DIVINE PLURALITY: THE GOD OF SINAI AGAINST THE GODS OF EGYPT IN THE MIND

OF THE ISRAELITE

David Caron

ST627: Biblical Theology of the Spiritual World

August 15, 2021

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The following work explores divine plurality amongst Egyptian deities and compares them

against Yahweh’s divine plurality as revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures. This data uncovers

how the ancient Hebrews might have understood the similarities and differences as well as how

their lives might have been shaped as a result. Though all non-Yahwistic religion has its roots in

God’s dispersing of the nations at Babel,1 the focus of this work will be on the theological

conceptions of Egypt. The reason for this focus is best understood by the first in Yahweh’s two-part

command to His people in Leviticus 18.3 “You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where

you lived …”2 (Italicized by the present author). Since there is much variation amongst Egypt’s

theologies, it is necessary to adhere to the time contemporaneous with the exodus event to

approximate the type of idolatry that would have been experienced by the Hebrews. The “early

view” of the Hebrew Oppression and Exodus events is between 1504 – 1425 BC and the “late

view,” between 1320 – 1237 BC,3 both fitting within the most historically probable timeframe;

Egypt’s New Kingdom era, 1550 – 1069 BC.4 The geographical regions related to specific Egyptian

theologies will be more flexible as gods and religious ideas were heavily trafficked cross-

regionally.

The concept of divine plurality must be defined by context. In reference to the Old

Testament, the phenomenon of divine plurality is present when “two Yahweh figures are seen

together in the same scene.”5 This does not mean that when only one figure is present in a particular

text, the other does not exist, only that there was not an occasion for the second figure to appear in

1
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2015), 114.
2

(NASB).
3

Andrew E. Hill and John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 105.
4

Samuel J. Schultz, The Old Testament Speaks (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers Inc., 1980), 44.
5

Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 134.

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God’s plan of revelation at that point. While there are two persons in the Old Testament

representing Yahweh, still the “the Lord is one,”6 and there is no hint of polytheism in His self-

disclosure.

Since the Old Testament is the written revelation communicated to man by Yahweh, there is

a singular text to be reviewed. In Egypt, there were many theologies concurrent with one another

that are preserved in coffin texts and pyramid texts,7 but no unified text that defined Egyptian

religion for the masses. It is because of this that divine plurality in Egyptian deities must be studied

with added attention to other aspects of their world view.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EGYPTIAN GODS

Assessing the gods of Egypt is a cumbersome task. By the present author’s count, there are

historically 94 gods of Egypt. This is subjective when it is factored in that deities from other

countries were assimilated into Egyptian theology under the same or different names.8 It is

therefore, “practically impossible to list all the gods sacred to the Egyptians.” 9 The gods came in all

forms: men, women, children, various animals, birds, bugs, fish, combinations of animals with

people, combinations of men with the sun or women with stars, and even a crocodile, lion, and

6
Deut. 6:4 (NASB).
7

Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (New Jersey: Princeton University
Press, 2008), 121.
8

Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1992), 231.
9

Merrill F. Unger, “Egypt,” in The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, ed. Merrill F. Unger (Chicago: Moody Press,
1988), 335-340.
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hippopotamus merged into one.10 Others are self-created deities, such as “Khepri,” represented as a

beetle, whom the Egyptians saw emerging from balls of dung, as if emerging from nothing.11

THE FORMS OF THE GODS AND DIVINE PLURALITY IN EGYPTIAN THEOLOGY

In addition to the numerical aspect of the gods, is the importance of their historical

development. Some gods began as local deities and emerged into “universal and transcendent” 12

powers while others remained local and never developed beyond their respective geographies.

