The Concept of the Father God
Adonai, Elohim, Abba1
by Edmund Hill O.P.
DESPITE the title (given by the organizers of the talk), this is not
really going to be directly about "The Concept of the Father God",
but about the divine names: Adonai, Elohim and Abba. The concept of the
'Father God' is a purely contemporary one, brought in to prominence
by the current feminist movement - it is to be found nowhere in the Bible.
What bearing these names may have with regard to the concept, and how their
use in the Bible justifies and clarifies this claim, will, it is hoped, emerge
from what follows.
Ancient Israelites were of course familiar with both male and female deities,
and from the point of view of grammar they certainly put their God, YHWH, in the
masculine gender. How far, though, or if at all, they regarded him as a Father
God remains to be seen. It is the name YHWH, of course, which lurks behind the
first name of our title: Adonai. I don't think, however, that reflections on the
origin and meaning of the name YHWH are relevant to this presentation. It is
enough to say here that, as is well known, the day came in the course of
Israel's liturgical history that wherever the divine name of names,
"the name", occurred in a reading from scripture, the reader in the
synagogue, or anywhere else, substituted Adonai, meaning "My Lords"
- what Hebrew dictionaries call "an intensive plural of rank".
Elohim too, when used to refer to the one true God, could also be called an
intensive plural of rank. But there is more to it than that; the interaction of
these two names in the biblical texts, that is of YHWH/Adonai on the one hand
and Elohim on the other, throws light on the two ways in which Israelite
religion and faith in YHWH progressed from being a monolatrous religion, in
which only their God, YHWH, among all the other gods of the world, was to be
worshipped, to being a monotheism, in which their God, YHWH, is the only God
there is.
The writer or school of writers which we name the Yahwist, or 'J'
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, calls God YHWH/Adonai from the beginning; in Gen 4:26 he writes, "To Seth
also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began to
call upon the name of the LORD" (Adonai/YHWH). So YHWH, according to J, was
the name of Abraham's God, the name of the God, indeed, of "the fathers",
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Now when they came down into Canaan as pastoral nomads, they naturally found
the local inhabitants worshipping deities with other names, worshipping other
gods, other elohim. The singular of this word is el. So in the chapters of
Genesis from 12 on, we find Abraham and the other two regularly building altars
here and there, and "calling on the name of the LORD"
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. But they (or J or the Lord himself)
are constantly identifying the LORD, YHWH, Adonai, with this, that and the other
El. The first to do this as a matter of fact is Hagar, who has run away from
Sarah (actually Sarai still at this point) and has been met by the angel of the
Lord in the wilderness at a spring, and after calling on the name of the Lord,
says "You are El Ro' i ", God seeing me, or God of seeing (Gen 16:13).
Shortly after that, YHWH himself seems to have cottoned onto the idea; so at the
beginning of Gen 17, "when Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to
Abram and said to him, 'I am El Shaddai', (God Amighty)".
And this of course should remind us that we must go back in fact, behind Hagar's
piece of creative theology, to a much more august figure, no less than
Melchizedek himself, in Gen 14:18-20. He was, you will remember, king of Salem,
that is of Jerusalem, and priest of El Elyon (God Most High), and he blessed
Abram by El Elyon, and Abram accepted the blessing by giving tithes to
Melchizedek, and thus assumed, so I infer, an identity between YHWH, his God,
and El Elyon. The final, conclusive identification of YHWH with El Elyon comes
when David prepares to build a house for YHWH in Jerusalem, i.e. Salem, and goes
to buy a site for it. The story is presented in II Sam 24 as a kind of
reparation for David's sin of taking a census of the people, for which he was
punished by three days of pestilence. When he prays for this to cease, he gets
a message from God through the prophet Gad: "Go up, rear an altar to the
LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite". So he goes to see
Araunah and to buy his threshing floor, and Araunah, of course, in the best
oriental style said in effect, "It is yours, take it for nothing".
But it is what he actually said that is interesting, or what the author (J in
all probability) says he did: II Sam 24:23 reads in the Hebrew, and is thus
translated in the Latin Vulgate: "All these things Araunah the king gave
to the king"
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- the floor and the threshing sled and the oxen and the yoke etc.
"Araunah the king" - surely because, as a native Jebusite, he was
the descendant of Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem; and thus his threshing
floor was the original site of the shrine of El Elyon, the local deity of Salem.
And now David, the servant of YHWH, is taking it over, and taking over, too,
Araunah's titles and functions, himself becoming officially priest-king of
YHWH/El Elyon. Now see Ps 110:4: "YHWH said to my Lord: Sit on my right...
YHWH has sworn an oath he will not change: You are a priest for ever according
to the order of Melchizedek". The New Testament of course very properly
treats the psalm as messianic; but it is messianic, surely, through its first
reference and application to David. And in the context in which J wrote that
narrative, not long after the glorious "key-note" reigns of David and
Solomon, this psalm is a kind of royalist manifesto to keep the Levitical
priesthood of the descendants of Aaron in its proper place - as being at the
service of the royal sanctuary, which derives its holiness from Melchizedek's
old shrine for El Elyon, and of which the king is the number one priest.
