Upload
sunilbabu-talathoti
View
214
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
1/10
WAS YAHWEH ORIGINALLY A CREATOR DEITY?
J . PHI LIP HYATT
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
NUMEROUS theories have been advanced to explain the originalmeaning of the divine name "Yahweh" and the origin of MosaicYahwism.1 One theory may properly be said to emanate from the "Bal
timore school" of OT scholars. Following suggestions made in 1909 byPaul Haupt,2
W. F. Albright has maintained since 1924 that the name
originally meant "He causes to be," an imperfect causative of the root
*hwy, and that Yahweh was in origin a creator deity.3 In his view the
phrase which now appears in Exod 3 14 as ehyeh aser ^ehyeh was origi
nally Dahyeh Daser yihyeh, going back to the form yahweh Daser yihweh
("he causes to be wha t comes into existence"). He thinks tha t the divine
name was an abbreviation of a longer name, or of a litanie formula. He
has said that both yahweh ^aser yihweh and yahweh seb&toriginally be
longed to "ancient litanies in which the God of the Fathers was praisedas creator of the universe. Whether these litanies were pre-Mosaic or
Mosaic is difficult, if not impossible, to determine."4
He thinks that the
concept of a creator deity is related to Egyptian modes of thought and
expression.
This view was carried forward by D. N. Freedman, who sees yahweh
as the first element in several litanie formulas.5 To those cited by Al
bright he adds yahweh qann?, yahweh yirD> and yahweh Del.
Frank M. Cross Jr. continued the discussion in a long article, "Yah
weh and the God of the Patriarchs."6
He thinks that the original formula
1 There is a massive bibliography on thi s subject. For summaries of much of th e
material, see A. Murtonen, A Philological and Literary Treatise on the Old Testament
Divine Names D/, Hwh, Hhym, and yhwh (Studia Orienta lia: 18:1, 1952); Rudolf Mayer,
"Der Gottesname Jahwe im Lichte der neuesten Forschung," BiblZ, 2 (1958), pp.
26-53; J. Philip Hyatt, "The Origin of Mosaic Yahwism," in The Teacher's Yoke:
Studies in Memory of Henry Trantham, ed. E. J. Vardaman and J. L. Garrett, Jr.,
pp. 85-93.2 "Der Name Jahwe," OLZ (1909), cols. 211-14.
3 JBL, 43 (1924), pp. 370-78; 44 (1925), pp. 158-62; 46 (1927), pp. 175-78; 67(1948), pp. 379-81; From the Stone Age to Christianity2, pp. 258-61.
4 JBL 67 (1948) pp 380 81
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
2/10
370 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
should be reconstructed as yahwl d yahwl, and that d yahwl was prob
ably originally an epithet of El. Thus his theory is th at Yahweh wa
originally "a cultic name of DE1, and . . . the god Yahweh split off fromDE1 in the radical differentiation of his cultus, ultimately ousting 3E
from his place in the divine council, and condemning the ancient power
to death (Ps 82)."7
This explanation of the origin of the name ''Yahweh" has severa
merits . It explains the name on the basis of a Semitic language, and a
developed from a word with meaning. I t is not explained from Egyptian
Hittite, Iranian, or some other language outside the Semitic group, and
it is not explained as coming from a word or phrase that was a shout, or
the like, as some have thought. Nevertheless, this view has been ques
tioned on various grounds. I t has been objected that the OT does no
otherwise represent Yahweh of the Mosaic age as being primarily a
deity of creation. There is no need to deny tha t there were numerou
creator deities in the cultures surrounding Israel, and that in early time
Israel had a notion of divine creation. The question is whether early
Israel placed emphasis upon this aspect of deity, and considered Yahweh
as being primarily a creator dei ty. There is lit tle or no evidence for such
an emphasis until well after the time of Moses.8
Further, it has been
objected that the causative of haya is never used in the OT to expres
the idea of creation, but various other verbs (brD> c, ysar, etc.
