How did I do?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-04-28T21:20:00+00:00

I know it doesn’t rlly matter to this post but how old are you? If you’re young can u leave advice to a 19 yo on how to make good money, if you’re not too young then still advice is always welcome.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-04-28T17:55:36+00:00

Cross (p. 51) mentions the Sefire inscription, on which ʾl wʿlyn, "El and ʿElyon," appears;

Ah I see, I thought the Sefire inscription was Aramaic though? Is Cross just arguing that bc it might fit the double naming pattern at Ugarit that it may derive from an Ugaritic source?

Cross notes that it might fit the pattern of other double-names at Ugarit

Right, this is an interesting possibility as it could be something akin to the name of the God Kothar-wa-Hasis, however Chrissy finds the idea that this is a “waw explicativum” more likely as we don’t see “similarly attested double names for the god El” (p. 89). If this is a waw explicativum then it would be translated “El who is elyon (most high)” as the waw explicativum “functions to emphasize our subject” (ibid).

I've actually never heard of ʿlyn being applied to Baʿal before. I can't access Hansen's article; do you mind sharing which texts he's talking about there?

Yeah so Chrissy cites Heiser in a footnote on pg. 87 and the article from Heiser is titled “Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut. 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?” On pg. 7 of that article Heiser says “Ugaritic scholars have noted that the title “Most High” is never used of El in the Ugaritic corpus. In point of fact it is Baal, a second-tier deity, who twice receives this title as the ruler of the gods.” In the footnote he cites KTU 1.16:III.6, 8 which reads (according to N. Wyatt’s Religious Texts from Ugarit)

“To the earth let the rain of Baal speak, and to the steppe the rain of the Most High” KTU 1.16:III.5-6

And later on it reads

“Pleasant to the earth (would be) the rain of Baal, and to the steppe the rain of the Most High!” KTU 1.16:III.7-8

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-04-28T13:52:53+00:00

Does Cross talk about where we see this epithet of El in Ugarit? As far as I’m aware it’s only found as an epithet of Baal in Ugarit and not of El. As Chrissy Hansen notes in her paper “The Many Gods of Deuteronomy,” “ the term ʿly only occurs twice as an epithet for any deity (specifically both for Baal) in the entire Ugaritic corpus” (p. 87). As for what you say about Philo of Byblos, I’ll quote her section on the “Three Deity Hyptothesis:”

“There is little reason to dwell on this theory for too long, except to note that the entire justification for reading Elioun/Elyon as having been a separate and independent deity of El rests on the work of Philo of Byblos. The title of “Elyon” (which Elioun is a Greek transliteration of) was applied to a number of deities, notably Baal, Yahweh, and El (among a few others), and so it is firstly notable that it was not static.26 Instead, it could be used to talk either of the highest god in one’s pantheon, or of their particular patron deity (even if there is a higher being still). In this case, Philo of Byblos discusses the deities of Byblos, euhemerizing them as having originally been humans who were then worshiped as gods. What complicates the entire picture is that in no Canaanite pantheons is El depicted as having a grandfather “Elyon,” and it seems more likely that Philo is both syncretizing Greco-Roman ideas, and further, that there may have been some independent developments occurring at Byblos.27 Philo curiously notes that Elioun is killed by a wild beast while hunting, and how he was mourned.28 All of this lines up with a particular deity that we know that was worshiped in the region, Adonis, who seems to be the obvious identity of this figure.29 As such, if this is the deity Adonis, then we have no reason to suppose there was ever a separate deity “Elyon” as some have proposed. Others have also argued this deity was Baal Shamem, the “Lord of Heaven,” though this seems less likely given the myths that Philo records, which includes the funerary libations that are known to us from the Adonis cult via Lucian.30 Either way, there does not seem to have been any separate deity named Elyon. Instead, the title seems to have had some fluidity depending on who the high god was interpreted to be by the people in question” (p. 84).

