14) What's in a name? Biblical names and their meanings

The other day the question came up about the meaning of biblical names when someone asked why it is that in some translations Adam is called by that name or as "the man". Adam's name comes from the noun for the red earth. In Gen 2:7 God takes the red earth, fashions it, and breathes life into it creating man. Eve's name is equally symbolic and it means "living one" and comes from the verb to be - an appropriate name for the mother of humanity in Gen 3:20. When Sarah and Abraham are told that in the following year they will be blessed with a son Sarah laughs and the meaning of the name is "he laughs", a name which will describe the joy he brings for the couple and the joke they see in the promise of a son in their old age. Abraham's own name is "father of multitude," a highly appropriate name for someone in whom all the nations will be blessed Gen 17:5.

There are many occasions when a name will be given for a person or a place, and that name will be explained for the reader. Such explanations are called etymologies and they are frequent in the Old Testament. In Gen 11:9 the name Babel is explained as being due to God confusing the languages of humanity as a punishment for trying to be like God in building a tower up to heaven, and Beer-Sheba is the name given to the place where God and Abraham swear their faithfulness to each other in Gen 21:31. When we read these explanations we normally think that this has been added to the text for our benefit, but the explanations are already there in the Hebrew text, and they serve the purpose of pointing the reader towards the deeper meaning of places and people.  God's purposes are deeply embedded in the events of life and these names ensured that experiences or attitudes, both positive and negative, would not be forgotten. An example of this is the testing of God and the grumbling of the people when they have no water in the wilderness. While the water is provided the attitude of the people is not to be forgotten and enshrined in the names of Massah and Meribah in Exod 17:7. One only has to look at Deut 6:16; 9:22; 33:8 and Psa 95:8 to see just how representative this moment proved to be and how these names were used as a warning and as a teaching tool.

A beautiful and powerful example of names being used to convey a message of hope and love is found in Is 62:4 when the people of Israel needed to be encouraged at the time of exile and resettlement.

Is. 62:4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.

In the New Testament names continue to be used as a means of teaching. Jesus' own name is not without significance and Joseph is informed about Mary: "She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" Matt 1:21. This points us to the heart of Jesus' mission, and only two verses later in Matt 1:23 Jesus' other name of Emmanuel is given which means God-with-us.

In John's Gospel Jesus has a beautiful name for his disciples that is a source of challenge and hope: 

John 15:15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 

13) The world view of Genesis - reflections on Disciple Program Week 2

Thank you to each of you who attended last night and for your questions arising from the study of Gen 1-2 and its two accounts of creation. It is good to see how you are wrestling with these creation accounts that come to us from a very different world than our own. Not only do they come to us from a different time and place, the world view was clearly pre-scientific and quite clearly limited in its scope.

The world of the Old Testament is that of the Ancient Near East some 4000-3000 years ago and both their understanding of the physical world, and their geography, was understandably significantly different to our own - accustomed as we are to satellite imagery and radar maps. The internet has made the world so much smaller and it is easy to forget that in biblical times so little was known about the peoples that lived beyond the horizon other than the information brought by travelers, traders and armies.  In Gen 10 mention is made of Noah's sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their repopulating the world after the flood. Just how much the perspective is limited to that of the Ancient Near East can be seen in the map below.

The understanding of the physical world was also quite different from our own and rather than thinking of planet earth as part of a solar system in the context of an enormous and infinite universe the sun, moon and stars were contained within a firmament that separated the waters above from the waters below. As you can see in the accompanying graphic the idea of the earth as a planet rotating around the sun was foreign to them.

Image from Logos Bible Software

The population of the world around 1000 BCE is estimated to be about 50 million people. The focus of the Biblical writers was on the peoples of the Ancient Near East and it would be safe to assume that they knew nothing of the Americas, the Pacific rim or East Asia as we know it today. All of us grow up limited by our context and while we can see the limitations of the Biblical world view 200 years from now imagine what they will be saying about the limitations of the knowledge of people of the 21st Century!

