Bethel - the house of the canaanite god El

by mP 73 Replies latest watchtower scandals

Leolaia

My comments about EL and LA being definitive articles in langs like sp is speculation. However it is very intriging that both terms are also names of the major heavenly bodies being the sun and moon.
??? The PIE words for sun and moon were *soh 2 wl and *méh 1 ns, and there were also derivatives from *kand "shine" and *lewk "bright, light". The Proto-Semitic words for sun and moon were *šamš- (whence Akkadian šamšu, Hebrew šemeš, and Arabic šamš) and *warihh- (whence Akkadian warhhu and Hebrew yâréach); the Arabic word for "moon" (qámar) is from a different root. The Proto-Semitic pantheon included, separate from *Ilu (the sky god), the sun goddess *Šamšu and the moon god *Warihhu. The Akkadian name for the moon god was Sîn. None of these use "el" or "la" as names for the sun and moon.
While i cannot present definitive scholarly proof, we have an almost identical situation in Arabic and its many forms which cover large parts of Asia , Africa and North Africa. Ive included a small snippet about this discussion taken from wiki. It would seem that Arabs have adopted the sun and moon in an almost equally significant extent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_letters

In Arabic and Maltese, the consonants are divided into two groups, called the sun letters or solar letters (Arabic: ???? ????? ‎ ?uruf šamsiyyah) and moon letters or lunar letters ( ???? ????? ?uruf qamariyyah), based on whether or not they assimilate the lam ( ? l) [1] of a preceding definite article al- (???). These names come from the fact that the word for "the sun", aš-šams , assimilates the lam, while the word for "the moon",al-qamar , does not.
LOL that has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything. That is simply a phonological assimilation rule that by convention is named after two very common everyday words (that are related in concept). Its just a grammatical rule that has a memorable mnemonic; why must every reference to the "sun" or "moon" have some religious sun-worship meaning read into it?
With the example of Arabic i just presented, we cannot exactly say that some god like EL, is not present. If it happened to arabic why not other european langs. After all Europe adopted many things from the levant.
???? This does not make any sense. I'm not against the idea of cultural and linguistic transfer (there's tons of evidence of this), but your examples are bogus.
your examples show a common root for night and dark. Is it a coincidence that our own word for no and negative also has a common N. The Bible itself uses light to symbolize goodness and dark as evil, thus is it not hard to reason that YES or JESUS share a common ancestry somewhere in much the same way the oppose night and no are similar in some way.
LOL, now "n" is come to signify something dark and evil and "y" signifies light and goodess??? There is no substance to your suggestion about "yes" and "Jesus", like all your other suggestions. The English word "yes" is from Old English gèse "so be it" which is a compound of gea "yea" and sie "it should be", the third person singular subjunctive form of beòn "to be", a compound originating in West Saxon *géasi. Whatever superficial phonetic similarity you are pointing to (evidently involving the /s/) cannot possibly be part of any invented "common ancestry".
The parade in specious etymologies in this thread has been quite amusing.
mP