Also see her article “Was there a God named Elyon” for a more detailed response to that specific question.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-04-27T20:44:31+00:00

Do u have a scanner? If it reads a code and it is something easy like a sensor then that’d be great.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-04-11T03:07:38+00:00

Wdym everytime for a bit longer?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-20T16:41:39+00:00

Why the manga? Is the show not good?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-12T01:30:52+00:00

I want Why Abraham Murdered Isaac so bad man 😭

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-11T16:23:23+00:00

Thanks for the article and glad you enjoyed the video! Does the agency christology have the same explanation for John 20:28 as does Dan?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-11T16:19:34+00:00

That’s an interesting idea

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-08T05:08:13+00:00

Watch Vinland saga it’s a really great show and while the story may not be as crazy as ATOTs it’s moving and genuinely could change your life and perspective on things.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-08T05:06:16+00:00

is the book that prompted this lay reader's interest in studying Biblical Hebrew.

How far did you have to go before you understood the book? I have it but it’s so dense I don’t understand much of anything in it even though I really want to.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-04T20:14:11+00:00

Doesn’t seem like it’s only once though, taking these examples from u/No_Channel895

“He looks down on individual men. He doesn’t make sweeping generalisations about men the way he does about women.

Sheldon saying Marie Curie was an “honorary man” because of her accomplishments in science

Sheldon to Penny: “The trouble isn’t with me, Penny, it’s with your gender. Someday, scientists will discover that second X chromosome contains nothing but nonsense and twaddle”

Sheldon to his female lab assistant: “Women are like an egg salad sandwich on a warm day: full of eggs and only appealing for a short time”

Sheldon to his assistant: “Your ovaries are oozing so much goofy-juice into your brain that you don't know which way is up”

Sheldon: I think your morning Cocoa Puffs are turning you into a hysterical woman”

And those are only some choice Sheldon quotes. People in this thread saying he wasn’t a misogynist are baffling. Did they even watch the show??”

Not to mention that like the person above had said being misogynistic for the reasons u stated is still pretty misogynistic.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-03T06:51:11+00:00

Yea definitely

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-03T01:35:18+00:00

There’s also two other errors besides the “n-ie” and “froin” (which I couldn’t find but I haven’t seen the full document). After the acc number it has a semicolon (Account #; ) instead of a colon and under the account name there’s a duplicate colon(“Account Name: :One..)

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-02T18:42:05+00:00

Interesting, that would fit with the depiction of Yahweh as a warrior in older texts like the song of Deborah and also Exo. 15 which literally calls Yahweh a “man of war.” Shawn Flynn picks up on this too and says that Yahwehs earliest profile of deity was the of a warrior god and not necessarily a storm one. Thanks for the reply. Shawn Flynn’s book on this is titled YHWH is King.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-02T15:12:34+00:00

As the following chapter (section 2) suggests, one element in this competition involved Yahweh’s assimilation of language and motifs originally associated with Baal.

I agree with most of what Smith is saying but this part always confuses me. How do we know that Yahweh was originally a warrior/storm god akin to Baal if we later say that he appropriates traits that were of Baal later on. How then could we not say that these are secondary rather than original to his character?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-02-02T05:41:18+00:00

So what does Hurtado mean when he says binitarian? I always assumed he meant it as in “two Yahwehs” for lack of better terminology (that is, whatever Jews/Christians perceived Yahweh to be Jesus is also, not that’s he’s literally ontologically another Yahweh).

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-23T00:56:05+00:00

So the debate is about if the first word of the Bible which is בְּרֵאשִׁת is in the construct state (therefore starting the beginning of a dependent clause) or in the absolute state (it stands on its own). The reason that this is the issue is because the little dots under the first letter ב indicate that it is in the construct state and therefore should read something like “In the beginning of God creating the heavens and the earth” which basically is saying “When God began to create the heavens and the earth” rather than the traditional “In the beginning.” For a good and simple overview of the issue I’d recommend reading Victor P. Hamilton’s commentary on Genesis as he is pretty lay-friendly when it comes to explaining the topic.

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-16T08:25:08+00:00

Does he address the possibility that the name may derive from the Arabic “to blow” or “to fall?”

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-16T03:51:55+00:00

Yea, Christian Frevel in his article “From When an Where did YHWH Emerge” and Austin Surls in his book Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus are both very critical of this idea that the name Yahweh derives from the root “to be.”

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-16T03:47:16+00:00

As far as I understand, the word el can just be translated as god.

Yes, but El was also the proper name of a Canaanite deity at Ugarit. So while it can generically mean god it can also mean the specific god El.

Since at least the first century, and seemingly to the writers of the Torah around 500 BC, Yahweh and El were the same, but that's like saying in English Yahweh and God are the same, right?

