Veurwaerts met de NL vuijs(t)jes: paden & lanen in

Ik klets gewoon maar 'n eind weg: lezen gaat nu eenmaal 't best via 't schrijven van wat boeit! Waar waren we gebleven i/d loop der jaren ...?
Yale Divinity School scholar J.J. Collins has helpfully summed up the main points of comparison of Daniel 7 with Canaanite (Ugaritic) representa-tions. As he argues, "What is important is the pattern of relationships," namely, the fact that in Daniel there are two godlike figures, one old & one young, the younger one comes riding on the clouds, & he receives everlasting dominion. Colpe has noted "the mythographical similarity between the relation of an Ancient of Days & Son of Man on one side & that of El & Ba'al on the other, which fits into the broader conclusion that older material lives on in the tradition of Israel & Judah." The most persuasive reconstruction from the evidence we have shows that in the ancient re-ligion of Israel, 'El was the general Canaanite high divinity while YHVH was the Ba'al-like divinity of a small group of southern Canaanites, the Hebrews, with 'El a very distant absence for these Hebrews. When these groups merged & emerged as Israel, YHVH, the Israelite version of Ba'al became assimilated to 'El as the high G d & their attributes largely merged into one doubled G d, with 'El receiving his warlike stormgod charact-eristics from YHVH. Thus, to restate the point, the ancient 'El & YHVH - a southern Hebrew equivalent in function (within the paradigm of relations between 'El & a young warrior god to the northern Ba'al) - apparently merged at some early point in Israelo-Canaanite history, thus producing a rather tense & unstable monotheism. This merger was not by any means a perfect union. 'El & YHVH had very different & in some ways antitheti-cal functions, & I (DB) propose that this left a residue in which some of the characteristics of the young divinity always had the potential to split off again in a hypostasis (or even separate god) of their own. This tension & resultant splitting manifests itself in the traditions behind the Daniel 7 theophany, where we see a new young one, apparently nameless until he comes to be called "Yehoshuah" - or Enoch. As a medieval rabbinic hymn, still feeling that tension, would have it, YHVH is an "ancient on the day of judgment & a youth on the day of battle." This merger, if indeed it occurred, must have happened very early on, for the worship of only ONE G D characterizes Israel, at least in aspiration, from the time of Josiah (6th century B.C.) & the Deuteronomist revolution, if not much earlier. This merger leaves it's marks right on the surface of the text, where the 'El-YHVH combination can still be detected in the tensions & doublings of the biblical text, available to be resurrected, as it were, by astute readers of a certain cast of religious mind as a second, young G d, or as a part of G d, or as a divine person within G d (& all of these options have been adopted by perfectly "orthodox," non-Christian Jewish theologians as well as by Christians). DÀT scheelt 'n slok op 'n religieuze borrel! 't Zat erin ...