MP:
I think you perhaps misunderstood the reasoning behind my premise. My premise is that the sun and moon names or words are present in many prominant terms or aspects of modern languages of Europe such as English and Spanish.
leolaia
??? The PIE words for sun and moon were * soh 2 wl and * méh 1 ns , and there were also derivatives from * kand "shine" and * lewk "bright, light". The Proto-Semitic words for sun and moon were * šamš - (whence Akkadian šamšu , Hebrew šemeš , and Arabic šamš ) and * warihh - (whence Akkadian warhhu and Hebrew yâréach ); the Arabic word for "moon" ( qámar ) is from a different root. The Proto-Semitic pantheon included, separate from * Ilu (the sky god), the sun goddess * Šamšu and the moon god * Warihhu . The Akkadian name for the moon god was Sîn . None of these use "el" or "la" as names for the sun and moon.
Im not sure why you copy/pasted words giving various equivalents in ancient languages. I never claimed every or even those languages always had the same words for Sun or Moon. While it is interesting it hardly disproves my original statement or idea.
However your last sentence about the Akkadian moog Sin is yet another example of the very point i was attempting to make. In brief i will make a simple boring statement that many familiar with astro theology and other ancient religions will already know. Typically the Sun is pictured as light, good, life, warm and other positive attributes whie the Moon is the complement or opposite, pictured as the god or leader of death, darkness, cold and other negative concepts.
We see the same astro language in the NT where Jesus who represents good is the sun, light of the world(literally true, coming in the clouds(literally true and more. The name Satan itself has been said by some scholars to have a root in the ancient Egyptian god of the night, Set who of course was the counterbalance of the Sun God Ra.
Back on the concept of "sin", this is a major word or concept for JWs and again we can find a path or connection back to some very ancient god, this time Sin who probably was a contemporary to El and Baal and others.
Why did you completely ignore the fact thta Arabic does use AL-LA for the name of God, and Allah is a moon good. That is an established fact, their very motifs of the crescent moon which is present on their flags and mosques confirms this fact. I dont know enough of origins of Arabic but we can assume that there is some connection to the very roots i was discussing.
Why did you completely ignore the parallels with the two defnitive articles EL and LA in Spanish for example ? Surely the fact that EL is male and LA is female is not definitive proof, but if you look harder and find more and more strange coincidences one but cannot wonder if this is just chance or perhaps somewhere deep in the past there is a common ancestor.
LOL, now "n" is come to signify something dark and evil and "y" signifies light and goodess??? There is no substance to your suggestion about "yes" and "Jesus", like all your other suggestions. The English word "yes" is from Old English gèse "so be it" which is a compound of gea "yea" and sie "it should be", the third person singular subjunctive form of beòn "to be", a compound originating in West Saxon * géasi . Whatever superficial phonetic similarity you are pointing to (evidently involving the /s/) cannot possibly be part of any invented "common ancestry".
I didnt ask for the Old English term, but if one must mention this what about its origin back three or four thousands years ago ? Is there a connection with the origins of the word Jesus somwhere in some place in Europe or the near east ? As we know Jesus is not a approximation in Greek of Yeshua, because the name of Joshua in the OT itself is different again, which shows one of the two names has a different origin. If Jesus was a literal approximation in Greek and Latin of the Hebrew name Joshua then they should both be the same. This then leads one to ask why are they different and what exactly are the origins of Jesus.
If we examine the Jesuits we see they have a reverance for IHS or IES in English surrounded by a Sun. As we know in Roman Catholicism there are many solar connections between Jesus and Jehovah and then Sun. I hope i dont have to prove that they equate one with the other, Jesus being pretty much the human representation of the glorious Sun which is good, life giving and more for our little planet.
Given so many words in English do have roots in Latin and Greek, and the fact that many other modern European languages also share in part these common roots, why cant YES have come via Old English which is itself from some other parent and so on.
Im not asking you to agree, but at least be intellectually honest, name calling, silly commentary is childish and unnecessary..
The parade in specious etymologies in this thread has been quite amusing.
..
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mP

@Leolaia
The classic example of indirect relationships between words which i am focusing on, is Jehovah. Lets be fair there are a few jumps and it does require some lenancy to make the jump from Jehovah to Yahweh, inserting vowels from Adonai etc etc. Understand this evolution and thought an you will see where my comments are coming from.
Leolaia

