What Was Israel's Ancient Belief?

[Ebionite]

Further, numerous Jewish sources discuss how the term (אלהים) when used to described Hashem is describing the concept of justice as well as the powers/plural of Hashem in regards to reality.

Can you show an example of this in historical Hebrew text?

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Can you show an example of this in historical Hebrew text?

Sure. Which type of historical Hebrew text would you prefer? Mishnaic, Talmudic, Geonim, Rishonim, Ahoronim, Sephardic Jewish, Yemenite Jewish, Mizrahi Jewish, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish, etc?

Did you see what I quoted from Seforno?

 

[Ebionite]

Sure. Which type historical Hebrew text would you prefer?

I'd prefer something from the prophets.

Did you see what I quoted from Seforno?

No, religious opinions are a dime a dozen. What I'm interested in is how the language relates to deity.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Can you show an example of this in historical Hebrew text?

In this video, I did a number of years I go through a few sources on this. I will warn you that the microphone I had was not that good so the audio is not as good as it should have been but it presents a number of the sources I beleive you are asking about.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

I'd prefer something from the prophets.


No, religious opinions are a dime a dozen. What I'm interested in is how the language relates to deity.

The same could be said about the prophets. Especially, when it comes to how one translates what they were even writing about. For example, all modern dictionaries and lexicons of ancient Hebrew used are at their core derived from information found in the Mishnah, Talmud, etc. because the first known dictionary/grammer of the Tanakh is the Talmud the next few come from the Geonim, then the Rishonim, etc.. Thus, you can't escape the religious opinions you are talking about. Literally, if the Talmud didn't exist most of the non-Jewish world, and some parts of the modern Jewish world, would not even know what the words of the Tanakh even mean.

Yet, If you go back to my previous post. I presented the following.

There are more, but again. If you are ooking at this in English translation you still end up using a source that in part or in whole used the Talmud and other Jewish texts to determine what words mean, because there is no ancient external non-Jewish/Talmudic source for how ancient Hebrew worked. I.e. the rabbis of ancient Jewish communities, leaders of Torah based Jews, Karaites, and Samaritans are literally the sources you have for how the Tanakh is to be understood.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm talking more from a scholarly, critical POV, but religious views welcome.

What was the belief system/s of the ancient Hebrew people? We read a lot in the Tanak about the Divine Council, Sons of God, other Gods, spirits etc. and we read about Joshua asking the people to 'put away the Gods your fathers worshipped' upon crossing the Jordan. I have several books containing relevant information but I want to know what information others have, because I'm finding it very confusing.

- El is a generic noun meaning 'God' as far as I know, but some seem to treat it as a proper name for a specific God?

- YHWH is worshipped by Abraham, but claimed only to make his name known to Mose.

- Who are the Sons of God? Are there other Gods in the Hebrew belief system that aren't worshipped?

- Is God the God of the whole word, or just Israel?

- What's the problem with Ba'al?

Etc.

Don't have any reference or such, but from what I've read in the past it seems rather obvious their beliefs were polytheistic as ancient israelites were canaanites.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

- Is God the God of the whole word, or just Israel?

Taking the linquistic data of ancient Hebrew that I posted earlier, consider the following part of the Torah.

In the Hebrew text of the Torah in Devarim 10:17 the following statement is made.

(Translation) because hashem your elohim he is elohei (plural construct noun) of haelohim (plural with a definate article) and adonei (plural construct noun) of ha'adonim (plural construct noun for master, ruler, etc.) hael [האל] (singular noun with definate article) the big, the mighty, and the amazing who/which doesn't show preference and can't be bribed.

Now, a few notes. I lower cased everything to show that in the Hebrew language there is are no capital letters and I tried to use the terms that would make the point I was making earlier a bit closer to what a person who reads Hebrew sees.

1. Hashem is described using the third-person masculine singular noun of (הוא) meaning "he/him" and the immediately is described using elohei which is plural. Not only that it but states that Hashem is elohei haelohim which would mean elohim of the elohim.
   • This of course presents a problem if someone wants to say that elohim exclusively means "god." Because English translations often state "God of the gods." Yet, why capiltalize God and then lower case the gods part? That all comes form commentary and would not be evident in a translation without some major commentary to explain what this means.
   • Further, elohiei is a plural construct noun in Hebrew which the construct is used for plural nouns when showing possesion. Like Divrei Torah (Words of Torah) or Sha'arei Tzedeq (Gates of Correctness).
   • The above makes sense in Hebrew when it is known that the terms el, elohim, and eloah carry the basic meaning of power or strength with no specific connotation to the thing they describe being a deity. Remember Hebrew has no capitals so there is Elohim vs. elohim or El vs. el.
   • Essentially, what the text is trying to say is that Hashem is being described here as the power above all powers the master/rulers above all masters/rulers.
2. Further, the same applies to the statement the adonei (plural construct noun) of ha'adonim. adon of the adonim. Master/ruler of the rulers/masters. Or as you may be used to hearing in English lord of the lords. Again, no capitals in Hebrew.
3. Lastly, I have marked below in yellow higlight places where Hashem is described with singular nouns and in red brackets I have marked how this is interspersed where in the same statement Hashem is described using plural adjectives.