Some are represented in multiple physical manifestations and interchangeable forms. The deity

“Thoth” can be depicted as a baboon, an ibis, or a man with the head of an ibis.13 The god of the

Nile’s inundation, “Hapi,” is depicted as both a man and a woman; a man’s body, with a woman’s

breasts to symbolize fertility.14 While Hapi is one in person, this god is depicted in two bodies in the

Abu Simbel temple inscription (see fig. 1 below). Worth noting, the plural depiction is not because

of Hapi’s ontology but because of his perceived function of uniting the upper and lower sections of

the Nile River.15

10
Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 32.
11

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 168.

12

Rosalie David, Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt (New York: The Penguin Group, 2002), 57.
13

Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin, Ancient Egypt (New York: Hermes House Anness Publishing, 2002), 274.
14

Richard Patrick, All Color Book of Egyptian Mythology (Hong Kong: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972), 16.
15

Shaw and Nicholson, 135.

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Figure 1. Source: Abu Simbel: Binding Together North and South. Photographer Unknown.
Accessed August 10, 2021. Egypt and Art. http://egyptartsite.com/abusemimap.html.

The creator-god was “Atum,” and “Re,” the sun god, but eventually they were merged into a

single deity and shared the joint name, “Re-Atum.”16 Other gods represent incarnations of totally

separate personalities. For example, the aggressive lion goddess, “Sekhmet” is sometimes embodied

by the gentle cat goddess, “Bastet.”17 Both are distinct deities and still Sekhment is additionally

depicted as an aggressive manifestation of a third goddess, “Mut” who is not related to the goddess

Bastet.18 The individualized personhood of each is not clearly defined theologically.

Perhaps the most interesting display of transformation is when the sun god took on more

than one form throughout the course of a day. The god Khepri represented the morning sun, Re, the

midday sun, and Atum, the evening sun.19 At dusk, the sky goddess, Nut, swallowed the sun and

gave birth to it the following morning.20 Apparently, while in the body of Nut, and having entered

the Netherworld, the sun god Re, accompanied by 18 baboon gods and 12 snake goddesses, revived

16
Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 49.
17

Oakes and Gahlin, Ancient Egypt, 268.

18

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 290.

19

Oakes and Gahlin, Ancient Egypt, 329.

20

Oakes and Gahlin, 329.

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the daily-dying god, Osiris, and then perplexingly encountered an image of himself.21 There is more

to this myth as the night cycle continued but this brief survey provides the general aspects of divine

plurality in the gods of Egypt.

DIVINE PLURALITY IN HUMANS WITHIN EGYPTIAN THEOLOGY

Turning to the topic of divine plurality involving humans in Egyptian theology, it is to be

noted that one of the three main gods of Egypt was the pharaoh.22 The term “pharaoh” means “great

house” and meant primarily that until the usage was transferred to the Egyptian kings themselves

during the New Kingdom era.23 However, the kings of Egypt were believed to be divine as far back

as 3100 BC.24 The extent of the power the kings were believed to have possessed is debatable. The

titles of the kings in early inscriptions vary between “god,” “good god,” and “great god,” providing

evidence that these kings were considered minor “gods” among others in nature and the cosmos.25

In a manner of plurality, the king was considered a god and an independent person but yet was

believed to embody the particular royal-state god of Egypt that was active at the time of his reign. 26

When Amenhotep IV became pharaoh in 1364 BC, he was troubled by the amount of power

amassed by the Amun priesthood, so he changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, and

elevated the god Aten to be exclusively worshipped.27 Some see Akhenaten’s push for the sole
21
Oakes and Gahlin, Ancient Egypt, 327.
22

Robert L. Cate, An Introduction to the Old Testament and its Survey (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 158-
159.
23

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 248-249.

24

Oakes and Gahlin, Ancient Egypt, 342.

25

Oakes and Gahlin, 342.

26

Rosalie David, Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt, 68.

