#hosea — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #hosea, aggregated by home.social.
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@sixtus
Und als #Evangelikaler sollte ihm #Hosea 8, Vers 7 ja ein Begriff gewesen sein. -
New publications and podcast
Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):
Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)
Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.
The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)
Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.
#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic
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New publications and podcast
Busy year for publications (think that’s it for me this year):
Semitic *ʾilāh- and Hebrew אלהים: From plural ‘gods’ to singular ‘God’ (Open Access)
Abstract: The Biblical Hebrew word אלהים is plural in form. Semantically and syntactically, however, it can be plural or singular. The stem of this noun can be reconstructed as * ʾilāh-. As already noted by Wellhausen, this looks like a broken plural of *ʾil-, the Proto-Semitic word for ‘god’. This article takes Wellhausen’s observation and uses it to explain the plural morphology of Hebrew אלהים. I argue that *ʾilāh- should be reconstructed with redundant plural suffixes in some parts of the paradigm. This reconstructed paradigm is preserved virtually unchanged in Archaic Biblical Hebrew. The reconstructed paradigm also explains the almost complete replacement of *ʾil- by *ʾilāh- in Aramaic and Arabic and allows us to reassess the reasons for the association between the lexeme ‘god’ and plural number. Consequently, earlier suggestions that see אלהים’s plural number as a reflection of pre-Yahwistic polytheism or as a marker of abstractness are no longer tenable.
The varying size of the Sodom coalition in Genesis 14 (in FS Tigchelaar; email me for a PDF)
Trying my hardest to find something that might interest newly retired KU Leuven professor Eibert Tigchelaar, I used some Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple literature as well as other textual and linguistic evidence to seek for order in the number of kings on Sodom’s side in Gen 14. Turns out that this closely aligns with other indications of different layers in this fascinating chapter: one about a local raid, one that may be a reworking of a lost epic, and a third one building on the combination of the first two. If you understand Dutch (or want to practice!), also check out this brand new episode of Timo Epping’s Oudheid, all about this question.
#AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #Bible #Canaanite #GeEz #Genesis #Hebrew #Hosea #linguistics #news #Phoenician #ProtoSemitic
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(1/2)
#Geopol #WarInGaza #Israel #Palestine
Yes, and that makes things more complicated.
In the end, if not one of the 2 peoples is rather completely anihilated, an unthinkable outcome, the 1947 solution of the #UN, developed by great thinkers, is IMO the only way to a lasting solution that will not necessarily entail terrorist attacks on a daily basis.I am not a big fan of #bible quotes, but #Hosea 8:7 holds a lot...
@marcelliotnet @Oeneus -
(1/2)
#Geopol #WarInGaza #Israel #Palestine
Yes, and that makes things more complicated.
In the end, if not one of the 2 peoples is rather completely anihilated, an unthinkable outcome, the 1947 solution of the #UN, developed by great thinkers, is IMO the only way to a lasting solution that will not necessarily entail terrorist attacks on a daily basis.I am not a big fan of #bible quotes, but #Hosea 8:7 holds a lot...
@marcelliotnet @Oeneus -
Two things that never clicked for me before (which doesn’t mean they are not obvious and weren’t already discussed at length by 19th-century Germans):
Rain in Genesis 2 and 7
One of the first pieces of information we get in the Garden of Eden story is:
And all the shrubs of the field had not yet come into being on the earth, and all the herbs of the field had not yet sprouted, for Yʜᴡʜ God had not yet made it rain on the earth (לא המטיר יהוה אלהים על הארץ), and there was no human to cultivate the soil. But a vapour would rise up from the earth and water the whole surface of the soil.
Gen 2:5-6
The rest of the Garden of Eden story, of course, deals with the creation of a human, who ends up being sent out “to cultivate the soil from which he was taken” (Gen 3:23) and who lives off “the herbs of the field” (Gen 3:18). So that fulfills the second half of both parts of the first sentence.
The next time rain is mentioned is in the Flood story:
For in seven days from now I [i.e. Yʜᴡʜ] am going to make it rain (אנכי ממטיר על הארץ) on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
Gen 7:4a
This kind of reads as if rain only started to fall for the first time to bring on the Flood! I think this receives some support from the ending of Gen 8: can we take this as the post-Flood instigation of a yearly cycle of rains (winter) and no rains (summer)?
For all the days of the earth, seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will nevermore cease.
Gen 8:22
Names in Genesis 32 and Exodus 3
After Jacob wrestles with and beats “someone” at the crossing of the Jabbok, this happens:
And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” And he said, “You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have contended with God/gods (אלהים) and with men and you won.” And Jacob asked and said, “Hey, tell me your name!” But he said, “Why would you ask for my name?” And he blessed him there.
Gen 32:28-30
This could just be a trope of mysterious beings not divulging their name, and there’s a parallel for that in Judges. But maybe this sets up a later episode where God—אלהים—does reveal his name to a descendent of Jacob, perhaps not entirely willingly:
And Moses said to God, “Look, I’m going to the Israelites, and if I say to them ‘The god of your forefathers sent me to you’ and they say to me ‘What is his name?’, what can I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “I am what I am. This is what you can say to the Israelites: ‘I Am sent me to you.'” And God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you can say to the Israelites: ‘Yʜᴡʜ, the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob sent me to you.’ That is my name forever; that is my appellation (זכרי) in every generation.”
Exod 3:13-15
If these passages are meant to be read together, maybe this is the same kind of downplaying of Israel as defined by descent from Jacob and contrasting it with Israel as defined by listening to prophets seen in Hosea 12, something I wrote about one time on the Website Formerly Known As Twitter.
And Jacob fled to the field of Aram
and Israel served for a wife
and for a wife he stood guard.
But by a prophet did Yʜᴡʜ bring Israel from Egypt
and by a prophet he was guarded.
Hosea 12:12-13
Hosea’s reflection of the struggle at the Jabbok earlier in the same chapter is also really interesting in this regard:
In the belly [Jacob] cheated his brother
and in his manhood he strove with God.
And he strove towards an angel
and he won, he cried and begged.
At Bethel he finds him [or: us?]
and there he speaks with us.
But Yʜᴡʜ God of Hosts, Yʜᴡʜ is his appellation (זכרו)!
Hosea 12:4-6
A note on sources
Finally, just for those keeping track: none of these texts are Priestly, and those who believe in such things attribute both of the rain passages to J and both of the name passages to E (the Jabbok is controversial, I think, but this is how Friedman does it). Hosea referring to E also works out just fine, as both are supposed to be from the Northern Kingdom.
https://bnuyaminim.wordpress.com/2023/12/04/two-cases-of-foreshadowing-in-genesis/
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@jcalexandrewrites re: your post on justice and hell...
"So ask yourself now
Can you forgive her
If she begs you to?
Ask yourself
Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
Or do you want revenge?
But that's childish, so childish" - Pet Shop Boys.
(Thinking of Hosea and God as the jilted husband.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-9ccdxO8g
#Theology #PetShopBoys #Christian #Hosea -
@jcalexandrewrites re: your post on justice and hell...
"So ask yourself now
Can you forgive her
If she begs you to?
Ask yourself
Can you even deliver
What she demands of you?
Or do you want revenge?
But that's childish, so childish" - Pet Shop Boys.
(Thinking of Hosea and God as the jilted husband.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-9ccdxO8g
#Theology #PetShopBoys #Christian #Hosea