Again, this is all linquistic in nature and clearly understood in Hebrew using the most ancient Jewish, Karaite, and Samaritan sources for how ancient Hebrew was/is correctly understood. Yet, it is an issue that can be lost in translation - that is when there is a lack of linquistic commentary.

 

[Bthoth]

Knowing this linquistic fact, which I am supporting with evidence from how the language works, one can more easily understand what is meant in ancient Hebrew in places where in English translation it is not clear.

Topic is not linquistics. The gibberish of language is doing nothing for no one.

In order to test what I am saying, take everything I posted to a rabbi who is fluent in ancient and modern Hebrew, a Jew who is fluent in ancient and modern Hebrew, or a scholar of ancient Hebrew and see if I what I am talking about is true.

Why? Hebrew is not the topic.

It's about beliefs of ancient israel. Which in itself is funny as israel did not exist before 1947.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

- YHWH is worshipped by Abraham, but claimed only to make his name known to Mose.

If one goes through Jewish texts one finds the following being described about Avraham ben-Terah (Abraham).

1. His concern, in terms of Hashem, was about what created all of reality.
2. Avraham grew up doing Avodah Zara (idolotry) in the culture he came from.
3. He went through a process of researching what he grew up with and eliminating what he found ot be false.
4. His claim to his people was that they once knew about the reality of Hashem but forgot it, walked away from it, etc.
5. Avraham then followed the Noachide laws with the eventual addition of circumcision on the 8th day for males and praying a fixed times in the morning.
6. There are some sources that state that Avraham actually kept more mitzvoth but as a personal way of keeping mitzvoth and not for his entire household.

So, then textually speaking there are two views.

1. Avraham ben-Terah didn't know of Hashem based on a voclalized name other than (אל שדי).
2. That Avraham ben-Terah did know of Hashem based on other names, but that the meaning of the four letter name in respect to Hashem's interaction with Avraham ben-Terah and his descendants would be fully grasped until Mosheh ben-Amram (Moses) initiated the process for the Benei Yisrael to receive the Torah at Mount Sinai.

The below slide shows the section of the Torah that textually allows for either view.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

I'm talking more from a scholarly, critical POV, but religious views welcome.

- Who are the Sons of God? Are there other Gods in the Hebrew belief system that aren't worshipped?

Concerning the second issue, if we are talking about the Ivrim (as mentioned before) according to the text left behind by the Ivrim (the ancestors of modern Jews) then textually in Hebrew the information I provided before that topic. In short the terms used in Hebrew denote that Hashem is the Source of reality/creation. Are there powers in reality that Hashem created? Yes, but they are subject to Hashem and Ivrim, Benei Yisrael, and modern day Jews are forbidden to a) worship them, b) create religions around them, c) assign powers to them that would cause someone to try to worship Hashem through them, and d) think that they serve as mediatators between Hashem and the Jewish people.

Concerning your first question.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

I'm talking more from a scholarly, critical POV, but religious views welcome.

What was the belief system/s of the ancient Hebrew people? We read a lot in the Tanak about the Divine Council, Sons of God, other Gods, spirits etc. and we read about Joshua asking the people to 'put away the Gods your fathers worshipped' upon crossing the Jordan. I have several books containing relevant information but I want to know what information others have, because I'm finding it very confusing.

- El is a generic noun meaning 'God' as far as I know, but some seem to treat it as a proper name for a specific God?

- YHWH is worshipped by Abraham, but claimed only to make his name known to Mose.

- Who are the Sons of God? Are there other Gods in the Hebrew belief system that aren't worshipped?

- Is God the God of the whole word, or just Israel?

- What's the problem with Ba'al?

Etc.

Please be aware that all of my answers are addressing your questions from the standpoint that you are asking what the genetic and biological ancestors of modern day Jews (Mizrahi, Yemenite, Sephardic, Ashkeanzi, Ethiopian, etc.) held by.

If your questions are about a group of people that modern day Jews don't genetically and biologicially descend from then my answers don't apply to that group. See my first response to understand why I state this, requoted below.