12) Great streams of tradition in the Old Testament

The Old Testament is often read by those who are devout but untrained as though it was all carved from one piece of stone, in one time and place, as trustworthy as it is static and unchanging. One of the great gains that has come from the sustained and meticulous study of the Bible in recent centuries is the appreciation of just how dynamic the processes are that have resulted in the Bible as we have it today. Like other disciplines the study of the Bible continues to develop as different questions and methods are used to explore the richness, depth and complexity of the Bible over  the centuries of its formation.

Source criticism is a method that has been used extensively used to trace the various streams of tradition that have been preserved in the Old Testament. The two creation accounts have been treated in earlier posts on this blog as a clear example of different traditions being preserved within biblical texts. Scholars had long been aware that there were different names used for God, and sometimes inconsistencies or duplication in narratives like that of the Flood story, that pointed in the direction of multiple points of view being combined in the final form of the Biblical text. It has been an area of study that gave rise to a theory called the Documentary hypothesis.

http://www.layevangelism.com/bastxbk/illustrations/docuhypoth.htm

In this theory great streams of tradition were not only formed over centuries, but they were also combined during the formation of the Old Testament.  According to this theory oral traditions were gradually committed to writing and preserved as traditions from the Northern tribes and kingdom were combined with those from the Southern tribes and kingdom. The major traditions have been identified as:

J - Yahwist (Southern)

E - Elohist (Northern)  J and E were combined about 700 BCE

P - Priestly (Soiuthern)

D - Deuteronomist  (about 621 BCE)

Events such as the religious reform in the time of Josiah, the fall of the northern and southern kingdoms, and then the shattering experience of the exile provided the catalyst for legal materials, narratives about the beginning of the nation, priestly traditions, and historical materials to be combined and preserved leading to the Old Testament text we are familiar with today. Different points of view about the conquest of the land, the creation of the world, necessary legal and liturgical texts and traditions are all combined in one final text. Their presence reveals something of the complexity and richness of Israel's history and the shaping of its self understanding and appreciation of its role in God's saving plan.

YouTube material you may wish to consult is readily available. Dr Christine Hayes at Yale provides a rich and comprehensive introduction to these matters. For the first of her series of lectures follow the links below.

The Parts of the Whole. Dr Christine Hayes

Of Seams and Sources. Dr Christine Hayes

Dr David Penchansky from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota gives a helpful and brief overview of the Documentary Hypothesis.

Documentary Hypothesis

11) What are we to make of two creation accounts in Gen 1-2?

In previous posts I have mentioned the existence of two accounts of creation in Gen 1-2 and observed that the existence of the two accounts invites us to reflect on the nature of the two traditions and their respective messages. It also provides a timely reminder that the Bible is made up of many traditions  that were gradually combined over the centuries of Israel's faith journey. We are used to the fourfold Gospel tradition and this provides a useful starting point when examining these Old Testament traditions. Just as we are familiar with the different Gospel writers and their portraits of Jesus, so too, the Old Testament often preserves different traditions that deal with the same event or person from a number of perspectives.

The two creation accounts in Genesis 1-2 both have their own beauty and profound story to tell. They both speak of the wonder of God's creation and the unique role of humanity in that creation. It is interesting to see how the people of Israel saw no need to choose one tradition over the other. It is generally agreed that while the book of Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament it was probably not the first one written. While its traditions relate stories of the founders of the nation staring from the call of Abraham and Sarah and extend back to creation it was probably written in the time of the Exile in 587 BCE. It was both a difficult time and an extremely creative one as well. The Northern kingdom of Israel had gradually been deported at the hands of the Assyrians over a long and painful process from 740 to 722 BCE. In 587 BCE the rulers and the elite of the Southern kingdom were taken into exile in Babylon. It was during this time without land, king and Temple that they were forced to take stock, facing the challenges of maintaining their traditions, their faith, and their Jewish identity. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, and so it was that confronted with the brutal reality of the experience of being in exile they gathered their traditions and told their stories.