27
John Bright, A History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 110.
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devotion to the god Aten as nothing more than a henotheistic shuffling of deities among the

pantheon,28 others see this move as a purely monotheistic effort.29 What is striking about the event is

that Aten was claimed to have become one with the pharaoh, a “separate and unique deity.” 30 This

new deity retained the individual personhood of both Aten and Akhenaten and yet the two “became

virtually interchangeable.31

In obtaining eternal life prior to the Middle Kingdom (before 2055 BC), the pharaoh, having

been physically mummified to resemble the god Osiris, was believed to have actually become

Osiris.32 Later, at the start of the Middle Kingdom, no longer only the pharaoh but any person

mummified correctly could be identified with Osiris in the afterlife.33 Two aspects of this concept

were not explained and apparently accepted as contradictions. The first, was what the Egyptians

believed happened to people who died before the time of the Middle Kingdom, before they were

able to be identified with Osiris. The second, is how every person who died and was received into

eternal life existed in the next life during and after the Middle Kingdom. How could various

pharaohs and commoners alike all embody the same person of Osiris?

At death, the Egyptians believed one had to stand before the gods and pass several tests to

gain a successful life in the next world. In the “Protestation of Innocence,” or what amounted to a

negative confession of all sins one did not commit during their earthly life, the Egyptian addressed

28

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 48.

29

David, Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt, 216.

30

David, 216.
31

David, 216.
32

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 238.

33

Oakes and Gahlin, Ancient Egypt, 392.

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“forty-two gods in turn, assuring each of them that he has not committed a particular sin.” 34 The

point to notice is that while some gods in Egypt are incarnated into other gods, these forty-two gods

seem to remain distinct from each other in personality, representing individual entities. During this

ordeal, the Egyptian further proclaimed that individual parts of their body were parts of the bodies

of the gods.35 Somehow, humans and deities were believed to have shared forms of existence in the

afterlife.

EGYPTIAN THEOLOGY: POLYTHEISM OR PANTHEISM?

When assessing Egyptian theology, it becomes hard to understand how easily gods could be

invented, combined, pantheons disassembled, and humans acceptably deified. Typically, Egyptian

religion is coined as polytheistic by Bible scholars.36 Others call out its roots in “animistic nature

worship” where, in its religious origins, local villages venerated sacred trees, plants, and animals

believed to have been indwelt by “protective spirits.”37 Wilkinson’s perspective is that Egypt’s

religion was not polytheistic but pantheistic.38 He goes on to suggest that for the Egyptians to

comprehend the “abstract notions” of the one God, His attributes needed to take on some “fixed

representation” through which gods of all sorts came about.39 This pantheism seems to be what
34
Evelyn Rossiter, ed., The Book of the Dead: Papyri of Ani, Hunefer, Anhai (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.,
1988), 62.
35

Rossiter, The Book of the Dead: Papyri of Ani, Hunefer, Anhai, 62.
36

Bernhard W. Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 66; Walter
Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology: An Introduction (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 129; Schultz, The Old
Testament Speaks, 46; Unger, “Egypt,” 338.
37

John C. Cooper, “Egypt,” in The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, ed. William H. Gentz (Nashville: Abingdon,
1986), 296-302.
38

Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians: Their Life and Customs (London: Bracken Books, 1988), 327-
328.
39
Wilkinson, 327-328.
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would naturally cause the Egyptians to deem sacred, almost every physical entity they came in

contact with. The question this brings up is whether divine plurality is a term that fits into Egyptian

theology at all.

In the case of Egyptian deities that started as two and were later combined into one, it is

shown that they were believed to continue in coexistence, while at the same time the god of the first

name of the new combined name was thought to represent an aspect of the personality of the god of

the second name.40 At what stage the one God was splintered off into multiple deities of distinct

personhood is unclear. What can be concluded on is that divine plurality was still an aspect in

Egyptian theology despite the underlying animism and pantheism that later developed into

polytheism.

