Thank you all for this very enlightening string. I found "The History of God" by Karen Armstrong, also educational along these lines. When I read this string my heart sinks, dare I say a tear even now marks my cheek. Being raised a Witness -- and knowing first hand the deep scares from worshiping a tiny and false anthropomorphized idea of God -- one wonders about the men from whose confused minds the Org. was born. Did they -- who so pride themselves for their knowledge -- not research the origins of Jehovah? That, on which their entire lives and beliefs were based? Talk about building a structure on sand. Talk about the blind leading the blind. It's all so sad. All for lack of looking deeply and honestly. JamesT
who gave isreal to Jehovah?
by peacefulpete 17 Replies latest watchtower bible
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City Fan
Excellent post Thi Chi - I especially like the last quote.
Pete - You're right about having to piece together this kind of information. Most of my books are compilation type books. I could recommend one book 'The Ancient Gods' by E.O.James but maybe only for insomnia!
Much of the development of ancient deities seems to be linked to linguistics. The god 'Ea' of the Babylonians, the 'Lord of the Watery Deep' is not a million miles away linguistically from the Ugaritic god Yaw (the Sea). A Ugaritic text shows the supreme god El saying "The name of my son is Yaw". (compare Deut 32:8). In Ugaritic myths Baal and Yaw were brothers who fought to become 'Lord of the earth'. It is interesting to note that in the bible Abram comes from 'Ur' where the god Ea would be worshipped along with other gods.
Yahweh could also have been a minor deity in Phoenicia long before the Hebrews settled in Cannan. Cunieform tablets discovered at Taanach dated to around 2500 BCE contain the name Ahi-yahu and the abbreviation 'Yo' appears on jars at a later date in Palestine and in the form 'yw' at Ugarit. These liguistic arguments give the origins of the name Yahweh in Ugarit and Phoenicia rather then the deserts of southern Palestine. Again if the name yahweh has its roots in Ugarit (Syria) then this would tie in with Israelite legends about them once being Aramean (Deut 26:5).
Other similarities exist between the Ugaritic Yaw and the Hebrew Yahweh. Yaw's wife was Ashtoreth whereas Yahweh's wife was Asherah. On a wall at Mizpeh, north of Jerusalem, temples to Asherah and Yahweh stood side by side from the 9th century until the city was destroyed. Other cultic remains found at Taanach from the 10th century BC at the Solomonic temple are statues of the Goddess Asherah. If this artifact is indeed from the time of Solomon then it shows that Judah and Israel were far from monotheistic. Shrines to the Goddess Asherah were rife in Israel up until the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon.
El was always the supreme Cannanite deity and each nation had its own god, a son of El. But eventually the writers and compilers of the bible managed to merge Yahweh and El into the one god 'Yahweh-Elohim'.
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peacefulpete
Thanks city fan for the book recomendation. I pulled out the book "Mythology's last gods" and began to realize that I found many errors in it so I will withdraw that recomendation. Cross's book is still most enlightening and focused. (very tough read tho)
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City Fan
Pete, I've just ordered Cross's book. Maybe one day I'll order something that will be an 'easy read'!
By the way, I've always found your posts to be concise and intelligent. Keep up the good work.
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Faraon
I recently (in the last week) came into an online translation of the LXX.
Does anyone know what this link is?
I'd like to know because I also believe that a mistranslation of the mythological phoenix is properly translated there.
Another comment: Joseph Wheless says in is book "Is It God's Word" that El Shaddai actually means "god my demon" instead of god almighty. Any truth to that?
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peacefulpete
In Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 106 the word translated demons is SHeDDIM, whereas in Leviticus 17 it is Se`iRIM (the plural of Sa`iR). The relationship between the two words is shown by noting that the word translated "to fear" (Sa`aR) in Deuteronomy 32 v 17 is the source of the word translated "demon" in Leviticus 17 v 7 (Sa`IR).
The hebrew word Sa`IR is also translated "kid (as in goat)" and has the basic idea of something which is associated with trembling or shimmering. In Leviticus 17 v 7 the word Sa`IR can be understood to refer to the natural phenomena that idols portray, which cause men to fear and tremble.
SHeDDIM is closely related to the hebrew word translated "Almighty" in the phrase "God Almighty". In these phrases, "Almighty" is a translation of the hebrew word "SHaDDaI".
I found this on the web, I am not a hebrew scholar so as to judge it's accuracy, but as it appears to have been written by a christian it's bias likely leans tward concealing the connection. It also seems worth mentioning that the etymology of a word does not always reflect it's meaning in usage so dispite unsavory origins the word shaddai may not have meant anything other than simply "almighty or mighty etc" by the time the writer used it. -
JamesThomas
Here is a segment from Acharya S' site http://www.truthbeknown.com/gospel.htm
The Origin of the Words "Demon" and "Devil"
In fact, the very words "demon" and "devil" have been vilified in just such a way. Before cultural judgment turned these words into something wholly other than their original meaning, both words represented entities that were considered sacred and holy. The word "devil" comes from the Sanskrit/Hindi word "deva," which refers to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. The root of both "devil" and "deva" means "divine." It was only after Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory that they felt compelled to make the Hindu gods into devils! Thus, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils. As Rev. George Cox says, in Mythology of the Aryan Nations (Longmans, 1870, pp. 355, 363):
"The Devas of the [Hindu] Veda are the bright gods who fight on the side of Indra; in the [Zoroastrian] Avesta the word has come to mean an evil spirit, and the Zoroastrian was bound to declare that he ceased to be a worshipper of the daevas... "...the word devil passed into an immense number of forms, the Gothic tieval, diuval, diufal, the Icelandic djofull, Swedish djevful, all of them, together with the Italian, French, and Spanish forms carrying back the word diaboloV [diabolos] to the same root which furnished the Latin Divus, Djovis, and the Sanskrit deva."
Likewise, the word "demon" comes from the Greek word "daimon" or "daemon," which originally referred to beings of divine, godly nature - gods, not evil spirits. "Daemon" was also corrupted and changed into having a evil connotation through the same religion-making process. It had nothing to do with an accurate discernment of any genuine evil spirit. It was simply Christian propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character. As has been shown, this is a very old trick. It was done rather well this time, with the subsequent burning of millions of books that would have revealed this ruse.
In God's Name - Not the Devil's
In light of the fact that so-called holy scriptures record one barbarous, murderous act after another attributed to "God," it is not surprising that the "Devil" was once considered divine! Perhaps the Devil brings peace, and not a sword, to humanity. Considering how many people have been killed in the name of God and not the Devil, maybe the world is worshipping the wrong entity. Perhaps the Indians and the Greeks were right in the first place. Think about it: No army has ever marched off to war in the name of the Devil.
JamesT
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peacefulpete
lets keep acharya out of the discusion lest we invite hooberus back and he provide his tektoniks links again.