Yes, Happy Canada Day!
Your friend in Britain,
Dansk
.
to all my fellow residents of a truly wonderful country!.
expatbrit.
Yes, Happy Canada Day!
Your friend in Britain,
Dansk
the first known mention of yahweh outside the bible is from certain inscriptions at khirbet al-qom and kuntillet ajrud, which refer to him by this name, dating from the period of iron age ii (850 bce - mid 9th century).
the kuntillet ajrud inscription is significant as it shows yahweh was not a monotheistic god at this time, as the inscription refers to "yahweh and his asherah" (as his goddess).
asherah, is of course the goddess of the groves, whose sacred trees were destroyed by order of josiah, just before the fall of jerusalem to the egyptians (in which josiah was killed) and immediately after to the babylonian forces of nebuchadnezzar.
Hi Hamas,
Dansk, may I ask, do you believe in any type of God now ? Or are you atheist ?
I'm an animistic pantheist!
Dansk
i: some relevant quotes from watchtower publications
1: the position of the watchtower as regards smoking
*** jv 181 13 recognized by our conduct ***.
Isn't he the BESTEST??
Oh, I don't know
Dansk - of the mutual AlanF appreciation society!
the first known mention of yahweh outside the bible is from certain inscriptions at khirbet al-qom and kuntillet ajrud, which refer to him by this name, dating from the period of iron age ii (850 bce - mid 9th century).
the kuntillet ajrud inscription is significant as it shows yahweh was not a monotheistic god at this time, as the inscription refers to "yahweh and his asherah" (as his goddess).
asherah, is of course the goddess of the groves, whose sacred trees were destroyed by order of josiah, just before the fall of jerusalem to the egyptians (in which josiah was killed) and immediately after to the babylonian forces of nebuchadnezzar.
The first known mention of Yahweh outside the Bible is from certain inscriptions at Khirbet al-Qom and Kuntillet Ajrud, which refer to him by this name, dating from the period of Iron Age II (850 BCE - mid 9th century). The Kuntillet Ajrud inscription is significant as it shows Yahweh was not a monotheistic God at this time, as the inscription refers to "Yahweh and his Asherah" (as his Goddess).
Asherah, is of course the Goddess of the Groves, whose sacred trees were destroyed by order of Josiah, just before the fall of Jerusalem to the Egyptians (in which Josiah was killed) and immediately after to the Babylonian forces of Nebuchadnezzar. She elsewhere was called Athirat - and was, in the Late Bronze Age, called wife of El, mother of the Gods. It would seem that by the era of the Kuntillet inscription Yahweh had displaced El as Asherah's husband.
The first mention of the full name of Yahweh occurs in an Egyptian context
. In the reign of Amenhotep III (1382-1344 BCE, 9th King of the 18th Dynasty, in the Late Bronze Age (i.e. 1550-1150) we have a reference to Yahweh of the Shasu, in which, from the context it would seem that they were referring to a mountain shrine by that name. Shasu is the Egyptian word for "wanderers" and was used for nomadic pastoralists.
Whilst there is no earlier mention of Yahweh than this, there is mention in the region of a God called variously Yaa, Yaw, or Yah, and at Ebla (2,200 BCE) there is occurrence of names in which Yah is used as a theorphoric element (i.e. God's name) in the names of certain people.
For instance the name Micha-el, (where the El referred to El, the Canaanite "Father of the Gods", later accepted by the Bible as another name for Yahweh), would be found written as Micha-yah.
This change seems to have coincided with the period in which Western Semitics (from which Hebrew later developed) first came in contact with the Mesopotamian theology of two gods - Enlil, the King of the Gods (who was corelated with Western Semitic El), and Enki, called Ea, the creator of humankind, who saved humans from the flood (who was correlated in the Western Semetic tradition with Yah). It was the wisdom of Yah (Yah-hwh) that came together to form the amorphous God Yahweh (shown at Kuntillet Ajrud, as an androgenous being - both male and female).
Although Yahweh was named,
he was not monotheistic until the 2nd temple period.
We have letters from the Jewish Temple at Elephantine to the Jewish temple at Jerusalem, speaking of Yahu and his consort, the goddess Anat. And there is no indication that the Jews of Elephantine were condemned by the Jerusalem temple in any way for worshipping a God and Goddess. Monotheism as the dominant Jewish belief system thus came in the period of the 2nd temple. It was not present in 1st Temple Monarchial times, when
Yahweh was only one God amongst many
.
There were two montheistic gods
before
Yahweh - firstly the Egyptian son of Amenhotep III, the Pharaoh Akhenaton, worshipped the Aten alone, as a monotheistic divinity. This God, whose name means "disk" in Egyptian was symbolised as the solar disk with rays ending in hands
holding the gift of life (the Ankh).
The Persians also adopted a monotheistic religion worshipping their God Ahura Mazda (= Wise Lord) from their prophet Zarathushtra. This God was like Yahweh, a fusion of the spirit of God (Ahura, Sanscrit Asura) with wisdom (Aramaic HWH, Iranian Mazda).