YAHWEH’S DIVINE PLURALITY

Yahweh’s divine plurality is often seen in connection with the “Angel of the Lord.” But who

exactly is the Angel of the Lord? Davidson said that the Angel of the Lord is “Jehovah Himself in

the form of manifestation.”41 Others define Him as the one through whom “the powers through

which the Old Testament God is active on the earth and among human beings” are exhibited. 42

Along these lines, when a created angel is present, Jehovah may be present “in some attribute of His

character” but regarding God, “in the Angel of the Lord He is fully present, as the covenant God.”43

40

Spencer L. Allen, “The Splintered Divine,” in Studies in Near Eastern Records,” vol. 5, ed. Gonzalo Rubio
(Boston: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2015), 51.
41

A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907), 116.
42

Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament Theology, Vol. I (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), 165.
43
Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, 298.
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Why might God appear to mankind as an Angel at all? The Angel of the Lord is seen as “the

theological struggle to express both the real communion between God and man and at the same

time the absolute holiness of God’s Being.”44 Vriezen’s comment should not lead us to think that

the Angel of the Lord was the conception of man. God truly manifested Himself in this manner. In

speaking of God’s glory, Payne explained that it is displayed through the Angel of God, His name,

His face, and His cloud, all categorized as aspects of “the visible extension of His divine

perfection.”45 Simply put, God manifesting in the Angel of the Lord, a separate divine Person, is His

way of protecting man from an un-survivable encounter with the Holy, while also reflecting His

desire to be near to humanity and to clarify His Person.

How well did Israel handle this concept of divine plurality? The fact that the concept of

God’s “oneness and plurality…,” “remained throughout the Old Testament period” in light of

Israel’s strict sense of monotheism, shows how literally Israel took the details of the Pentateuch no

matter how paradoxical they may have seemed.46 One point to be made is that nowhere in the Old

Testament, does Israel ever assume that there is a contradiction between God’s oneness and His

manifest binary personhood. This is worked out in texts like Exodus 16.3, where the Hebrew

company’s complaint toward Yahweh was not “if only we had died by the hands of the Lords”

(plural), but “if only we had died by the Lord’s hand” (singular).47

COMPARISON OF YAHWEH’S DIVINE PLURALITY AND THAT OF EGYPT’S GODS

44

Th. C. Vriezen, An Outline of Old Testament Theology (Newton Centre: Charles T. Branford Company, 1962),
249.
45

J. Barton Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1962),
46-47.
46

John Goldingay, Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 102.
47
(NASB).
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On the surface, one may be tempted to assume that divine plurality in Egypt’s gods

paralleled Yahweh’s divine plurality in the Old Testament Pentateuch. This is the thinking that led

“antisupernaturalistic” scholars to start from the premise that Israel’s beliefs are to be understood as

dotted lines to those of their pagan neighbors and nothing more.48 However, there are significant

differences between the two theologies. For one, the conceptions of Egypt’s gods are confined to

mythic appearances within tombs and coffin texts through the minds of scribes and artists. Yahweh,

on the other hand, had verbally and materially revealed Himself to Moses and the Hebrews in time

and space, thus their faith in Him was “experience centered.”49 Donald Redford is adamant in

showing the affinities between Akhenaten’s monotheism and that of Israel to be conceptual

distortions. For example, Akhenaten’s “Aten” aroused “little response in the worshipper” not being

a God of his own revelation, while Yahweh is “wrathful, vengeful…but, also capable of

compassion and forgiveness.”50 Aten, though one with Akhenaten was never actually experienced

by the Egyptians. Yahweh, however, had shown up in very undeniable ways in Israel’s history

through the Exodus event.

Yahweh’s revelation did not originate with humanity but was His own presentation of

Himself through His Word. Regarding divine plurality, Yahweh revealed Himself as God, while at

times simultaneously speaking His Word in the person of His Angel.51 Akhenaten, the human

pharaoh, may have spoken to his people, but it is clear Aten did not communicate to the people. It is

48

Payne, The Theology of the Older Testament, 21-22.

49

Otto J. Baab, The Theology of the Old Testament (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949), 48.
50

Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 379.