I think you perhaps misunderstood the reasoning behind my premise. My premise is that the sun and moon names or words are present in many prominant terms or aspects of modern languages of Europe such as English and Spanish...Im not sure why you copy/pasted words giving various equivalents in ancient languages. I never claimed every or even those languages always had the same words for Sun or Moon.
I posted the words for sun and moon in the relevant languages because you specifically said "both terms [EL and LA] are also names of the major heavenly bodies being the sun and moon". Now you are saying this is not what you meant? I knew that EL and LA were not used as words for the sun and moon in the relevant languages, so I posted examples of what the actual words for the sun and moon are in Semitic and Indo-European.
As for your premise, you think that there are sun and moon connotations all over the place in English and other languages because you are looking for them and are willing to find them almost anywhere. If one were looking for cat and dog references, one would be equally inclined to amazingly find references to cats and dogs all over the place in English. That doesn't mean they are really there; it means that those words have that kind of resonance with you. And that's the awesome thing about language, that it can carry lots of different meanings for people, but etymology is about word history and the facts show the kind of claims you've made don't correspond to the actual word origins.
In brief i will make a simple boring statement that many familiar with astro theology and other ancient religions will already know. Typically the Sun is pictured as light, good, life, warm and other positive attributes whie the Moon is the complement or opposite, pictured as the god or leader of death, darkness, cold and other negative concepts. We see the same astro language in the NT where Jesus who represents good is the sun, light of the world(literally true, coming in the clouds(literally true and more.
Astrotheology is basically a form of eisegesis that is popular among the Zeitgeist set.
The name Satan itself has been said by some scholars to have a root in the ancient Egyptian god of the night, Set who of course was the counterbalance of the Sun God Ra.
What scholars? (and I mean scholars) The Hebrew word satan is NOT derived from the Egyptian *Sùtahh, nor is the notion of an accuser in Yahweh's divine council (the oldest conception of "the satan," not as a cosmological opponent which is a later development) similar at all to Set, nor was Set a god of the night per se (in fact, Set was depicted as in the underworld with the sun at night, not in the land of the living or the sky). Nor was Set an adversary of Ra....Set was a protector of Ra's barque when it made its nightly journey, keeping Apophis from devouring Ra. Evidently you are here confusing Ra with Horus, but whatever.
Back on the concept of "sin", this is a major word or concept for JWs and again we can find a path or connection back to some very ancient god, this time Sin who probably was a contemporary to El and Baal and others.
Again, the moon god Sin might have this kind of meaning resonance to you (again thanks to English), but there is absolutely no linguistic relationship. Just superficial phonetic resemblence....again.
Why did you completely ignore the fact thta Arabic does use AL-LA for the name of God, and Allah is a moon good.
Part of the problem here is that you here presuppose a lot of "facts" that are either flat-out wrong or tendentious. So no, I wasn't ignoring anything.
So here you accept as fact Christian evangelist Robert Morey's claim that Allah originated as an Arabian moon god, largely based on outdated early 20th century ideas of ancient Arabian religion, as well as much of Morey's own imagination. Ilmaqah, the tuletary god of the Sabaeans, is now thought to be a solar (or solarized) deity, not a moon god. There is no evidence that Allah draws on any one particular tuletary deity than those of the other Arabian tribes. Allah is simply "the God" who replaced all the various tuletary gods with a single nameless deity that could stand-in for any of them. It is tempting to connect Allah with El/Ilu in older Semitic polytheism, as that was usually the chief god of the pantheon, but of course El/Ilu was not a moon god either, nor did the name have anything to do with the "moon". Moreover in the common Semitic pantheon, the sun god/goddess and the moon god were usually lesser subordinate deities compared to the principal players like El, Baal, Asherah, Anat, and Astarte. That doesn't mean that there weren't tribes that gave priority to the moon god (possibly Teiman would be an example of this, as this was where Nabonidus resided in the sixth century BC), but the derivation from moon god to Allah must be demonstrated rather than just supposed as Morey does.
That is an established fact, their very motifs of the crescent moon which is present on their flags and mosques confirms this fact.
No it doesn't. You presume that this symbol was associated with Islam and with Allah from the very beginning (as it is a moon symbol, part of Allah's origins as a moon god), when in fact it only became a general Muslim symbol centuries later because it was the symbol of the Ottoman empire, and that was because it had earlier been associated with Byzantium (later Istanbul) and also in the Persian Sassanid empire (which drew on the earlier common use of the symbol by the Parthians and Persians).
Why did you completely ignore the parallels with the two defnitive articles EL and LA in Spanish for example ? Surely the fact that EL is male and LA is female is not definitive proof, but if you look harder and find more and more strange coincidences one but cannot wonder if this is just chance or perhaps somewhere deep in the past there is a common ancestor.
Of course its chance...you are finding meaning in lots of chance similarities. That's what I've been telling you. Etymology and historical roots of Indo-European words are VERY well understood after hundreds of years of study; this isn't a matter of guessing blindly at what might seem like amazing coincidences....it is a matter of linguistic evidence and proper methodology. You can take two random languages and compare them find all sorts of totally amazing coincidences (which of course, aren't that amazing) when you don't have any methodology of determining what is chance "similarity" and what is evidence of actual historical relationships.
Anyway, that pretty much covers what I wanted to say. Folk etymology is fun, but it ain't philology.
Leolaia