It might be retorted that such a verbal form was avoided because i
might be mistaken for the divine name. Also, the objection has been
raised that this view of the origin of Yahweh is too abstract and specula
tive for the time of Moses.10
The present paper raises two further questions regarding the view
under discussion: one is based on the meaning of the Amorite persona
names that have been used in its support, particularly by Cross; the
other is based on the critical analysis of Exod 3 13-15.
I
The Amorite personal names have been studied by Herbert B. Huff
mon in his fundamental work, Amorite Personal Names in the Mar
Texts: a Structural and Lexical Study.." His work is based mainly on
? Ibid., pp4 256-57.8
Cf. Gerhard von Rad, "Das theologische Problem des alttestamentlichen Schpfungsglaubens," Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, pp. 136-47; idem, Theologythe Old Testament 1 pp 136-39
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
3/10
HYATT: WAS YAHWEH ORIGINALLY A CREATOR DEITY? 371
the Mari texts, but he lists the "Amorite* ' names which are found in
other sources. In Huffmon's lists we find the following names that are
relevant to ourproblem:
(1 ) ya-afr-wi-A/-nasi, ya-wi-A N/-i-la/*IM/*d [a-gan]
(2) la-afy-wi-AN/-ba-lu/-ma-li-ku, la-wi-AN, and possiblye-ki-la-afy-wi
(3) ya-u-i-li, ya-jii-AN
(4) ya-wi--um, ya-wi-um, ya-wi-ya.
Various difficulties are involved in the explanation of the verbal ele
ment in these names, which in all but one instance appears in first posi
tion. Is the verbal root the same in all of the names, or do we have to
deal with two or even more roots? The most likely root is either Irywy,
meaning "live," or hwy, meaning "be, become, befall." The difficulty iscaused by the fact that cuneiform is an imperfect medium for the writing
of the language of these names. Most critics who have dealt with the
problem have considered the verbal form to be imperfect or jussive, but
some have considered it to be a nominal or participial form with pre
fixed ya-. If it is imperfect, i t could be either G or causative. Albright
and Cross have insisted that the form is causative, corresponding to
Hebrew hifil, on the assumption that the so-called Barth-Ginsberg law
was operative in Amorite at this time.12
Huffmon, however, denies that
this law was operative in Amorite, for he finds very clear examples of ayaqtal form that is G rather than causative, e. g., in the names yabhar-
Addu, yamras-Ila, yasmafr-Addu, yarkab-Addu, and others.13
He says
that there are no formal criteria by which we may determine whether
the element is G or causative, and the decision must be made on semantic
grounds. Semantically the two verbs hwy and fywy are very close, par
ticularly in personal names, since "cause to be" and "cause to live" are
virtually synonymous.
Let us assume, however, that the verbal element involved in these
names is an imperfect causative of the root hwy ("be, become"). Wemust then interpret the names listed above as follows:
(1) ya-aft-wi-AN, ya-wi-AN/-i-la: Yahwi-Ila,1* "Ila causes (or will cause) to be."
ya-afy-wi-na-si: Yahwi-Nasi, "Nasi causes (or will cause) to be."
ya-wi-dIM: Yahwi-Addu, "Addu causes (or will cause) to be."
ya-wi-*d[a-gan]: Yahwi-Dagan, "Dagan causes (or will cause) to be."
Am oriti," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rendiconti della Classe de Scienze
morali, storichi e filologiche, Series 8, vol . 13 (1958), pp . 143-64. Gelb stresses the in
adequacy of cuneiform script, invented by the Sumerians, for the writing of Amorite,even more than for Akkadian (pp. 145-46). Relevant to our study is his observation
that the phonemes3
h fy and may be expressed by Jt by a reduplicated vowel or
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
4/10
372 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
(2) la-afy-wi-AN, la-wi-AN: Lahwi-Ila, "May Ila cause to be."1*
la-ah-wi-ba-lw. Lahwi-Bacal, "May Baal cause to be."
la-ah-wi-ma-li-ku: Lahwi-Maliku, "May Malik cause to be."
e-ki-la-afy-wi: Eki-lahwi, "May Eki cause to be."