51
Gen. 21:17-19 (NASB).
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one thing for the human to define “god” and another for God to define Himself. The gods of Egypt

are based on human invention while Yahweh of the Old Testament is divine reality.

Despite their stay in Egypt, the Hebrews knew the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They were moved to worship when they heard from Moses and Aaron that the same Yahweh who

promised their deliverance to Abraham, confirmed it to Jacob and now had heard their cry and had

come to visit them in their affliction in Egypt.52 Perhaps they knew not only of the promises of God

but His method of delivery through binary visitations of Word and Presence that accompanied those

promises. Centuries later, those same binary visitations began again with Moses at the burning bush

and continued with both Yahweh and the Angel in who was Yahweh’s Name.53 These were

historical events that were seen and felt by the Hebrew people, not mere stories of God acting in the

lives of those of centuries past.

EGYPT’S DIVINE PLURALITY PROVED IMPOTENT

In the Biblical creation account, the author purposefully used the terms “greater light” and

“lesser light” instead of “sun” and “moon” in Genesis 1.16. Though the word “sun” was a divine

name in Canaanite religion,54 it was also related to Egyptian religion, as it was thought of as the

falcon god Horus’s good eye and the moon the eye that was put out in a fight with another god,

Seth.55 The surrogate term “light” in Gen. 1.16, was used to lead the Hebrews away from “other

ancient Near Eastern worldviews that believe those astral entities to be deities.” 56 Egyptian theology

52

Gen. 15:13-14; 46:2-4; Ex. 4:31 (NASB).

53

Ex. 4:2-4; 23:20-21 (NASB).

54
Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), 55.
55

Shaw and Nicholson, The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, 151.

56
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pictured the sun, considered to be Amum-Re, in a “daily march across the heavens” as the “greatest

constant in Egyptian life.”57 This is undoubtedly the god whose impotence was revealed during the

9th plague in Egypt when Yahweh blocked the sun from the Egyptian people but allowed it to shine

upon the Hebrews in Goshen.

Looking back to the pharaoh as a god and one with Amun-Re, more was to be expected

from one of his rank in the Exodus story. For example, when Yahweh hardened pharaoh’s heart,

pharaoh’s “inability to control even his own thoughts mocks his idolatrous pretension to deity.”58

Neither the pharaoh’s divinity, nor his henotheistic partner, Amum-Re, were able to stop Yahweh.

There was a “cosmic dimension,” gods in an unseen realm in Yahweh’s statement that He would

“punish the gods of Egypt,”59 whose religion haphazardly included the pharaoh in the cosmic camp.

God made good on His promise and the pharaoh got his share of Yahweh’s divine lashing of the

gods by drowning in the Red Sea.60

TRUE DIVINE PLURALITY IS NOT SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Taking Pharaoh Akhenaten as a comparative point, while his monotheism is unique in

Egyptian theology, the monotheism of Yahweh is still unique beyond “mono-Atonism” (variant

spelling of “Aten”).61 Both the god Aten and the man Akhenaten experienced ontological change as

the two became one according to this theology. Here, divine plurality parts company with divine
John D. Currid, Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013),
45.
57

John H. Tullock, The Old Testament Story (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1997), 68.
58

R. E. Watts, “Exodus,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 2000), 478-487.
59

Michael D. Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 92.
60

(NASB).
61
Vriezen, An Outline of Old Testament Theology, 24.
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eternality. The divine plurality between Yahweh and the Angel of the Lord shows no ontological

change historically from the earliest manifestation to Abraham to the times of the exodus and

wilderness wanderings; being the same on either end of the 400 years.