There is much that began in Zoroastrianism, eg. the presence of a devil, the worship of angels, the idea of a "last judgement", the concept of a Saviour, the portrayal as angels with wings and haloes; that was adopted by later 2nd Temple Judaism from the Persian (Iranian) source. Also from an Iranian source, was the idea of a saviour, born in midwinter, in a cave or stable, surrounded by farm animals, and attended by Magi. These elements clearly influenced the development of the Christian traditions about Jesus.
Evidently, like most things Watchtower, we have been misled into praying to a god who is not only unoriginal but who doesn’t even exist.
Dansk
you may be interested in the following:.
'abraham, the jewish patriarch, probably never existed.
nor did moses.
You may be interested in the following:
'Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation.
Such startling propositions - the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years - have gained wide acceptance among non-Orthodox rabbis.' Quotes the Miami Herald, Saturday, March 9, 2002 Final Edition, in its review of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's new Torah and commentary entitled Etz Hayim (Tree of Life in Hebrew).
The paper further quotes Robert Wexler, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angles and writer of the essay 'Ancient Near Eastern Mythology' , as stating that on the basis of modern scholarship, it seems unlikely that the story of Genesis originated in Palestine. More likely, Wexler says, it arose in Mesopotamia, the influence of which probably grew out of the periodic overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The story of Noah, Wexler adds, was probably borrowed from the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh.
Dansk
i just got off the phone with my mom; i love her now more than i did as a kid.
i have over the years briefly brought up my "doubts" about the teaching and she quickly dismissed what i was saying and said it was not for her to hear and that she believed in jehovah to set all things right.
so since i have made a point to "pacify" her talks when it came to the jws, recently as some of you know i found this site and in addition to what i learned my understanding of the jws and their secrets are even better known.
Min
I feel pity for my mother not anger because she is a victim.
Spot on!
Dansk
there are a couple of ideas on this.
one is that satan is a corruption of the egyptian god set who murdered the god osiris and was avenged by horus.. the second is found in the religion of the persian zoroaster, who professed the good god ahura mazda who was at war with the evil god angra mainyu, later known as arhiman.
the zoroastrian concept of hell is almost a mirror image of the jewish hell, and zoroaster's religion even had the concept of a purgatory, as well as a last judgement.
Sorry DanskI read it quickly and thought it said "Egyption" (mentioned higher up in your post)
LOL, absolutely no problem (good job you know me!) Wish I had a quid for every mistake I'd made!! Dansk
there are a couple of ideas on this.
one is that satan is a corruption of the egyptian god set who murdered the god osiris and was avenged by horus.. the second is found in the religion of the persian zoroaster, who professed the good god ahura mazda who was at war with the evil god angra mainyu, later known as arhiman.
the zoroastrian concept of hell is almost a mirror image of the jewish hell, and zoroaster's religion even had the concept of a purgatory, as well as a last judgement.
Hamas, my friend
I think that the ultimate insult you could ever direct at someone is to say that they don't exist ; that they are nothing, nobody
you've lost me here! Are you saying it's an insult to say Satan doesn't exist?
What I'm trying to show here is that one's worries over Satan (if one does worry) are unfounded as he doesn't exist! I'm trying to allow people to see where "Satan" originated - which is in the minds of an ancient people.
Or are you saying it's an insult to deny that the Jews were taken into captivity by the Assyrians? In which case I'd agree with you!
Dansk
there are a couple of ideas on this.
one is that satan is a corruption of the egyptian god set who murdered the god osiris and was avenged by horus.. the second is found in the religion of the persian zoroaster, who professed the good god ahura mazda who was at war with the evil god angra mainyu, later known as arhiman.
the zoroastrian concept of hell is almost a mirror image of the jewish hell, and zoroaster's religion even had the concept of a purgatory, as well as a last judgement.
Simon,
:Since the Israelites were held in Assyrian captivity
erm? When was this? Do you have any evidence? It is a story in the bible which is a faked history ... more of a propaganda to rally the troops and justify some of the things they did (like claims to land and so on)
Well, actually, Ancient Bible History scholars and archaeologists agree that the Israelites (ten-tribe kingdom, Samaria) were captured, taken away and dispersed:
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/ASSYRIA.HTM
The greatest period of conquest occurred between 883 and 824, under the monarchies of Ashurnazirpal II (883-859 BC) and Shalmeneser III (858-824 BC), who conquered all of Syria and Palestine, all of Armenia, and, the prize of prizes, Babylon and southern Mesopotamia. The Assyrian conquerors invented a new policy towards the conquered: in order to prevent nationalist revolts by the conquered people, the Assyrians would force the people they conquered to migrate in large numbers to other areas of the empire. Besides guaranteeing the security of an empire built off of conquered people of different cultures and languages, these mass deportations of the populations in the Middle East, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, turned the region into a melting pot of diverse cultures, religions, and languages. Whereas there would be little cultural contact between the conquered and the conquerors in early Mesopotamian history, under the Assyrians the entire area became a vast experiment in cultural mixing. It was the Assyrian monarch, Sargon II (721-705 BC), who first forcefully relocated Hebrews after the conquest of Israel, the northern kingdom of the Hebrews. Although this was a comparatively mild deportation and perfectly in line with Assyrian practice, it marks the historical beginning of the Jewish diaspora. This chapter in the Jewish diaspora, however, never has been really written, for the Hebrews deported from Israel seem to have blended in with Assyrian society and, by the time Nebuchadnezzar II conquers Judah (587 BC), the southern kingdom of the Hebrews, the Israelites deported by Sargon II have disappeared nameless and faceless into the sands of northern Mesopotamia.