From the Handbook of Egyptian Mythology, p. 199.
Here are some scholarly sources on Allah and early Arabian religion (nothing about Allah being a moon god or prominence of a moon cult....comparisons are instead to El elsewhere):
"There was also a belief [among the Beduin] in local deities, who may have evolved out of ancestors or jinn, or may simply have personified the powers of nature, like the storm-god Quzah....The veneration of Allah, whom Henninger holds to be autochthonous in Arabia and of nomadic origin, remained in the background. Allah was venerated before all else as the sky god and the bestower of rain, but he was also seen as the creator of the world even then. Allah was venerated in the whole of Arabia, with sacrifices, oaths and calls on him in times of danger; in South Arabia Rahim was a similar supreme high god. Allah (al-ilahu, the godhead) corresponds to El throughout the Semitic world....In the settled areas one of the most striking shifts away from Beduin religion was the increase in the number of deities and a movement toward polytheism which is connected in the Arab tradition with the name of `Amr ibn Luhayy, who is supposed to have lived in the third century A.D. This development may have had to do not only with the natural requirements of life in an agricultural or urban setting, but also with the Hellenistic religious influences from the North. This rise and differentiation of the gods must have occurred parallel to the movement of Beduin to the towns with their social, economic, and political differentiation. Maria Hofner (Hofner 1970: 361-7) assigns the deities venerated in Arabia in the centuries before Muhhamad's apperance to the following categories: 1. the high god Allah, together with 2. the three 'daughters of Allah' (Manat, Allat, and al-`Uzza, e.g. Sura 53:19, 20) venerated all over Arabia (al-`Uzza especially by the Meccan Quraysh); 3. the five deities of Noah's contemporaries (Wadd, Suwa`, Yaghuth, Ya`up, Nasr); 4) some thirty-five other deities often called by the surnames or titles of which Hubal is the best known thanks to the fact that his image in human form stood in the Meccan Ka`ba. Prominent Meccan familities had their own house-hods represented by images at home. All deities had their own creative power and were more active in the course of earthly events than the distant Allah. In Mecca itself Manat (destiny), Quzah (thunderstorm) and Hubal (chance and luck) were prominent, besides Allah who may have been the protecting deity of the town, just as other towns had their own tutelary god. These different deities were not brought together in one hierarchically ordered pantheon, nor were they of a very celestial nature; in fact, there does not seem to have been a very great distance between them and the jinn as spirits or semi-deities" (Jacques Waardenburg, "Changes of Belief in Spiritual Beings, Prophethood, and the Rise of Islam, in Struggles of Gods: Papers in the Groningen Work Group for the Study of the History of Religions [ed. by Kippenberg], 1984, pp. 260-262).
"In pre-Islamic times the Kabah was a pilgrimate center and sanctuary surrounded by some 360 idols, but there are indications that some Meccans even before the time of Muhhamad were moving toward a concept of a single divine power (al-ilah "the god"), perhaps in part under the influence of the Jews and Christians with whom they had frequent contacts....Scholars suggest that for some time before Muhammad the Meccans, as noted above, had associated the term al-ilah with the supreme divinity behind the tribal gods of Arabia, gods such as Wadd, Suwa, Yaghuth, Ya'uq, and Nasr in southern Arabia, several of whom, according to the Qur'an (71:23), were worshipped in the days of Nuh (Noah). Some Meccans had perhaps even worshipped Allah as their high god (see, e.g. Armstrong, History of God, 135-41; Gardet, 27). Karen Armstrong points out that when Muhammad began his preaching, the Quraysh already believed in Allah and that many 'believed him to be the God worshipped by the Jews and Christians" (141). These Meccans apparently believed that the Kabah had in the beginning been dedicated to this deity, in spite of the supreme presence there of the Nabatean warrior rain god Hubal, the tutelary deity of Mecca....Manat was worshipped in Qudayd, near Mecca, and in northern Arabia. She was a guddess of rain, health, victory, and destiny and was particularly honored during the pre-Islamic pilgrimages to the Kabah. Allat was popular in Taif, also close to Mecca. There she was represented by a large flat stone and smaller precious stones kept in a wodden box. Called 'mother of the gods' and 'mother of the sun,' she protected travelers. Al-Uzza was the primary goddess of the Quraysh. She seems to have been a love goddess whose worship took place in a sanctuary made up of three trees" (David A. Leeming, Jealous Gods and Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East, 2004, pp. 119-122)
mP

I posted the words for sun and moon in the relevant languages because you specifically said "both terms [EL and LA] are also names of the major heavenly bodies being the sun and moon". Now you are saying this is not what you meant? I knew that EL and LA were not used as words for the sun and moon in the relevant languages, so I posted examples of what the actual words for the sun and moon are in Semitic and Indo-European.
@leolaia
I just checked my posts in this thread and i never claimed or implied that EL or LA in relation to ANY particular language. I just wanted to get that out of the way, so people dont put words in my mouth and then claim victory by quashing a thught i never made.
I was being general, in the spirit that no language develops in isolation there are always multiple inflluences and variations from neighbours.
RubaDub

