The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in ReligionGamble, Eliza Burt
Religion
The God-Idea of the Ancients; Or, Sex in Religion
Gamble, Eliza Burt
Religion; Sex -- Religious aspects; Women and religion
"In the second book of Genesis the creation is described not to have
been made by Aleim, or the Aleim, but by a God of a double name Ieue
Aleim; which the priests have translated Lord God. By using the word
Lord, their object evidently is to conceal from their readers several
difficulties which afterward arise respecting the names of God and this
word, and which show clearly that the books of the Pentateuch are the
writings of different persons."(39)
39) Anacalypsis, book ii., ch, i.
Upon this subject Bishop Colenso observes:
"And it is especially to be noted that when the Elohistic passages
are all extracted and copied one after another, they form a complete,
connected narrative; from which we infer that these must have composed
the original story, and that the other passages were afterwards inserted
by another writer, who wished to enlarge or supplement the primary
record. And he seems to have used the compound Jehovah Aleim in the
first portion of his work in order to impress upon the reader that
Jehovah, of whom he goes on to speak in the later portions, is the same
Great Being who is called simply Elohim by the older writer, and notably
in the first account of the creation."(40)
40) Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone, p. 7.
We are informed by Bunsen that El, or Elohim, comprehends the true
significance of the Deity among all the Aramaic or Canaanitish races,
El representing the abstract principle taken collectively, Elohim
pertaining to the separate elements as Creator, Preserver, and
Regenerator. Each of these Canaanitish races had inherited these ideas
from their fathers, and, although they had become grossly idolatrous,
"Moses knew, and educated Israelites remained a long time conscious,
that they used them not merely in their real but in their most ancient
sense."(41) Maurice and other writers call attention to the fact that
Moses himself uses this word Elohim with verbs and adjectives in the
plural. That the God worshipped by the more ancient peoples, namely
Aleim, or Elohim, the same who said, "Let us make man in our image," was
not the Lord adored at a later age by the Jews, is a fact which at the
present time seems to be clearly proven; that it constituted, however,
the dual or triune unity venerated by all the nations on the globe of
which we have any record, appears to be well established.
41) Bunsen, History of Egypt, vol. iv., p. 421.
We have seen that although the two sex-principles which underlie Nature
constituted the Creator, the ancients thought of it only as one and
indivisible. This indivisible aspect was the sacred Iav, the Holy
of Holies. When it was contemplated in its individual aspect it was
Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, each of which was female and male.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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