Israel and Humanity - Grammatical and theological study of the title Elohe ha Elohim

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Grammatical and theological study of the title Elohe ha Elohim.

One argument that is produced more readily against the monotheism of ancient Judaism, as is the God of gods, Eloh-ha-Elohim , that the Bible gives many times God of Israel, which is saying, it is claimed, a simple rule of several deities. But first the plural name Elohim, it is not constantly used to describe the one God and only taken if the word has no sense of plurality, why would it necessarily have to give this meaning when is repeated twice? The presence of this phrase in Deuteronomy - the only book of the Pentateuch recognizes that criticism as inspiration fundamentally monotheistic - also denies itself the objection.

But what then is the true meaning of the plural so strange? Note first that the hypothesis of a hierarchy of gods, each staff to the protection of a particular people, not exclude the bottom monotheism, since these gods have been headed by a supreme deity to rule themselves and thus the universal character of the Jewish faith does not subsist unless whole. But it would be that this assumption is only to provide a plausible explanation of the term at hand.

It may be that this name, Eloh-ha-Elohim , is an absolute superlative form of comparison, that is to say, he means one that is relative to other divinities God par excellence, so that the other alleged gods not being so in the true sense of the word, it remains, strictly speaking, the only one worthy of the name. Indeed, one form of the Hebrew superlative is to say one thing it is, with respect to a second, is that it is to turn over a third. So it is with such expression Kodesch Kodaschim , holy of holies, to indicate what is eminent in holiness among other things deemed sacred, and it Scheme Schamaim-ha-, heaven of heavens, by which we mean that what for us is the sky is still a kind of earthly world from the sky Higher

So, strange as it may seem, the expression contains an implicit denial of quality in the very purpose of the proposal and therefore those so-called gods are not vis-à-vis those who is their God, and by the fact that they have one, they are not themselves really. That's how in Exodus, the Lord said to Moses, His prophet: "Behold, I am god to Pharaoh, and your prophet, it's your brother Aaron "

This qualification Eloh-ha-Elohim may be expressed as an effective superiority at the same time logical. It could refer, in the minds of Jews, under God was supreme deity among the pagans and thus designate the everyone loves God as supreme. Indeed, we know that Jeremiah Malachi and the rabbis after they have found the God of Israel under the title of supreme God used in paganism. It seems therefore very natural that the name Eloh-ha-Elohim has been used in this sense.

But we believe that the name may indicate a superiority not only effective by comparison, but very real theological sense. The God of Israel could be called God of gods to express the idea of divinity, pagans, pantheism led to a fragmented by the deification of scattered forces in Judaism was the true synthetic unity. Let there be no misunderstanding about the meaning of our words. Far from the mad idea of introducing into the vanities of the living God, dead as the Bible calls them idols, and in purity and endless light, corruption and darkness. But if the gods are just dead, that is because they are separated from the source of life and light, on the contrary, in contact of the luminous power, pure and invigorating they can participate in both the light and life. We are confident thereby glorify God and not in any way belittle the idea. The material also is dead until it is developed in the body. She is living in contact with life, except to fall in death when she is separated, and we soon hear an original thinker rightly called polytheism putrefaction of truth. Indeed, apart from the principle of unity, the atom of truth in no way constitute a living organism, they become numerous, polytheism, but this does not mean that these fragments are inert can be organized by the unifying principle, monotheism.

If we analyze the elements that constitute this theological idea, we discover a double principle. The first assumes that the various pagan gods survived, mixed with error, a remnant of the true notion of God and after the second, which is correlative, the Hebrew conception of God was the synthesis of all the partial truths that represented the various deities of paganism, hence the name of God of gods that we find in the Bible.

All this is really consistent with the doctrine Hebrew? Suffice it to recall first how Judaism presents the history of humanity and religion: the first unit of origin and unity of belief and, after the division and fragmentation of the streets religious ideas, persistence in the one and the other showing the footprint of the original community. This idea, according to the nature of things, is in perfect agreement with the teaching of Hebrew theosophy. In the Kabbalah, as well as imperfection is always mixed with holiness, truth is always mixed with the error it is the bark, the outer envelope, it is the inner reality, the quickening spirit. The way the truth is realized, as it expresses itself, can be a barrier or a means, as the form contains more or less life. Remember though, for the Kabbalists, the names of pagan gods all contain a spark of holiness and thus they recognize the truth on paganism. "You do not believe the empty words of those ignorant men who say that the gods of the nations have no strength and they do not deserve the name of gods. Instead, you should know that the name of God, blessed be He, gave power domination and authority in the hands of every prince ( saar ) among all the princes of the nations is the mystery that contain the words Elohkim ahérim , the other gods ".

Kabbalah so openly professes that it is truth that gives life to error than the disease, heresy, the idol for their livelihoods in some grain of truth, meaning what they exist point, he This release from prison the spirit which is coarse and contained a word kill the demon to snatch the atom divine life which inspired him and meet his source and at its center. She summed up all the theological errors, national or individual cases, ancient or modern, in this triple formula retrenchment, confusion, separation, "in which it is easy see the characteristic note of polytheism, we mean the worship of one or more attributes of God to the exclusion of all others.

That is why the Zohar forbids cursing the gods of the pagans, and maybe the Talmud, by prohibiting us from start to curse Satan, means that we see in him the same radius and oblique light, no doubt, but from However, the eternal light. Lactantius said that there had been a school so false, so extravagant philosophy that has possessed some fragment of truth and universal truth is dispersed among different philosophers. Listen again Joseph de Maistre: "I know," he said, entirely the opinion of Theosophist St. Martin said today that idolatry was a rotting ... If you look closely you will see that opinions among the wildest ... practices the most monstrous and the most disgraced mankind, it is not one that we can deliver hard to show true then the residue is divine. "

If we examine what is not in the other levels of human knowledge, we find that there was first a synthetic crude containing all the elements without distinction, then the analysis has moved successively the predominance of a particular element on the other, and finally, a further study tends to return to the first unit in a synthesis richer and more perfect. The science and philosophy, though understood and professed on many different ways, aspire to unity, and similarly, all the laborious efforts birth of true civilization, that different people have shared on their special abilities, converge towards the constitution of humanity in possession of all its research results in a happy and permanent harmony. That is what happened, in our opinion, in the history of religions in oneness succeeded plurality and it must eventually return to the unit developed and perfect. Differences of religious people have their cause in the natural differences that separate each other and race do not exclude, however, an absolute truth, anterior superior, they are only refracted rays nor do they preclude the work of reconciliation, harmonization, which is the ideal to which men aspire.

The rabbis expressed this paradoxical form perhaps, but who nevertheless hides a deeper meaning when they said that God revealed to Moses forty-nine pros and cons and each doctrine in religious controversies, the opinions more disparate are all words of the living God Thus polytheism itself would be a way into the hands of Providence, to realize the religious progress of humanity and for its purpose would be the rehabilitation within the divine unity, as conceived in the Mosaic monotheism, of all that is good in the polytheistic idea.

We can say that there is a theological parallel evolution, evolution of different peoples and ethnological that this double work should lead to a state where the most perfect civilization coincide with the greatest religious perfection. This means that Messianic Judaism that has the dual character of palingenetic humanitarian and religious palingenetic. A rabbinical Haggadah expresses the same idea by image in the days of the Messiah all the gods come to worship the one God who will carry in its fullness, so the title of God of gods, Eloh-ha-Elohim , the return of parts to the whole of the plurality to unity.