We shouldn't forget El Kabong.
Rub a DUb
mP

This post will be about Allah and my claim that Allah is a moon or lunar god.
You make the claim and quote the following as part of your proofs that Allah is not a moon god.
Here are some scholarly sources on Allah and early Arabian religion (nothing about Allah being a moon god or prominence of a moon cult....comparisons are instead to El elsewhere):
Heres another snippet
So here you accept as fact Christian evangelist Robert Morey's claim that Allah originated as an Arabian moon god, largely based on outdated early 20th century ideas of ancient Arabian religion, as well as much of Morey's own imagination.
I never referenced Morey, i dont know of his works, but we would appear to share that separate thought. If your going to appeal to higher authorities thenquote them just do not make up paraphrases and present them as fact. I dont see the value of simply bringing up a name such as Morey without any facts or links for further reading. Please include links and stick to facts and leave out silly petty insults or commentary, we dont need it. Anytime i see insults or personal opinions like this i often think the person has run out of intelligent things to say. I hope this is not true.
Later on however you do show some fragments that very much show that Mohammads tribe and home were very much into lunar worship, at the very least it shows some influence.
These Meccans apparently believed that the Kabah had in the beginning been dedicated to this deity, in spite of the supreme presence there of the Nabatean warrior rain god Hubal, the tutelary deity of Mecca....Manat was worshipped in Qudayd, near Mecca, and in northern Arabia. She was a guddess of rain, health, victory, and destiny and was particularly honored during the pre-Islamic pilgrimages to the Kabah. Allat was popular in Taif, also close to Mecca. There she was represented by a large flat stone and smaller precious stones kept in a wodden box. Called 'mother of the gods' and 'mother of the sun,' she protected travelers. Al-Uzza was the primary goddess of the Quraysh. She seems to have been a love goddess whose worship took place in a sanctuary made up of three trees"
Why did you not mention that these three goddess were also adopted for a brief period of time as the three daughters of Allah in what we now call the Satanic verses. Apparently Mohammad adopted these popular goddesses as daughters of Allah simply because his own people liked them and they themselves could see parallels between Allah and the moon. Allah is the moon and he had som edaughters, it makes sense.
Did you omit this fact because it is inconvenient ?
How do you explain the crescent moon ? This cannot be ignored its on nearly all Muslim country flags and can be found in all mosques. There are also many motifs of astrological origin used in mulsim architecture and art.
If yo wish to paste pages of islamic history thats all very much interesting but do address some of the points i bring up directly.
mP

Leo stated
No it doesn't. You presume that this symbol was associated with Islam and with Allah from the very beginning (as it is a moon symbol, part of Allah's origins as a moon god), when in fact it only became a general Muslim symbol centuries later because it was the symbol of the Ottoman empire, and that was because it had earlier been associated with Byzantium (later Istanbul) and also in the Persian Sassanid empire (which drew on the earlier common use of the symbol by the Parthians and Persians).
I am not presuming anything. Your statement implies that there was no lunar connection prior to the Ottomans. This is simply not true as can be seen by your other commentaries and pastings. There are lunar connections way back the beginning and prior to 632. If you wish to dispute this, feel free to include some sources. Links are always welcome.
Books references are fine but in todays age, they are a barrier for others to follow, you are obviously copy/pasting so why not share the links so we can all read. I find it strange that your pastes almost never have links.
mP

Leo
Astrotheology is basically a form of eisegesis that is popular among the Zeitgeist set.
Again you seem to think this is an argment about personalities. The fact that Zeitgiest shares an astrotheological viewpoint of the Bible and Jesus may be true, but so what ? I am not using a personality to demonstrate the validity of my point. I am focusing on items of interest and not cults of personalities. This is not a celebrity competition.
Many scholars share the view point that jesus is the product of a myth in very much the same way that Jehovah is the product of myth and tradition. Inserting the word scholar, and other petty insults is poor form.
If yo wish to say that Jesus and Jehovah do not have astrological roots then make the statement in the open instead of hiding behind name dropping, which seems to be very popular in your arguments. If you disagree with my statement then so be it. I dont care for the history of the names you wish to make, thats just noise.
take a look at http://vridar.wordpress.com where there is a lot of thought provoking commentary and proofs that Jesus is a myth. Many comments there show the pagan sources for the Jesus story and Bible in general.

Bethel - the house of the canaanite god El

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