(Image by Gavin Sustantio)

The first creation account extends from Gen 1:1-2:3 and it is majestic in tone and content as it tells of God's creative activity over six days.  God's powerful word separates the light from the darkness, and as each day unfolds the goodness of what is created and God's delight in it is sounded repeatedly in Gen 1:4, 10, 12,18,21. The final refrain in Gen 1:31 speaks of God seeing all that had been created and "behold it was very good." The basic stance of God towards creation is one of blessing and the narrative is punctuated by God's blessing of the creatures of the sea and the air in Gen 1:22, commanding them to be fruitful and multiply, and then the blessing is repeated in Gen 1:28 for the woman and man who have been created in God's image. Astute readers will note how even God rests on the seventh day and that this reflects the tradition of the Sabbath. This creation account is identified as coming from Priestly sources in the exilic and post exilic period.

The second creation account is found in Gen 2:4- 25 and has its own beauty which is quite distinctive. One of the first indications that we are dealing with another tradition is the name for God. The Priestly tradition speaks of God as Elohim whereas the second tradition known as the Yahwist refers to God as Yhwh Elohim. What is striking is that humanity is created last in the Priestly account of creation as a means of identifying our unique role as the stewards of God's creation. In the Yahwist account humanity is created first as God forms us from the earth, and then breathes life into our humanity. It has a beauty all it own and a sense of profound sense of intimacy between the creator and humanity. The first human being is then placed lovingly in Eden to till and care for it. God then sets out to create a partner for the first human being, and all the other living creatures are created and named, but they are not a fitting partner for this one who will tend the Garden. It is not until God forms woman from a rib of the man that humanity is complete and whole - man and woman.

Both the Priestly and Yahwist traditions have their beauty and power to move us a readers and people of faith. Fortunately we do not have to choose between one tradition or the other. The wisdom of those who preserved these traditions for future generations was that we would be impoverished if either were lost.

You may be interested in following the work has done in comparing the Biblical Creation accounts with the Creation accounts from the Ancient Near East by Dr Darrell Bock and Dr Richard Averbeck. In the second link Dennis Bratcher provides an introduction an translation of the Babylonian creation account.

 


 Comparing the Bible to other creation accounts

The Babylonian Creation Account - The Enuma Elish

10) Why are there different names for God in the Old Testament?

When people start reading the Old Testament closely they are often intrigued by the fact that they encounter many different names for God. There are a number of names that are based on the name El (God in singular form)  Elohim (God: plural form), El Shaddai (God Almighty), El Roi (The God who sees), El Elyon (God the most high). There are other names based on the four letter name Yhwh (tetragrammaton) that God gives to Moses in the episode of the burning bush in Exodus 3:13-14. The meaning of this especially sacred name for the people of Israel is based on describing God as the one who is, was, and will be. The variations for this name include Yhwh-ireh (God will provide), Yhwh-ropheh (God heals), Yhwh–nisei (God my banner), and Yhwh-sabaoth (God of hosts). Out of respect the name Yhwh was not spoken and as time went on it became customary to use this name for God combined with the vowels from another name for God, that is, Adonai (Lord). Sometimes people wonder where the name Jehovah comes from. This is due to the combination of the consonants of Yhwh with the vowels of Adonai. As fas as we are aware this combination does not come from biblical times.

It should come as no surprise that different names for God were used by different groups and tribes within Israel, and in different times and places. The formation of a number of tribes and groups into the nation of Israel was a complex and lengthy process and the different names for God are pointers to the diversity of points of view within Israel itself over centuries. Some names for God are linked to certain moments and experiences where a name will describe what God has done for an individual or the people. Other names are linked with sacred places and point to the ways in which the people of Israel gradually either incorporated or displaced the names used for the gods by the peoples that surrounded them.


Another Bible study resource you might like to explore within the Catholic tradition is by Michal Elizabeth Hunt.

http://www.agapebiblestudy.com

9) Making sense of Genesis 1-11

In a world where the birth of the universe is now explained by the theory of the Big Bang and where the complexity of life on our planet is  understood by means of the theory of evolution you would not be alone in feeling like a dinosaur believing in the Biblical account of creation. People find themselves wondering whether the Bible has lost its credibility and that the sceptics and atheists might be right after all.

