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Main » 2023 » May » 4 » absolute superlative
7:18 PM
absolute superlative

@milospopadic1668

Mauro Biglino claims that the term "Elyon" is not an absolute superlative. Is that right?


@paolomarino6752

He claims that, but it must be noted that ancient Hebrew has no special forms either for the comparative or superlative of any adjective. All adjectives have only the basic form, e.g. there is no "good/better/best" but only "good" (tov), the comparative and superlative meanings are derived from the context. In the case of Elyon (whose basic meaning is "high") it's a superlative because in the view of the biblical authors there's no other  elohim like Yhwh, the many elohim of other peoples are considered just inert idols made by man. For example Psalm 83:18  says "that they may know that you alone, whose name is Yhwh, are Elyon over all the earth". When in the 3rd-2nd century BC the Jews translated the Bible into  Greek they rendered Elyon as Hypsistos which is indeed a superlative.

 

 

 

 

 @paolomarino6752   I agree, but read this verse:
New King James Version Now I know that the LORD is greater than all the gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly, He was above them.”
(Exodus 18:11)
 
It would be as if there were more Elohim. It seems that the prevailing opinion was that these are real entities, but that Yahweh is the greatest of them.
 
 
@milospopadic1668  That was Jethro speaking. Although he was Moses's father-in-law he was not a Hebrew, he was a priest of Midian and he therefore believed in the actual existence of multiple deities. This is not surprising because at that time almost every people in the world shared such a belief. Initially even famous Hebrew patriarchs such as Abraham and Jacob believed that. In Genesis we learn that Jacob's family carried figurines of various gods with them, and Jacob had to take them and bury them after Yhwh appeared to him. Even many centuries later polytheism hadn't been completely eradicated in Israel, as proved by the many instances where they betrayed Yhwh and served other gods. Evidently many Israelites still believed that those other gods actually existed. That happened as late as the Babilonian exile, which is chronologically almost at the end of the Bible.
 
 
 @paolomarino6752  I know all that. Were the other Elohim real or not? Moses threw the staff on the ground and it turned into a snake. The Egyptian priests did the same. Who gave them that knowledge? Can imaginary gods do that?
 
 
 @milospopadic1668   All gods are imaginary, including Yhwh, but the Bible describes him as the only real one because it's an ideological and propagandistic text. As to the staffs turned into snakes, either it was a magician's trick or, most likely, a made up story. Ancient literature is chock-full of fantastic events with no basis whatsoever in reality. For example in Numbers 22 tnere's a malak/angel who is invisible to humans but a donkey can see him, and then the donkey suddenly starts to talk. His owner isn't fazed at all and he engages in a conversation with his animal.
 
 
 
 @milospopadic1668  The use of the definite article is generally quite erratic in biblical Hebrew, sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't, and this applies to the superlative too. Sometimes the article indicates a superlative, but sometimes superlatives are made without. As I said before, what matters most is the context. For example Micah 7:4 says "The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge", but both superlatives are without the article. The same happens in Jonah 3:5 "So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them." As to elyon, it must be noted that it's not only an adjective: it becomes a proper noun when it's used as a name of Yhwh, and proper nouns never take the definite article in Hebrew.
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