Between Moses and the Ancestors: Israelite Religion in Egypt

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Within the Hebrew bible, there is a stark difference between Israelite religion in the ancestral period of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, described in Genesis, and that of the Mosaic period across the rest of the Pentateuch. In the ancestral period, God was generally referred to by epithets that begin with El, which was the general Hebrew word for “god.” These epithets included El-Shaddai, El-Elyon, El-Roi, El-Olam, El-Elohe Israel, and sometimes simply El. The ancestors were very free in their worship, which could be carried out at a variety of sacred sites without the assistance of priests, and which might include: […]

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Endnotes

1. Although the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch indicate 215 years, the Masoretic text’s reading of 430 years is preferable here.

2. Albrecht Alt, “The God of the Fathers,” in Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, trans. by R.A. Wilson (New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 1–100.

3. G.R. Driver, “Affirmation by Exclamatory Negation,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 5 (1973), pp. 107–114.

4. For a more detailed discussion of the origin of the name YHWH, see Ralph K. Hawkins, Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), pp. 52–61.