what I have found

El is short for El Elyon: .

Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or "powers".

It is generally thought that Elohim is a formation from eloah, the latter being an expanded form of the Northwest Semitic noun il (, &#702;&#275;l ). It is usually translated as "God" in the Hebrew Bible, referring with singular verbs both to the one God of Israel, and also in a few examples to other singular pagan deities.

The word Elohim is the plural of El (or possibly Eloah) and is the first name of God given in the Old Testament: &#8220;In the beginning, God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth, (Gen. 1:1).

&#8220;The name Elohim is unique to Hebraic thinking &#8211; it occurs only in Hebrew and in no other ancient Semitic language. The masculine plural ending does not mean &#8220;gods&#8221; when referring to the true God of Israel, since the name is mainly used with singular verb forms and with adjectives and pronouns in the singular (e.g. see Gen. 1:26).&#8221; [1]

The form of the word Elohim, with the ending -im, is plural and masculine, but the construction is usually singular, i.e. it governs a singular verb or adjective when referring to the Hebrew god, but reverts to its normal plural when used of heathen divinities (Psalms 96:5; 97:7).
http://www.theopedia.com/Elohim
Pentateuchal Studies Today by Gordon Wenham (1996)

 

[thetorncloak]

To debate such a matter would depend on supposedly objective scholasticism, archeology, extra-Biblical texts, various cultures and basically everything that would intrinsically (by sin nature) disprove God to be God.
Yet, so many give more credence to Higher Criticism about the Holy Bible alone, that such an argument on that fact alone would be nothing more than a matter of faith and nullifying the argument pointless.

And concerning "El" and "Yahweh", or is it: YaHVeh, YeHVeH, YuHWiH, YVEH, YaHWuH, or a part of the whole 279,936 permutations in English alone? Let alone "El". And how Hebrew has changed according to culture and tribal traditions of which we barely know much about. (Perhaps, God sparing us a pointless headache of venturing into vain futility?)

Not to mention the hundreds of ancient Hebrew legends and beliefs about "El" or "YHVH". Explore the myriad books of the pagan forcing a name of God (El, YHVH) into some vile concoction that would fade into oblivion.

Or maybe you should an argue a genuine Kabbalist who will spend his entire adulthood trying to meditate on a permutation of such names. (Yes, "his" as there is no "legitimate" female Jewish Kabbalist.)

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

First post is up: #2

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Second post is up. #3

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

To debate such a matter would depend on supposedly objective scholasticism, archeology, extra-Biblical texts, various cultures and basically everything that would intrinsically (by sin nature) disprove God to be God.
Yet, so many give more credence to Higher Criticism about the Holy Bible alone, that such an argument on that fact alone would be nothing more than a matter of faith and nullifying the argument pointless.

And concerning "El" and "Yahweh", or is it: YaHVeh, YeHVeH, YuHWiH, YVEH, YaHWuH, or a part of the whole 279,936 permutations in English alone? Let alone "El". And how Hebrew has changed according to culture and tribal traditions of which we barely know much about. (Perhaps, God sparing us a pointless headache of venturing into vain futility?)

Not to mention the hundreds of ancient Hebrew legends and beliefs about "El" or "YHVH". Explore the myriad books of the pagan forcing a name of God (El, YHVH) into some vile concoction that would fade into oblivion.

Or maybe you should an argue a genuine Kabbalist who will spend his entire adulthood trying to meditate on a permutation of such names. (Yes, "his" as there is no "legitimate" female Jewish Kabbalist.)

It's all Hebrew to me.

I am hoping for some Jewish input on this, since they would appear to know the Hebrew better than us Gentile Christians...IMHO.

Judaism 101: The Name of G-d

The Names of God

I have often heard people refer to the Judeo-Christian God as "the nameless God" to contrast our God with the ancient pagan gods. I always found this odd, because Judaism clearly recognizes the existence of a Name for God; in fact, we have many Names for God.


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