There are some Christians who fight tooth and nail to prove the credibility of the Biblical accounts as factual accounts, on the other hand there are those who would dismiss Christians and the Biblical accounts as having nothing to say because they are simply stories. It is important to acknowledge that,  in a sense,  both the Big Bang and evolution are stories in their own right as they narrate how the universe we inhabit came to be as it is, and the series of events over millennia that led to the development and evolving of the many species that inhabit this amazing planet with us.  Charles Darwin identified survival of the fittest to be the engine room driving development and change. It might come as a bit of a surprise to proponents of evolutionary theory that the first eleven chapters of Genesis describe a similar phenomenon as the human family tends towards the kind of chaos where dog eats dog, where brother kills brother and the competition extends so far that human beings like Lamech will indulge in self-praise when a young man is killed in retaliation for being wounded and where vengeance extends to seventy-seven fold (Gen 4:24). This is survival of the fittest in a most extreme form. This example is not meant to suggest that evolutionary theory and the first chapters of Genesis can, or should, be synchronised in any way. They offer very different perspectives and set out to give answers to different questions.

It is not the purpose of the Big Bang or evolutionary theories to explain everything from every perspective. It would be unreasonable to expect them to. They are scientific accounts, not religious or philosophical in their purpose. The biblical stories are concerned with describing the creation of the universe by a God intimately related to all of creation. Both the creation accounts in Gen 1-2 highlight the privileged place of humanity in the created order as the stories develop. Gen 1-11 is concerned to relate how God's original blessing of all creation, humanity included, is threatened by a humanity that comes to be at war with itself and with God. What the biblical stories relate is not just how the world was created, but the interaction between God's will, human freedom and failure.  In the midst of human frailty God keeps opening new doors, new vistas, so that humanity family does not totally tear itself to pieces.

Ultimately the worth of the Gen 1-11 is not to be judged on the basis of historicity so much as their veracity - in other words - do they ring true, do they describe humanity accurately? They are unashamedly written from the perspective of faith with a view to explaining the world as we experience it. That there are two creation stories should already alert the reader that this material should not be judged according to the conventions of modern history writing or scientific enquiry. There is profound truth to be found in these chapters, but not in the form of science but in narrative  where human family seems hell bent on its own destruction, and God is heaven bent on saving us from ourselves!

Science and the Bible Professor John Lennox

Can Genesis Be Compatible with Evolution? The Veritas Forum

N.T. Wright on Evolution

8) Some Old Testament resources - The Bible Unearthed

The historical foundations for the Biblical stories that describe the beginnings of the Jewish tradition from the journeys of the patriarchs to the land of Canaan, the conquest and settlement in the land, and the establishment of the monarchy from the time of Saul, David and Solomon are the subject of intense scrutiny and debate. Biblical archeology is fascinating, and its' findings are sometimes controversial because the results are used to support various claims and counter claims about who has been gifted the land by God. The lyrics of the 1960 Exodus song begin with the words "This land is mine, God gave this land to me." What are we to make of the archeological evidence and its impact on our interpretation of the Biblical texts?

If you have been following this blog you will already be aware that my own position is one that simplistic answers to complex Biblical questions will not provide the kind of sufficiently solid foundation we are looking for. The truth is not going to be found by reverting to naive belief in the biblical traditions as they were shaped and handed on, nor by a radically sceptical position. We know enough about how news stories are shaped by media moguls in our own time not to make room for the likelihood that many forces, both political and religious, played their role in shaping the Biblical traditions. It's all part of coming to terms with the humanity of the scriptures knowing that they are God's word and at the same time mediated words that come, like all human words, from specific times and places and agendas. This can lead some people to become overly sceptical when other ways of appreciating the beauty and truth of the scriptures are also possible. When we think about the mystery of the incarnation we are reminded that God's Word became a human word in the person of Jesus. It was in the midst of all the messiness and fragility of the Roman province of Syria that Jesus was born. In a similar way God speaks in and through the scriptures. What is exciting and comforting to know is that God is present and speaking in the midst of it all!

The YouTubes below you might find of interest as you explore the archeology of the Bible.



YouTube The Bible Unearthed 1. The Patriarchs

YouTube The Bible Unearthed 2. The Patriarchs

YouTube The Bible Unearthed 3. The Kings

YouTube The Bible Unearthed 4. The Book

The Bible and Archaeology Blogspot