16
(3) ya-u-i-M: Yahu-Il, "May II cause to be."
ya-fyi-AN: Yahi-Ila, "May Ila cause to be." 17
(4) ya-wi--um/ya-wi-um: Yawium
ya-wi-ya: Yawiya (For explanation of this category, see below.)
These names should not be interpreted as recognizing that the deity
involved creates in a cosmic sense. They are personal names given to
children at birth; they recognize that the deity gives being (or life) to
the child to whom the name is applied. They must be compared with
Akkadian names that have the pattern:d
N-apla/zra/suma/aha-usabs.Such names are frequently abbreviated to dN-usabs, a close parallel to
the Amorite names.18
The Amorite names are abbreviations of three-
element names, the third element being understood, "son," "seed," or
the like. In the Amorite onomasticon three-element names are extremely
rare. We should conclude th at the Amorite names which have been
preserved are relatively late, or that they consciously follow the pattern
of the Akkadian abbreviated names. Amorite names having somewhat
similar meaning are yakn-dN. ("
dN. establishes [a son]"), yantin-dN.
("d
N. gives [a son]"), and yabn-d
N. ("d
N. creates [a son]").19
Thetwo names in the fourth category above, Yawium and Yawiya, should
be considered as further abbreviations, containing only the verbal ele
ment with the hypocoristic ending -m or -iya.20
Jean, ed., Archives royales de Mari II, 66.10,15; cf. Huffmon, op. cit., p. 165), it seems
probable th at AN is to be read Ila . Cf. Mart in Noth, "Mar i und Israel: eine Personen
namenstudie," in Geschichte und Altes Testament, pp. 127-52 (esp. p. 136). N ot h sees
the use of the word Ila in Mari as one indication that the people of Mari were "proto-
Ara mai c" (see further Ma rti n Noth, Die Ursprnge des alten Israel im Lichte neuer
Quellen). The name Iawi-ila is inte rpre ted by Andr Finet to mean "le dieu (c'est)
Iawi." Iawi is a newcomer, a syncretistic dei ty; he compares the Akka dian name basM-
ilni. This interpretation does not seem probable, in the light of the complete Mari evi
dence. See Andr Finet, "Iawi-il, Roi de Ta lb ay m," Syria, 41 (1964), pp. 117-42.15 For this meaning, cf. Huffmon, op. cit., pp. 78-81; other meanings are suggested,
par tic ula rly on pp. 225 f. Gelb considers the form to be precat ive , loc. cit., pp. 156-57.16 Eki is possibly a theophorous element; see Huffmon, op. cit., p. 162.17 These forms are to be interpreted as jussive; cf. Cross, loc. cit., p. 252.18 For examples see J.J. Stamm, Die akkadische Namengebung, pp. 145 ff.x Huffmon, op. cit., pp. 38, 41, 42.20
Ibid., pp. 133-35. I suggest th at th e place yhw} ("Yahwe"), which occurs inseveral Egyptian toponymie lists from the time of Amenophis III and Rameses III,
was named after a person who bore a hypocoristicon such as these . See Raphae l Giveon,
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
5/10
HYATT: WAS YAHWEH ORIGINALLY A CREATOR DEITY? 3 7 3
We must look more closely at the names in the second and third
categories. These represent peti tions of the parents, using as the verbal
element a precative or jussive, with the meaning "May dN. cause [this
child] to be. " Such a name is no t a thanksgiving for the fact that the childhas been born to the parents, but rather a prayer that the named deity
will continue to give existence and life to the child. The names in our
first category could in fact be interpreted in a similar manner. The verbal
element may be jussive;21
even if it is an ordinary imperfect it could
express a wish for the future continued existence of the child: " dN. will
give continued existence [to this child] .'' We could then paraphrase the
petition expressed in these names thus: "May the named deity grant to
this child continued existence and life." Close parallels among the
Akkadian names are: dEa-zra-subs ("Ea, let seed be!") and Subs-dSukkal ("Let [seed] be, Sukkal!").22 Somewhat similar are the Israelite
personal names: Y'fel ("May El live [in the life of this child]") and
yacasPel ("May El work [in the life of this child]").23
We noted above that the verbal element in these Amorite personal
names (yahw, lahw, etc.) may be G rather than causative. Morpho
logically either is possible. We must consider, then, what would be the
meaning of these names if the verbal element is simple stem rather than
causative. In that case they would be comparable to Akkadian names
of the pattern: dN-bas or dN-ibassi, meaning literally " dN. exists."
