page_title: Elohim
section_title: Elohist
hierarchical_section_title: Elohim / Elohist
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Распределение документов Йахвист, Элогист и Жреческий Кодекс, а также материала, добавленного при объединении источников (Redactor) в первых четырех книгах Пятикнижия. English: The distribution of the sources of the first four books of the bible, according to the documentary hypothesis
context_page_description: In the Hebrew Bible, elohim usually refers to a single deity, particularly the God of Israel. At other times it refers to deities in the plural.
  The word is the plural form of the word eloah and related to el. It is cognate to the word 'l-h-m which is found in Ugaritic, where it is used as the pantheon for Canaanite gods, the children of El, and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim". Most uses of the term Elohim in the later Hebrew text imply a view that is at least monolatrist at the time of writing, and such usage, as a proper title for the supreme deity, is generally not considered to be synonymous with the term elohim, "gods". Rabbinic scholar Maimonides wrote that the various other usages are commonly understood to be homonyms.
  The notion of divinity underwent radical changes in the early period of Israelite identity and development of Ancient Hebrew religion.
context_section_description: The Hebrew Bible uses various names for the God of Israel. According to the documentary hypothesis, these variations are the products of different source texts and narratives that constitute the composition of the Torah: Elohim is the name of God used in the Elohist (E) and Priestly (P) sources, while Yahweh is the name of God used in the Jahwist (J) source. Form criticism postulates the differences of names may be the result of geographical origins; the P and E sources coming from the North and J from the South. There may be a theological point, that God did not reveal his name, Yahweh, before the time of Moses, though Hans Heinrich Schmid showed that the Jahwist was aware of the prophetic books from the 7th and 8th centuries BCE.
  J presents Yahweh anthropomorphically: for example, walking through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve. The Elohist often presents Elohim as more distant and frequently involves angels, as in the Elohist version of the tale of Jacob's Ladder, in which there is a ladder to the clouds, with angels climbing up and down, with Elohim at the top. In the Jahwist tale, Yahweh is simply stationed in the sky, above the clouds without the ladder or angels. Likewise, the Elohist describes Jacob wrestling with an angel.
  The classical documentary hypothesis, first developed in the late 19th century among biblical scholars and textual critics, holds that the Jahwist portions of the Torah were composed in the 9th century BCE and the Elohist portions in the 8th century BCE, i.e. during the early period of the Kingdom of Judah. This, however, is not universally accepted as later literary scholarship seems to show evidence of a later "Elohist redaction" (post-exilic) during the 5th century BCE which sometimes makes it difficult to determine whether a given passage is "Elohist" in origin, or the result of a later editor.
caption: Friedman's distribution of materials by source of the first four books of the Hebrew Bible, including a redactor (black), according to the documentary hypothesis.[52][53]
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