Ehav4Ever wrote earlier:

1. What was the belief system/s of the ancient Hebrew people? -Answer: It depends on what you define the Hebrew people to be. For example, there are generic terms used in many Middle Eastern cultures to describe people form regions between Egypt and Babylon. The terms used range from Habiru and others. Yet, the pronunciation of the word used in the Hebrew Tanakh to describe Avraham ben-Terah (Abraham) specifically and those eventually came from him was/is prounced "Ivri" with the first letter being a sound that doesn't exist in English. Thus, using the term Hebrew in "Modern English" can easily mean something different than the word "Ivri" meant in the language of the Israeli/Jewish people past and present. Nedt, in terms of what the beleifs of the Ivrim/Ivri people was, past tense, they didn't have what is modernly termed a belief system. Meaning, if one were take the Torah, the most ancient internal description of the Ivri people, one doesn't find the concept of modern religion or belief. This is also held by scholars of Canaanite history. I.e. if you had asked a ancient Canaanite what their religion was/or their beliefs were it wouldn't really calcuate into the western concept.
   • Thus, you would have to determine what you consider to the the primary sources for what a Hebrew was, past tense in the first place. This may force you outside of the realm of what is found in English translation.

 

[Ebionite]

The same could be said about the prophets.

No, they were exceptional because of their knowledge of future events.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

No, they were exceptional because of their knowledge of future events.

What I am saying is that there are people who could argue with you on that and claim the opposite and saying you only beleive that they did. You can find some of the people who could make that point on this forum.

In any case, I provided you two places for what I stated being in the Hebrew text of the Tanakh and also what I stated in post #8 is a part of that.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No, they were exceptional because of their knowledge of future events.

That was not the main job of the Prophets.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

No, they were exceptional because of their knowledge of future events.

One thing I forgot to mention in my response was that since the Nevi'im section of the Tanakh was written in Hebrew thousands of years before modern English existed and since the only people who have thousands of years of experience with the Hebrew language from its inception to the present is Jews, Karaites, and Samaritans (Samaritans on the Torah part) and because the earliest written exhaustive sources of information of how to understand the language and grammer of the Hebrew text of the Nevi'im is the Mishnah, Talmud, Midrashim, Geonim, Rishonim, etc. this means that literally all post Talmudic Hebrew dictionaries/lexicons/concordances/dictionaries derived a major part of their informaiton on how ancient Hebrew worked from......(drum roll).....the Talmud and all later rabbinic, Karaite, and Samaritan sources.

Thus, if all that information was just someone's opinion then all translations made are just someone's opinions and at some point someone can say that even the original text is someone's opinion.

Summing this up, what you call the prophets is only known to you today because leaders from the Torah based Jewish communities/rabbis/etc. both preserved the texts and provided written and oral transmissions for what the texts mean. All modern dictionaries/lexicons/concordances/dictionaries are based on that information provided by Torah based Jewish communities/rabbis/etc. There are no other ancient non- Torah based Jewish communities/rabbis/etc. sources for this.

 

[Ebionite]

One thing I forgot to mention in my response was that since the Nevi'im section of the Tanakh was written in Hebrew thousands of years before modern English existed and since the only people who have thousands of years of experience with the Hebrew language from its inception to the present is Jews, Karaites, and Samaritans (Samaritans on the Torah part) and because the earliest written exhaustive sources of information of how to understand the language and grammer of the Hebrew text of the Nevi'im is the Mishnah, Talmud, Midrashim, Geonim, Rishonim, etc. this means that literally all post Talmudic Hebrew dictionaries/lexicons/concordances/dictionaries derived a major part of their informaiton on how ancient Hebrew worked from......(drum roll).....the Talmud and all later rabbinic, Karaite, and Samaritan sources.

Sorry, but that's BS. The there's an extant dictionary of the Hebrew language if you know where to look.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Sorry, but that's BS. The there's an extant dictionary of the Hebrew language if you know where to look.

Do you mind showing here in this thread a picture, with a description, of said dictionary of ancient Hebrew (covering the entire Tanakh) from before 400 CE that didn't have any Rabbinical/Talmudic influence? Be sure to provide the name of who it came from.

Also, if you present such a text do you personally use it?

 

[Ehav4Ever]

Sorry, but that's BS. The there's an extant dictionary of the Hebrew language if you know where to look.

Also, what evidence do you have this dictionary you are referencing wasn't also someone's opinion?

 

[Ebionite]

Do you mind showing here in this thread a picture, with a description, of said dictionary of ancient Hebrew (covering the entire Tanakh) from before 400 CE that didn't have any Rabbinical/Talmudic influence? Be sure to provide the name of who it came from.

Also, if you present such a text do you personally use it?

The text describes, amongst other things, the relationship between the heart and the hands. It's attributed to Abraham. It's not a dictionary in the ordinary sense of the word, but a dictionary of the language itself, a description of the internal structure of the language. It's content is unlike any of the Rabbincal texts I've come across. There are several versions of it, suggesting that additions have been made by later authors.

 

[Ehav4Ever]

The text describes, amongst other things, the relationship between the heart and the hands. It's attributed to Abraham. It's not a dictionary in the ordinary sense of the word, but a dictionary of the language itself, a description of the internal structure of the language. It's content is unlike any of the Rabbincal texts I've come across. There are several versions of it, suggesting that additions have been made by later authors.

Please show pictures of this dictionary you talking about and information that proves the version you use/describe comes from prior to 400 CE.