The Amorite names would mean "dN. exists" or "May
dN. exist." How
ever, in neither case does the personal name express the belief merely
that the deity exists ; it expresses the confidence that the deity is actively
present in the birth of the child, or at least in the second and thi rd
categories the petition t hat the deity may be actively present in the
continuing life of the child.24 Thus the resulting meaning is very similar
whether the verbal element is G or causative: the parents pray that the
deity may be actively present by continuing to give existence and life
to the child.
We believe, therefore, that it is a mistake to cite the Amorite names
as support for the notion of cosmic creation ; it is a long step from recog
nition that a deity forms the child in the mother's womb and preserves
its life (an idea very widespread in the ancient Near East) to the belief
time "Ya hw e" was a divine name. The interchange of place names and personal names
is well known in the OT, e. g., in the genealogies. Among a seminomadic people such
as the Shasu it would be natural to name a place after a person.21 Huffmon, op. cit., p. 71, n. 52.22 Stamm, op. cit., p. 148.
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
6/10
374 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
tha t the deity is creator of the universe. In these names parents express
gratitude to such-and-such a deity that he has given life to the child,
and peti tion the deity to continue to grant him life and existence. It is
worthy of notice that no fewer than seven different deities are represented in these personal names: Ila (sometimes spelled out; this may
have been the reading of AN, although the latter may have sometimes
represented El25), Addu, Dagan, Bacal, Malik, Nasi, and Eki. There is
no reason to associate the life-giving idea exclusively with El.
II
Our second objection to the view that Yahweh was originally a creator
deity arises from a critical analysis of the account of Moses' experience
at the burning bush as related in Exodus 3. The part with which we
are primarily concerned is of Elohistic origin, but the chapter contains
some J material. After Moses has been told to return to Egypt and lead
the Israelites out, he inquires as to the name of the God who is sending
him. Moses receives three replies, each with an introduction, according
to vss. 14-15. The first answer is couched in these words: "God said to
Moses, ehyeh DaserDehyeh." The second is: "And he said, Say this to
the people of Israel, ^ehyeh has sent me to you." The third answer is:
"God also said to Moses, Say this to the people of Israel, Yahweh, the
God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, has sent me to you; this is my name for ever, and thus I
am to be remembered throughout all generations." This is surely too
long an answer to be original, and many commentators have sought to
determine what was the original reply (as related by the earliest re
corded tradition), by selecting one or the other from the three, or by
combining them in some manner.
Albright recognized this problem in an article written in 1924. Atthat time he emended and transposed the text of vss. 14-15 in order to
get the following, which he thought was the original reply to Moses'
question: "And God said to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the Israelites,
Yahweh hath sent me unto you, and He said, I cause to be that which
cometh into existence [Dahyeh Daser yihyeh] this is My name for ever,
and My designation from generation to generation."26
While we cannot rule out the possibility that these verses have been
transmitted in disorder, this treatment of the masoretic text is very
subjective. In particular we should note the arbitrariness of assumingthat the words ehyeh Da$er ehyeh were originally Dahyeh ^avser yihyeh,
when there is no versional support whatsoever for such a view As a
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
7/10
HYATT: WAS YAHWEH ORIGINALLY A CREATOR DEI TY? 3 7 5
matter of method it is better to accept the masoretic text as it is, and try
to explain and understand it. We m us t agree that vss. 14-15 are over
crowded. Th e likelihood is that one of the three answers was in the
original tradition, and that the others are in some manner dependentupon it .
