Yahweh S Coming Of Age

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

Biblical scholarship today is divided between two mutually exclusive concepts of the emergence of monotheism: an early-monotheistic Yahwism paradigm and a native-pantheon paradigm. This study identifies five main stages on Israel's journey towards monotheism. Rather than deciding whether Yahweh was originally a god of the Baal-type or of the El-type, this work shuns origins and focuses instead on the first period for which there are abundant sources, the Omride era. Non-biblical sources depict a significantly different situation from the Baalism the Elijah cycle ascribes to King Achab. The novelty of the present study is to take this paradox seriously and identify the Omride dynasty as the first stage in the rise of Yahweh as the main god of Israel. Why Jerusalem later painted the Omrides as anti-Yahweh idolaters is then explained as the need to distance itself from the near-by sanctuary of Bethel by assuming the Omride heritage without admitting its northern Israelite origins. The contribution of the Priestly document and of Deutero-Isaiah during the Persian era comprise the next phase, before the strict Yahwism achieved in Daniel 7 completes the emergence of biblical Yahwism as a truly monotheistic religion.

All over the world people look forward to a perfect future, when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate, and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration, through the world-views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth. Until around 1500 B.C., it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods, it was in essence immutable. However, it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought, famine and plague, defeat in war, and death itself, demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C., the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view, reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster, the world was moving, through incessant conflict, toward a conflictless state--"cosmos without chaos." The time would come when, in a prodigious battle, the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever, and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups, notably the Jesus sect, with incalculable consequences. Deeply informed yet highly readable, this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.

This book has been assembled with the serious student of scriptural studies in mind. Its objective is to familiarize its reader, not only with the arguments, both pro and con, about the use of the sacred name Yahweh, but to provide detailed evidence demonstrating that it is the vital key for unlocking scriptural knowledge.

This book is an intriguing study on two controversial topics: baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and the oneness of God. Baptism has been a theme of contention for many centuries, yet the Biblical and historical records teach us the simplicity of this topic. The second area of fiery debate revolves around the identity of God and the monotheistic cry of the Scripture. Being both a research-oriented and scholarly publication, the reader will find themselves being challenged as they are confronted with the truth from the Bible and the witness of history, while reclining at the metaphorical table of scholarly disputation. This work is for the hungry heart, the academic mind, the inquisitive, lovers of the Scripture, and those with questions that need to be addressed. As the reader is challenged to explore the evidence with the author, the testimony of scholarship, and most importantly, the veracity of the Word, they will find themselves in a position calling them to respond to such discoveries. This study will trouble stagnant waters and compel the reader to consider the unequivocal GodJesus Christ.

Yahweh's Breath is a unique Bible. In original Hebrew language it would be Yahweh's Nshamah meaning, 'Yahweh's puff or breath of divine inspiration'. It was written in the Literal form of the original languages of Hebrew and Greek and then matched with the New Strong's Exhausitve Concordance of the Bible, a thorough verbal index to the Holy Scriptures. It's one of a kind format puts the Sacred Name of our Father/Creator back into the text where it had been removed nearly 6,000 times by the scribes and translators throughout history. An outstanding feature also makes those hard to pronounce Biblical names easy as they were written in the original language of the script with the pronounciation following the name. Also, the meanings of some of the names follows the pronounciation. Using the wording from the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible gives His Word a detailed 'come to life' picture in your mind. At times you can see the glistening green grass or smell the fragrant smoke of spices. If you listen carefully you can hear the vibrating trumpet ram's horns or taste the sticky gummy syrup of honey. You might even be able to feel with your finger the scar from the spikes in the hands and feet of the Messiah. Another feature of this version of His Word, the Bible, is that any added text by our Romanized translations that was not in the original text languages has been put back into its original form. Above all, this version makes reading and understanding His love letter to us about His Son easy and enjoyable.