I see what you're saying now, if that's what you've been saying. Perhaps I misunderstood you earlier and have consistently misunderstood what it is you've been actually trying to say through all of this. I can agree that Moses taught monotheism and Israel fell away, but I would submit that's more of a failing based on man's sin nature and not Moses' own failings in teaching. Throughout the Biblical narrative we see Israel and it's leaders failing to separate itself properly and thus getting consistently seduced into idolatry.
We disagree that Moses' mind was lodged in polytheism when he penned the books. As I said, I see no real evidence of that within the text of scripture given the themes laid out within. I also don't see anything in the text as poetic unless it's written as so structurally or obvious as so. We diverge on that as well as I try to habitually let the Bible tell it what it means with proper Hermeneutics and understanding of the languages. Yes, the cultural aspect plays a factor, but to a point in accordance with how the Bible uses its language and employment of cultural themes, etc.
I still say you're too hung up on capitalization. Whether we capitalize God, He, Him, His, etc. when in reference to God is not a gigantic issue creating a false understanding of God vs. other "deities." It's not why people pick up the Bible and see monotheism throughout it. They see that because the context of themes and concepts laid within the Biblical narrative are clear enough to understand that Moses and the Israelites decried polytheism and embraced monotheism. Had some of them embraced it before they turned to monotheism? Some of them, as in individuals, maybe families (Jacob's narrative with Rachel bringing her father's 'gods' in Gen 31:19 comes to mind), but incidents like that showing the failings of the human by way of sin nature? Did some of them do that? Sure.
Good day. God Bless.
I’ve been focused elsewhere of late. Apologies for my delay. Perhaps I should also be briefer.
Ex.3:15 is, IMO, one of many places (eg v6) where a monotheist can think the text to be monotheistic, even if it is not. If we presume
elohim to always mean nondeity, unless where it clearly defines Yahweh (however we put the tetragrammaton), that makes it easy enough. This is the Divine Council argument of Heiser, if memory serves, and I gather this forms part of your hermeneutical glasses. My POV, allowing
elohim to have a range of meaning, is that where Yahweh is mentioned as elohim alongside elohim (eg Ex.20:2-3), particularly in pagan circles, no qualitative distinction is to be presumed. Would, say, Joshua’s hearers have ‘heard’ him say that they could either choose God—the sole creator of the universe and all life and spirits—or the miscellaneous spirits created by him (Jos.24)? No competition. Given an option of marrying a woman or a Barbie Doll, I was always gonna marry a woman (put poetically): put philosophically, I could not have married other than a woman—lol, it’s just an illustration. If elohim to Joshua’s audience, had sounded like real alternatives, that to me makes better sense of the text, akin to marrying woman A or woman B. And if that was what Joshua’s audience ‘heard’, again we may ask, What had Moses taught Israel re elohim?
I do not merely say that Israel fell away—though it did—but that Moses himself never quite kept his head above polytheistic water.
Murder vs. Manslaughter might be semantics to you, but in ancient days folk appreciated having a city of refuge, just in case. And, one might ask, did Yahweh prohibit murder yet command the murder of the Canaanites? C S Lewis: “All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery.”
I would be chary to use the term [the Lord], unless adonai is intended, and not Yahweh. But on the point discussed, I would suggest that if Moses was raised decisively above the polytheiism/polytheism of Egypt, it does not strike me that he was mandated to raise his people out of it, as if it was deemed relatively unimportant—what you might call semantics. For my money, strands above and below that waterline, appear in the Pentateuch, and we should not hide either. You say: I see no real evidence; I say: I see real evidence. Like Captain Wentworth (Jane Austen’s
Persuasion), I think we can disagree world without end: “When once married people begin to attack me with,—‘Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married.’ I can only say, ‘No, I shall not;’ and then they say again, ‘Yes, you will,’ and there is an end of it.”
On the original autographs, differentiations between majuscules and minuscules were not used within those writings, which is my context. On Mk.2:7, I had simply looked at the MT reading, but see what you mean in the WH about a third person singular, and agree that if using the WH, λαλει need not be addressed, although one might expect that since it is also about Jesus, it too might have been capitalised. Anyway, I should have checked before firing off. I’m unsure why you actually quote it in lowercase [βλασφημεῖ τίς…], when you are arguing for upper case [Βλασφημει τις…]. That said, my question stands: So what?
I do not subscribe to the Two Powers concept, which to my mind is more bitheism than binitarianism. Systematising the NT data on trinitarianism, was quite a history of trial & error, suggestions and rebuttals. Do you, BTW, subscribe to trinitarianism, one eternal being/society, of three uncreated persons? Some good Christians don’t; I do. I reject the concept of
false deities, since I reject the concept, deities, though it looks to me as though Moses did not, though he will now. I do think that
The Silmarillion has a useful take of any Divine (not deific) Council.
By poetical, I comprehend even terms in isolation. I would argue that ANE polytheism (poetical) was in fact more polytheiism (philosophical)—ie that their conceptual thinking/talk was as if many deities, but at best were really about many divinities (created spirits). I argue that Sinai was Level 2 education, while the NT carries tertiary Level trinitarianism.
Re. capitalisation of elohim/theos, I do not say that monotheism is based on it, but that polytheism can be hidden by it.
Shalom
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