Bunny's Burrow: Hopping into Life

What Is Elohim? Part 2: A Word That Refuses to Stay Simple If you are still here reading you will realize this FACT: If Genesis wanted to remove all ambiguity, it could have. It could have simply begun with the covenant name YHWH. But... It doesn't. Instead, the Bible opens with one of the most debated words in biblical Hebrew. אֱלֹהִים ʾĔlōhîm. Most English Bibles simply translate it as "God." That translation works in many places. It also hides one of the most interesting questions in the text. The Hebrew word itself isn't singular. It's plural. So why does it almost always behave like a singular noun when referring to Israel's God? Let's begin with the language itself before we move to theology. The Hebrew Hebrew אֱלֹהִים Transliteration ʾĔlōhîm Traditional Translation "God." My Working Translation "The divine powers as one." Again, this is not a standard translation. It's a working translation for this investigation. I'm tr...

  From Elohim to YHWH Elohim The First Name We Meet Isn't YHWH... I bet you didn't know that... So now like all research the  investigation reaches a point where the questions become more focused. We've explored the Ark. The covenant. The nations. The manuscript traditions. The divine council. Now we arrive at something even more fundamental. The names. If I were trying to prove my theory, this is probably where I'd begin. Instead, I'm going to do the opposite. I'm going to let the text introduce itself to you. Because names matter. In the Hebrew Bible especially.  Not simply because of what they mean but because of when they appear. The order always matters. The First Name We Meet Open your Bible to the very first verse inside of it. Not the first mention of YHWH. The very first verse. Genesis 1:1 Hebrew בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃ Transliteration Berēʾšît bārāʾ ʾĔlōhîm ʾēt haššāmayim weʾēt hāʾāreṣ. Translation "In a beginni...

  The World Behind the Bible: Ugarit, El, and the Divine Council We must be sure we take the time to understand the ancient conversation before we dare to really take part in it IMO...Whenever ancient Near Eastern texts enter the discussion, the conversation usually goes in one of two directions. Some people immediately conclude the Bible copied its neighbors while others refuse to look at the evidence at all. Personally, I don't think either response is helpful but Twitter does say I am weird... The better question one should ask is far much simpler and a good start. What world were the biblical authors writing into? Every writer assumes their audience shares certain ideas because teachings evolved at chuch and you get reinterpreted after reinterpreted til it fits the modern age. People forget we are differnt times now and how words are used. Context of who is writingmatters. We do the same today. If I mention a courtroom, you already understand judges, witnesses, testimony, and v...

  Psalm 82: The Heavenly Courtroom This is a passaage people gloss over and read too fast if they read it at all. Some passages of Scripture comfort us, s ome challenge us and some leave us scratching our heads.Oddly, Psalm 82 tends to do all three. The weird part is that ot's only eight verses long. Yet those eight verses have generated centuries of debate. From here we must ask a few key questions: Who is being judged? Who are the elohim ? Is this a courtroom on earth? Or is it a courtroom in heaven? For our investigation, I'm not interested in beginning with the debate... Rather, for this part I'm interested in beginning with the text. I feel Psalm 82 may answer a question left hanging by Deuteronomy 32 . If Deuteronomy describes the nations being divided, what became of those entrusted with them but before we attempt an answer, let's read the opening carefully. Psalm 82:1 Hebrew אֱלֹהִים נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת־אֵל בְּקֶרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט׃ Transliteration ʾĔlōhîm niṣṣā...

Three Ancient Witnesses, One Controversial Passage Before We Decide What It Means, We Need to Know What It Says One of the biggest mistakes we can make when studying the Bible is assuming there is only one ancient text for it. There isn't. When we open our English Bibles, it's easy to imagine we're reading a single, uninterrupted manuscript passed down unchanged for thousands of years. One thing Twitter has shown me people assume everyone speaks English and is from America The reality is both more complicated and, in my opinion, far more fascinating. The Hebrew Bible reached us through generations of scribes who copied, preserved, and transmitted the text with extraordinary care. Along the way, different manuscript traditions emerged. Most of the time, they agree remarkably well.But... Sometimes, however, they don't. Most of those differences are minor. Spelling. Grammar. Word order. To be honest, very few of these things really affect how we understand a passage. Then ...

  Why Does YHWH Introduce Himself as Deliverer? One question has been following us on this blog since we opened Exodus 20.That question is why does YHWH introduce Himself by reminding Israel of the Exodus? Right? What a weird way to introduce ypurself given the time. If His authority rests on being Creator, why not simply begin there? Am I wrong? At first glance, the answer seems obvious. You probably are like because the Exodus had just happened.However, that answer only pushes the question back one step. Why does the covenant choose that event as its foundation?... Pause and keep an open mind. Just think... The more I read the Torah, the more I noticed something. The Exodus isn't just another story. It's the story Israel is told to remember. Again. And again. And again. A Pattern Hidden in Repetition One of the easiest ways to discover what matters in Scripture is to pay attention to repetition. I love patterns to an annoying degree. So ask yourself... What ideas keep return...

  Why Do the Ten Commandments Begin with Egypt Instead of Creation? Or if you ask people what I call: The Introduction We Rarely Notice Ask almost anyone why God has the authority to give the Ten Commandments, and the answer usually comes quickly. "Because He created everything." I think that it's a reasonable answer. If God is the Creator of the universe, then He has every right to establish moral law. ABSOLUTELY! That line of thinking has shaped Jewish and Christian theology for centuries. But that's not the question I want to ask. I want to ask a much simpler one. How does the text itself introduce the covenant? Not how later theology explains it. Not how we summarize it today. But how the covenant actually begins. Sometimes we've read familiar passages so many times that we stop hearing them... We forget to learn and only read. The opening of the Ten Commandments may be one of those passages. Before the first commandment is spoken... Before "You shall hav...