What J is doing, I suggest, in presenting us with these identifications of
YHWH with other "Els", i.e. with other elohim, a real plural, is
claiming the authority of the patriarchs, the founding fathers of the nation,
for what you could call a more liberal, more ecumenical, less nationalist
concept of YHWH, the God of Israel, than the one in vogue, then and later. YHWH
is not just that, not just Israel's tribal deity, to whom they have to be
faithful by avoiding the worship of other tribal deities, other elohim; he has
in fact been worshipped by non-Israelites ever since the days of Abraham, but
of course under other names; so no doubt he is still being worshipped by other
peoples, but under other names; he is indeed Elohim, gods; he is all the gods
there are. And perhaps J may be said to be driving the point home by the way
he tells his creation story, Gen 2:4-3:24. Throughout he is of course insisting
that Israel's God, YHWH, is the creator of "the earth and the heavens
" (2:4), and hence the God of the whole world and of all mankind descended
from Adam, very much a pre-Israelite God; and throughout, in this section of
his work alone, he refers to him as YHWH Elohim, Adonai Elohim, the LORD God.
Incidentally, wherever else in the bible this phrase 'Lord God' occurs, it
doesn't represent YHWH Elohim, but Adonai YHWH, my Lord YHWH. But as it would
look ridiculous in translation, where YHWH is always represented by Adonai, to
put "My Lord the LORD", it has been rendered, ever since the first
Greek translation
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, as "The Lord God".
Here let us just take a look at Ps 8:5, where the word elohim proves a real
teaser, as the variety of translations shows. Grail: "You have made him
little less than a god"; RSV and JB: "Yet thou hast made him little
less than God"; Vulgate, following the Greek, as Englished by the
Rheims/Douai: "Thou hast made him a little less than the angels";
and the AV following suit: "For thou hast made him a little lower than
the angels". This is the understanding of the psalm followed by the author
of Hebrews in referring it messianically to Christ (2:5-9). The Grail version
is quite simply wrong, because elohim is plural and has the definite article,
so either means "the gods" with a small g or God with a capital G.
The Greek and its successors were right in taking it as a plural, and then out
of consideration for the recently attained and jealously guarded monotheism of
the Jews, transforming the 'old gods' into angels. That, incidentally is what
angels were, and I think, equally incidentally, that that is why no mention
whatsoever is made of the creation of angels in P's creation narrative, Gen 1; P
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thought they were a cover-up for idolatrous polytheism.
The source P, this so-called Priesterkodex, one of whose contributors was
responsible for the first creation narrative, Gen 1, in which it is just Elohim
who is active, certainly did not disagree with the substance of J's theology in
this respect; yes, YHWH is indeed Elohim - or rather Elohim, meaning "God
in the intensive plural of rank", the one and only true God, is YHWH.
But he couldn't endorse J's method of identifying YHWH with other local elohim,
with El this, that and the other, because thanks to Israel's repeated
infidelities since David's time in worshipping other gods, all other elohim
were now seen as rivals to YHWH the one true God. The counter point had
constantly to be made that YHWH is not any other god, and that, in the words
of Ps 96:5, "all the gods of the heathen are naught" (so the Grail
Psalms); "all the gods of the peoples are idols (so RSV); all the gods of
the nations are demons" (so the Latin Vulgate). The ancient gods,
according to circumstance and taste, could be transformed, with J, into aliases
for YHWH Elohim, or into angels with Ps 8, or into demons with Ps 96. This
latter line of thought, primarily that of D, the Deuteronomist source, leaves
little room for what I call that more liberal "ecumenical" approach
to other religions, and other religious ways of talking about the divine.
Before going on to consider the name Abba, which is essentially a New Testament
name, we must take a look at what kind of family relationship YHWH, Adonai
Elohim, had with his people of Israel. He is, from the beginning, not the
father, or the Father God of Israel, but "the God of the fathers".