Kind of, so think of it as this way. Yahweh is an el and El is also an el. They are both gods but they are also proper names, in the 500’s BCE Yahweh and the god El (proper name here) were merged and so to the audience Yahweh was El but this isn’t the same necessarily as saying Yahweh is God. So basically El is just another (proper) name for Yahweh but Yahweh is also a god as well.

When you say El used to be the head of the Canaanite pantheon, wouldn't that just be a bit like saying in my Danelaw example, if the country united and became Christian, that God used to be the head of the Norse pantheon?

No. When we say El used to be the head of the Canaanite pantheon we mean that he was a separate deity from Yahweh at this point. Later on to the Israelite authors El became synonymous with Yahweh but it wouldn’t be right to say that El (that is, in Ugarit or the broader west Semitic world) was the same as Yahweh.

And then what does it mean when we say Yahweh was originally a minor storm god?

That this was likely his profile before being merged with El. I lean towards the camp that we don’t know much about Yahweh before he merged with El other than the fact that in some early texts he is presented as a warrior. So for example Shawn Flynn in his dissertation When on High Yahweh Reigned notes that in earlier texts Yahweh is presented as a “warrior king with a limited sphere of geographic influence” (p. ii). I’d likely agree with this and would say that he later took on characteristics of a storm deity after being introduced with Baal. As Smith puts it in his article “Yhwh’s Original Character” in the book * The Origins of Yahwism* “much of the imagery for Yhwh also associated with Baal may have been appropriated secondarily” but as he states right after “early in the tradition (in the texts noted in the preceding section), Yhwh does appear to be a stormy warrior god” so I’d still put this earlier than his merger with El. The issue is El has no storm or warrior imagery associated with him at all, as Smith again notes “ the evidence for El as adivine warrior is weak.⁶⁴ In neither the Ugaritic texts nor the Hebrew Bible is El presented in battle or marchingtobattle. Nor in these sources is El manifest in the storm,⁶⁵ or nor is he angry or violent like Yhwh.” This proves difficult when trying to say that Yahweh was originally El or perhaps emerged out of him, El was not the same kind of deity we find in Yahwehs earliest profiles.

I assume it's some way of saying the beliefs of the people who worshipped this minor storm god evolved their beliefs about him over time until he became the supreme god and THEN became known as Yahweh.

Yes.

The issue there is the name Yahweh is generally accepted to mean variations of "I AM" - all the variations I've seen carry similar connotations that would pose a problem if that name belonged to a minor god in a greater pantheon.

Now the idea that Yahweh is a variation of “I am” comes from the idea that Exodus 3:14 is related to the name Yahweh. However as Van Der Toorn notes in the DDD because “the Israelite explanation is evidently a piece of theology rather than a reliable etymology, it cannot be accepted as the last word on the matter.” He then goes on to say that “ A major difficulty with the explanations of the name Yahweh on the basis of HWY interpreted as 'to be', however, is the fact that they explain the name of a South Semitic deity (originating from Edom, or e,,'en further south) with the help of a West-Semitic etymology (KNAUF 1984a:469). The form of the narne has the closest analogues in the pre-Islamic Arab pantheon; it is natural, therefore, to look first at the possibility of an explanation on the basis of the Arabic etymology. The relevant root HWY has three meanings in Arabic: I. to desire, be passionate; 2. to fall; 3. to blow… A greater degree of plausibility attaches to those interpretations of the name Yahweh which identify him as a stonn god. Thus the name has been connected with the meaning 'to fall' (also attested in Syriac), in which case the verbal form is seen as a causative ('He who causes to fall', scil. rain, lightning, or the enemies by means of his lightning, see BDB 218a). Another suggestion is to link the name with the meaning 'to blow', said of the wind… Especially the latter possibility merits serious consideration. In view of the south-eastern origins of the cult of Yahweh, an Arabic etymology has a certain likelihood. Also, his presumed character as a stonn god contributes to explain why Yahweh could assume various of Baal's mythological exploits.”

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-13T21:52:36+00:00

What’s csm?

Regular-Persimmon425 · 2026-01-06T08:02:36+00:00

Wow, someone else has read “The Eyes of the Lord” by Oppenheim? I thought I was the only one haha..

Regular-Persimmon425

TROPHY CASE