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JUDEO CRISTIAN TRINITY
One sometimes hear that the plural form of Elohim indicates
that Hebrews were polygamist before embracing the Egyptian
monotheism, first in the history.
Now "Elohim" is not a semantic plural but "pseudo-plural", a
syntactic relic of old etymology which evolved into semantic
singular, BTW similar to Hebrew "Mitzraim" for "Egypt".
All languages encompass such constructs: "Physics" IS
and not ARE. Same for "château", which integrates several
"castels", "chastels", "châtels" into the large fortified
structure of "château". Similarly and clearly "Elohim" IS
(name of) the unique God of Genesis and of Abraham.
Its syntactic plural recalls the bygone pagan prehistory,
replaced by the monotheism of the unique PSEUDO-plural
Elohim of the tribes of Israel. It was an intuitive
monotheism of illiterate nomads, lacking any highbrow
intellection, but endowed with acute emotional sensibility
of the desert and its skies. It's doubtless the first
monotheism ever registered, preceding by over thousand years
that, highly philosophical, of Akhenaton (see below).
Following comments are mainly anchored in Freud's "The man
Moses and the monotheistic religion", but occasionally go
beyond it.
At Moses time, Hebrews were considered in Egypt as tough
desert warriors and were assigned to protect the rugged
Nubian frontier. They brought to Egypt their intuitive
monotheism which, however, did not radiate beyond their own
collectivity.
Moses (Egyptian for "man" found in Ra-Mses - Man of Ra,
Tut-Mosis - Man of Toth) was an Egyptian nobleman, a bastard
of a royal princess brought up as Pharaoh's courtier to
become a high military officer and a tough warrior.
The current Pharaoh crowned as Amenhotep IV (Glory of Amon)
turned away from polytheism and from the dominating cult of
Amon, embracing and imposing the cult of the unique God Aton
venerated by the rare but most scientific priesthood of
Heliopolis and symbolized by the sun. He changed his name to
Akhenaton (Glory of Aton), ordered the destruction of Amon
temples and the construction of the new capital, the
Akhetaten ('Horizon of Aton'), at the site known today as
Amarna. One refers sometimes to the short Atonian domination
as to the "Amarna period".
We know the impact of our Renaissance which shattered the
stilted Middle Age conventions in favor of human suppleness.
Now, while our MA conventions were fixed during a few
hundred years, the Egyptian lasted several thousand and the
ideological break was incomparably deeper. Although it
lasted only a few decades, it was doubtless the deepest
Renaissance-type revolution in the history.
Amarna was not only religion. In the cruel, tyrannic world
it preached the rule of Love. "Aton is Love and we cherish
Him by loving all and sundry". Loving in equality: "Aton's
rays bless the last of slaves and the king alike". And this
deepest Renaissance sparked an unequalled outburst of art.
No wonder that Aton's adherents were committed to Him with
their lives. The leading one was Moses.
After a few decades Amarna succumbed under the devastating
genocidal blows of Amon's reaction embodied by the army of
Horemheb who inthronized the child Tutankhamon, (Living
Image of Amon), in anticipation of becoming himself the
Pharaoh.
Moses assisted by a handful of noblemen true to Akhenaton's
testament decided to save Aton's monotheism at the head of
likewise monotheistic Hebrew warriors yearning for exody of
Egypt towards their homeland.
First steps of this Exodus led through Midian, where Moses
had a staunch ally, his father-in-law Yethro, the head of
Midian and the chief priest of Midian's deity named Yahve.
Yahve was a martial and cruel God of volcanoes commanding
the laws of vengeance, "tooth for tooth", "eye for eye".
Yethro assisted Moses in submitting disordered Israelites
to Yahve's laws and in improving his miltary tactics.
Yahve got incorporated in the Israelite cult. Not as another
God - they were and stayed monotheist -, but as another
aspect of the unique God. Elohim's Genesis-Creator's aspect
got completed with Yahve's aspect of Justice. Let's say en
passant that orthodox Jews refuse to admit that Yahve was
formed upon a crude pagan deity and endeavor to interpret
Him as an acronym abbreviating some mysterious concepts.
Yet, whatever their verbal contortions, Yahve is in fact an
import from the crude Midian cult.
But what about Aton, the active cause of Exodus? He has been
incorporated later, after the Hebrews have reached the
Promised Land, when Yahve's martial law could be released.
His inclusion gave the final touch to the Jewishness.
Before considering His ideological bestowal, we shall
shortly recall the linguistic transformations of the
Egyptian "Aton" into its Hebrew versions.
The voiceless "t" of Aton slipped into the voiced "d" and
Aton in its new garb of "Adon" became a current term of
vernacular and hieratic Hebrew with its three most common
inflections:
1.Adon - mister or sir,
2.Adoni - (short od "adon shel li" - my mister/sir)
vocative (Dear)Sir,
3.Adonai - (archaic and hieratic pseudo-plural of Adoni,
reserved for God) - My Lord.
Similarity of Akhenaton's Great Hymn to Aton and Salomon's
Hymn to Adonai, preserved as Psalm 104, manifests on the one
hand Aton's being the bedrock of Adonai and, on the other
hand their shared nature of Love.
We are now in a position to bring up the essential aspects
of the Jewish God with the names symbolizing them:
Elohim - Creativeness,
Yahve - Justice,
Adonai - Love.
BTW, one can hardly avid noticing the analogy of these three
aspects of the Jewish God with the Christian Trinity:
Elohim - Creativeness - the Father,
Yahve - Justice - the Spirit,
Adonai - Love - the Son.
On the face of it it seems that Christianity had the chance
to become a renewed Jewishness, a humane ideology of
Creativeness, of Justice and of Love.
Yet, it forfeited it and became instead one of the
most inhumane ideologies of ravage, of injustice and of
hatred. I endeavor to explain the reasons thereof in
"SON 0F MAN Fraudulent bedrock of our civilization"
http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/ESSAYS/son_of_man.html
But that takes as beyond the theme of the present essay.
