EA ANU revisited

2000

The Believer and the Modern Study of the Bible, 2019

Four facets of names of God reveal clear internal development within the classical biblical period: (1) El Shaddai was used in oral speech only until the Exodus from Egypt. In later periods, the name Shaddai existed as an archaic term used, infrequently, by prophets and poets. (2) The expression YHWH Tzva'ot (the Lord of Hosts) originated only in the time of the book of Samuel, and was in use from then until the compostion of the books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. (3) The first two cases of the theophoric element YHW/YH/YW in personal names occurred just before and during the life of Moses. From that point, it increased gradually in frequency until the period of the late monarchy, by which time it was included in more than half of all personal names. (4) The name indicating lordship, Adonai, was initially a term of supplicatory address and became a name of God in the eighth century BCE.

2001

Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary e-Journal, 2020

Book review: Sameth, Mark. THE NAME: A History of the Dual-Gendered Hebrew Name for God. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2020.

When the Tetragrammaton began to be read as Adonai is the subject of signi cant debate. While in the Old Greek may be important evidence for this euphemism, many continue to doubt whether is original to the Old Greek. In this article, the unique value of the double title is established in tracing the euphemism in question, and the replacement of of 2 Samuel with in Chronicles is presented as early evidence of the euphemism. Thus the reading Adonai for the Tetragrammaton appears to have begun considerably earlier than is commonly thought.

C. Bonnet et al. (eds.), What’s in a Divine Name? Religious Systems and Human Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean, 2024

One of the major changes with regard to the transition of ancient Israelite religion into Early Judaism is the transformation of Yhwh from being the patron god of Israel, enthroned in Jerusalem, to being a universal (and invisible) deity residing in heaven. The first part of this paper surveys how the study of divine onomastic attrib-utes has been approached by Septuagint scholarship, highlighting how this corpus crucially attests to a reconfiguration of Yhwh’s power and status, but also pointingout some methodological shortcomings which emerged in past research. The second part of the paper seeks to provide a new framework for the study of divine onomastic attributes in the Septuagint. Paying attention to the relationship between divine name and embodiment, it correlates the deterritorialisation process of Yhwh, as attested by the onomastic attributes, with broader issues concerning the conditions, forms and limits of experiencing the divine presence in cultic contexts.

"In one of the most important and often-cited texts of the last thirty years, The Name of God and The Angel of the Lord, Jarl Fossum claimed that there was a Second Temple tradition of God’s Name YHWH as agent or tool of creation. This has since become an accepted academic principle, referenced without challenge in many texts on the theology of the period, and informing the analysis of later texts. This paper will re-examine the evidence, analysing the Samaritan and Talmudic texts of the Common Era which Fossum used, as well as some earlier apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts. A close textual analysis will show that many of the assumptions based on Fossum’s work are unfounded, a conclusion which has implications for, among others, the work of Daniel Boyarin in the early relationship of early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. "

What's in a Divine Name? Religious Systems and Human Agency in the Ancient Mediterranean, 2024

Theophoric personal names simultaneously serve to identify an individual and make a statement about the deity invoked by each name. These personal names, this study argues, can be considered primary sources in their most essential form, reflecting one facet of a human attitude toward the divine that is otherwise free from the theological bias of an editor or redactor. Containing both onymic and semantic value, theophoric personal names can be read alongside divine epithets as they both shed light on humankind's perception of the gods. This chapter explores theophoric personal names in the Aramaic speaking world of diasporic and cosmopolitan Elephantine during the Persian period in order to seek insight into questions of how human names depict the complex and interrelated religious landscapes of multi-cultural communities. The rich theological landscape of Persian period Egypt as evidenced in Aramaic personal names demonstrates a confluence of cultures and religious traditions.