Moses more or less represents the beginning of Israel as a nation; and when God
appears to him in the burning bush, he says to him: "I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob"
(Ex 3:6). It would seem, from the indirect evidence of names, such as Abimelek,
Achimelek, "Melek my father", "Melek my brother", even of
the name Abram, "Father Ram", that in such tiny family or clan
communities, their protective deities were thought of as senior members of the
family, father, elder brother, uncle, that member of the family who had the
responsibility of being the family's, the clan's go'el, redeemer, vindicator,
avenger of blood. And YHWH was certainly the go'el of Israel in bringing them
out of Egypt. But for all that, the real father figures through most of
Israel's history were their patriarchal ancestors, not their God. Again,
for much if not most of their history, YHWH's relationship with Israel was
rather that of lover, of betrothed, of husband, than of father. Just think of
the prophet Hosea, and in a slightly more negative mood of Ezekiel 16, and
later of the Song of Songs, traditionally interpreted by the rabbis as a duet
sung between YHWH and Israel his bride. But the bride, as we have already
noticed, proved continuously unfaithful - so much so that even her ancestors,
her fathers, would be tempted to repudiate her. And that is when YHWH steps in
to take their place. First of all, in Deutero-Isaiah, he reminds the people of
their great ancestor - and notice, not only of Abraham: "Hearken to me,
you who seek the LORD; look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the
quarry from which you were digged. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah
who bore you" (51:1-2). Later on, Israel in repentant mood says to her
God: "Look down from heaven and see, from thy holy and glorious
habitation. Where are thy zeal, and thy might? The yearning of thy heart and
thy compassion are witheld from me. For thou art our father, though Abraham
does not know us, and Israel (i.e. Jacob) does not acknowledge us. Thou, O
LORD, art our father; our redeemer (our go'el) from of old is thy name"
(63:15-16). We have an echo of the same sentiment in Ps 27:10: "Though
father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me". Father and mother,
Sarah as well as Abraham; it is surely by the parent God that they are replaced,
not just by the father God.
The primary Old Testament source for our Lord's use of Abba
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- indeed for his referring to his Father and to our Father, since Abba
is not, as is too often said or assumed, an affectionate, familiar mode of
address, like "Daddy" or "Papa"; it is just the Aramaic
word for "father", like the Hebrew Ab - the primary source is the
royalist ideology we have already glanced at, found above all in Ps 2:7: "
The LORD said to me, You are my Son; it is I who have begotten you this day
"; a psalm originally composed, it would seem, for the installation of a
king of Judah, of the house of David - possibly for the installation of Solomon.
Abba is to be found only thee times in the New Testament; Mk 14:36, Jesus'
prayer in Gethsemane: "Abba Father, all things are possible for you; take
away this cup from me. But not what I will, but what you do"; and Rom 8:15
and Gal 4:6, where Paul speaks of "the Spirit of sonship by adoption in
which we cry, Abba, Father", and tells us that "because you are sons,
God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father".
The apostle is clearly echoing a common Christian practice, taken over from the
Lord himself; and he makes it clear, first that "Father" is just put
in as the translation of Abba for Greek speaking Christians who didn't know
Aramaic; and secondly that the name is a definitely trinitarian one, the name
of God the Father, Father of God the Son, so addressed by his Son, and hence by
us, in the Holy Spirit. If we have here a "Father God", he is not one
as a 'father figure' but one in inseparable relationship with a "Son
God", and indeed a "Spirit God". And when we take over the
prayer of Jesus Christ himself, the eternal Son of the Father, we are
addressing with him God the Father, his and our Father, expressing surely, not
so much the 'lordship' and the 'patriarchy' as our brother/sister relationship
- our being co-heirs - with Christ., Paul uses the word "adoption",
or as I prefer to translate it, "sonship by adoption", to state the
difference between Christ's filial relationship with the Father and ours. John
does it rather differently, in an important text with which we will end. He
has, to be sure, almost throughout the entire gospel been presenting a
trinitarian faith much more explicitly than the other evangelists, with Jesus
continually talking about "the Father". But he sums it all up, and
makes this distinction, in the conversation Jesus has with Mary Magdalen when
he appears to her outside the open tomb, Jn 20:17: Jesus says to her: "
Stop touching [clutching] me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go
to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to
my God and to your God." The conversation presumably took place in
Aramaic; so to translate back into that language, what he said to her would
have been, "...I have not yet ascended to the Abba; but go to my brothers
and say to them, I am ascending to my Abba and your Abba, to my Elahh and your
Elahh". This is the perfect expression of our "redeemed"
relationhip to God, whether Elahh is an intensive plural of rank, the
equivalent of Elohim, or not - which is difficult to determine. We are 'saved'
as children of 'the Father' without this implying any particular idea of God as
'father figure', over against 'parent'.
Notes
1. Talk given to the Manchester and North Cheshire Circle of the Newman
Association, 10th May, 1999.
2. The Germans who invented this character
(in the strict sense of discovering him) spell Yahweh with a J rather than a Y.
3. See Gen 12:7,8; 13:4,18; 21:33 for Abraham; 26:24-25 for Isaac. An
important secondary one is 16:13, Hagar calling on the name of the LORD.
4. The RSV, I suggest, mistranslates it with "All this, O King, Araunah
gives to the king." The Jerusalem Bible, following the French, gives: "The
servant of my lord the king gives all this to the king." The NJB admits that
this is a conjecture and points out that the original is as above, but fails to
see the significance of this.
5. The Septuagint.
6. The Priesterkodex, 'Priestly' tradition.
7. This word is Aramaic, not Hebrew.
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