All things considered, the most likely answer in the earliest tradition
of E is that of vs. 15 This is the view of Noth,2 7
Beer28
and other com
mentators. It could hardly be the enigmatic and obscure words of i4a;
the words of i4b seem to be dependent upon 14a. Vs. 15 is a straightforward
and uncomplicated answer to vs. 13: it says that the name of the God
who is sending Moses is Yahweh. Whet her the whole of vs. 15 is the an
swer which Moses believed he received, we cannot say. As the verse
now sta nds Yahweh is identified with the deity of the patr iar chs; allthat we can say is that this is in the early tradition recorded by E.
Then, wha t must we say of the origin of vs. i4a? The solution de
pends in large measure upon the meaning which we ascribe to the very
obscure phrase, ehyehDaser ^ehyeh. These three words have received a
great variety of translations and interpretations. The problems arise
from the fact thatDehyeh may be interpreted as either present or future,
and as meaning either " b e " or "be com e." The particle aserhas various
meanings: who, what, that, he who, that which, because, etc.
It is likely that the correct rendering of this phrase is that which
has been defended by E. Schild29
and Joh. Lindblom3 0
: "I am he who
is" tha t is, "I am the one truly existent deit y." The syntactical prin
ciple upon which the rendering is based is thus stated by Schild: "If
the governing substantive is the subject of a relative clause and is, in
the main clause, equated with, or defined as, a personal pronoun, then
the predicate of the relative clause agrees with that personal pronoun."
There are numerous examples of the use of this principle in the
Hebrew OT.
If this is the correct rendering of the phrase, it seems to me most
likely that i4a is not an original part of the E text, but an addition which
was made in the seventh or sixth century B.C., the era of Deuteronomy,
Jeremiah, and Second Isaiah, when the problem of monotheism was be
ing debated in a sophisticated manner. In my opinion, vs. i4a was the
2 7
Exodus: A Commentary, pp. 43 f. While he thi nks th at vs. 14 is a secondary literary
element, he says that "the addition could still be quite old and could go back to a per
haps still older trad iti on of the expla natio n of the name Yahw eh."2 8
Exodus, p. 29.2
* "On Exo dus iii 14 am t ha t I am, ' " VetT, 4 (1954), pp. 296-302.
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
8/10
376 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
first addition to the text, and vs. i4b was added not long after. I t takes
the first word of the phrase, ehyeh, as a catchword, or shortened form,
for the "name" of the deity. There is no evidence tha t this was ever
actually used as the name of the Hebrew God. Many scholars havethought that the name YHWH originally stood here in i4b, but there is
no evidence for tha t. It is an att empt by a glossator to make a little
better sense of a difficult text an attempt that cannot be pronounced
successful.
This critical analysis of Exod 3 14-15 makes it highly unlikely that
the phrase ehyehDaser
Dehyeh was the original form of the name Yahweh,
even in some supposed more ancient form of the phrase. It is a relatively
late theological attempt to explain the name, suitable to the time in
which it was made, but not to the time of Moses himself.
I l l
In two previously published papers I have proposed the theory that
Yahweh was originally the patron deity of one of Moses' ancestors, so
that Moses could speak of him as "the God of my father."31
The ancestor
was probably not Moses' own father, but his grandfather or a more re
mote ancestor, possibly traced through the line of his mother, Jochebed,
whose name apparently contains the theophoric element Y-, a shortenedform of Yahweh. In my view, the name of Yahweh may have been
originally Yahweh-N, in which represents the name of the ancestor
of Moses for whom he was originally the patron deity. The name thus
could have meant, "he causes N. to exist," or, more simply, "the Sus-
tainer of N." This theory is based in part upon the view of A. Alt con
cerning patriarchal religion,32
and in part upon study of three passages in
Exodus 3 6, 15 2, 18 4.