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/Lachish_Lakhish.html
13 Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them 14 And Hezekiah King of Judah sent to the King of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the King of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah King of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of goldThe city of Lachish was an impressive fortress. It was double walled with a four entry gate that is larger than any other gate complex yet found in Syria- Palestine . It had a Palace Fort in the center which is also the largest of it kind ever discovered in Israel . The walls of this fort were 30 x 30 http://home.uleth.ca/geo/htmjoel/ http://home.uleth.ca/geo/htmjoel/
The city was destroyed by the Assyrian Monarch Sennacherib (reigned 705 - 681 BC) while he was on a campaign to suppress rebellion in the Assyrian client states and their allies. He beseiged it and then destroyed it, packing all the population off to Nineveh to be slaves and servants.
An account of this siege is given on some slabs found in the chambers of the Palace of Koyunjik (Nineveh) which are now in the British Museum. The inscription has been deciphered as follows:
Sennacherib, the mighty King, King of the country of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment before the city of Lachish: I gave permission for its slaughter .....
The Jewish Diaspora ("diaspora" ="dispersion, scattering") had begun long before the Romans had even dreamed of Judaea. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722, the Hebrew inhabitants were scattered all over the Middle East; these early victims of the dispersion disappeared utterly from the pages of history.
http://cbia.israelite.info/Onlinestudies_files/TwoHouses.htm
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia continues, "tombstones were discovered, dating from the 4th to 5th centuries, one of them bearing an inscription in Aramaic." (VIII:26) Aramaic was the language of the region of Halah and Habor, where Assyria settled many of the captive Israelites. Several of these tombstones, from a Hebrew graveyard in the Crimea, north of the Caucasus, were translated in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in 1874. One read, "This is the tombstone of BUKI, the son of Isaac the priest; may his rest be in Eden, at the time of the salvation of Israel. In the year 702 of the years of our exile." This tombstone dates to 6 A.D., during the time of Christ.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00ve0
The city of Lachish was destroyed by the Assyrian army during Sennacherib’s campaign against the Kingdom of Judah in 701 BCE. The destruction was total; the buildings were burned to the ground and the inhabitants exiled. The Assyrian campaign, during the reign of King Hezekiah, and the encampment of the Assyrian army at Lachish are described in detail in the Bible. (2 Kings 18:14-17; 2 Chronicles 32:9) The conquest of Lachish is depicted in monumental stone reliefs found at Sennacherib’s palace at Ninveh, providing a rare contemporary "photograph" of the battle and conquest. These relief-images of the Assyrian attack have been confirmed by archeological evidence at the site: the attack on Lachish was launched from the southwest; the attackers built a siege ramp against the slope of the mound, which according to calculation contained some 15,000 tons of stones and earth! The ramp was covered with plaster to allow the Assyrian battering ram to be moved up to the city wall and breach it. The city’s defenders constructed a counter-ramp inside the city, thus raising the city wall, which forced the Assyrians to raise the height of their ramp in order to overcome the city’s new defenses. The fierceness of the battle is attested to by the remains of weapons, scales of armor, hundreds of slingstones and arrowheads.
Now, the followers of the Egyptian ruler who dabbled with the "new religion" (for them) and moved the capital out to some city he built in the dessert fled and some of them may have ended up in Israel and become the Essenes. Their teachings certainly show up in the dead sea scrolls. These are the ones never mentioned in the bible unlike the Pharisees and Sadduces, who lived at the same time and same location as Christ / Apostles (allegedly) and may have had an influence on things.
The Egyptian ruler (Pharaoh) was Akenhaten. The first reference to the Essenes comes from Josephus, writing about the death of Antigonus in 103 B.C. Where they came from is not known. It is most probable that they descended from the Hasidim of pre-Hasmonean times who aligned with Judas Maccabbee against Antiochus Epiphanies IV about 170 B.C.
I'm a bit rusty on all the details of this but I remember a programme on about it that seemed to make sense and have it in a book somewhere.
I'll say you're rusty. You remember a programme but can't give its title, it "seemed" to make sense and had it in a book "somewhere".
It is a story in the bible which is a faked history ... more of a propaganda to rally the troops and justify some of the things they did (like claims to land and so on)
Absolute nonsense! If you are going to dispute the deportation of the Jews from Samaria by the Assyrians you'll argue against ANYTHING.
Dansk
.
my husband will outlive me to 77!!.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/atplay/lifeline.jsp.
77