THE HEBREW MIND ON DIVINE PLURALITY

What would Israel have been able to learn from hearing the Genesis narratives coupled with

reflection on their own historical observation of God’s divine plurality? They would notice,

consistency in the revelation of God regarding His personhood. God’s Word, “The Lord is one,”62

provided the frame that would guard them from seeing Him as henotheistic while He yet revealed

His person in divine plurality. The oneness of God provided singularity of focus, while the

understanding of divine plurality in various manifestations kept God veiled in mystery. To the

Israelite, God would never change, Yahweh was God to which worship was to be pointed yet

whether He would choose to manifest, at what time, and in what appearance was obscure. Israel’s

God was real, dependable, and yet enigmatic. Yahweh left a mark in the Israelite mind that made

Him fearfully hard to escape.

What became of Akhenaton’s worship? It seems that as quickly and easily as Aten and

Amenhotep formed Akhenaton, they were as easily dismantled upon Akhenaton’s death. The name

“Akhenaten,” properly translated “the glory of Aton” (alternate spelling of “Aten”) 63 put far more

emphasis on the human king than on Aten, though surprisingly, the king can be seen receiving his

life from the hands of the solar disk (see fig. 2 below, yellow arrow). It is without surprise, that the

Egyptians had no anxiety over undoing the religion that Akhenaton had created; after all, it was his

62

Deut. 4:6 (NASB).

63
Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 158.
 14

creation. Divine plurality was not enough to sustain Akhenaten’s future as high god of Egypt, but

lack of consistency in personhood was enough to drain any sense of awe out of Egypt’s population.

After his death, the nation returned to the worship of Amun,64 as well as their prior gods,65 and

Akhenaten was “condemned as a heretic.”66 Had his divine plurality in personhood been taken

seriously, reverence toward Akhenaten would have been the expected result in his people.

Becoming one with his god was perhaps a political ploy to secure favor with the masses under

Akhenaten, yet Yahweh’s divine plurality was simply one of His attributes.

Figure 2. Source: Akhenaten’s Hymn Before the Aten. Photograph by John Ackerman. Accessed
August 14, 2021. Firmament and Chaos. www.firmament-chaos.com/mythology_egyptian.html.

CONCLUSION

64

David, Religion and Magic in Ancient Egypt, 183.

65

Robin Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008), 97.
66

Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach, 97.

 15

The consistency of divine plurality in Yahweh, couched in monotheism held the attention of

the hearts of the Israelites during these exodus and wilderness wandering periods. One may

challenge the notion because Israel continually rebelled against Yahweh during these periods. It is

important to understand that this rebellion had more to do with the sinful nature in humanity than it

did with the reality with which Yahweh interacted with His people. Though Israel consistently

sinned against Yahweh, His continued active, binary Presence, many times in the form of heavy

discipline, ensured that Israel continued to see and feel His nearness. The divine plurality of

Yahweh was how He was able to do life with Israel in a genuine and meaningful way.

Bibliography

Allen, Spencer L., “The Splintered Divine,” in Studies in Near Eastern Records,” vol. 5, ed.
Gonzalo Rubio (Boston: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 2015), 51.

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Baab, Otto J. The Theology of the Old Testament. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949.

Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Paulist Press, 1984.

Bright, John. A History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981.

Brueggemann, Walter. Old Testament Theology: An Introduction. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008.

Cate, Robert L. An Introduction to the Old Testament and its Survey. Nashville: Broadman Press,
1987.

Coogan, Michael D. The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the
Hebrew Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Cooper, John C., “Egypt,” in The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, ed. William H. Gentz,
(Nashville: Abingdon. 1986), 296-302.
 16

Currid, John D. Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2013.

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Abingdon. 1986), 97-8.

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2009.

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Company, 1962.

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1995.

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Press, 1992.

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Press, 2008.

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Unger,. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1988), 335-40.
 17

von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis: A Commentary. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976.

Vriezen, Th. C. An Outline of Old Testament Theology. Newton Centre: Charles T. Branford
Company, 1962.

Watts, R.E., “Exodus,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, edited by T. Desmond

Alexander, et al. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 478-87.

Wilkinson, Sir J. Gardner. The Ancient Egyptians: Their Life and Customs. London: Bracken
Books, 1988.