I would not maintain, as I did in 1955, that Moses himself was of
Midianite origin, and that there is thus some validity to the Midianitetheory of the origin of Yahwism. In the light of the evidence cited in
the present paper, I would maintain that the origin of Yahweh is to be
found among those people known to us through the patriarchal legends,
with the support of extrabiblical evidence from the Mari letters and the
like. These people have been known by various names Amorite,
East Canaanite, pro to-Aramaic, proto-Hebrew, etc. Whatever name
we give to them, they were one very important element in the ancestry
of the people eventually known as the "sons of Israel."
31
See my paper listed in n 1 and "Yahweh as 'the God of my Father ' " VetT 5
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
9/10
HYATT: WAS YAHWEH ORIGINALLY A CREATOR DEITY? 377
The evidence of the Amorite names discussed in the present paper
supports the view that Yahweh was originally a patron deity associated
with a particular individual among the ancestors of Moses. We have
seen that the element yahw in the Amorite personal names expressedthe petition that such-and-such a deity might give continued life and
existence to the named child. So, the name Yahweh-N. applied to the
name of the god of one individual expressed the assurance that this god
would give to him continued life and sustenance in a full sense. The
closest parallel among the patriarchal deities are those of Abraham, "the
Shield of Abraham," and Jacob, "the Mighty One of Jacob."
These patron deities must be seen as a special form of the type of
deity well-known among the Sumerians and Babylonians the per
sonal deity, who was believed to watch over and protect an individual
and intercede for him among the high gods.33
Such a deity was very
important to the Sumerians and Babylonians, and for many an individual
his personal deity was the most important of all he knew. If his personal
deity turned against him, then he felt completely abandoned. The type
of personal, patron deity to which Yahweh belonged was not, in our
view, one who was known from birth, but one who like the patriarchal
gods studied by Alt was believed to have given a special revelation
to an individual, after which he became his special protector and guide.
It was a kind of religion especially suited to the needs of a nomadic or
seminomadic people.
The deity Yahweh, in our view, began as the patron deity of one of
the ancestors of Moses, then became a god of his clan or tribe, and even
tually, through the leadership of Moses, the deity of the group of clans
or tribes that composed the Israelite people.
Sometime after the death of the first ancestor of Moses who wor
shiped Yahweh, the divine name became simply "Yahweh," the ances
tor's name being dropped. Then the original meaning of the word as a
verbal form was lost, and it was viewed as just the name of a deity that
could be combined with other elements (Yahweh SebaPot, etc.). In the
same way the deity originally calledDabr ya
caqb ("the Mighty One of
Jacob Gen 49 24; Isa 49 26, 60 ; Ps 132 2, 5), could later be called
^abr yisr?el ("the Mighty One of Israel" Isa 1 24).
33 Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians, pp . 126-29, 259; H. and H. A. Frankfortetal., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, pp . 203-07, 212-14.
7/31/2019 At La 0000711881
10/10
^ s
Copyright and Use:
As an ATLAS user, you may print, download, or send articles for individual use
according to fair use as defined by U.S. and international copyright law and as
otherwise authorized under your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement.
No content may be copied or emailed to multiple sites or publicly posted without the
copyright holder(s)' express written permission. Any use, decompiling,
reproduction, or distribution of this journal in excess of fair use provisions may be a
violation of copyright law.
This journal is made available to you through the ATLAS collection with permissionfrom the copyright holder(s). The copyright holder for an entire issue of a journal
typically is the journal owner, who also may own the copyright in each article. However,
for certain articles, the author of the article may maintain the copyright in the article.
Please contact the copyright holder(s) to request permission to use an article or specificwork for any use not covered by the fair use provisions of the copyright laws or covered
by your respective ATLAS subscriber agreement. For information regarding the
copyright holder(s), please refer to the copyright information in the journal, if available,or contact ATLA to request contact information for the copyright holder(s).
About ATLAS:
The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously
published religion and theology journals reproduced with permission. The ATLAS
collection is owned and managed by the American Theological Library Association(ATLA) and received initial funding from Lilly Endowment Inc.
The design and final form of this electronic document is the property of the AmericanTheological Library Association.